You see it in movies all the time. From It’s a Wonderful Life to Spiderman II, the heroic figure who has labored on behalf of others for years suddenly finds him/herself in a bind and “the people” become aware of their hero’s plight and step up to help the one who has always been there to help them. The only problem with this feel-good ending is that it rarely happens in real life. Whether it’s a veteran living on the streets or “everyone’s Mom” struggling with health issues and bills she can’t afford because she’s spent her life doing for others, humanity has a bad habit of leaving its heroes in a lurch.

So, as the holiday season winds down and we begin thinking about our 2012 challenges and opportunities, I'd like to ask you to take a moment to help one such hero who has earned a break from her misfortunes.

Quick…

Jeff, small world, I ate tnite at Kervin's Tavern in Middlesex. Give me a shout at billmarkunas@yahoo.com. Like to discuss missing person's case been working on. Have u ever heard of The Vidocq society, meets in Philly once a month about cold cases? attending church tmorrow in Bound Brook, and off to Bridgewater for ten mile trainin run for Philly marathon. Ran up to Washington Rock Veterans Day. Proud of ur work with Missing American's project

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The Mexican cartels' war against social media continued this week with murder of another blogger in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Texas. The note left next to the body -- identifying the victim as a moderator of Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, a local blog about goings-on in the city which has become a forum for reporting drug-related crimes and warning the public about dangerous areas -- stated: “This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn't report things on the social networks.” Read the full article.

Nuevo Laredo has seen the murders of at least three other people for posting information about drug cartel activities on the Internet. In September, the bodies of a man and a women, both in the early 20s, were left hanging from a highway…

U.S. State Department data show that the first six months of 2011 represented the most deadly period of the past eight years for U.S. citizens in Mexico, the Christian Science Monitor reports. From January 4 to June 11 of this year, 65 Americans were killed in Mexico, a 300% increase since 2003. Read full article.

The report found that Baja California, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Sinaloa have been the site of most of the violence, with a third of the deaths occurring in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. In its most recent travel advisory, issued on April 22, the State Department also warned US citizens to exercise extreme caution when traveling to the states of Michoacán, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Guerrero, and Jalisco.

I would like to point out that the article (I have not yet read the report) makes no mention of the American…