People die everyday. It is hard to imagine a greater “life and death” issue than death, not only on the one who dies but for those who mourn. Today’s news, so new it did not make today’s edition of the New York Times, is full of death. The front page of the New York Times titles a headline “12 Miners Are Found Alive, Family Members Say,” but the hazard of deadlines prevented the newer news this morning that in fact 12 were found dead and only one found barely alive. On today’s Al-Jazeera it is announced that the ruler of Dubai died. On NPR this morning there was a report of a suicide bomber blowing himself up during an outdoor funeral in Muqdadiya, north of Baghdad, taking more than 30 mourners with him. And imagine all those people, thousands to be sure, who died in the last 24 hours but did not make the news.

The deaths in Dubai and Muqdadiya, Iraq could hardly be different to those left alive to think about them. Continue reading Daily Death →