Suicide Article

Increased Suicide Thoughts in Americans
As research has shown, around 8 million Americans consider suicide each year. But have successful suicide rates increased over the past few years?
A ten year study that ran from 1996 to 2006 reveals that California was the leading state with a number of 3,000 suicides a year and the majority of the people taking their own lives across the nation were white males. The largest age group was that of the elderly.
Last year 8.3 million Americans seriously considered suicide, and 2.3 of them attempted taking their own lives. But only 32,000 succeeded, so the rate of successful suicides remains about the same.
The majority age group of those who were self-destructive last year was not that of the elderly, but 18-25 year olds. The elderly held 2.3% of the self-immolators while the younger crowd held 6.7%
Another sad fact is that 47% of the people unsuccessful at ending their lives did not seek medical or psychological help in anyway.
But the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (abbreviated AFSP) has been helping Americans cope with suicide and suicidal thoughts since 1987. It also caters to people suffering from mental illnesses.
The AFSP has come up with days and statistics and even fundraiser walks (called “Out of the Darkness Walks”). Their upcoming annual national day for survivors of suicide is on November 21st. It will be the 11th Annual National Survivors of Suicide Day and they are going to celebrate it by holding simultaneous conferences all around the US helping people cope with their losses and try to prevent even more suicide attempts.
Warning risks of suicide include: Hopelessness, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, pessimism, recent obsession in taking unnecessary risks, and increased drug/alcohol abuse. If your loved one begins giving away prized possessions or randomly is in possession of a firearm or any medication that may be used to commit suicide do all in your power to stop it from happening.
To prevent suicide you should be willing to listen to the person, do not leave them alone, and take any dangerous objects from them. They may really need help. Talk to them and try to help them the most that you can, and if that does not work try to seek professional help.
“Every 16 minutes in the US some dies from suicide and every 17 minutes someone is left to make sense of it.”

My Journalism article that no one seemed to like.

Black Death still Lives

Most people believe the plague (nicknamed the "black death") only exsisted in the 1300's to around the 1700's but in fact there are still small outbreaks of it around the wolrd. The most recent mini-outbreak of the Black death was recorded in China. The Pneumonic strand of the Plague spread slightly in Ziketan Qinghai Province, it started with and killed a thirty-two year old herdsman (who's name was not realeased) and spread to eleven members of his family who were said to be in stable condition/hospitalized as of August 3rd '09. The rest of the Ziketan population (all 10,000 of them) have been quarantined. A qualified group of medical experts were sent to the 1,000 sq miles of the town to attempt to prevent any further cases. The police sealed off the entire town and set up check points on every edge of the province. Though the bubonic plague can be treated with anibiotics, this strand of it (pneuomic) is still incredibly deadly and will claim its victim's life within a twenty four hour time period. The very last death reported from the plague was taht of the sixty-four year old Danzhi, in the same town.

I wrote this for journalism, and NO ONE liked it, except my step mom. I'm quite proud of it though.....

I wrote it all myself and didn't paraphrase or copy every word I read on the article. :)

Why live a life?

Who's to say any thing even exsists? Ghosts, God, Zombies, Vampires, an afterlife, any of that shit! Who gets to say that its not real? Why can't we ever know? There are so many questions that we well never get answers to.
Do we ignore things that we don't wish to believe in, or are to scared to believe in? Are we all just numbers? I mean...we all have a social security number, so are we all just numbers? Is there a fucking afterlife? What about ghosts?
So many people have ghost stories and stories about seeing and talking to God, and dying for a little bit and then coming back and some of them are believeable, but I'm still not convinced of any of these things.
Is religion just a grown up fairytale so some of us can sleep at night?
If there is a God why is there suffering? WHY THE FUCK DOES MY BEST FRIEND HAVE A FATAL LUNG DISEASE? Why is there so much bad in the world? I cannot fucking stand it when religious people say bad things happen to people because it was their bad karma, because they deserved it. But when something bad happens to them, its just God testing them.
Are we even here? When you look at a speck of dust, maybe you are looking in on a whole other crazy world full of magic and wonder, or maybe someone is looking in on us. What if this IS the afterlife?
Where does time go?
There are so many people in this world that you mean nothing. If you dissapear only family and friends will be deeply affected. And they are not a big portion of the world. Not too many people fucking care about you. There are so many of us, and people are just run off of their own selfish needs that they don't give a shit about you.
Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are just stories, so why isn't the Bible just a story?