Eduardo Leads

                   1 am at the end of Congress Avenue and lights are still streaming out of the windows of the Capitol building. Politicians are walking out on to the capital grounds and are walking towards their cars hoping to make it home to get a few hours sleep before tomorrow’s day of work.

                “ Well, there isn’t really a typical day. It isn’t like an eight to five job…” For Donna Howard ,Democratic State Representative for Travis County, it has been the beginning of a difficult two years in office.

                Press conferences, baby kissing, shaking hands and adoring constituents.  “My point being because we run for office every other November you are going to be on the ballot you are having to raise funds for a large part of that two year period because you are almost always campaigning.”

REAL Felix leads

Comparison (ish thing): Every human being is familiar with the words "I don't want to talk about it", when a problem is brought to a parent. However, this not expected from the government. In Wisconsin, however, this is exactly the answer that thousands of people could be getting.
Twist: We do not live in a dictatorship in America. What the government says does not always go, the public has a right to reason with it. But in wisconsin, bargaining has become more of a dictatorship style affair.

(did not finish a third one)

Banquo's Leads

Descriptive:The internet has changed things. Jobs once hard have become easy, and jobs once easy have become hard. While people rightfully point to successes like social networking and Youtube, there is one industry that has been damaged by internet availability more than any other: Journalism. Stories people once paid $7 for at a newsstand are now available at the click of a button on CNN.com or Drudge Report. News organizations now revert to the standards of tabloid rags, neglecting serious stories and focusing on non-issues (Charlie Sheen). Can the industry be saved? Mark Miller is optimistic.

Descriptive:The outlook is bleak for journalism. In financially uncertain times, frugal readers opt to use Newsweek.com instead of ordering a subscription to the magazine. Revenues are decreasing, and magazines have felt the crunch. News organizations frequently resort to attention grabbing headlines (“Target: Iran” and “American Assassins”) that provide little actual entertainment or information. The industry seems to waiting for its knight in shining armor. Online news, according to Mark Miller, could be this savior.

Descriptive: Print news has seen its ups and downs. News has started wars (Spanish American War), removed presidents (Watergate scandal), revealed atrocities (the Pentagon Papers), and has hounded celebrities to death (Michael Jackson). While America’s relationship with its press has always been unpredictable, it is clear now that conventional print journalism is in decline. However, Mark Miller sees a way out of this quagmire: nonprofit online journalism is the way to go.

--Banquo

Opinion leads (felix)

Imagine this:
Imagine this, one day you are happily being in a union and collectively bargaining away, when suddenly there is an email that says that "no you can't". In wisconsin, this email actually happened, and is a horrible thing for people to read because it is bad.

Narrative
Every day, some people are in unions. They are having lots of fun with the abilities of them. But sometimes, the government says NO.

Twist
Children are children. but when they get older, they want to join unions, and if wisconsin is going to stay like it is right now, it's pointless to want to BECAUSE THEY CAN'T in wisconsin.

Foreign Language Course: Politician 101

         For my feature story I interviewed state representative Donna Howard. There is no average day while the legislature is in session and you are always campaigning were the two biggest points of the interview.
         Ms.Howard mentioned how they would be working for a few hours debating over the issues and would then have to go to meetings with constituents and political organizations looking to give their opinions. For five months out of every two years the lives of the representatives become disorganized hells and provide great interest for the average citizens.
        Campaigning for Representative Howard is supposedly a full term job. Through out her two years or term in office she has to be prepairing for her next campaign as the time in office for a state representative is so short.
     I apologize for writing this useless crap as opposed to my usual articles but this was an assignment for ezine which I have to do for my grade.So yeah.

Sincerely,
Indigenous to Epictetus

Banquo's Thoughts: An Interview, Plus a Little Bit of Swearing

I swear I'd never take orders for a blog post. Besides toning down my original message (see my first blog post, which contained profanity) on the orders of Ms. Young, all of my blog posts have been my thoughts, original and unadulterated.

Now, I have to take orders: the powers that be want everyone to write a blog about their feature pieces. I don't want to do it. But I have to.

Sorry everybody, but I think a little bit of angry swearing is in order.

"%$#! *&^*^% &$@#!!"

Now, let me take you, begrudgingly, into the world of Mark Miller, my interviewee. Mark is the editor of the Texas Tribune, a nonpartisan, non-for-profit news organization that makes information valuable to the public available on its free website. I spoke to him about his career in journalism (he has worked at Newsweek, writing about Bill Clinton, OJ Simpson, and 9/11) and the state of public affairs in Texas. We also spoke about the future of journalism and how news organizations have struggled to succeed in a digital age.

I conducted the interview by Email because Mark was on a business trip. I got a lot of good information out of him that will factor well into my feature piece.

Congratulations, powers that be- you just made me take orders. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Sincerely,

An irked Banquo



An accurate expression of how angry I am



Screw the Mafia: Cartels, The New Threat to the United States

     The Gambino, Colombo, Banano, Genovese and Lucchese names that once struck fear into the hearts of many Americans who were told that the Mafia did not even exist, and all the disappearances of people of the street a minor figment of the imagination. For nearly four decades the United States has been able to breath easily knowing that there is no all powerful criminal organization that can snatch them out of their beds at night. But in recent years there has been considerably more to worry about from criminal organizations. Since 2006 Mexico has been engaged in an ongoing full scale war against the Mexican drug cartels, a war which has been spilling over into America and terrorizing along with claiming the lives of innocent people living in the Mexican border region.
     There are many people who have seen the movies The Godfather, Good Fellas and so on and some of those movies were relatively accurate in their depictions of the mafia. Consider now those same movies but the handguns being replaced fully automatic weapons, armored vehicles and other military grade weaponry. These are just thugs gathering in the cities and beating shop owners for protection money; the Mexican drug cartels have far more resources and training than that. The leader of the Zetas, Heriberto Lazcano known as "El Lazca" is an ex special forces operator for Mexico and now leads Los Zetas one of the two most power drug cartels.
     These Cartel's have now displaced the Colombian cartel's in the market for cocaine and heroin trafficked to the United States and have many of the Mexican politicians in their pockets. Military force has been used to combat these organizations since 2006 and only  a few of the leaders have been captured and still 34,612 people have been killed in the drug wars according to BBC news.
     Most of America's cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetemines come from Mexico and are trafficked in men with military training, military grade weapons and who know the territory of the south western United States and northern Mexcio better than anyone. These men are extrememly dangerous and need to be dealt with as opposed to just ignored by the United States government lest more lives ,many of them American, be lost.