Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Friday, July 26, 2019
Smartphones, tablets causing mental health issues in kids as young as two
Smartphones, tablets causing mental health issues in kids as young as two
13 Nov, 2018 12:00pm
4 minutes to read
Children as young as two are developing mental health problems because of smartphones and tablets, scientists warn.
Just an hour a day staring at a screen can be enough to make children more likely to be anxious or depressed.
This could be making them less curious, less able to finish tasks, less
emotionally stable and lowering their self-control, the DailyMail reports.
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Although teenagers are most at risk from the damaging devices, children
under the age of 10 and toddlers' still-developing brains are also
being affected.
Advertisement
But research shows 'zombie' children spend nearly five hours every day gawping at electronic devices.
Researchers from San Diego State University and the University of
Georgia say time spent on smartphones is a serious but avoidable cause
of mental health issues.
"Half of mental health
problems develop by adolescence," professors Jean Twenge and Keith
Campbell said. "There is a need to identify factors linked to mental
health issues that are [able to be changed] in this population, as most
are difficult or impossible to influence. How children and adolescents
spend their leisure time is [easier] to change."
Parents and teachers must cut the amount of time children spend online
or watching television while they're studying, socialising, eating or
even playing sport.
Professor Twenge said her study,
one of the biggest of its kind, backs the American Academy of
Pediatrics' established screen time limit – one hour per day for
children aged two to five.
It also suggests a similar limit – perhaps two hours – should be applied to school-aged children and adolescents, she added.
Military vetran walks across America to bring awareness to vetran suicide
Military veteran walks across America to bring awareness to veteran suicide
Military veteran Jimmy Novak
is walking 22 miles a day for 22 weeks to bring awareness to the 22
estimated veterans who commit suicide every day.
Posted: Jul 16, 2019 10:49 PM
Updated: Jul 17, 2019 10:10 AM
Speech to Text for Military veteran walks across America to bring awareness to veteran suicide
Below is the closed-captioning text associated with this video. Since this uses automated speech to text spelling and grammar may not be accurate.
miles... every day....for in 22 weeks... a veteran who has
served on a peacekeeping mission to kosovo and two combat tours to iraq
is spreading awareness of veteran suicide... by walking through
america. one of his stops here in north mississippi. wtva's taylor smith
joins us live in baldwyn where she has the latest on this mans
journey... emily we all know the movie forrest gump... and the quote "i
just felt like running" comes to mind in this story... in this case,
jimmy novak just feels like walking... and walking and walking... i am
at the american legion post 130 in baldwyn now where jimmy decided to
take a little break from all his walking to tell me his story... sot: "i
was inspired by a tribe of australia tradition of taking a walk as a
coming of age, and i was inspired by the holy men in the bible going out
into the wilderness to seek god and reflect and meditate..." jimmy
novak was inspired to make a difference to veterans all over america as
he was heading into retirement unsure of what he his next step was... so
he did what every one does... well maybe not everyone... sot: "i
pitched the idea to my wife that i wanted to take a little walk...and
she thought it was a great idea so here i am walking 3,000 miles in
support of veterans with ptsd and veteran suicide... after serving for
21 years, novak has had personal experience holding in these
struggles... he did not want others to do the same thing... sot: "i am
an anxious depressive, and i have had a couple of times where i have
struggled with suicidal thoughts myself, and i handled it all wrong i
kept in and went to work tried to act normal because i was afraid of
what people would think of me..." and now novak is walking 22 miles
every day for 22 weeks to honor the 22 estimated veterans that commit
suicide every day... his journey started on march 22 and has not always
been easiest. sot: "there are days where i just get wet, and then there
are some days where i just get cold." but he pushes through sot: "what
do you do while your walking? i think a lot and i play the alphabet
game... i am still stuck on x from the last time i played... i also just
listen to music and try to enjoy the different states i'm in." every
state and every town welcoming him with open arms, until he reaches his
final destination on august 22nd where he will end his jounrey in the
happiest place on earth... sot: "i planned it because it's my birthday,
and i wanted to be in disneyland on my birthday." and at the end of his
little walk... he hopes to have got this message across to his fellow
veterans... sot: " in the end, getting help is just walking distance;
it's just putting one foot in front of the other one step at a time."
novak is two-thirds of the way done with his journey... he will continue
through the south walking on average of way done with his journey... he
will continue through the south walking on average of about 3 miles an
hour... all of the funds he has leftover from his journey will be
donated to support the american foundation for suicide. live in baldwyn
taylor smith wtva nine news still ahead on wtva nine news at ten,
Monday, July 22, 2019
Question Everything Episode 6 | On todays episode we discussed Israel an...
My friend Steinman is speaking on this video.
Question Everything Episode 6 | On todays episode we discussed Israel an...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7D7sug2DY&t=216s
Question Everything Episode 6 | On todays episode we discussed Israel an...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7D7sug2DY&t=216s
Sunday, July 21, 2019
4 steps to salvation
GOD'S FOUR STEPS TO SALVATION
Step 1 to this Discovery is recognizing GOD'S
DESIGN ABUNDANT LIFE
God loves you and desires that you experience Joy, Peace, and the Abundant
life. This life is in God's only begotten Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord!
The Bible Says....
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believth in him should not perish, But have Everlasting Life.
John 11:25
Jesus Said unto her, I am the ressurection, and the life: He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
John 10:10
.....I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
What keeps most people from experiencing the Joy, Peace, and the Abundant Life that God has planned for them?
Step 2 is Recognizing MAN'S PROBLEM - SEPERATION FROM GOD!
God Created man in HIS own image and made him a free mortal agent. God Didn't want Robots worshiping him but gave them Freedom of Choice. Man made the choice to disobey God. Man's rebellion against God is called Sin. Man then is a Sinner by Will and Freedom of Choice. Man willfully choose to disobey God and go his own Selfish ways! Man still makes this Choice today. This results in SEPERATION FROM GOD, in HELL FOREVER!
For all have Sinned and Come short of the Glory of God.
Romans 6:23
For the wages of Sin is Death; But the gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Man through the Years has tried to Bridge this Gap for Many Years Withou Sucess...
Step 3 is Reconizing GOD'S SOULUTION - THE CROSS!
Our Lord JESUS CHRIST is the ONLY SOLUTION to this problem of seperation from God. When our Lord Jesus Christ Died on the Cross, He paid the Penalty for all our Sins and Bridged the Gap from GOD to man.
But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet Sinners, Christ Died for us.
John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: No Man cometh unto the father, but by me.
Ephesians 2:8,9
For by Grace are ye saved through faith; and it is not of yourselves: it is a gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
God has provided in Jesus Christ the ONLY way of salvation... Man must make the choice to recieve God's Solution.
Step 4 is MAN'S RESPONSE -A RECIEVE CHRIST AS PERSONAL SAVIOR
We all must trust in THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! and Recieve him into Our hearts by inviting him into our Hearts Personaly. The Bible Says...
Revelation 3:20
Behold I stand at the door and knock: If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in and Sup with him, and he with me.
John 1:12
But as many as recieved him, to them gave he power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
Romans 10:13
For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Is there any good reason why you cannot recieve Jesus Christ as your Own personal Lord and Savior?
Are you here..............................Or Here
2. Be willing to turn from Sin (Repent)
3. Believe that Jesus Christ Died for you (On the Cross)
4. Through Prayer, Recieve his as Personal Lord and Savior
A Suggested Prayer of Commitment
Dear Father God,
I know that I am a Sinner and need your Forgivness.
I believe that your Son Jesus Christ Died in my Place, Paying the Penalty for all my Sins.
I am willing to turn away from Sin.
I now invite Jesus Christ to come into my Heart and Life as my own Personal Savior.
I am willing by your Help to Follow and Obey Jesus Christ as the Lord of My Life!
Amen
My Personal Decision:
On the ____ Day of _____________, 19___, I __________________________ Recieved Jesus Christ as my Personal Savior.
Whats Next?
1. Pray Daily
2.Read The Bible Daily! (Start off with John)
3. Go to a Good Bible Preaching Church where God's Word is Preached!
(We Recommend New Joy Community Church of Bellflower)
4. Tell others about the Decision you Made!
5. Tell others about the Good News that Jesus Christ can save them!
May God Richly Bless You!
Have a Wonderful Weekend
Yesterday, I took some fresh flowers to Deborah's grave. I also had a large container of water that I retrieved from the fountain, and in lifting it up, I strained my muscles in the back of my legs. The container was an aluminum metal small garbage can and I underestimated the weight of it once the water went inside. It is minuscule and only you my readers know about it since nobody at home asks. Many days I feel very alone. I have a student from Japan today who I am taking to a Japanese church. Today will be the first time she will ever hold a bible. Her friend from school will join us. I hope their impression will be amazing and take home the purpose of life with them once they depart back home. I have also started prepping for the Hospice society's speach that I will be working on to encourage those who have suffered the loss of a loved one to suicide. I have a full 45 minutes which is incredibly long. I just hope that my speech will be full of substance. As we look around ourselves, please be kind. There is a huge need for us to be great listeners. I haven't arrived yet.. I am too anxious about the future of my 3 living daughters. I am fearful of how they will make huge mistakes in their lives. One is living common-law, and one does not want to get married. So many issues. The Hungarian proverbs says ... small children, small problems, big children, big problems/issues. So I hold this to be true. It is easy to make a child, but to raise one is a different thing all together. To loose one after raising them, is almost unbearable. God help you my readers in keeping the peace, and purposes of your lives ever before you. Have a wonderful weekend.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Photo of Deborah
Deborah's good friend seen here dressed as a bumble bee on a costume occasion has secured a very good job in a local hospital in the mental health field. She was inspired to change careers after Deborah's suicide in 2014. I can't believe it is soon coming up to 5 years since her passing.
 |
| Deborah (police costume) and Jayme |
Let e tell you about burnout. I was a fast-food worker
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I was a fast-food worker. Let me tell you about burnout.
As technology ratchets up the stress, low-wage jobs have become some of the hardest in America.
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If you had to make a rat depressed, how do you think you’d go about it?
(Okay, you can’t technically make a rat “depressed” — a
scientist would ask how to “create a model of depression” in rats.
Actually being depressed is exclusive to humans. But the drugs used to
treat depression in humans are developed and tested using rodents.)
So to test your new antidepressant, you need an efficient
method of making a lot of rats exhibit anhedonia — that is, making them
lose interest in things they used to enjoy, like sugar.
How do you think you’d do that?
It turns out you don’t need to traumatize them. The most
reliable protocol is “chronic mild stress.” There are many methods of
making the lives of experimental animals mildly but chronically
miserable — a cage floor that administers random electric shocks; a deep
swimming pool with no way to rest or climb out; a stronger “intruder”
introduced into the same cage. One neuroscientist actually nicknamed his
apparatus the Pit of Despair.
But they’re all variations on the same theme: remove all
predictability and control from the animal’s life. Then take notes as
they gradually lose interest in being alive.
The media mostly discusses job stress in
the context of white-collar, educated professionals. We don’t put
nearly as much time and energy into exploring the stress of unskilled,
low-wage service work — even though the jobs most Americans actually
work could be mistaken for Pits of Despair.
Perhaps it’s because as technology progresses, it tends
to make life easier for the top of the labor market — those skilled,
educated workers with decent salaries and benefits. Often overlooked is
how those same technological advances have made it possible to control
and monitor unskilled worker productivity down to the second. These
technologies are also getting more powerful, and that makes a lot of
people’s lives inescapably, chronically stressful.
It can be hard to understand the stress of having someone
constantly looking over your shoulder if you haven’t recently — or have
never — had to work a job like this. By definition, that’s most everybody with power in this country.
Even former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has often played up the summer he spent “flipping burgers” at McDonald’s as a teenager, seems not to realize that it’s much more difficult to work fast food in 2019 than it was in 1986.
I hadn’t had a service job in a while either. But I was
curious, especially after driving for Uber for a couple of months for an
investigative piece fact-checking the claim that full-time drivers could expect to make $90,000 a year.
When my newspaper closed a few months later, I decided to try working
three jobs that serve as good examples of how technology will be used at
work in the future — in an Amazon warehouse, at a call center, and at a
McDonald’s — with the vague idea of writing a book about what had
changed. (I used my real name and job history when applying, and was
hired nonetheless.)
Even having done a lot of research, I was shocked by how
much more stressful low-wage work had become in the decade I’ve been
working as a journalist.
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Take fast food, a sector that made up a huge chunk of the
post-recession jobs recovery. It’s far from the leisurely time implied
by “flipping burgers.” One of my coworkers put it best: “Fast food is
intense! And it’s stressful! You’re always feeling rushed, you’re on a
time crunch for literally eight hours straight, you’re never allowed to
have one moment just to chill.”
The factors a scientist would remove from a rat’s life to
make it depressed — predictability and control — are the exact things
that have been removed from workers’ lives in the name of corporate
flexibility and increased productivity. There’s little more relief for
many low-wage workers than for those lab rats desperately trying to keep
their heads above water.
For one thing, everything is
timed and monitored digitally, second by second. If you’re not keeping
up, the system will notify a manager, and you will hear about it.
When I used to do service work, we still mostly used
paper time cards; you could make your case to the manager if you were
late, or maybe stay a few minutes beyond your shift to make up for it.
At many modern service jobs, the digital time-clock system will
automatically penalize you for clocking in a minute after the start of
your shift or after a break. After getting yelled at for this twice
early in the month I spent working at a McDonald’s in downtown San
Francisco, I started imitating my coworkers and aiming to arrive 20
minutes before my shift just in case the train was running weird that
day. I came to resent how much time this ate up, particularly when
comparing it to the trivial difference to McDonald’s of having me clock
in at 7:31 rather than 7:30. I’ve reached out to McDonald’s for comment,
and will update this story when I receive a response.
Computers and algorithms also have a much heavier hand in
what a worker’s schedule looks like. The scheduling systems used to
staff most major retail and fast food chains have gotten extremely good
at using past sales data to extrapolate how much business to expect
every hour of the coming week. Stores are then staffed around the
predicted busy and slow times, which means workers’ schedules are often
completely different week to week.
The more recent the data, the more accurate the
prediction, which is why so many fast-food and retail workers don’t get
their schedule until a day or two before it starts. It leaves workers in
these industries unable to plan their lives (or their budgets) more
than a few days in advance.
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Algorithmic scheduling also results in bizarre things
like the “clopen” — back-to-back shifts closing late and opening early
the next morning with only a few hours to sleep in between — and unpaid
quasi-shifts where workers are expected to be on call in case it’s
busier than predicted or sent home early if it’s slower.
Technology has also made understaffing a science. At my
McDonald’s, we always seemed to be staffed at a level that maximized
misery for workers and customers, as exemplified by the
constant line and yells of “Open up another register!” Not only did this
permanently strand us in the weeds, it meant that customers were often
in a bad mood by the time they got to us.
Understaffing is a widespread tactic to cut down on labor costs. For what it looks like in fast food, check out the dozens of Occupational Safety and Health Administration complaints
filed by McDonald’s workers in 2015 about deliberate understaffing at
stores in several cities. The workers claim the corporate-supplied
scheduling system understaffs stores, then pressures the skeleton crew
to work faster to make up for it, which leads to hazardous conditions
and injuries like these:
“My
managers kept pushing me to work faster, and while trying to meet their
demands, I slipped on a wet floor, catching my arm on a hot grill,” one
worker, Brittney Berry, said in a statement when the complaints were
filed. “The managers told me to put mustard on it.”
Responding to the OSHA filings, the company wrote that
“McDonald’s and its independent franchisees are committed to providing
safe working conditions for employees in the 14,000 McDonald’s Brand
U.S. restaurants. We will review these allegations.”
The statement also made a reference to Fight for $15, the
Service Employees International Union-funded campaign that had been
involved in coordinating and publicizing the complaints: “It is
important to note that these complaints are part of a larger strategy
orchestrated by activists targeting our brand and designed to generate
media coverage.” (The cases have not been resolved.)
According to a 2015 survey of thousands of US fast-food employees by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, 79 percent of industry workers had been burned on the job in the previous year — most more than once.
This would now include me. I worked on the now-notorious Szechuan Sauce Day, which was miserable for McDonald’s workers across the country.
We were more slammed than I’d ever seen, and as I hurriedly checked the
coffee levels between orders, one pot’s handle broke, slicing open my
finger and dumping scalding coffee all over my pants.
The thing I found the most stressful at
my three jobs was the small percentage of customers who will, for
whatever reason, just scream stuff you wouldn’t believe at you. This was
mostly at the call center; at McDonald’s, customers tended to be in a
better mood. But in person, screamers can also do things like splatter
you with honey mustard, which is a thing that actually happened in my
third week on the job.
The woman I now refer to as Mustard Lady had already been
screaming at me for a few minutes, but I was so surprised when she
nailed me in the chest with a container of honey mustard dipping sauce
that I instinctively screamed back, “Hey, fuck you, lady! What the
fuck?” before removing myself from the situation.
I got written up for that.
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If you haven’t had to do it for a while, it may seem like
having to be completely submissive to customers shouldn’t be that big
of a deal. But believe me, there’s a cost associated with continually
swallowing your pride and apologizing to unreasonable jerks. “The
customer is always right” policies may be good for business, but they’re bad for humans, physically and mentally.
When Paul Ryan worked at McDonald’s in the ’80s, he might have been representative of a largely teenage sea of fast-food workers, a perception that persists today. But last time the National Employment Law Project checked, the average age of fast-food workers was 29,
and more than a quarter of workers were supporting a child. These jobs
are not just a source of teenage pocket money; they’re something adults
are trying to survive on.
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The average pay for someone with the job I had is around $8 an hour
— about half of what’s needed to keep a family with two working parents
and two kids afloat. (That is, each parent would need to work two fast-food jobs.)
American culture is full of lingering afterimages of
Midwestern guys making cars and mining coal, but, to quote an excellent
headline from the Chicago Tribune, The Entire Coal Industry Employs Fewer People Than Arby’s. This is the modern working class — fast food, retail, warehousing, delivery, call centers. Service workers.
Everybody
I talked to at my McDonald’s — along with the many other fast-food
workers I interviewed — had had food items thrown at them. I got the
impression that I was the weird one for Mustard Lady being my first.
They’d been hit by nearly everything in the store: wrapped burgers,
unwrapped burgers, burger patties, McNuggets, smoothies, sodas, napkins,
straws, sauces, fries, apple pies, ice cream cones, even a full cup of
hot coffee.
Why do so many people choose to put up with this? Because some choices aren’t really choices.
In my experience, most people are
willing to make immense sacrifices to keep their children safe and
happy. In a country with a moth-eaten social safety net, health care
tied to employment, and few job quality differences between working at
McDonald’s, Burger King, or Walmart, corporations have long since
figured out that workers will put up with nearly anything if it means
keeping their jobs. This fulcrum is being used to leverage more and more
out of workers — even, ironically, the ability to spend time with their
families. Many of my coworkers were in the O’Henry-like position of
providing for families they barely got to see because of their work
schedule.
Free market capitalism doesn’t assign a negative value to
“how much stress workers are under.” It just assumes that unhappy
workers will leave their job for a better one, and things will find a
natural balance. But when the technologies that make life miserable
spread everywhere at the speed of globalization, finding
something better isn’t really an option anymore. And a system that runs
by marinating a third or more of the workforce in chronic stress isn’t
sustainable.
Chronic stress will destroy your body like doing burnouts will destroy a rental car that someone else is paying for. It’s a huge factor behind the epidemics of heart disease, obesity, autoimmune disorders, depression, anxiety, and drug misuse that afflict developed countries — the “diseases of civilization.”
And right now, corporations kind of are treating
the low-wage workforce like a rental car someone else is paying for.
Because while American jobs have gotten safer in terms of limbs caught
in machinery, individual companies are extremely unlikely to be held
accountable for workers’ long-term stress-related health problems.
They’re doing burnouts with the bodies and minds of millions of American
workers, because either workers or taxpayers will pick up the bill.
Why? Because “hard work” as an undisputed moral good is a
deep part of the American psyche. The idea of penalizing a company for
making its employees work too hard can seem ridiculous if the work
environment is safe. Plus, “flipping burgers” has been shorthand for an
easy job for decades, so it can be hard to associate that with the
constant monitoring, understaffing, and sub-living wage of modern
service work. Chronically stressful work is different from hard work. And it’s dangerous.
Should people be asked to sacrifice their physical and
mental health — and their experience of life as something other than an
exhausting, hopeless slog — for the survival of their families? Would a
moral society ask them to make this choice?
A lot of people blithely advise the poor to work their
way toward dignity and self-respect. I’d wager that none of them has
been written up for having a natural reaction to being splattered with
mustard, or had their schedule cut to 15 hours a week because they took a
sick day, or been bawled out for being one minute late. Their mental
image of work comes from the pre-internet era, and we need to stop
taking them seriously and start listening to the people on the brutal
front lines of the modern low-wage workforce. They’re very easy to find.
At McDonald’s, I asked the manager who wrote me up for
losing my temper at Mustard Lady if anyone had ever thrown food at her,
and, if so, how she’d kept it together. Was there ... a trick to it?
My manager looked at me as if I were oblivious, and responded that of course people had thrown food at her. “You have a family to support. You think about your family, and you walk away.”
Emily Guendelsberger is the author of On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane.
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Graphic suicide scene edited out of '13 Reasons Why' finale
Netflix removed a graphic suicide scene from the Season 1 finale of its show “13 Reasons Why.” (Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)Graphic suicide scene edited out of ‘13 Reasons Why’ finale
Suicide prevention groups support the decision
Show creator Brian Yorkey says in a statement on Twitter the intent in portraying the suicide in such graphic detail was to “make sure no one would ever wish to emulate it.” But the producers have heard concerns from mental health experts and decided, along with the streaming service, to re-edit it.
Yorkey says the edit “will help the show do the most good for the most people while mitigating any risk for especially vulnerable young viewers.”
WATCH: How to talk to your kids about Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why
Suicide prevention groups support the decision.
The series drew praise and criticism when it debuted in 2017. The show included warnings about its graphic nature and Netflix established a website of crisis helplines.
READ MORE: Kids Help Phone to launch 24/7 online chat for B.C. youth
If you or anyone you know needs support for depression or suicide-related mental health issues, call the Canadian Assistance in Suicide Prevention 24/7 hotline at 1-888-353-2273.
The Associated Press
Burned out? You're not alone.
Five ways to combat burnout
1:33
Janna Koretz saw a
number of her classmates from Cornell University go on to “big jobs”
after they graduated, only to burn out quickly from the intensity of the
work. So Koretz, a clinical psychologist, decided to open a practice in
Boston that addressed their needs. Nearly six years later, her
business, Azimuth Psychological, focuses exclusively on people in
high-pressure careers, and she can’t hire therapists fast enough. “It’s
just sort of blown up,” she said.
As our jobs become
all-consuming, with employees answering e-mails around the clock and
companies trying to squeeze higher profits out of fewer people, more
attention is being paid to the effect all of this is having on workers’
psyches.
In May, the World Health Organization announced that it is
developing guidelines on mental well-being in the workplace and
unveiled an expanded definition of “burnout,”
based on new research in its International Classification of Diseases.
Burnout is a syndrome resulting from “chronic workplace stress that has
not been successfully managed,” according to WHO’s description,
characterized by feelings of exhaustion, reduced effectiveness, and
negative or disconnected feelings toward one’s job.
I'm going to be a guest speaker
I have recently been asked to share about my process of grief since Deborah passed almost 5 years ago. A local hospice who holds several bereavement programs has asked me to be the guest speaker to parents who have lost loved ones to suicide. There are only 7 attendees at the moment, but their group hopes to be of support for a longer duration. My 26 year old daughter has mentioned that the worst thing I can tell them is that things will get better in time. The fact is that is doesn't get better, the pain may change from day to day. Seeing, Deborah's friends in long term relationships, completing their schooling, and becoming adults is the sweetest but hardest thing for me to see. Her passing 5 years ago this August has completely floored us, but I feel that I am not as afraid to share, and speak openly about mental health and suicide. No matter what someones tragedy may be, a life and death illness, a tragic accident, homicide, or substance addiction the pain is real and likely born only with the help of a Higher Power. Just seeing my previous post with the murdered girl reminds us of how suddenly our world may change at the blink of an eye. Our real and only consolation is that we will see our loved ones again, and never ever be seperated from them. If you would like to share something that I should talk about in the group, please comment. It would be very helpful to me.
Monday, July 15, 2019
A man killed his girlfriend and then shared photos of her dead body on a gaming platform, police say
Bianca
Devins, 17, was found dead Sunday with extensive injuries to her neck.
Police said the suspect in her death shared photos of her body on the
gaming chat app Discord.
(CNN)A
recent high school graduate -- who cultivated an online following,
particularly among gamers, by posting selfies -- was killed over the
weekend
The suspect then shared graphic photos of her dead body online, the Utica Police Department said.
Bianca Devins grew her following across several apps where she shared photos and details about her life.
The calls
Around
7:20 a.m. Sunday, police responded to several 911 calls in Utica, New
York, about a suicidal man who claimed to have killed a woman, the
department said.
When officers arrived, the man began to stab his neck with a knife, police said.
The
suspect then laid down on a tarp on the ground. Police said the officer
saw brown hair protruding from underneath the tarp, and the suspect
confirmed it belonged to the woman he said he harmed.
Police identified the victim as Devins. She had extensive injuries to her neck, they said.
The pair met two months ago
Police said the pair met on Instagram about two months ago and their relationship grew into a close one.
The
couple was driving back from a concert in New York City sometime after
10 p.m. Saturday. Police said an argument between the two precipitated
her death.
"it is believed that he
took and distributed photographs of the killing on the Discord
platform," police said. Discord is a text and video chat app for gamers.
Members of Discord who viewed the images and posts contacted the Utica Police Department.
"We
are shocked and deeply saddened by this terrible situation. We are
working closely with law enforcement to provide any assistance we can.
In the meantime, our hearts go out to Bianca's family and loved ones," a
Discord spokesperson told CNN.
The
suspect, identified by police as 21-year-old Brandon Clark, underwent
emergency surgery and is expected to live, police said.
Charges will come once officials interview him, they said. CNN has not been able to determine if Clark has retained a lawyer.
Devins planned to attend college in the fall
Devins' family issued a statement through police thanking friends and family for their prayers.
"Bianca,
age 17, was a talented artist, a loving sister, daughter, and cousin,
and a wonderful young girl, taken from us all too soon. She is now
looking down on us, as she joins her cat, Belle, in heaven."
Devins had planned to attend Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica in the fall, her family said.
Devins had planned to attend Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica in the fall, her family said.
"Bianca's smile brightened our lives. She will always be remembered as our princess."
Netflix to Remove Controversial Suicide Scene From ‘13 Reasons Why'
The scene was scheduled to be removed following a controversy over whether the show increased the risk of teen suicide
Based on the book of the same name, “13 Reasons Why” is about a depressed high-school girl who takes her own life and sends a classmate a tape explaining why she did it and who she blames.
In the final episode of the first season—the story is told in flashback—the protagonist Hannah is shown slitting her wrists in the bathtub.
The scene was scheduled to be removed by Netflix on Tuesday, one of the people familiar with the matter said. The show is produced by Viacom Inc. ’s Paramount Television unit, which was on board with the decision to remove the scene, a person close to the show said. Netflix declined to comment.
“13 Reasons Why” has been praised by critics, but criticized by health advocates and some media watchdogs, who fear it glorifies suicide. The show, which premiered in March 2017, is set to start its third season later this year.
This year, a study funded by the National Institutes of Health suggested that “13 Reasons Why” was a factor in a rise in teen suicides. The study found that the suicide rate among people 10 to 17 went up by nearly a third in April 2017, the month after the show launched on Netflix. Some school officials issued warnings and guidance to parents about the show.
At the time of the study, a Netflix spokesman said, “It’s a critically important topic, and we have worked hard to ensure that we handle this sensitive issue responsibly.”
At the company’s 2018 annual meeting, Chief Executive Reed Hastings was asked about whether the show put teens at risk and he said, “It is controversial but nobody has to watch it.”
Inside Netflix, however, there has been growing discussion about whether the show could put teens at risk. After the first season, Netflix added a graphic-content warning and included information for a suicide prevention hotline and a website offering crisis counseling.
Altering a scene in a television show is rare, particularly when the episode in question has been available for more than two years. Certain episodes of TV shows have been pulled from the marketplace because of newly arisen sensitivities, most recently this year when the producers of “The Simpsons” removed an episode that featured the singer Michael Jackson.
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Short Explanation by Steinman-Prophecy
For those who love prophecy:
Revelation 14... Jesus physically stands on mount Zion with the 144,000, who, after about 3.5 years, have followed him back to earth after the first rapture. The first rapture is a relatively small number, a first fruits wave offering, as symbolized by the two loaves (Jews and Gentiles) or leavened bread presented to God on the Feast of Weeks / Shavuot / Pentecost. We also see that God sends an angel to preach the Gospel to all the nations and tongues, so that the end might come. What end is this? The end of the age, see Matthew 24:1-3. We next see another angel warning the people not to take the mark of the beast which is yet to come. We then see the second rapture as the harvest by the one that is seen on the cloud, the Lord Jesus. We then see the battle of Gog Magog, as the grapes of wrap are in the winepress. This is when the blood runs as high as the horse’s bridal. This is when Jesus slays the Antichrist as seen in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. The first rapture is to take place on June 11th, 2027 / 6th of Sivan, 5787. This day is 2,000 years to the day after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. The second rapture is to take place when every eye shall see him, which is not the case at the first rapture. This event takes place exactly 2,000 years after seed of the woman received the heel bruise. The seed of the serpent receives the head wound on the same day Jesus died. The first rapture is for those who love his appearing (2 Timothy 4:8) and to those that are looking for his coming (see Hebrews 9:28), it is to them will he appear the second time. These are living sinless lives, according to John 13:8-10 and 1 John 1:9.
I am not a date setter. I am a date finder. I have found many dates in Scripture that confirm that the timing of past events will be again in the future. Stephen Steinman.
Revelation 14... Jesus physically stands on mount Zion with the 144,000, who, after about 3.5 years, have followed him back to earth after the first rapture. The first rapture is a relatively small number, a first fruits wave offering, as symbolized by the two loaves (Jews and Gentiles) or leavened bread presented to God on the Feast of Weeks / Shavuot / Pentecost. We also see that God sends an angel to preach the Gospel to all the nations and tongues, so that the end might come. What end is this? The end of the age, see Matthew 24:1-3. We next see another angel warning the people not to take the mark of the beast which is yet to come. We then see the second rapture as the harvest by the one that is seen on the cloud, the Lord Jesus. We then see the battle of Gog Magog, as the grapes of wrap are in the winepress. This is when the blood runs as high as the horse’s bridal. This is when Jesus slays the Antichrist as seen in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. The first rapture is to take place on June 11th, 2027 / 6th of Sivan, 5787. This day is 2,000 years to the day after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. The second rapture is to take place when every eye shall see him, which is not the case at the first rapture. This event takes place exactly 2,000 years after seed of the woman received the heel bruise. The seed of the serpent receives the head wound on the same day Jesus died. The first rapture is for those who love his appearing (2 Timothy 4:8) and to those that are looking for his coming (see Hebrews 9:28), it is to them will he appear the second time. These are living sinless lives, according to John 13:8-10 and 1 John 1:9.
I am not a date setter. I am a date finder. I have found many dates in Scripture that confirm that the timing of past events will be again in the future. Stephen Steinman.
Friday, July 12, 2019
The AI That could Help Curb Youth Suicide
The AI That Could Help Curb Youth Suicide
In suicide-prevention literature, “gatekeepers” are community members
who may be able to offer help when someone expresses suicidal thoughts.
It’s a loose designation, but it generally includes teachers, parents,
coaches, and older co-workers—people with some form of authority and
ability to intervene when they see anything troubling.
Could
it also include Google? When users search certain key phrases related
to suicide methods, Google’s results prominently feature the number for
the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. But the system isn’t
foolproof. Google can’t edit webpages, just search results, meaning
internet users looking for information about how to kill themselves
could easily find it through linked pages or on forums, never having
used a search engine at all. At the same time, on the 2019 internet,
“run me over” is more likely to be a macabre expression of fandom than a sincere cry for help—a nuance a machine might not understand. Google’s artificial intelligence is also much less effective at detecting suicidal ideation when people search in languages other than English.
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Ultimately, search
results are a useful, but very broad, area in which to apply prevention
strategies. After all, anyone could be looking for anything for any
reason. Google’s latest foray into algorithmic suicide prevention is
more targeted, for people who are already asking for help. In May, the
tech giant granted $1.5 million
to the Trevor Project, a California-based nonprofit that offers crisis
counseling to LGBTQ teenagers via a phone line (TrevorLifeline), a
texting service (TrevorText), and an instant-messaging platform
(TrevorChat). The project’s leaders want to improve TrevorText and
TrevorChat by using machine learning to automatically assess suicide
risk. It’s all centered on the initial question that begins every
session with a Trevor counselor: “What’s going on?”
“We
want to make sure that, in a nonjudgmental way, we’ll talk suicide with
them if it’s something that’s on their mind,” says Sam Dorison, the
Trevor Project’s chief of staff. “And really let them guide the
conversation. Do [they] want to talk about coming out [or] resources by
LGBT communities within their community? We really let them guide the
conversation through what would be most helpful to them.”
Currently,
those who reach out enter a first-come, first-served queue.Trevor’s
average wait time is less than five minutes, but in some cases, every
second counts. Trevor’s leadership hopes that eventually, the AI will be
able to identify high-risk callers via their response to that first
question, and connect them with human counselors immediately.
Google’s
AI will be trained using two data points: the very beginning of youths’
conversations with counselors, and the risk assessment counselors
complete after they’ve spoken with them. The idea is that by looking at
how initial responses compare with ultimate risk, the AI can be trained
to predict suicide risk based on the earliest response.
“We
think that if we’re able to train the model based on those first few
messages and the risk assessment, that there’s a lot more things that
you don’t see that a machine could pick up on and can potentially help
us learn more about,” says John Callery, the director of technology for
the Trevor Project. Counselors will continue to make their own
assessments, Callery added, noting that Trevor’s deescalation rate is 90
percent.
Algorithms have incredible potential to
recognize unseen patterns, but what’s essential to being a good
gatekeeper is agency—stepping forward and intervening if something’s
wrong. That may or may not be a thing we want to imbue technology with,
though in some ways we already have. Public-health initiatives in Canada and the U.K. mine social-media data to predict suicide risk. Facebook uses AI to quickly flag live videos to police if algorithms detect self-harm or violence.
We
query Google on everything from hangover cures to medical advice to how
to get over a breakup. The results can be mixed, or even misleading,
but the search bar doesn’t pass judgment.
“[Students]
go home, they get online, and they can disclose any of this stuff to
anybody in the whole world,” says Stephen Russell, the chair of human
development and family science at the University of Texas at Austin.
Russell has been conducting pioneering research
on LGBTQ youth for decades and says that while troubled students
“shouldn’t have to go to Google” to address these problems, training
real-life gatekeepers to be open and engaged allies doesn’t always work,
because of decades of stigma and bias against the queer community.
“Even today I hear [administrators] say, ‘Well, we don’t have kids like
that here.’ That’s been an ongoing dilemma,” he says.
Which
is where the Trevor Project comes in. Eventually, the nonprofit’s
leaders want an AI system that will predict what resources youths will
need—housing, coming-out help, therapy—all by scanning the first few
messages in a chat. Long term, they hope to evolve the AI so it can
recognize patterns in metadata beyond just scanning initial messages.
For example, if the AI could determine reading or education level from
the messages, could it make inferences about how structural factors
affect suicide risk? It seems impossible that following a tangled field
of “if, then” statements could save someone’s life, but soon enough, it
could.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.
Sidney Fussell is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers technology.
After a six-year-old attempted suicide, I thought it wouldn't happen again.
After a six-year-old attempted suicide, I thought it wouldn’t happen again. I was wrong
The government has spent too much on suicide prevention research and not enough on actual prevention
A couple of years ago, I fought to save the life of a six-year-old child, to make sure she never attempted suicide again.
This child is doing well but that was because I was able travel to her, in the heart of our continent, to one of our remotest regions. I was shocked that one so young would contemplate suicide. At the time I believed, or hoped, that I would never come across again a child so young and suicidal. Recently, I dedicated long-haul support to another suicidal six-year-old child, this time in one of our large cities.
Most recently, I have supported suicidal children, six, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years of age. Without dedicated support it is my very certain belief that some of them would not be with us today.
There was one island community where a 13-year-old girl took her life. Her 11-year-old brother found her. The island has mainstream services, albeit small, but none visited the family, citing the need to give the grieving family “space”. More than three weeks later I travelled to the island and drove from the main community to an outstation near a smaller community and met the family. I was the first to do so.
That was three years ago. I helped relocate the family to Darwin,
where the children attend school. I visit them every time I am in
Darwin.This child is doing well but that was because I was able travel to her, in the heart of our continent, to one of our remotest regions. I was shocked that one so young would contemplate suicide. At the time I believed, or hoped, that I would never come across again a child so young and suicidal. Recently, I dedicated long-haul support to another suicidal six-year-old child, this time in one of our large cities.
Most recently, I have supported suicidal children, six, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years of age. Without dedicated support it is my very certain belief that some of them would not be with us today.
There was one island community where a 13-year-old girl took her life. Her 11-year-old brother found her. The island has mainstream services, albeit small, but none visited the family, citing the need to give the grieving family “space”. More than three weeks later I travelled to the island and drove from the main community to an outstation near a smaller community and met the family. I was the first to do so.
Long have I called for and argued for assertive outreach, for intense psychosocial supports, for through-care and aftercare, and I continue to call for these, because through this people supporting people in-person approach we can reduce the suicide toll. It breaks my heart that one government after another instead, to be seen to be doing something, funds research, which delivers more of the same “recommendations”.
One in 50 Australian deaths is a suicide. One in 17 First Nations deaths is a suicide. Australia, with more than 3,000 suicides a year, has a higher suicide rate than the United Kingdom. Australia’s First Nations peoples endure one of the world’s highest suicide rates. My heart broke when I learned that the federal government, instead of funding services that will save people from suicide, they approved $35m for further “research” on Indigenous and youth suicides. The study of suicide is not suicide prevention.
This $35m research spend follows the more than $40m wasted on the dozen “suicide prevention” trial sites which I had strongly argued against when I was on one of the government’s suicide prevention advisory groups. Australia has been deluged with 30 years of relentless research in respect to suicide prevention. As a nation we have endured 30 years of the suicide crises unabated and uninterrupted.
Suicide is Australia’s leading cause of unnatural deaths. During the last decade, Australia has had among the world’s highest increases in its suicide toll, by 33% – and for First Nations Australians by 60%. Australia’s suicide toll is more than two and three-quarters times the road deaths toll and more than 30 times the domestic violence homicides toll. The majority of the suicide toll is intersected by socioeconomic disadvantage, where the accumulation of life stressors are more pronounced.
I feel that all the work my colleagues and I put into crafting and achieving lifesaving outcomes have been betrayed by the failure by the commonwealth – and state and territory governments – to invest. Those who are let down, betrayed, are those whose very lives depended on what the funding should have been invested in.
I feel that all the work we do, all the evidence, all the lived experience highlighted to the nation relentlessly through the media, has been betrayed by our government’s lack of political will to deliver on what the evidence compels.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on suicide prevention during the past decade. The near $80m that I have referenced could have been spent on developing outreach services for First Nations Australians at serious risk – spent on youth suicide, lives would have been saved. I argue that an investment of $80m would reduce the suicide toll for First Nations Australians. Each year of this century, the First Nations suicide toll has increased. We can, for the first time this century, reduce the toll and in so doing inspire the nation. We can reduce the Australian youth suicide toll. We know the elevated risk groups; population and categorical. We know the ways forward.
The youngest suicide I have responded to, where I have worked long haul to support the family, is of a nine-year-old child. The youngest attempted suicide I have responded to is of a six-year-old. Our governments must fund the capacity for as many of the affected as possible to improve their life circumstances.
There are many who we have kept alive by someone being there for them, by improving their lives, by validating their trauma and subsequently disabling their trauma. We were and are there for them. There is no legacy more important than the one that improves the lot of others to the point of saving lives.
I remember everyone lost to suicide but foremost I remember those lost to suicide that we could have helped if we had been resourced to do so.
• Gerry Georgatos is a suicide prevention and poverty researcher. He is also the national coordinator of the suicide prevention focused National Critical Response Trauma Recovery Project and the former coordinator of the suicide postvention National Indigenous Critical Response Service.
• Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636.
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