Numb to Carnage, Mexicans Find Diversions, and Life Goes On
CADEREYTA JIMÉNEZ, Mexico Couples were walking hand in hand. Children were frolicking. Just down the road in this northern Mexican town, 49 bodies, headless with their hands and feet severed, had been found, then cleared away.
Francisco Umberta, alarmed by the latest in a string of unimaginably gory crimes linked to Mexicos drug war, dealt with it by heading out on a date. A half-hour drive from where the torsos were discovered, he stood in line on Monday near a crowded Chilis restaurant, waiting to buy movie tickets for The Avengers.
Of course it is all scary, he said of the massacre, which sadly set no record for carnage here, but what are you going to do? He had heard about the bodies on the radio shortly after they were discovered on Sunday, but said the regional soccer playoffs drew more public attention. Its not like were all paralyzed, said Mr. Umberta, 31, an office clerk. ¨We still need to live while they do what they do.
With mangled corpses turning up on street corners and inside restaurants, hung from bridges, and buried in mass graves, Mexicans seem to have grown inured. Outrage, fear, anxiety, sadness it is tough to muster such emotions again and again, especially with 50,000 people dead in drug-related killings since President Felipe Calderón began his assault on traffickers six years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/world/americas/mexicans-unflinching-in-face-of-drug-wars-carnage.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120516