It's 3:44 am and I've been restless, unsleeping.  I slept at first then woke with thoughts of Epstein, who just suicided because he didn't want to sit through a long trial about his sex trafficking of young girls.  He didn't want to be someone's bitch in prison after having made so many young girls serve as his bitch.  According to one report I ( Read more... )

"While we are quick to judge the human rights record of every other country on earth, it is we civilized Americans whose murder rate is ten times that of other Western nations, we civilized Americans who kill women and children with the most alarming frequency.  In (sad) fact, if a full jumbo jet crashed into a mountain killing everyone on board, ( Read more... )

I read this morning about a doctor who went mad and shot people in a hospital. As a doctor myself, I know that docs have terrible stresses trying to deal with a corrupt medical-industrial system that impairs our ability to help people regain their health. Then I went to look at the NY times article, here: Read more... )

• This epidemiologic analysis revealed that mortality rates are increasing in the middle-aged white male population, largely due to preventable conditions like poisonings and overdoses.
• Reductions in mortality were seen in other racial groups.

( ARTICLE from Medpage, primary care )

Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon
by Tom Myers and Michael Ghiglieri

This book logs all the mistakes you can make at the Grand Canyon.  There's an interview with the authors here.  There have been some changes since the first edition.  There are more environmental deaths, climbing deaths down in the canyon, and suicides than when the book ( Read more... )

I used to think
the worst thing in life
is to end up alone.
The worst thing in life
is to end up with people
who make you feel alone.
--Robin Williams

Today on MoveOn they're soliciting for signatures on a petition to make Walmart pay its workers better. Moveon says it's an outrage that Wallyworld employees have to use public services for healthcare because can't afford better. What isn't mentioned is that they spent what they had on vehicles and fuel, guns, alcohol and cigarettes, mobile ( Read more... )

I read today about the California prisoners who've gone without food for 45 days now to protest the practice of keeping people on solitary for a year or more. A judge decided that the prisons can force feed them. This is barbarism. Their rationale is that some of the fasting prisoners have been mislead. I almost expect to hear the Shrubism: " ( Read more... )

The Pentagon began tracking active duty military suicides in 2001. They begin rising in 2006, soared in 2009 then leveled. Military suicides hit a record high in 2012. Exceeded combat deaths in Afghanistan in 2012. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta calls it an epidemic. All branches are suffering.

A venturesome minority
will always be eager to set off on their own,
and no obstacles should be placed in their path;
let them take risks, for godsake,
let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned,
eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches -
that is the right and privilege of any free American.
--Edward Abbey