Orly Attack

In recent law enforcement news, a 39-year old, Ziyed Ben Belgacem,was shot dead at Orly airport after he attacked a solider. This case is being treated as a possible terrorism attack.
A prosecutor added that the offender had a lengthy police record, including arrests for robbery and drug-related offenses, and had served time in prison. He was known to the authorities but primarily as a criminal.
Before Belgacem was shot dead he said "I'm here to die in the name of Allah. Whatever happens, people are going to die.”


While in prison during 2011 and 2012, Mr. Belgacem was identified by intelligence officials as someone who had become radicalized. After his release, he remained on the authorities’ radar, and his house was searched in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, although no action was taken against him. The attack on Saturday before a heated election campaign.

The New York Times mentioned that any terrorist attack so close to the election, political analysts suggest, could be an opportunity by the candidates of the far right, Marine Le Pen, and the center right, François Fillon, to berate the current Socialist government and by association Emmanuel Macron, the center-left candidate, who was previously the economy minister, for failing to protect the French people.

Its particularly interesting to me what radicalization can do to one, and what lengths one will go to. I think it is sad how one is willing to die for their beliefs in all the wrong ways. However, I just wanted to share a current event that I was a bit intrigued by.

Investigative writing

As a writer, I feel I also try to include as much detail and description as I possibly can. While I have went about this writing style for an extended amount of time, investigative writing seems to be quite the opposite.
You are suppose to get right to the facts in a concise manner. You want to have just the basics in a report but, you also want to make sure you include all the essentials details, just with little opinions and vivid descriptions. Who, what, where, when, and why are main subtopics to answer when writing a report because this is essentially the most important part of the report.
I think of investigative writing as more complex then it really is, and hopefully I can reduce my word limit in future reports.

Privacy Problems

Some recent current events I thought I would bright to light is the wiretapping incident. President Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of wiretapping his buildings. Right now this event is under investigation but there has been many assumptions pointing to the idea that the Obama administration did however wiretap Trump's Tower. There is also minimal proof regarding this incident, but enough proof to confirm this took place.
Now, the investigators are trying to figure out if Obama had anything to do with it. So far, there is no factual proof. Although there is no proof Obama still needs to be held accountable for his administration. Obama created his administration, so he is required to make sure they are not breaking the rules or breaking laws such. Even if there is no direct communication out of Obama's mouth, there is still a responsibility and accountability on his part because it is his administration.
As for wiretapping, if our federal government is violating such a law, what kind of example does that leave for the people? There was already the recent CIA problem, where they were exposed for being able to hack anything and everything to spy on people.
Everyone just wants their privacy and too feel safe. There is the issue of, well if you aren't hiding anything then why does it matter? But people shouldnt have to worry about being spied on despite that reasoning. 
Regardless, our government needs to be held accountable for illegal actions, as it isn't. violation of privacy.

Trumps Tweets

While I support some of the ideas Trump employs, I do not agree with the way he carries out addressing some of these issues. To turn to twitter as a way of communicating, especially as the leader of this country, that is unprofessional and not the proper way to lead the people of this country. At one point, Trump and Clinton were in a twitter war. This was before Trump was elected as president, but the fact that the two candidates trying to lead this country were sitting behind a computer screen arguing back and forth, that was a bit childish. As a grown up and potential leader of America, one has to have strong communication skills and address issues in a manner that is professional and in a respectable way. Trumps tweets also come off as humorous in a way, and almost a bit shocking, like "wow did our president really just tweet that?" I do like the policies and ideas he believes in, but he needs to work on projecting his ideas in a better way.

NY time review of Cartel Land

The New York Times talked highly of director, Matthew Heinman, but mainly discussed some of his major downfalls. The article believes the film had no directional point of view. I think the point of the film was to not have just one, but many points of view to give the watchers a better understanding through different perspectives. The article tells that Dr. Mireles and Mr. Foley only share the same interests in guns and some sort of justification for their groups, but other than that, there is no correlation between them and neither show any sort of logic to the ongoing problems. I think it some terms that is correct, but it is nice to have opposing viewpoints to get a better understanding from both views. Also, there really isn't a valuable solution to be mentioned, as the drug war has been going on for awhile. The article also stated that the film moves so quickly that it doesn’t give you much time or space to think through the serious, urgent issues it raises. I beg to differ as even the most gruesome scenes left a lasting mental note in my head, keeping me wondering about those particular events.

cartel land relfection

Cartel land entailed many scenes that gave me many mixed emotions. The first scene was about how some of the meth cooks only do what they do to make a living. My response is that there is always another route one can take instead of selling drugs but after listening to them talk and back up there reasoning, one has to realize that drugs are more of a norm in Mexico. At first i was extremly angry because they are part of the reason for the war on drugs in the United States, but i do also feel sad that they are in such poverty that they have to turn to making and distrubing drugs for lifestyle. Not to mention, it helps fund the autodefensas, which is a group that fights against the cartels, so it really makes one question what is the right thing to do in this situation? There was another scene where one of the main characters was talking about how his neighbors were all beheaded by the templars, and he was next. His response was that he had to decide how he wanted to die; to die fighitng or basically be a sitting duck. This really makes you think, because would you go out and get a gun and hunt down those hunting you or would you run and hope to not get caught?
One of the main things that surprised me was the lack of trust in the government and the military. We don't have that problem here so it is a bit suprising to see how a different country operates as opposed to us. The fact that the people in Mexico can't rely on the goverment to protect them makes me suprised as well, as thats something we usually take for granted here in the United States. It was also suprising to me how dangerous the cartels really are. I knew they were always bad news but this documentary illistrated prime examples of how corupt and terrible they are actually capable of being. One scene was about how someone who owned a lime farm owed the templar cartel money, in response the cartel killed all of their lime pickers; children and babies included. Babies were smashed against rocks and thrown down wells. The worst part of it all is that they will never get justice for the innocent lives that were lost.
I really question how things got so bad in Mexico and how did it become so corupt. I think there should be more of an effort to fix the goverment problems rather than using more violence to go after the cartels. However, i do see that as a really hard task when the goverment works with the cartels. Overall, i feel bad for the people of Mexico who have to worry day in and day out if the templars will harm them or their loved ones.
Some problematic concepts that say with me revolve around the cartels and the future of Mexico. The Autodefensas were suppose to be the good guys who stopped the cartels but they ended up turning into a corupt group of their own; How is Mexico going to handle all the cartels arising? and how are they going to put an end to organized crime? I also see a problem with the border patrol. The movie made it seem as if there is not much security with stopping drug smugglers. In this case, i see this feeding into the United States' drug problem, which also brings me to question, what happens if the cartels get just as bad in the United States? The biggest overall problem i see is trying to find the right solution to taking care of the cartels and resticting them from expanding not just in Mexico, but in the United States as well.