tired fools

i have never regretted spending money on art. i have rarely bought art. today i went to the affordable arts fair in battersea park. it was enjoyable. i saw two pieces that i really liked and was in two minds whether to dip my hands in my pocket. but i’ve never regretted . . .

i bought one, still in its wrapping next to me. it was by vanessa smith (mine, not shown, is of the same ilk, but better, than these).

but i almost regret not buying the above, by emil amzamora. it may not be a coincidence that, amidst all the colour and pretension, both the pieces i liked displayed suicidal elements.

update
i just noticed that this figure looks like me. obviously, i suppose.

2nd update in 3 minutes
fuck. i wish i’d bought it. might go back. ha etc.

suicide is up in the US as a result of foreclosures.

In July, on the day the house was to be auctioned, she faxed the note to the mortgage company. Then the 52-year-old walked outside, shot her three beloved cats and then herself with her husband’s rifle.

Notes left on the table revealed months of planning. She’d picked out her funeral home, laid out the insurance policy and left a note saying, “pay off the house with the insurance money.”

what to do when you do lose your home.

Soon she found herself with nowhere to live but her 4x4.

Today saw the 17th young person in the last year to commit suicide in the small town of Bridgend, Mid Wales. The media has been awash with stories of internet pacts and the like, for which there is little or no evidence. The number of suicides of people aged 15-24 in the UK is 6.7 per 100,000. Bridgend is a town of 40,000 souls. Digging in Nationmaster shows that the teenage population should be in the region of 6%, say 2,500. This gives a suicide rate of 680 per 100,000. Pretty high.

In New Zealand, amongst other countries, the reporting of suicides in newspaper headlines is banned, and restricted within the body of the story. There were moves recently to stop this. However, the reasons for the ban are apparent in Bridgend. Teenagers are the most likely suicides, girls more so, in winter even more so. Most do not act without some other stimulus, currently being provided in inch high headlines and on every TV channel.

update
it’s been pointed out that the population here should have been 160,000, Bridgend Country, not the town, making the current suicide rate 170 per 100,000.

your doctor tells you that this is the drug for you, one of the most popular antidepressants out there. Ah, but 6% of users report suicidal thoughts when taking it, and many of those have ended their lives. But fret not, for an extra $500 (not claimable on health insurance) he can test to see whether you have one of two genetic markers that might suggest you belong to this minority. See, you feel better already.

maker suicide apparatus:

Detroit, MI (AHN) - Police found a body of a 41-year-old man in a wooded area next to a guillotine he built and used to kill himself. The man was from Melvindale, Michigan and was discovered by workers from a nearby shopping center.

According to Dale Covert, Allen Park Deputy Police Chief, the man built a six-foot tall guillotine that included a swinging arm. Covert said receipts found at the man’s home show he built the device himself.

“I can’t even tell you how long it must have taken him to construct,” he said. “This man obviously was very determined to end his life.”

in the wake of virginia tech, the new york times published a graphic of daily deaths by gunfire. i think it’s well done. deaths are split into four groups, by age, and within that into other discreet groups, like black men murdered, or women suicides. i found some of it surprising. i think i might have said that young black males would be the largest group to die by gunfire, but no it’s over 40 white male suicides by a long way.

thanks rob

thanks Rob for this story. coral in the Great Barrier Reef is/are committing suicide.

Instead of being killed by bacterial invaders as previously thought, Ms Ainsworth’s studies reveal that the cells within the coral activate programmed cell death, or PCD - a cellular process which acts like a self-destruct mechanism.

james lovelock would love this story.(incidentally the “Gaia theory” term was coined not by him but by William Golding). interesting that this article continues to refer to the “disease”. i guess using the word properly, rather than its generally understood sense.

of course it’s global warming that is given the blame.

“I think the smoking gun is climate change. We have had a series of hot summers recently in which corals in the shallows become bleached and literally ‘worn out’. This leads to mechanisms that allow the coral to retract tissues that are no longer functioning due to this stress,” says Professor Hoegh-Guldberg. “This is somewhat similar to Eucalyptus trees dropping branches when they run short of water.”

“We need to pinpoint what is happening in the cellular process [of this disease], what is switching it on and switching it off. We need to look at the genes and pathways involved,” Ms Ainsworth said.

“Are the corals in control of their own programmed cells death - or is it simply out of control?”

The findings of this and other research into coral diseases may help to develop better warning systems to help minimise their impact on our reefs.

look forward to the genetic modification of coral in order that we may continue to admire the barrier reef, rather like the conservation work on an old building.

in the story of the modified mosquitos i liked the fact that the eyes were going to be changed to green or red. perhaps we can make coral orange?

If you are going to top yourself, and you plan on jumping, the advice is to make sure you jump from at least 10 stories high. but it won’t always work out. This guy survived a 16 storey drop.

Just a month after his 16-story fall and merciful landing onto a hotel overhang, Joshua Hanson is off crutches from a broken leg, mostly healed from his other injuries and thankful he has no memory of the plunge.

“I feel really lucky I don’t remember it because I probably would have some pretty serious nightmares,” said the 29-year-old bar owner from Blair, Wisconsin, who crashed out a hotel window January 20 after a night drinking with his friends.

Of course, this isn’t so extraordinary. Look at these guys:

Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant who in 1972 fell 33,000 feet in the tail of an exploded DC-9 jetliner; she landed in snow and lived.

Joe Hermann of the Royal Australian Air Force, blown out of his bomber in 1944 without a parachute. He found himself falling through the night sky amid airplane debris and wildly grabbed a piece of it. It turned out to be not debris at all, but rather a fellow flyer in the process of pulling his ripcord. Joe hung on and, as a courtesy, hit the ground first, breaking the fall of his savior and a mere two ribs of his own.

Nick Alkemade, an RAF tailgunner who jumped from his flaming turret without a parachute and fell 18,000 feet. When he came to and saw stars overhead, he lit a cigarette. He would later describe the fall as “a pleasant experience.”

These examples taken from David Carkeet’s survival tips for free fall. And just what kind of impact should you expect on such a fall?

Just how fast are you going? Imagine standing atop a train going 120 mph, and the train goes through a tunnel but you do not. You hit the wall above the opening at 120 mph. That’s how fast you will be going at the end of your fall. Yes, it’s discouraging, but proper planning requires that you know the facts. You’re used to seeing things fall more slowly. You’re used to a jump from a swing or a jungle gym, or a fall from a three-story building on TV action news. Those folks are not going 120 mph. They will not bounce. You will bounce. Your body will be found some distance away from the dent you make in the soil (or crack in the concrete). Make no mistake: you will be motoring.

a recent study has shown some genetic basis for suicide attempts.

“We’re hoping our findings will eventually lead to tests that can identify those at high risk for attempting suicide,” says Virginia Willour, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. An estimated 4.6 percent of Americans ages 15 to 54 have tried to take their lives, according to Willour.

these tests might be interesting. imagine a 10 year old kid turning up a positive. what treatment would you give? remember, this is just attempts at suicide. regular readers will know by now that less than 1 in a 1000 attempts actually succeed, a pretty low proportion given that the objective is actually pretty easily achieved.

This is believed to be the oldest known suicide note, written by an egyptian 4000 years ago.

Death is before me today
As the odour of myrrh,
As when one sitteth under the sail on a windy day.

Death is before me today
As the odour of lotus flowers,
As when one sitteth on the shore of drunkenness.

Death is before me today,
As a man longs to see his house
When he has spent years in captivity.

and even better

To whom do I speak today?
He that hath a contended countenance is bad,
Good is disregarded in every place.

To whom do I speak today?
Brothers are evil,
A man is treated as an enemy in spite of a righteous disposition.

To whom do I speak today?
There are none that are righteous,
The earth is given over to the workers of iniquity.

To whom do I speak today?
The sin that smiteth the land,
It hath no end.

Interestingly the first recorded anti-suicide initiative was undertaken by Plutarch in the first century after a spate of suicides amongst young women. He advocated the public display of the dead naked bodies.