Grants for suicide prevention

http://www.newswise.com/articles/suicide-prevention-funds-awarded-to-states-and-tribes#.Tl_MQ3YL92A.facebook

This article talks about grants provided to states and tribes for youth suicide prevention. It's a good thing and I am not at all surprised that quite a lot of the funds go to Native American Tribes. Suicide is a disproportionally larger problem there than in the general population.

Accident in Jamieson Canyon

http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/monday-s-traffic-death-on-jamieson-canyon-ruled-suicide/article_0d50da84-d41e-11e0-ad69-001cc4c002e0.html

The accident referred to happened on a road I use on occasion. It's two lanes, no center divider and there have been far too many accidents. Originally, this was considered to have been caused by a blown tire on the big rig, then it was determined that the car veered over the center line. Now it's considered a suicide. How sad, especially since it involved so many other people (and I don't mean the ones inconvenienced by the traffic mess). In particular, the driver of the big rig who must be feeling horrible, it wasn't his fault. And how about all those other people whose cars were hit? Suicide is always terribly painful for the ones left behind and in this case the people affected and hurt weren't even related or known the the person who took his life.

An Increase in Suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/us/26bcjames.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share

In case the title doesn't work as a link, the above link should and my title says it all. It may be the economy which means the money for constructing the barrier is needed more than ever.

Mean people suck revisited

A couple of weeks ago, 3 people who had stepped over a barrier at one of the waterfalls in Yosemite fell to their deaths. It's been in the media quite a bit, obviously.
Shortly afterward, my husband mentioned hearing it discussed on call-in radio shows. He listens to quite a lot of those on the way to and from work (long commute) and noticed that there were a lot of ugly comments of the kind left in the San Francisco Chronicle when the suicide barrier was being discussed.
What he found very interesting was the person calling in who said he had mentioned this story on his blog and, because commenters have to leave their full name, found that the comments were nowhere near as nasty as those in other places.
I think it's the same old anonymity bringing out the worst in people.
Here's the link to the article I posted back then:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1821646,00.html
Still applies, obviously.

Suicide on the increase among middle-aged women

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43714272/ns/today-today_health/

An interesting article that came to me via the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. It talks about the increase in the rate of suicides and suicide attempts among women over 50. There's no consensus on what exactly is causing this, but there several possibilities are mentioned.
The one I find quite interesting (in a disturbing way) is the one mentioned towards the end saying that women of that age become more aware of their mortality and think it's too late for happiness. I find that very sad.

Sad, but true

Not trying for a record number of posts today, but a friend posted a link to this on FB:

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/humor/2011/04/the-elusive-golden-gate-bridges-suicide-barrier/

Hands across the bridge

This happened yesterday. No, I wasn't there for a variety of reasons. Wish I could have been.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugJWxOpd5NA