Whats in the Headlines

I have been wanting to start this as a series of blogs. I hope I can get one out each week. The idea here is to show those of you who do not live here that we are not living in a dangerous, third world, ignorant country. The people here live happy lives and think about a lot of the same issues as the people in the states and other countries. Mexican culture is that slow change is better than quick change and although in most cases this drives me up the wall I have also seen that it works a lot of the time. So here is the first of my Whats in the Headlines posts. Basically almost daily I grab a free edition called Publimetro. Publimetro from what I understand started here in Mexico but is now one of the larges world wide free publications. There are about four free news publications here in town but I have found this one to be the most unbiased and one that covers all issues from public to private, from government to famous people, and they even give a reasonable area to what is going on with all the drug stuff. The thing I like is that with each of these issues they lay out the facts. They don't over or under so any of it. For each article I'm not going to go into to much detail as far as this blog goes, but if I post about an article and you want to hear more on that specific topic I could write a second post about it, as always just let me know.

Wednesday 11 of January 2012
The Cathedral is suffering with time. With continual traffic and mistreatment from people the cathedral which is an important symbolic for the city is falling apart. So far they have only managed to raise 10% of the cost to renovate. This is truly a beautiful building but the paper is saying that their is much work to be done. They believe the work will not be completed until after the middle of February . Its going to cost10,000 pesos most of which will be paid by the secretary of culture.

Explaining the paranoia: Specialist talk about why people believe in rumors that are found in the internet. Basically the week before someone spread rumors about kidnappings from a government school. Almost  a third of people kept their kids home from school Monday threw Friday the following week. From the first day the state of Jalisco and the City was stating that their was no proof and no missing children reports. In the end it all proved to be rumors but now people are concerned as to why this rumor started and why so many people believed it even when officials where saying otherwise. 

Thursday the 12 of January 2012
Asking the internet about sex: Publimetro did a poll asking teenagers who the talked to about sex. The options were parents, teachers and the internet. A whoping 67% said they got their answers online, which isn't surprising but at the same time sad and scary. 25% said they asked their parents. I'm curious to how this would pan out in the states. And 18% said they asked their teachers. They noted that pregnancies cause 6% of drop outs during grade school and junior high in Jalisco. Within Jalisco their were 69,800 pregnancies in 2011, out of those 18,882 were under the age of 19. But here is the good thing about all this. This  information hit the front page of the news paper and talked about how the government is determined to have more education for teenagers about the subject. Although this may seem a little late I'm just glad they are taking note and planning on changing. Along with that they are trying to educate the public which is number one for change.

Thousands run to the federal office to register their voting card on the last day available. Ok there is not much to say here but laugh. And really I think the same thing happens in the states.

100 kilos of marijuana was confiscated inside a packing company.


Obviously there is a lot more in each paper but this is what is being placed on the front page.

Also one of the days I received an extra free booklet made by the Secretary of communications and transportation. It was a drivers manual. I'm not sure how many of you remember the manual you use to study for your drivers test but more or less it was the same. It also had stickers you could put on your car that said: Don't message while driving, Don't drive when your tired, Don't obstruct handicapped entrances, I have kids and pets in my back seat (the picture of the kid has a seat-belt), And I'm a responsible driver (again the picture has a man with a seat belt). Yeah for trying to make driving and streets safer here in Mexico. Im sure not a lot of people actually took the time to read the booklet but like I said educating the public is the first step to change and I think Mexico is well on its way to becoming a better place to be.

Hope you enjoyed and see you next week. ;)