Life on the line

New York Times Magazine writer Andrew Rice takes on "life on the line" between El Paso and Juarez. It's always interesting to read an outsider's attempt to figure out what makes these two cities tick. He says the two cities "lie together uncomfortably like an estranged couple." In effect he's taking a snapshot of a region still in transition because of the drug war. It's undeniable that things have changed in El Paso in the past few years. "Nearly everyone I met in El Paso — whether they spoke Spanish or English, were liberal or conservative, rich or poor — told me the same thing: no one outside really understood this crisis they were living through," Rice says.