SUICIDE...A BLOG NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL READERS

I discuss the topic of suicide combining serious thoughts and glib thoughts which attempt to lighten this topic.  If a reader has lost someone to suicide, s/he probably will not want to read this blog.

I admit to a macabre fascination with suicide.  I am not suicidal; I hope to live to 90 and piss off as many truly evil people as I can and enjoy my life with that as a side activity. I worked long and hard at many jobs I never did really like, to enjoy a rewarding  financial and healthy retirement and I am doing just that. Recently I have become addicted (I am drinking less so had to find another addiction) to videos on Youtube dealing with suicide. The videos are not well produced; many lack basic information; some are just plain incorrect in their facts and some apparently take information from obituaries rather than do any further research.

But, the videos fascinate me.  The faces are generally beautiful, smiling, some are professional pictures, perhaps from a modeling audition.  Some are from a yearbook. ALL of them leave me wondering, “why did you do that”? “Why did you not reach out for help”?  Was there absolutely no alternative...running away, getting divorced, leaving your job, closing down social media accounts”?  (A disproportionately large number of suicides of people younger than 20 seem to be from social media or in-school bullying). In my opinion, suicide is not rational.  If I come home and catch my wife in bed with another guy (both of us are way too old to see that event as a real threat) why would I shoot myself? As a Libertarian, I see marriage as a “contract” and third parties are not responsible for one of the “signatures” breaking the contract. It does not make any sense to take your own life. And shooting your spouse wins you a free trip to prison.  Best just to move on...counseling and drugs if necessary. Self-preservation is rational; self-destruction is not.

The following article offers six reasons why people commit suicide.

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/06/6-reasons-people-commit-suicide.html

I assume not one of the people who reads my blog (I have an avid readership of two) will be the least bit interested in the linked article so I will bullet the six reasons:

1) Depression in the extreme leading the victim to believe there is no way to escape it and living with the pain is worse than the alternative.  Depressed people may give some indication they need help.

2) Psychosis (schizophrenia) may actually command people to kill themselves (in the case of politicians that is a wonderful remedy to poisonous government).  These people (often dangerous at large) usually show no signs they may commit suicide. No remedy or prevention.

3) Impulsive, typically related to drugs or alcohol where the victim may feel so remorseful during a binge s/he cannot forgive himself.

4) Some people are shouting for help and often don’t intend to be successful but often are or do serious damage to their body, making their life more challenging that it was pre-attempt.  I think I would rather be successful.

5) Philosophical desire to die:  This one means alot to me though I have no experience with it either myself or with others close to me.  This is the person who has been reliably diagnosed as terminal, perhaps with cancer and chooses to end his life rather than go through the pain and sadness of what is happening to him, as well as financial destruction. The author of the linked article is quite clear that these people ought to be allowed to die at their own hand.

6) Accidental: the article offers the example of deliberate oxygen deprivation (which some people find creates a “high”) and they goof.  Darwin had an explanation for this one.

These reasons make sense to me but I find myself staring intently at the faces on these videos searching for a reason or something that might indicate the person is troubled and of course nothing is there.

As fascinated as I am with these videos they are also very haunting.  Frankly, someone who is troubled might be pushed closer to the edge watching these videos.  Yet there is something very magnetic about them. Three brothers committed suicide within years of each other because of having lost the other(s).  How horrible that must be for the parents. That would devastate me. I ask myself if I knew one of the victims and had reason to be concerned about the possibility s/he might commit suicide, how far would I go to try to prevent it.  Some solutions are obvious: counseling and drugs.

I take a Paxil generic, have for 20 years.  While often prescribed for depression, for me it was to moderate mood swings and it is a miracle.  I remember when my GP recommended the prescription (after an evaluation by a psychologist, who reported to me after the extensive Minnesota Multi-Phasic Pesonality Inventory test or MMPI that I was not neither artistic nor an alcoholic). I expressed some humiliation to my GP about using drugs.  Was I mentally defective? (Some people think I am but I deny it) He explained that the drug replaces a chemical in some people whose brain does not produce it sufficiently (“re-uptake inhibitor”...like I know what THAT means) and that the use could be compared to insulin..a chemical necessary to the body but whose body does not produce it sufficiently.  There is no shame in taking insulin. Nor should there be taking a PRESCRIBED mood-altering drug. Given only the benefit of 72 years of life experience, I believe counseling has value and I am absolutely convinced chemistry does. At least for me. My wife, for whom counseling was a career told me that counseling the potentially suicidal patient is the process of showing (especially the depressed) that there are alternatives and nudging the patient to try alternatives.  Suicide is awfully final she tells the patient and it is worth trying alternatives.

I have no other answers; any answer I would offer would be cliche and discussed endlessly previously by professionals.  While I would be thrilled to create a continuing list of people I would love to see commit suicide. There were other solutions for many of the people I see on the Youtube videos who deserved more to live than do some who refuse to commit suicide and it is sad to see they were not aware of alternatives or where to get help or just chose to not avail themselves of the alternatives. Hence, counseling is the logical place to start.

Actually, suicide is a risk for those of us who are left behind. The deceased simply won’t care (unless s/he survives with life-altering injuries).  If we who are left behind work to maintain a positive, mentally challenging lifestyle, we are the lucky ones. Lament the loss of a loved one but rejoice in your will to live.

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REVERSE RACISM in THE MEDIA or, HOW to SAVE on MY CABLE BILL

By dictionary  definition, I am racist but by the same dictionary definition, “Distinguishing by race” so is everyone else.  I do not like people lynching, burning crosses or cursing racial epithets (unless provoked). The lynching, etc. is dangerous, intolerable and a crime in itself, whether or not race is a factor.  For years the left has tried to create fear and loathing in the word “racism,” as if the definition includes “lynching.” When I walk down the street and I see three black men, I say to myself “there are three black men.”  That is a racist thought. However it does not equate to lynchings or cross-burnings. The left wants to equate the thought and criminal act so that were I to observe out loud the black men and someone calls me a “racist” I am placed with a group of people who kill or taunt minorities, you know, Hillary’s “deplorables” (I am one). Racism perpetrated by Al Sharpton, Hillary Clinton, Sheila Jackson Lee and Louis Farrakhan, abounds and Farrakhan is only barely not dangerous. Likewise, racism and the politics of race have saturated the broadcast media. None of this offends anybody on the Left.

The civil rights laws passed in the 1960’s and 70’s did not create an exceptions for racial quotas or reverse discrimination.  Reverse discrimination exploded beginning in the 70’s when business and politicians caved to black racist demands rather than lose business or votes or be legally harassed by an oppressive, overreaching government.  It was expedient to cave rather than fight and enjoy the wrath of Al Sharpton and white liberals. Reverse racism was the next logical step after “equal” rights law when the bleeders realized a level playing field would never be enough because we had already created the entitlement, under-educated, under-motivated mentality and imprisoned minority kids in inner city schools where, thanks to Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson, they remain to this day.

New York and Company, a fashion shop with a location in the Smithhaven Mall in Lake Grove, New York, displayed window ad which included not one white woman in the five pictured. (Okay okay, so the mannequins are white!)  Where is Al Sharpton? Let me guess: it was only disproportionately few blacks in advertising and film that outraged him.

The Smithhaven Mall on Long Island, for several months, displayed a banner promoting Suffolk Community College (local) with a picture of 8 graduating students.  ONE was a white male and one may have been a white female. Not sure.

So, at best, the college seemed to count minorities as at least 75% of the local population. Suffolk county is heavily “diverse” but at best, the non-whites are 35% of the population. So, I expected Al Sharpton who for years publicized television, movies and advertising in which he thought blacks were underrepresented does not point out quotas and disproportionately high minority representation where they exist. Had Al Sharpton been on the ball, he would have blasted those ads.  Shame on me for even thinking he would do that.

My wife and I watch hours of television daily. There are some great series and we classify as “binge watchers.”  However, I resent being force fed homosexuality (a different topic) or interracial relationships because that force feeding is supposed to diminish my importance as a straight white male.  My wife and I watch the “Magnum P.I.” remakes but get this. Magnum (in the original was Tom Selleck) has been replaced by a gent I believe is Hispanic. The Major Domo (Higgins) has been replaced by a white woman; used to be a white male.  “T.C.” the black helicopter pilot remains the same race. The creators must have overlooked replacing him. I think it would be fun to change all the actors in a show on BET to whites. Al surely would be ecstatic over that.

I don’t care that human beings breed inter-racially, especially as the “world” is more tolerant of those relationships with time. I am simply not interested in it as a form of entertainment and I do not want it forced down my throat when I turn on the TV for entertainment. However, notice that almost all interracial relationships on television are a black man and white woman? Again, where is Al Sharpton when we need him to promote balance. I know why the interracial relationships are paired this way. The young white woman is telling her dad to take a long walk off a short pier and the black man is delighted with his trophy (articles on why white women choose black men and black men choose white women abound on Google).  I once started a series called “Jessica Jones.” I like badass women. Within thirty minutes she had “bedded” her black man not once but twice. I was looking for kickass action and instead was force-fed politically correct interracial breeding. I did not make it through one episode. What I thought would be a femme fatale series turned into a promotion of a black man - white woman romp.  An example to the contrary is a sitcom called “Fam.” In this series there is an older couple, the white man is married to a black woman. There is a younger couple, the white woman is either married to or the fiance of a black man. That is a better “balance.” Not sure how that even happened. As an older guy, sex in movies and TV is less attractive to me but if it must be there don’t use it as a tool to feed me your politically correct agenda. There was once a viking-era show with a black man as one of the stars. Funny, I thought blacks were not common in viking clans. And remember, Jesus may have been black and God just might be a woman.

There is more:   notice how blacks are portrayed in leadership roles, instead of whites.  “Chicago PD” and Chicago Fire” and “Chicago Med” are three of those (“Blue Bloods” being a quality exception).  No qualified whites available to take the lead, eh? The worn out “we want black youth to have someone to emulate” is a euphemism for pure political correctness and appeasement. I want white kids to have white “leaders” to emulate.

I watch television for entertainment not for education in the politically correct sense.  As time moves along my choices are fewer since I don’t want Nielsen to “tic” me as watching a politically correct show.  I can look at myself in the mirror and say that I will not become a 2nd class citizen because anyone in a public position wants me to be. There should be a new TV show rating warning us vile racists that we will be exposed to the producer’s  preference for racial roles in its shows.

Racial politics, in my opinion, is the most important threat to our civil society.  Yet, whites remain passive in the face of white liberal and black activist hate of whites.  On many different sites I have written similar (but shorter) comments about this dangerous trend and I never received a “like” or “thumbs up” or constructive reply.  Not hurt by that but appalled at the fear whites have of confronting this hatred. Good luck to your kids because they will be the ones who pay the price for the skewed vision of “equality.” My kids are grown and I won’t be around to watch yours struggle.

I still have “Frasier” and “Golden Girls” re-runs.

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