Monday, May 24, 2021
Editor’s Note: Cronkite News photographer Alberto Mariani spent several months documenting the work at Peace Chapel Funeral Home. This story contains images that some may find graphic.
PHOENIX – At 10 p.m. no words are spoken, but a loud buzz reverberates throughout Peace Chapel Funeral Home. It’s the rhythmic beat of an embalming machine pumping a mix of chemicals into a woman in her 50s.
Standing next to the body – working late again – is funeral director Ron Thornson.
Since March 2020, Thornson and his staff have routinely worked 14 to 16 hours a day, without much pause to reflect on the historic events swirling around them during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like so many other people and businesses across the globe, these workers and this industry were hit hard by the pandemic in myriad ways.
An already trying job grew more stressful, with funeral home directors – often known as the “last responders” – left explaining to grieving customers why they couldn’t mourn in person or have big gatherings to say goodbye. Caseloads also surged as the COVID-19 death toll rose. To date, more than 580,000 people have perished in the U.S. alone.
The assumption, said Claude Robinson, Peace Chapel’s funeral coordinator, is that “death is inevitable with this profession” and that those who work in the industry are somehow immune to the effects of mass casualty events such as a pandemic.
Not so.
The nature of the job demands that workers keep their emotions masked, Robinson said.
“You are almost taught not to break when you are to serve a family,” he said, explaining that revealing too much could transfer more pain onto those already suffering.
“A lot of people don’t understand that as a funeral service worker, you have a big task,” he added. “You are not just picking the body up, cleaning it, putting makeup on and placing it in a casket. You’re expected) to coach the family, to be a financial adviser and to be a psychologist” during one of the toughest moments in life.
And in a year when death became an excruciating daily experience for most Americans, even these men and women have been touched by it.
“It has affected us all, to a certain degree,” said Thornson. “But we’ve stood strong and supported one another.”
According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the average mortuary receives 113 calls a year, with larger funeral homes getting more. But the number of cases seen by funeral workers in 2020 far outpaced those in previous years.
The U.S. death rate increased 16% from 2019 to 2020, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the number of U.S. deaths exceeded 3 million for the first time in history.
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Saturday, May 22, 2021
Friday, May 21, 2021
PHOENIX – The words were light, yet poignant.
“If we would’ve had an injury problem or a COVID outbreak, you might’ve seen my big tummy out there in left field.”
That’s what former Seattle Mariners President Kevin Mather said during a video call with a local rotary club on Feb. 5, adding that there was no way any of the team’s top prospects could have made the Major League roster last September out of reluctance to start their service time clocks.
These words from Mather, along with a handful of other statements regarding the Mariners in the same meeting, ultimately led to his resignation on February 22 after the video from the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club surfaced. They also mark Major League Baseball’s latest instance of service time manipulation, a practice that aims to prolong the amount of time that teams retain club control of top prospects while paying them the minimum allowed by the league.
While the situation involving the Mariners’ prospects may have been out in the open, most instances of service time manipulation are relatively quiet. Teams generally don’t admit to manipulating a player’s service time and often attempt to justify keeping them down by claiming more development is needed.
Due to the nature of service time manipulation, one can only guess how widespread the practice is.
“It is your job as a (general manager) to most efficiently use the system to your benefit, and so I think every team does it,” said Zach Buchanan, the Arizona Diamondbacks reporter for The Athletic.
MLB’s service time rules
Service time manipulation in baseball exists largely due to MLB rules that — either deliberately or unintentionally — incentivize keeping players who are “ready” for major league competition in the minor leagues to maximize the amount of time they are under their club’s control.
PHOENIX – Although Arizona is the site of two NCAA softball regionals this week, that might not be the case next year if the state passes a law requiring athletes to compete in interscholastic sports based on their sex at birth.
The “Save Women’s Sports Act” was introduced on Feb. 3 as House Bill 2706, and passed in a party-line vote of 31-29. The ban on transgender students participating in girl's sports was sponsored by Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, and will be introduced to the state Senate in early May.
The NCAA Board of Governors, which is comprised of university presidents and chancellors, issued a statement on April 12 that it “firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports” and that “when determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected.”
Advocates for the transgender community were surprised Sunday when three states – Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee – which already have legislation banning transgender athletes from interscholastic competition, were named by the NCAA as hosts for the postseason softball tournament which begins Thursday. Arizona State and the University of Arizona are also hosting games.
Backlash from the decision could prompt the organization to be more selective in naming sites next year.
Arizona is among dozens of states that are considering passing legislation related to the federal “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which specifies that sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth. A lawsuit filed last February is at the root of the proposed legislation.
Thursday, May 20, 2021
State Rep. Daniel Hernandez (D-announced today that he was launching a campaign for the
congressional seat now held by U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who announced earlier
this year that she would retire after this term.
“As a lifelong Arizonan from a working
class family, I know firsthand that people in Southern Arizona want results
from their representatives, and as our community recovers from this pandemic,
that’s never been more important,” said Hernandez in a prepared statement
announcing his campaign. “In the
Arizona State House I have fought for investments in our schools, our
hospitals, and our roads and bridges. I have worked across the aisle to pass
laws protecting survivors of sexual assault and repealing discriminatory laws
against the LGBTQ Arizonans. I’m running for Congress to keep up that fight for
our values and deliver real results to make our community stronger.”
Two
other state lawmakers, State Sen. Kirsten Engel and State Sen. Randy Friese, have
already launched campaigns in the district.
Hernandez
is best known for being the first person to administer first aid to Gabby
Giffords after she was shot through the head by a crazed gunman at a Congress
on Your Corner event in January 2011. Hernandez was then an intern for
Giffords, but in 2016, he won a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives in
Legislative District 2, which includes downtown Tucson, Green Valley, Sahuarita
and Nogales.
Congressional
District 2 now includes the Catalina Foothills, central and eastern Tucson and all
of Cochise County and has been one of Arizona’s most competitive districts,
being held by Democrat Ron Barber for one term, Republican Martha McSally for
two terms and now Kirkpatrick for two terms. But with redistricting underway,
the boundaries will change ahead of the 2022 election.
The spelling of state Sen. Kirsten Engel's name has been corrected in this article.
