So sad...grad student shot in Mexico for being in the wrong place at the wrong time

When I first entered college in 1984, my plans were to study social impacts on the environment and was majoring in biology heading towards a specialisation in oecology, as well as sociology as a second major. I never would have dreamed it was dangerous at all. My heart goes out to the family of this graduate student, Gabriel Trujillo. He sought to make the world better by finding a way to bring back the buttonbush to its native environment. Such an innocuous but important endeavour, and he died being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

U.S. Grad Student Brutally Killed on Mexican Field Trip: Gabriel Trujillo’s father says his 31-year-old son was shot seven times.

[PS While I kept the sociology major and paired it with history instead of biology, the change was because during Animal Biology my teacher chloroformed a lab rat in front of me...and dissected it right then. I was sick and dizzy. I love animals. This seemed so cruel. I got out of biology the next semester, although I loved it otherwise. I cannot abide that sort of indifference to animals.]

Awful

Slaying of drug war hero's family shocks Mexico

Assailants on Tuesday gunned down the mother, aunt and siblings of a marine killed in a raid that took out one of Mexico's most powerful cartel leaders — sending a chilling message to troops battling the drug war: You go after us, we wipe out your families.

Although the marines do not have identification on their uniforms and are generally not identified in the media, the government had been very open in this case, showing the body of the drug lord and releasing the name of the only marine killed. Unfortunately, the drug cartel's goons used that information to send a message to the government and its troops that their families are not safe if they participate in raids.

This is so senseless. I know there is crime here, and drugs, and the like, but at least I have some hope that my government will protect me or at least track someone down for the crime. We had an era of the War on Drugs here in the States; in Mexico it truly is a war, and a bitter one at that. My thoughts are with the marine's two small children, who have had so much of their family wiped out in the violence and who themselves are targets of the cartel and need protection.

It has been the week for stories of horrible death by chemicals

Today, of course, is news of the twenty people who died on a Russian nuclear sub of freon poisoning after the gas was released as part of a false fire alarm. About 21 other people were poisoned but have not died. Freon can be a very dangerous poison and lead to a range of awful symptoms.

But the one that truly horrified me were the Mexican kidnappers who killed a five-year-old boy by injecting him in the heart with acid when his parents went to the police. That's beyond inhuman. Five have been arrested. The nature of the crime has prompted many Mexicans to demand the reinstatement of the death penalty.

I was glad to see this pop up on the news last night

Fugitive Marine Captured in Mexico: Cpl. Cesar Laurean Faces Murder Charge in the Death of a Pregnant Fellow Marine