Monthly Short Quiz + Suggested Answers

[johnkarls]

.
Question 1

Who is Charles Bowden?

Answer 1

Born in 1945, our author Charles Bowden is a contributing editor for GQ and Mother Jones. He also writes for Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times Book Review and Aperture. He has written 11 books and won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Sidney Hillman Award. He has covered the drug violence in Mexico for many years.

Question 2

What impact did the North-American Free-Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”) have on Mexican workers and the Mexican economy?

Answer 2

Mexican industrial workers have been driven into poverty and Mexican farmers, unless they are growing drug crops, have been driven off the land and are heading for the U.S. to find work.

Question 3

Of the Ciudad Juárez population of 1.3 million, how many are cocaine addicts?

Answer 3

200,000.

Question 4

How does Ciudad Juárez’s murder rate compare to other cities in the world?

Answer 4

Number 1 – higher than Mogadishu!!!

Question 5

How does Ciudad Juárez’s murder rate compare to the kill rate of an actual war?

Answer 5

Many, if not most, of its neighborhoods have kill rates seen only in actual wars.

Question 6

Who is doing the killing?

Answer 6

Everyone, including the police and the army.

Question 7

Of the 2,753 murders in Ciudad Juárez in 2009, how many resulted in arrests? In convictions?

Answer 7

Thirty. Zero.

Question 8

Are the so-called Mexican army and the so-called police really nothing more than drug cartels that are fighting with the other drug cartels for market share?

Answer 8

Yes.

Question 9

What is the number-one career objective of young males in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, in which Ciudad Juárez is located?

Answer 9

Professional killers.

Question 10

Is the anarchy in Mexico reaching such a level that Mexico can be viewed as a “failed state” similar to, say, Somalia?

Answer 10

Yes.

Question 11

Where does the mayor of Ciudad Juárez live?

Answer 11

El Paso, as do all other former residents of Ciudad Juárez who can afford to do so.

Question 12

How long before the Mexican anarchy and violence, which has already spilled over into Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, reaches Utah?

Answer 12

According to Charles Bowden, not long at all.