Mexican Drug War

As 2010 has already come to a start, people have been worrying about what the U.S economy will bring them in the next couple of months. However, a more serious topic that has caught my eye is that of the drug war between the drug cartels in Mexico and the Mexican government. Ever since Felipe Calderon has taken an initiative in 2006, drug violence has skyrocketed ever since.
Divided into 8 major drug gangs, the government has started a war that now seems to be unstoppable. Close to 10,000 people have been killed in the past 4 years ever since Calderon has started a war against the drug cartels. The source of the problem has been found in the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico. Their leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has been estimated to have 2 billion dollars as his net worth.
Many U.S reporters say that the Mexican drug cartels control drug trafficking in most U.S cities, and that they are the “greatest organized crime threat to the United States”. Nearly every day there are innocent people getting killed in this drug war, and if Mexico doesn’t receive the help of the U.S fast, there will be greater deaths in 2010.

Cyrano de Bergerac: Final Scene

In this opening scene, Roxanne and de Guiche are seen in the park. De Guiche then proceeds to ask Roxanne if she still remembers Christian, to which she responds yes. Le Bret then enters the room with them and says he is worried for Cyrano because he is old poor and has a lot of enemies. De Guiche tells them not to worry because Cyrano lives his life as he chooses. De Guiche then tells Le Bret privately that a group of nobles are planning to kill Cyrano.
Ragueneau rushes in and tells Le Bret the sad news of Cyrano almost dying because some nobles almost broke his skull with a massive log of wood. Cyrano then mmets up with Roxanne as he always does to talk to her. Roxanne then gives him the letter that she has still kept from Christian. As Cyrano begins to read the letter, she realizes that she has heard that voice before. With this being said, she realizes that Cyrano is the lover that she has always loved, but it is too late as Cyrano dies reciting his last poem to Roxanne.
This particular scene revelas to Roxanne that her actual lover is Cyrano de Bergerac. It also shows the lame death of Cyrano as he gets killed by a group of nobles who broke his skull with a wooden log instead of dying by a swordsman by the sword. As Cyrano dies, he tells Roxanne that he loves her and recites a final poem for his love.

Cyrano de Bergerac: Marriage Scene

Roxanne then asks Christian to marry her and has the Capuchin marry them. Cyrano then waits outside to prevent de Guiche from interrupting the wedding. As de Guiche appears, Cyrano jumps and lands on his back, and revealing his face, tells him that Roxanne and Christian are now married.
As Roxanne and Christian come out from marrying each other, de Guiche coldly congratulates both of them, but he is obviously not happy. De Guiche then breaks the news to Roxanne that he will take Christian to the war and that the wedding night between them will have to wait.
Roxanne, being worried for Christian, tells Cyrano to promise her that he will keep Christian safe. Roxanne then urges Christian to write a letter to her every day, Cyrano hearing this becomes happy.
The marriage scene is possibly the second most important scene in the whole book because of Cyrano’s brilliance in poetry and how he helps Christian out. It also shows how in love Roxanne really is with Cyrano and not Christian.

Cyrano de Bergerac: Act 3 Balcony Scene

In this third Act, Roxanne talks to Cyrano about Christian and even declares that Christian is smarter then him. After saying this, she says that she is in love with Christian and says that Cyrano is jealous of his poetry. Later in the second scene, De Guiche comes to tell Roxanne that he will be leaving because he has been made colonel of an army regiment. Roxanne then tells De Guiche to leave Cyrano and his cadets so they don’t have a chance to go to war. In the next two scenes, Roxanne tells Cyrano that she wants to meet up with Christian. Knowing this, Cyrano goes to tell Christian and prepares him for the meeting.
In the next scene, Cyrano tells Christian to memorize his lines but Christian, being stubborn, refuses to. The next day, Roxanne and Christian meet up, and Roxanne asks him how he loves her. Christian not knowing what to say repeats “I love you”, multiple times. Roxanne, being angry, leaves and goes to her room.
After Roxanne leaves, Christian asks Cyrano for help. Cyrano accepts and whispers word for Christian to say. Cyrano then pushes Christian away and takes his place and talks for Christian. Roxanne is very moved by his words and this causes Christian to jump out and ask her for a kiss. Roxanne accepts and Christian goes up the balcony to kiss her.

In this scene, Cyrano expresses his intrest in Roxanne by trying to help out Christian in his meesting with Roxanne. He also shows that he is a great poet by the way that he talks to Roxanne. Christian, however shows his stubborn yet confident and proud side. This however, may end up hurting his chances because he has no knowledge at all in poetry.

Cyrano de Bergerac: Act 1 Scenes 4-7

Montfleury asks the Marquises for help in stopping Cyrano, but as they try to quiet Cyrano, he says several poetic lines as he threatens to kill them all: “Please have pity on my sword: if you don’t stop shouting you’ll frighten it out of its scabbard.” After saying this, Cyrano challenges all of the Marquises, but the Marquises being the cowards they are do not accept the challenge. Cyrano then proclaims that he has personal reasons for not letting Montfleury perform. Knowing that the play will not go as planned, the manager of the stage asks how much money he is going to lose because of this. After hearing this, Cyrano throws a bag full of gold and throws it to the manager. After all of this commotion, Valvert chooses to challenge Cyrano to a duel and even insults Cyrano’s big nose. After hearing this insult, he mocks Valvert for his lack of insults and comes up with a list of his own. As the duel is about to begin he says that he will perform a poem during his fight and at the end of the poem he will strike. Surely as he said, when his poem ends he strikes and Valvert is left wounded.
Le Bret, Cyrano’s friend, tells Cyrano that acting this way has given him many different enemies. However, Cyrano says that this makes him happy. Cyrano then goes on to tell Le Bret that he has difficulty revealing to Roxanne that he loves her because of his nose.
Suddenly, one of Roxanne’s friends tells Cyrano that she wants to visit him. Excited, he says that he will meet her at 7 in the morning.
The next day, Ligniere rushes in to tell Cyrano that a hundred men want to kill him and he wants Cyrano to help him get home safely. Cyrano accepts his friends request and promises to protect him.
The importance of these scenes is that it shows how superhuman Cyrano really is. It shows his elegance and skill in combat, humor, and poetic verses. He shows his skill in combat when he wounds Valvert in his duel. He also shows his sense of humor when he makes fun of his own nose in front of many people. Finally, he shows his poetic side when he performs a poem during his duel with Valvert.
After reading these scenes, I found one word that I liked a lot because it reflected Cyrano as a person. Divinity (page 50) means to be superhuman or surpassing excellence. Cyrano’s divinity shocked and even delighted the audience of the theater.

Always Running and Freedom Writers Comparison

“Always Running” by Luis Rodriguez and the movie Freedom Writers, share a common goal. Both the novel and the movie suggest a way out for troubled and oppressed youth. In “Always Running”, Luis finds an activity that he personally likes and he actually does something with it. In the movie Freedom Writers, the students of Erin Gruwell find a way out of hard life by making them write and speak about their oppressed youth. The one and only difference between the movie and the book is that the in the movie, Gruwell has to deal with more oppression from more kids. Gruwell had to deal with more than 25 students in her class. Gangs and drugs were the most influential part of the characters in both the movie and book.
In Always Running, Luis had to deal with both gang life and drugs. Luis joined the Lomas gang at a young age and had been in many fights against other gang members. While in the gang, he had troubled times because rival gangs, like the Sangra gang, jumped Luis and beat him badly. There were times when he was involved in drive-by shootings but luckily he was not hit. While in the gang life, Luis encountered drugs. While in the gang, he used drugs to keep him “high and happy” as he believed that this was the way out of his oppressed youth. However, he found out the hard way that doing drugs was not the way out of his troubled life when he almost died because of overdosing. All of these factors influenced him enough to say that his life was now worthless and that there was no point in living anymore. At one point, he cut the veins on his forearm and came close to death. However, his turning point came in school when he learned to do something that he loved. He learned that he liked to write literature and this helped him get out of his troubled and oppressed youth.
In the movie Freedom Writers, many of the kids that were in Gruwell’s class had to live through the same life that Luis had lived in. However, their way out of troubled and oppressed youth was slightly different. Erin Gruwell used literature and historical events to bring the class together and help them realize that they were each going through similar situations. By uniting the class together, she used books such as the Diary of Anne-Frank to help them with their own writings to tell to other people. By giving the students a chance to tell their stories to other people, they felt as if others understood them and this helped them live a better life at home.

My Favorite Poem

While skimming through Word of Mouth, a compilation of poems by many poets, I came across a poem on page 48 that I found very interesting. The poem, named Blues by Joseph Brodsky, talks about the life that he spent in Manhattan. He says that in his 18 years of living there, the landlord he was working for turned bad. He expresses his hatred for the landlord and says that all he cares about is the money.
He expresses his motivation of moving in the second stanza when he says the line, “I guess I’ve got to move across the river, New Jersey beckons with its sulphur glow”. By saying this he is willing to move away from his landlord so he could go live in New Jersey. He wants to leave in a couple of years, but he says that he has no money and that it is hard to get the money to move.
In the third stanza, he talks about taking his things with him once he leaves so that he could start a new life in New Jersey. However, he feels that he’s losing a part of him because he feels attached to the place that he has been in for such a long time. The line that shows us this is, “But what should I do with my window’s view? I feel like I’ve been married to it, or something.” He believes that is he leaves his landlord that he will start a better life but he doesn’t really want to leave his past.