Death: From the Sonoran Desert to the South End and several gray areas in between

A New York Times article suggests an increase in the deaths of migrants trying to cross the border from Mexico through the Sonoran Desert. The personal story of Felicitas Martinez Barradas is told sympathetically and with dramatic detail, beginning with the lede quote that prefigures her death from the heat. Facts from the Government Accountability Office that suggest the number of deaths are even higher than the government reports raise questions about Border Patrol’s methods of reporting them, but Border Patrol’s statement that it is working to improve those methods suggests the reporter must have asked about those inconsistencies and received a vague answer. It would have been interesting to hear stories from more families—particularly any who lost someone while trekking through the desert and returned to make a second attempt at crossing—but it is surprising enough that the Diaz family was willing to disclose theirs.

Unlike potential border crossers, new migrants to Boston’s South End will come for a decidedly more upscale life. The Boston Globe’s article on the closing of the Waltham Tavern to make room for a new upscale condominium building presents an ambivalent attitude towards the change. Quotes abound from residents who never frequented the tavern—which was, after all, “seedy”—but still see its demise as a loss for the neighborhood. The last quote is probably the best part of the article: even the condo developer admits his project will contribute to destroying the South End’s dwindling neighborhood character.

Western society as a whole is losing something else that was once a definitive part of its character: religion. The difficulty in counting the non-religious in any given population is a clear obstacle to today’s Washington Post article, but its citation of current controversies in which religion plays a role still does a fair job illustrating the changing opinions of Western society towards religion. The list of secular or atheistic organizations that have sprung up recently is probably the best way of qualifying the shift as a cultural movement.

To further complicate what might seem like a surprising twist, religion is down in today’s papers, but opinions of drug use are…up? Or at least amibivalent. A MetroWest Daily News article discloses that drug use by organ donors does not automatically disqualify their organs from being used as transplants. An interview with the director of the New England Organ Bank discusses the various circumstances taken into consideration in these cases. His answers are informative, but the article might have benefited from additional perspectives, such as those of patients awaiting transplants.