I’ve been working this week, which is a drag because I took this job so I wouldn’t have to work. But I wanted to share this headline with you from Wednesday’s paper. I don’t know if the rest of the U.S. is aware of what’s going on here right over our border but it’s shocking. To read more about it you can click on the photo if you feel so inclined.
To leave you on a happier note, Stella is spending the afternoon safely napping:
Okay, so two things. I don’t know whether to laugh or be appalled. First, I read the article and I now understand how terrified you were now having to go there for dental treatment. But “Chihuahua” officers? Is the picture of Stella in response to that? If so, see, that makes me laugh. Terror-ific humor… that’s it. Brilliant! I took a nap too, if that makes any difference. Probably at about the same time Stella did, although no doubt, Stella is still asleep.
Stella is still asleep, but she moved to the other side of the bed.
I think it’s the way the headlines are written (sensationalism at it’s worst) that make me laugh at appalling and horrific news. The headline is always way too large and reads like something you’d see on the cover of the National Enquirer, so it presents the tragic story in a tastless and preposterous format that seems disrespectful. Does that make any sense? I don’t even read the paper, yet I race to see it every morning wondering what awful thing they will present in an exploitive headline.
By the way, that death count is from the drug war and it doesn’t represent all the women murdered by the serial killer over there. In October 2007 the count was 500 women, but I don’t know the current number. Jennifer Lopez starred in a movie about it called “Bordertown.”
Oh my gosh, that is horrendous about the serial killer too. I never saw that movie. In fact, I don’t recall the last movie I did see. Newspapers are funny. I’ve never paid much attention to them, but maybe I should check out the headlines on our local papers here. Probably not nearly as amusing.
I don’t know, your paper might have crazed headline writers too. On the Cape we had one at the paper where I worked who messed up and his headline read: Man Kills Self, Then Wife
Quite a spooky thought, that one.
It’s worth taking a look at your newspapers, just to get some sort of laugh out of the awfulness of current events.
Wow – that is scary. Any more headlines like that and I’m gonna start petitioning for Buck to move you back here pronto.
So say we all.
That’s awful! You are not near this horror, i hope.
In San Bernardino CA, from which i hail, there was always some ugly, demonic humanity going on. i’m glad we moved far away. i keep begging my family to get the hell out of there but i guess they like living in a place where innocent children get shot in gang-banging crossfire.
We had crime here in Talent, finally. Of course the perps are not from Talent but from Medford twelve miles north. They stole the ATM machine from our local price-gouging market. Now instead of paying 6 bucks for a box of cream of wheat, we’ll have to pay 8.
Stella’s so cute, all under the covers… Now that’s living!
I do live near it, about a mile or two (?) from the border. The violence and horror is not a reflection on the people of Mexico, it’s a symptom of the crazed world of drug dealing, so I think it’s difficult for the good citizens of Juarez to want to leave their town, the same way your family is reluctant to leave San Bernadino. The same thing happened in MA with towns like Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, where the law-abiding townies didn’t want to leave their hometown but were forced out at once point because of drug dealing. It’s changing now in those towns, but the whole world has gone crazy. I hate thinking about it.
I hope the ATM thieves think it was worth it. Isn’t there a dye bomb that explodes if you force open those ATM machines?
I always knew Juarez was bad, but I had no idea how bad. Spooky bad!
It is spooky bad. They had five more killings in the last 48 hours. When I pass the exit rampt to Juarez I start to hyperventilate.
Yay! looking forward to it, I’d really like your opinion, being a pro writer/queen of cool and all… Thanks for the advice, thats really helpful. I’ll be rewriting most of it as soon as I’m done with the story. (I’ve decided editing mid-story just takes too much away from the whole project and it’d be better to wait and do it all at once)
Send your email address to me at lifewithbuck@gmail.com, I have an article I’d like to send you on the topic of re-writes while you’re working on your first draft. You shouldn’t do it, it’s non-productive, you need to just bang out the story no matter how “bad” you think it is. Then you’ll have something to fix. I’ll send it to you, it’s the best advice on this topic that I’ve read and I think you’ll enjoy it.
In your comment to Peter Parkour you stated-
“It is spooky bad. They had five more killings in the last 48 hours. When I pass the exit ramp to Juarez I start to hyperventilate.”
Actually, those five killings were in the last 24 hours. Weekend “so far” tolls tend to go higher so be prepared for Monday’s score. Things have actually slowed down a bit since they brought in the Mexican army. Toll was well over 300 by mid-February and on track for a 2,765 yearly total. Things seem relatively tranquil in Juarez now. Why did you stop going to the dentist there?
That dog of yours looks absolutely blissful. Too cute … I mean, not the story you wrote about it!