Muerte (Continuación)

How We Learned to Kill

ReflexionesSocial,

The voice on the other end of the radio said: “There are two people digging by the side of the road. Can we shoot them?”

It was the middle of the night during my first week in Afghanistan in 2010, on the northern edge of American operations in Helmand Province, and they were directing the question to me. Were the men in their sights irrigating their farmland or planting a roadside bomb? The Marines reported seeing them digging and what appeared to be packages in their possession. Farmers in the valley work from sunrise to sundown, and seeing anyone out after dark was largely unheard-of.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial

Hace un mes me encontraba bien de salud, incluso francamente bien. A mis 81 años, seguía nadando un kilómetro y medio cada día. Pero mi suerte tenía un límite: poco después me enteré de que tengo metástasis múltiples en el hígado. Hace nueve años me descubrieron en el ojo un tumor poco frecuente, un melanoma ocular. Aunque la radiación y el tratamiento de láser a los que me sometí para eliminarlo acabaron por dejarme ciego de ese ojo, es muy raro que ese tipo de tumor se reproduzca. Pues bien, yo pertenezco al desafortunado 2%.

Doy gracias por haber disfrutado de nueve años de buena salud y productividad desde el diagnóstico inicial, pero ha llegado el momento de enfrentarme de cerca a la muerte.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Amid the multitude of World War II horrors, few tug at mankind’s conscience like the voyages of refugee boats whose passengers died fleeing war, mass murder and genocide: the schooner Mefkure, sunk in 1944 on the Black Sea, taking over 300 lives, or the Struma, with almost 800 fatalities in those same waters two years earlier.

Then there was the notorious St. Louis, which in 1939 left Hamburg for Havana, with more than 900 German refugees aboard. They were forced back to Europe after Cuba, the United States and Canada all balked at letting them land. We now know hundreds of those returnees perished in the war.…  Seguir leyendo »

I Nearly Died. So What?

ReflexionesSocial

Four years ago this fall, I spent several days in a medically induced coma after contracting a freakishly severe case of flea-borne typhus. A bacterial infection caused by fleabites led to liver failure, kidney problems, meningoencephalitis and, among other complications, a particularly deadly condition called disseminated intravascular coagulation.

After losing my ability to form words and landing in the I.C.U., I underwent several blood and platelet transfusions, a spinal tap and nonstop infusions of four different antibiotics. The doctors told my husband that I could very possibly die. Barring that, I could have lifelong brain damage.

It was an ordeal, though less so for me than for those around me.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Indonesian journalist holds flowers as she sits in front of a banner during a protest in Jakarta against the killing of journalists by Islamic State. (Mast Irham / EPA)

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

In 1623, just two years after Native Americans and Pilgrims dined together at the first Thanksgiving, Pilgrim commander Myles Standish decapitated an enemy Indian chieftain and impaled his head on a pike outside of the Plymouth fort.

That's the part we typically omit from our Thanksgiving myth, which emphasizes interracial harmony instead of violence. And we certainly don't like to remember that our forefathers practiced beheading, especially when we're faced with an enemy that still engages in it.

After two American journalists were beheaded by Islamic State fighters, President Obama vowed to dismantle the organization, and has joined with five Arab allies to launch airstrikes on Islamic State targets.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

“Me voy a quitar la vida hoy alrededor del mediodía. Es hora”.

Con estas palabras, publicadas en la web, Gillian Bennett, una neozelandesa de 85 años residente en Canadá, comenzó a explicar su decisión de poner fin a su vida. Bennett sabía desde hacía tres años que sufría de demencia. En agosto, la demencia había progresado a tal punto que, según ella misma lo dijo: “Prácticamente me he perdido”.

“Quiero terminar con esto”, escribió Bennett, “antes de que llegue el día en que ya no pueda evaluar mi situación o hacer algo para poner fin a mi vida”. Su marido, Jonathan Bennett, un profesor de filosofía retirado, y sus hijos respaldaron su decisión, pero ella se negó a que la ayudaran de alguna manera en su suicidio, ya que eso los habría expuesto al riesgo de una sentencia de 14 años de prisión.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

During all my years of pastoral care, I have never had the privilege of being with someone when they die. I've visited dying colleagues and friends at St Luke's hospice, Cape Town, in the last period of their lives; I've witnessed their being cared for beautifully – but I've never been there at the exact moment of passing. I've been asked why I consider it a privilege to be present when temporal death takes place. It comes from my belief system. It is the wonder of a new life beginning, the wonder of someone going to meet their maker, returning to their source of life.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial

Hace unas semanas los medios de comunicación daban cuenta de dos noticias aparentemente inconexas pero que, como se verá, tenían vínculos entre sí. A través de la primera se nos informaba del fallecimiento de dos personas en Chicago. Al tratar de recuperar los smartphone que se les habían caído en el río helado dejaron la vida en el intento. Era un acto absurdo, desde un cierto ángulo, aunque, desde otro, estuviese lleno de significado y fuese simbólicamente representativo de las pulsiones de nuestra época.

También la segunda noticia nos trasladaba a un escenario absurdo y representativo al unísono. Un club de fútbol —el Barcelona—, siguiendo el ejemplo de otros clubes europeos, había presentado públicamente el Espacio Memorial, un recinto funerario que albergaría las cenizas de todos aquellos difuntos que decidiesen escoger el estadio azulgrana como lugar de reposo para la eternidad.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

News of Nicholas Mevoli’s death during a free-diving competition at Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas earlier this week has shocked the sport’s devotees and touched many of us who spend time in the water holding our breaths. Doubtless some readers will have been puzzled as to why a young man put his life at such unnecessary risk in the first place.

Apnea or breath-hold diving is hardly a mainstream affair. Most will know of it only through the 1988 Luc Besson film, “The Big Blue,” which fictionalizes its greatest and most eccentric exponent, Jacques Mayol. By means of a weighted sled or under his own power, the free diver strives to achieve depths and breath-holding times unmatched by rivals, and having done so must surface unassisted and in good health.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaSocial,

En 1909, Thomas Mann publicó su propia experiencia de un accidente ferroviario. Ni uno solo de los habituales lugares comunes, de los banales comentarios frecuentados en las crónicas, aparecía en aquel relato de impresiones confusas y esfuerzo por determinar el espacio de la razón en el territorio de la angustia. La pérdida de un manuscrito en el que estaba trabajando le pareció al escritor alemán lo más trágico de aquel suceso. Sin embargo las palabras que dedicó a aquel extravío van más allá de una anécdota literaria para manifestar una voluntad de vivir que supera las circunstancias de una desgracia. «Me ausculté con precisión a mí mismo y me di cuenta de que volvería a empezar desde el principio.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

«Con motivo del fallecimiento del filósofo y colaborador de ABC Eugenio Trías, reproducimos a continuación la Tercera, publica da el 4 denoviembre de 2008, y que fue merecedora del Premio Mariano de Cavia»

No es posible sublimar el carácter salvaje y despiadado que la última nota de la vida en este mundo siempre posee. Toda muerte constituye una irrupción intempestiva con carácter de miraculum siniestro. Llega siempre a destiempo, «como un ladrón en la noche». No permite mediación ni conciliación. Se halla en máximo abandono respecto a toda imaginación simbólica. Revela las insuficiencias de toda concepción racionalista del mundo.

Deja la muerte, inevitablemente, toda vida en condición de puro escorzo, como fatal torso fragmentario, o en estado de ruina irremediable.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial, ,

When I joined the Marine Corps, I knew I would kill people. I was trained to do it in a number of ways, from pulling a trigger to ordering a bomb strike to beating someone to death with a rock. As I got closer to deploying to war in 2009, my lethal abilities were refined, but my ethical understanding of killing was not.

I held two seemingly contradictory beliefs: Killing is always wrong, but in war, it is necessary. How could something be both immoral and necessary?

I didn’t have time to resolve this question before deploying. And in the first few months, I fell right into killing without thinking twice.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

This week, the pale stone tomb in Ramallah that houses the remains of the former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat was pried open. Researchers plan to test samples of Arafat’s skeleton for signs of poison, after suspicious concentrations of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 were found on his clothes and toothbrush during an investigation this summer. Arafat’s final illness has been a source of speculation since his death in 2004; while medical records show his immediate cause of death was a stroke, many Palestinians believe he was murdered by Israel.

Arafat joins a macabre parade of recently exhumed famous figures. Just this month, Danish researchers announced that tests on the bones of the astronomer Tycho Brahe (exhumed in Prague in 2010) showed he probably perished of natural causes and not, as some had suggested, after being poisoned by his assistant, Johannes Kepler.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

Thomas Arnold Kemp was executed this past April through lethal injection. He stole $200 from a college student in Tucson in 1992 and then murdered him. It took seven minutes for Mr. Kemp to die. His last words: “I regret nothing.”

Really?

I have been thinking about Mr. Kemp and death and regret, perhaps obsessively. Regret incites us to review and reflect on our actions; when we miss the mark, regret  generates disappointment and grief. Regret would not have kept Mr. Kemp alive. But it might have kept him decent.

Regret is an essential part of repentance in Jewish law, and, as a rabbi and Jewish educator, I find myself thinking about regret each year before Yom Kippur.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

My friends in New York City laugh at me when I tell them of my latest fear: dying alone and not being discovered for weeks.

It doesn’t seem like such a far-fetched possibility to me. I have high-blood pressure and thus a greater chance than normal of having a stroke. I live alone in a large high-rise and don’t know my neighbors. I moved here recently and am only beginning to create a network of friends who could be on the lookout for me.

Admittedly, it’s a silly worry. I should take what precautions I can, and move on. Besides, what difference would anything make to me once I am gone?…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaDefensa y SeguridadMundoOriente Próximo, , ,

Sometimes they have to lie. As the British death toll in Afghanistan rises past 400, every news item tells of reverses, mistakes and a desperation to withdraw. Someone has to hold the line. Those whose job is to fight and possibly die for their country need to believe they do so for a purpose. A nation bidding them to die needs it too.

Hence the prime minister has to assert the six-year attempt to cleanse Taliban from Helmand province as "vital to our national security", when everyone knows that this is absurd. The defence secretary, Philip Hammond, has to say: "We owe it to the all too many who have sacrificed their lives to see this mission successfully concluded".…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública

Ten million people — many of them young and most of them poor — will die around the world this year from diseases for which safe, effective and affordable treatments exist. In Haiti, these are known as “stupid deaths.” What’s more, inadequate health services predominate precisely where the burden of disease is heaviest, keeping a billion souls from leading full lives in good health.

In recent years, initiatives such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria have helped rein in some of the biggest scourges. We’d be hard-pressed to point to a more inspiring achievement in global public health since the eradication of smallpox in 1977.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure,” wrote Enoch Powell, the controversial but often perspicacious British politician, “because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.” But the political lives of tyrants play out human affairs with a special intensity: the death of a democratic leader long after his retirement is a private matter, but the death of a tyrant is always a political act that reflects the character of his power. If a tyrant dies peacefully in bed in the full resplendence of his rule, his death is a theater of that power; if a tyrant is executed while crying for mercy in the dust, then that, too, is a reflection of the nature of a fallen regime and the reaction of an oppressed people.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaCultura y Ciencia,

En una célebre entrevista televisiva del año pasado, Eduard Punset dijo que no estaba escrito que él debía morir. Esta frase me la han citado amigos y periodistas un montón de veces desde entonces, quizá en parte porque en mi laboratorio estudiamos el envejecimiento y la muerte celular. Por desgracia, sacada de contexto parece más una de esas máximas que te encuentras en las galletas de la suerte de los restaurantes chinos que un pensamiento con ánimos de estimular las neuronas, que con toda seguridad era la intención original. Así que he pensado que hoy aprovecharía este espacio para discutirla con calma y hacer justicia a un tema tan interesante.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

Several years ago I spent time with a platoon of Army infantry at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan, and after the deployment I was surprised that only one of the soldiers chose to leave the military at the end of his contract; many others re-upped and eventually went on to fight for another year in the same area. The soldier who got out, Brendan O’Byrne, remained a good friend of mine as he struggled to fit in to civilian life back home.

About a year later I invited Brendan to a dinner party, and a woman asked him if he missed anything at all about life at the outpost.…  Seguir leyendo »