We Need to Bring Back the Assault Weapons Ban

The GOP, the Vote, Guns and You, America

Guess which it wants to have less of, if not even do away with?

The Truth About Guns -- But Only In America

Sing it, Mrs. Betty Bowers!


Praise Jesus!

You are America's Best Christian!

Links:

Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian - YouTube

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More Guns? Really?

Wear Orange Tomorrow

On the importance of empathy and understanding

Quote of the day

“Go outside and get some fresh air or cuddle with a loved one and you don’t feel any better, only more upset at being unable to feel the joy that everyone else seems to feel,” Swartz wrote. “Everything gets colored by the sadness.”

Link:
Tech Prodigy and Internet Activist Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide

Four reasons, at least, we should get out of Afghanistan

There are four very current reasons why we, the US, should get our military troops out of Afghanistan. Sure, these three ignore the history of the place, additionally, and the lessons the former Soviet Union gave us. Those would give us yet more reason to get out. For today, I'll just stick with these (each is an online, very recent headline):

--First, the Afghans don't want us there:

Afghan suicide bomber kills senior Army leader, 2 majors

--Second, it's killing our own soldiers--they're killing themselves:

Military Suicide Epidemic: More U.S. Soldiers Have Killed Themselves Than Died on Battlefield in 2012



--Third and fourth, it's driving up our soldiers' drug and alcohol abuse. It's ruining their lives that way, too, not just the PTSD and physical explosions and handicapping:

Study: Level of military substance abuse now a ‘public health crisis,’ Pentagon care outdated

It's killing and tearing apart our soldiers.

The Afghanis don't want us there.

It's gone on far too long.

Bring them home.

Write your Congressional representatives now, in both the House and Senate and tell them to bring our soldiers home.

And as soon as possible.

Links: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/09/13204924-afghan-suicide-bomber-kills-senior-army-leader-2-majors?lite

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/13/military_suicide_epidemic_more_us_soldiers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/study-level-of-military-substance-abuse-now-a-public-health-crisis-pentagon-care-outdated/2012/09/18/8c8ea940-015c-11e2-bbf0-e33b4ee2f0e8_story.html

On Don Harman: Too important not to see

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." --Plato, Greek author & philosopher, Athens (427 BC - 347 BC). Again, to make a donation, Don’s family has set up a fund in lieu of flowers. If you’d like to donate: The Don Harman Memorial Fund Benefiting local Kansas City Charities, c/o Tightwad Bank, 1160 SE Highway 7, Tightwad, Missouri 64735.

Suicide in San Diego linked to St. Joseph??

Out in the news today: "SAN DIEGO (AP) — When a 32-year-old woman's naked body was found hanging from a historic Southern California mansion's balcony with her ankles and wrists bound, investigators were quick to say they weren't ruling out suicide. The woman's sister said investigators confirmed that it was suicide during a visit to the family home in St. Joseph, Mo., to discuss their findings. They told her Wednesday that it would have been difficult but "very possible" for Rebecca Zahau to kill herself." Read the full story here: http://news.yahoo.com/sister-investigators-rule-mansion-death-suicide-015120193.html

A SNAP news conference today

I got the following email today: SNAP--Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests--will be holding a news conference today at 2:30 pm. We will be at the Kansas City Catholic chancery office at 20 West Ninth Street (corner of Baltimore). More details will be coming shortly. Good for them. I hope they have good news for us, especially, possibly on Bishop Finn (and how he should go). More here: a clergy sex abuse victim who has never spoken publicly will --announce his new civil lawsuit accusing two priests of molesting him as a boy, and --disclose that he saw one of the priests molest three other boys (one of whom later committed suicide). He will also beg anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups to come forward & get help. WHEN: TODAY, Thursday, Sept. 1 at 2:30 PM WHERE: Outside the Kansas City Catholic diocesan headquarters (“chancery office”), 20 West Ninth Street (at Baltimore) in Kansas City, MO. WHO: The victim, who is speaking publicly for the first time, along with several of his friends and one-two clergy sex abuse victims who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org) WHY: According to the new suit, the victim, Jon David Couzens, was molested by two KC area priests. He saw one cleric molest three boys, two of whom later committed suicide. The first alleged predator was Fr. Isaac True, who reported assaulted Jon around 1978-79 when John was nine year old on at least two occasions. The second alleged predator was Msgr. Thomas J. O'Brien, who reportedly molested John in 1981-82. Jon witnessed O’Brien sexually abuse three other boys. One of them has since committed suicide, the suit says. Most of the crimes against John happened at Nativity parish in Independence, where both priests worked. O’Brien was ordained in 1950and is believed to be about 80 years old. He faces allegations that he molested two dozen children (sometimes along with F.r Thomas Reardon) while at a cabin on Lake Viking (northeast of Kansas City) and several parishes (St. Patrick’s in Kansas City North, St. Elizabeth’s, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Independence). He worked at several Catholic institutions (St. Pius X High school and St. Joseph Health Center). He still lives in the KC area and kept working as a priest until 2002. In 2008, Kansas City church officials refused demands by victims to have O’Brien defrocked. He remains a priest today. True was ordained in 1966 and has spent most of his career at Conception Abbey in Conception Missouri, north of Kansas City, where he is still working now. He belongs to a Catholic religious order called the Benedictines. In June, another Benedictine cleric from that same abbey, Fr. Bede Parry, was sued for molesting a Kansas City area boy. Couzens just turned 41, lives in the Kansas City area, is married and employed. CONTACT David Clohessy, SNAP Executive Director 314-566790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com, Barbara Dorris, SNAP Outreach Director 314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com, Mike Hunter, SNAP Kansas City Director 913-634-6490.

New data on suicide--and two predictions.

From The New York Times (I actually saw a small blurb on this in last Sunday's Kansas City Star newspaper but upon doing a search just now for it, as usual, it didn't work--way to go, Star):

Rise in Suicides of Middle-Aged Is Continuing
By Patricia Cohen
Published: June 4, 2010

For the second year in a row, middle-aged adults have registered the highest suicide rate in the country, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Historically, the eldest segment of the population, those 80 and older, have had the highest rates of suicide in the United States. Starting in 2006, however, the suicide rate among men and women between the ages of 45 and 54 was the highest of any age group.

The most recent figures released, from 2007, reveal that the 45-to-54 age group had a suicide rate of 17.6 per every 100,000 people. The second highest was the 75-to-84 age range, with a rate of 16.4, followed by those between 35 and 44, with a 16.3.

The rate for 45- to 54-year-olds in 2006 was 17.2 per 100,000 people, and in 2005 it was 16.3.


My predictions:

1) While the economy is certainly, I think it can be shown, better this year than last, I believe, too, that it's going to stay "not good" and get a bit worse. Frankly, I hope I'm wrong, of course, but I think that's where we're headed and that it has an impact on these numbers;

2) These rates, above, will increase still more and dramatically, I'm afraid. (literally);

Again, naturally, I hope I'm wrong.

Link to original post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06suicide.html

Additional information:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/us/19suicide.html

Not doing the Muslim faith--or Muslims--any favor

So here we go again, it seems.

One more incident, to the Western eye, of a Muslim man "going postal" in the world--this time in Fort Hood, Texas.

Any and every time some terrorist straps explosives to their body and blows themself up, whether they take anyone with them or not, if they are also Muslim, the opinion in the West is that these are desperately ignorant people.

In this case, unfortunately, US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on a shooting spree here in the States--at Fort Hood, Texas, just outside San Antonio.

The result?

At least 13 killed and 31 wounded.

And as usual, it makes no sense. It just ends up being another horrible, tragic event.

And the thing is, to the people of the United States and the West, this all too frequently looks like a pattern of a lack of education (read: ignorance), religious or otherwise zeal and virtually unthinkable violence, all rolled into one.

Leaders of the Muslim faith immediately came out to say that this is not the Muslim faith, fortunately--and of course--and that's good. But for too many people, they see these senseless, murderous acts repeated again and again and both don't like the results of them, naturally, and feel as though it's an ugly, ugly pattern that gets repeated far too frequently all around the world.

How do you deal with someone who thinks violence is an answer?

And the only answer, at that?

How do you deal with someone who has been taught by his elders (because most of them are men, in fact) that if they go on a successful suicide pact and kill "the enemy", they will go straight to "heaven"? Granted, that's not the case here regarding Major Hasan but that is the case for so many of the deaths in the Middle East.

How can we deal with a suicide mentality, locally, nationally and internationally?

In the case of this Major Hasan in Texas, it appears he was mentally unstable, as information comes out but it appears, given what information we have at this moment, that it also may have been borne out of religious fervor.

I hope that's not the case.

What's true is that religious leaders all around the world need to teach their followers in peace, acceptance and tolerance--not murder, death and suicide.


Link to story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_hood_shooting_suspect