Today's Apocalypse Sign: Ivy League Suicide

The shocking stories of things that happen on college campuses these days are many and diverse. Topping the list is the incidence of suicide at many universities. None more so than the tragic year Cornell University of the Ivy League is having.

So far six students have jumped/fallen to their death from the 90-foot high suspension bridge that serves as a entrance from town to the campus. It is a bridge that I would have an apprehension of crossing on a good day. Me and heights are not friends in any sense of the word.

Samuell Cornell back in the late 1800's decided the best place to build a prestigious university that bares his name was right between two gorges. And you gotta be pretty damn deep to call yourself a gorge.

They even have a nickname for the suicides here... "gorging out". Macabe to say the least.

Even back in the early years of this university and through the 40's, 50's, 60's and heavily in the 90's suicides were happening here. What was it about this university that triggered the big bungee jump of life without the bungee?  Was it just the lure of the bridge like a Siren song?

And what about jumping to your death as a suicide in general? It is a precarious thing to do. If you are not up high enough there is a chance you may not die and end up living like Stephen Hawking for the rest of your now incredibily worse off life. Too high you could get sucked into a jet engine (probably not, unless you pick a really bad place to jump from) but more importantly you have all that time from fatal step until terminal velocity impact to think about whether this is really what you wanted to do. No take backs. No do overs.

Stephen Hawking

But what would make a college student (and at Cornell a fairly smart one) decide on this course of action?

1. Was pressured all through high school to get into the Ivy League but maybe that was not your idea of fun.

2. Once you got to Cornell you found out there were really some smart fuckers here and you weren't one of them (see #1 above).

3. Date after date seems to end really badly and instead of calling Hitch you decide life is not worth living.

4. Oooooh, there's something shiny down there!

5. I learned about updrafts in Physics...here, I'll show you.

6. Sorry, looks like it's Animal House for you Stevie!

7. If my parents find out I'm failing every class they'll kill me anyway (tuition, bye bye)

I'll stop at 7 so this doesn't turn into some macabe/gallows humor Top Ten.

This is a serious issue for a University that has picked up the nickname of Suicide U. Below is video and an excerpt from a CNN site:




The national average for school suicides is 7.29 per year for every 100,000 students, said Paula Clayton, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. That means Cornell, with 19,639 students, should average fewer than two suicides a year.

Cornell had no suicides from 2005 to 2008, according to Marchell. And the school has consistently fallen within or below the national average, said Karen Carr, assistant dean of students at Cornell.

The school has been praised by psychologists such as Keith Anderson, chairman of the American College Health Association's Mental Health Best Practices Task Force, for counseling and prevention programs that confront the issue of student suicide with comprehensive training and understanding.

Cornell responded to a cluster of suicides in the late 1990s with comprehensive training for members of the university community.

By Ross Levitt and Susan Candiotti, CNN
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I for one cannot imagine what it would take to make someone walk over to the railing of a bridge and jump off. I also cannot imagine why they do not have the same kind of covering over these bridges by now that you see on walk-ways over freeway so whackos can't throw a cinder block through your windshield. I get the aesthetics angle and all that but really, if this suicide epidemic is a decison of opportunity, simply remove the opportunity.

Just one more justification for always carrying a parachute!

With that said:

ALERT ALERT ALERT

STM Update

9761 Followers (closing in on the big ten grand)
4,530,231 Unique Vistors (this is an increase of 103,000 from yesterday)

What a gig...one short little post and I mean short and BAM...100,000 tune in to read. Crazy!

Stay thirsty my friends...

Today's Apocalyptic Sign: March Madness Savant

I am not sure how many of you will be interested in this post because if you are not up for the March Madness then you'll have to suffer. In all fairness I don't watch the season games in college basketball but I do watch the March tournament. This year has been a doozy and these kids play their hearts out just to go to school. Anway here we go.

I just spent an exciting afternoon and evening getting blurry-eyed watching this year's NCAA Sweet Sixteen round. I am a little pissed that Ohio State is already out but today's games were pretty good. Kentucky just got their ass handed to them so another No 1 seed is shot down in flames. West Virginia made nothing but 3-point shots in the first half on their way to downing the Wildcats of Kentucky. Kind of a minor upset.

Butler upended Kansas St so a 5-seed is in the final four for the first time in forever.

{Look at me being all sports reportery and all!}

My post about the title above is several days late but it still worth a mention.

There was an austistic teenager who supposedly picked all 48 games of the first two rounds of this tournament correctly. His complete bracket can be seen here.

They claim the odds of anyone being able to do this is 1 in more than 13,000,000.

What???

This kid picked his bracket and his brother helped him enter his picks in an on-line bracket manager offered at CBS Sports. He did not even enter a bracket where he could make money for picking rounds correctly. After the first two rounds he had to show his brother his sheet with the 48 winners. His brother was stunned and after reveiwing it several times told his mother they need to alert the media.

Then I read some of the comments to the story and of course the skeptics are out in full force. They claim that any bracket manager of these certain CBS braket manager sites can go in and change anything after the games and make a bracket look perfect. What a buzzkill.

This kid claims to have spent the season watching the teams and listening to announcers and memorizing stats. He filled out his bracket. He did the impossible. As with most things in this world today the naysayers come out in a hurry when the impossible happens.

I have to ask, why would this family subject themselves and their autistic son (although he is by no means severely austistic) to derision and ridicule of national proportion...for a basketball bracket with no monetary gain? I suppose there are people out there that would do this but the family does not strike one as being "that way".

These are not balloon boy parents or whacked out nutjobs like that. They do not appear to be looking for their 15 minutes of fame by way of exploiting their son using the NCAA tourney as the vehicle. A search for the term "autistic picks perfect ncaa" yields almost 92,000 results.

I say so what, if its real let him enjoy it, if not so what! They didn't scam anybody, they got no dinero for it. And personally, I want to believe that someone, anyone could do this. It is (would be) an amazing feat and helps you believe in miracles. Or it is truly another sign of the apocalypse. Judge for yourself.

I am not sure I know who I am going to root for in the finals...maybe I WILL give Alex a call!

Peace

Today's Apocalyptic Sign: The Last Thousand Days

Just a quick post to commemorate the Mayan Calendar on the right hand side of this blog, sitting at 1000 days to the end of the world.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse are saddling up their steeds and counting the days!

How sad it will be for the STM...ha ha ha

Current stats:
9694 Followers (damn you, Today Show)
4,427,886 Unique Visitors (additional damnation)

In the interest of keeping the yin/yang of the world in balance I have also put the Buddah thought of the day below the Mayan calendar. I thought this quite clever of me.

And for the rest of you monkey lovers:

This would be the funny kind of Apocalypse!

I am sure this post made your eyes bleed (I see red people)...it did mine while I was typing it.

Til tomorrow, thanks for tuning in.

PS. Pat I will be fulfilling the rest of my blogger award requirements this weekend...

Today's Apocalypse Sign(s): Monkeys, Viagra, and Obama (Not All Together)

MONKEYS

Yesterday I found myself wondering the way I always do (when you're riding 16 hours and there's nothing much to do...what??? Bob Seger???) and then I hear outta the corner of my ear "Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay has his own Facebook page". I stopped, rewound live TV (how did we ever live without being able to do THAT!), and watched as they showed a picture of the Facebook page for the Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay. Go and give it a read. This monkey has over 47,539 fans. It was like all my monkey dreams coming true at once and also extremely unsettling.

I must confess, almost anything and everthing to do with monkeys makes me laugh. Except for the snuff film I saw once that showed people popping the cap off a monkey skull and eating the brains with little tiny spoons. That was just creepy. But everything else involving monkeys I find hilarious.

We even call our Boston Terrier, Caesar, our "little monkey":

Kinda looks a little monkey-like right?

We even have a stuffed monkey (toy not real) that we take on vacation sort of like the roaming gnome commercials.

But the Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay is the greatest thing yet! They claim the Rhesus Macaque monkey that is running loose in the Tampa Bay/St Petersberg area of Florida may be a decendent to the monkey used in the original Tarzan movie!

Here is the meat of this story: this Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay (I just like writing and saying that!) has evaded authorities for over 2 years!!

They tranquilized it once but it threw its own shit at the guy that shot him and then climbed to the top of the tree to sleep it off. When the drug wore off, he made like Tarzan and got the hell outta there! He now is like a freakin' Monkey Robin Hood, stealing fruit and partying in people's backyards when they aren't home.

Now my question has to be, how are we to believe the authorities can catch terrorists in this country if they cannot even catch a lone primate? They have sent law enforcement, animal control, private bounty hunters (how weird is that)...nothing doing. They know roughly where he is, it is the same 50 square mile area since he was first spotted. They even have said it is quite possibly a previous pet monkey due to the fact that it has been seen looking both ways before crossing the street! WTF!!!

This monkey is making a fool of the authorities. I mean two years?? A blind squirrel finds an acorn more often than that. Maybe we should send a blind squirrel...naaah, nevermind.
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VIAGRA

Here is a reprint of an article from redstate.com
Democrats in the Senate say they are so committed to passing the House’s version of health care
reconciliation fixes verbatim, that they are willing to vote against even the most alluring and unobjectionable of amendments — from legislation banning Viagra for sex offenders to language adding the long-elusive public option.


In what is the final act of the health care reform saga, the Senate on Tuesday began debating reconciliation fixes that the House of Representatives passed two days prior. The process includes a period of what could be unlimited amendments, during which it is widely expected that Republicans will try their best to get the legislation changed.


The idea is that by securing even a slight adjustment in the language, the Senate will have to send the bill back to the House of Representatives for reconsideration. Drawing out the process makes it more likely for it to be tripped up.


On Tuesday, the GOP put its strategy into action, with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okl.) introducing an amendment beyond agreeable. Titled “No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs To Sex Offenders” it would literally prohibit convicted child molesters, rapists, and sex offenders from getting erectile dysfunction medication from their health care providers.


While it will undoubtedly be difficult for Democrats to vote against the measure (one can conjure up the campaign ads already), the party plans to do just that.


“Democrats in the Senate are very unified that this is not going back to the House,” Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.) told the Huffington Post on Tuesday, minutes before the Coburn amendment was introduced.


The coming votes in the Senate on the GOP’s many amendments, including the attempt to ban the provision of viagra to sex offenders, are sure to provide some entertaining political theater and perhaps form the basis for a campaign ad or two against Senate Democrats who are up for reelection in 2010.

In a related monkey story:

                     See No Evil          Hear No Evil     Speak No Evil

What I want to know about this is why was it ever okay to give sex offenders Viagra?? Do a Google search for "sex offenders banned from viagra" and you will get 74,000 hits that will for sure make you see this as the most recent sign of the apocalypse. I have no more words for this stupidity.
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OBAMA

                          

Oh God please make me stop laughing! When I saw this commercial on TV for the first time I thought Holy Shit! Al Sharpton was going to have another 15 minutes of fame. I am sure this was not endorsed by the NAACP or the Muslim community. I knew it was early in the day but I felt kind of dislocated like I was watching a SNL skit. This is the real shit though.

Here is an article from the Chicago Sun Times addressing the decision by Walgreens to pull this product from their shelves:

Walgreens has pulled a Barack Obama version of the Chia Pet from its stores, and the decision leaves about 200,000 of the pottery plant kits in a West Side Chicago warehouse.


The Deerfield-headquartered drugstore chain made the move Friday after getting a few complaints about the item since the product's April 1 launch, a spokeswoman said.


Walgreens has pulled a Barack Obama version of the Chia Pet from its stores after receiving several complaints.






Chia founder Joseph Pedott -- a Chicago native whose San Francisco-based Joseph Enterprises provides local jobs for the disabled -- said he was inspired to create the Obama head as a show of patriotism.


Pedott, a middle-aged white man, was nervously surveying black women about the product at the Home and Housewares Show in Chicago just two days before the two versions -- a "determined" Obama and a smiling Obama -- hit the stores.


The $19.99 Chia Obama, which sprouts foliage in the space where hair would be, is still available at chiaobama.com, but Pedott said he's trying to find another large brick-and-mortar retailer to sell the item.


The product is the second Chia offering to be based on a person; the company produced a promotional item for Mr. T.


Cheryl V. Jackson

This was funny before the last sentence...Mr T made it hilarious! Who could be next to take their place in chia pet history next to Obama Chia and Mr. T Chia.

I would really like to know the results of those product surveys. Also you can apparently pick up one of the 200,000 leftovers cheap, as a stocking stuffer for next Christmas.

Maybe these three topics weren't as non-related as I first thought.

Oh well, monkeys still make me laugh!

PS. Thanks again Pat for the award!

Today's Apocalypse Sign: I Am At A Loss For Words

First and foremost I must sent a blog-felt thanks to Pat Tillett for awarding me the Beautiful Blogger Award you see gracing the side panel left. Unless you enjoy blogging in a vacuum, everyone would appreciate a few followers and Pat was my first and I appreciate him reading, commenting, and helping me get my new blog "out there". Thanks Pat, you already know I'm hooked on your blog.

I have had the super busy work week going on this week and have not stayed current on my posting, for that I apologize. Tomorrow a guaranteed Three For Thursday 3-in-1 post.

{Sneak peek: Monkeys, Viagra, and Obama}

Not to be missed.

I also have to figure out how to live up to the rest of the Award rules.

Thanks again Pat!

Today's Apolcalyse Sign: Global Warming...What??

Here is a look at what I woke to this morning in Dallas, TX. Two days ago it was 75 degrees. Global warming ain't hit here yet. (Make sure you have your speakers on.) Enjoy!




I want to put my cold weather clothes away for a while. The dog however loves the snow, especially since he found out he could eat it. At least this gave me an excuse to lounge around the house and watch college hoops all day.

This has to be the last of it for the year...

Spring has not yet sprung.

Today's Apocalyptic Sign: The Hand Of God (and a Priest's) Is Upon You

I tried to find a font that would be reverent enough for this post. I do not want God associating me with this subject matter in case rapture happens while I am asleep tonight. No accidental damnation for me...I will earn it on my own merits.

This subject is not new...hell the Catholic church being involved in it is not new. What IS new is that the church is now seemingly willing to enter the realm of full disclosure...at least that is what they say.

I am not a Catholic, or a particularly religious person. I was raised going to church on Sunday's and learned right from wrong from a strong family environment. I grew up knowing plenty of Catholics as my friends and classmates. I made no judgements on one religion being better or worse than the next. I guess you could say I was an equal opportunity religion friend.

I say that to hopefully not offend anyone who is a practicing Catholic by anything I may say in this post.

However...WTF is wrong with the Catholic church??

The church, any church, is supposed to be fundamentally on the side of right (not wrong) and good (not evil)...right? At least this is what I was taught in Sunday school oh those many years ago.

While the Catholic church (one of the largest religions in the world) has some differing views on sexual conduct of priests (mainly they must be male and they must be celibate), I would think that covering up this pedophillic abuse could not rank them high in God's eyes. If God has his own TopTen of religions, I have to think that the Branch Davidians and the wackos waiting for aliens to take them to heaven in a spaceship have just moved up a notch or two.

I was perusing the Catholic American website and grabbed some copy that is stunning to me:

The Los Angeles Archdiocese July 15 announced the largest church settlement of sexual abuse lawsuits to date, agreeing to pay more than 500 alleged victims a total of $660 million.

Last December, the archdiocese announced the settlement of 45 lawsuits for $60 million.

Under the latest agreement, the archdiocese will pay $250 million and the balance will come from a combination of payments from insurance carriers and religious orders whose members have been accused in the abuse cases.

According to a tally prepared by the Los Angeles Times, the previous largest settlement of abuse cases in the United States since 2002 was the $157 million the Boston Archdiocese agreed to pay to 983 claimants in several different settlement agreements. The Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., agreed to pay $129 million to 315 claimants; the Diocese of Orange, Calif., agreed to pay $100 million to 90 claimants, and the Diocese of Covington, Ky., settled with 350 claimants for $85 million.

Cardinal Mahony said the new settlement and the one for $60 million announced in November "will have very serious and painful consequences for the archdiocese." He said the archdiocese will re-evaluate all ministries and services, "since we will not be able to offer them at the same levels as in the past."
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For those of you scoring at home that totals 2283 victims of priest abuse that cost the church $1.441 BILLION!!! There are certainly more victims that have never come forward or have passed away or are locked up in prison...maybe even in mental hospitals.

Which of Dante's levels of Hell do you think is reserved for these so called "men of God"?

Do you think it could be the inner Ring of the 7th Circle (Violence):

Inner ring: Here the violent against God (blasphemers) and the violent against nature (sodomites and, as explained in the sixth circle, usurers) all reside in a desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky. The blasphemers lie on the sand, the usurers sit, and the sodomites wander about in groups.

Or perhaps it is as it should be, the very center of Hell itself:

In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin (personal treachery against God), is Satan (Lucifer). Satan is described as a giant, terrifying beast with three faces, one red, one black, and one a pale yellow:

I personally like the "personal treachery against God" part of the last one. Maybe shared time between several levels might be an answer. Don't want them to get too comfortable in any one pain.

When did becoming a priest turn into a breeding ground for child abusers? What other industry (oh yes, religion is an industry) fosters so many abusers under the guise of some righteous cause? None that I can think of.

Then the church for years and years was able to sweep this "problem" under the rug. Several priests were just simply relocated...and of course, they started their abuse all over again. Some were sent to counseling (presumably by other priests). This is a clear case of the fox guarding the hen house. And then they were sent to new parishes where of course, they started their abuse all over again.

Now even the pope is calling for the police to be contacted when there is evidence of claimed sexual abuse. Shouldn't the police have been involved all along? What other industry is allowed to circumvent the legal system and solve their criminal sexual child abuse problems in house? The Mafia maybe, but not any legitimate organization.

These priests should be prosecuted under the law and sentenced to what ever time is legally mandated...preferrably with a cellmate named Bubba or Big Tank. This would certainly get them praying fervently again.

These were criminal activities and should have always been handled that way. For any other approach to be allowed was a signal to every child molester to become a priest and enter the endless buffet of children. In case you think that sounds too crude, do you really believe all these priests developed this affinity for children after becoming priests? And if so why does that happen?

I say the church should lighten up on the celibacy thing. By letting priests get married, date and have real sex, they could have saved themselves $1 billion...and given it to a good cause like earthquake victims in Haiti, Chile, and Turkey.

May whatever God you pray to be with you...

Amen

**This should conclude my religious themed posts for a while, unless of course something comes along that just can't be ignored.