Verifiably Awesome.

Covers of country music and western classics in different languages. For full review, see title of post.

"Booze, Guns and the Rise in Rural Suicide"

It was a long time ago that I took Sociology 100, but I remember learning that suicides were always in higher percentages in small states than large states. My Professor showed us how Wyoming has an incredible number of people offing themselves, and yet in New York the per capita numbers make it look like it never happens.

Anyway, this article seems to not only reinforce this, but it actually says its getting worse!

Attempted and completed suicides take place at higher rates in rural communities, especially in areas that have more bars and taverns than other rural places, according to a new study.

The numbers of suicides were highest among white men.

Suicide rates were higher in both urban and rural places with concentrations of bars and taverns, according to the report by Fred Johnson, Paul Gruenewald and Lillian Remer. The authors speculate that a wide range of factors contributed to higher suicide rates in rural areas, including widespread use of firearms, local economic problems and alcoholism. Three out of four rural suicides involved firearms, according to the report.

The study shows a sudden and sharp increase in the rural suicide rate beginning a generation ago. In the early 1970s, suicide rates of rural men exceeded the urban rate by just 4%. But by the late 1990s, the suicide rate for rural men exceeded the urban rate by 54%.

Check out the link for more on how they conducted the study.

My love for cities and city development goes beyond just the aesthetics of a skyline and the incredible alacrity that comes over me when I'm in the heart of a metropolis--if I boil it all down, it comes down to opportunity for community. Within a city you have the ability to create your own version of what you experience. Take Columbus. To some, there is the Buckeye/Ohio State Columbus, the city that has 'the best damned band in the land' and the football team that squashes Michigan (6 years in a ROW!). To others, they have the fancy downtown and the arts districts. To the gays, Columbus is a unique surprise, an unexpected liberal haven tucked in the center of such a fickle state. To someone like me, I view it as a temporary home--a place I will always look back on fondly. The bottom line is we all view it differently, and yet it is the exact same place.

In small, rural areas, there isn't that ability to re-create your own village. When you have 1200 people in a town and nothing for 50 miles in any direction, it is what it is and you just accept it. This lack of mobility and diversity in a community is really the destruction of community, and it's one of the main reasons why suicides are so frequent there. If you can't find friends, if you can't find your community, if no one knows if you exist...why bother? Why keep going? Would anyone even know you were gone in the first place?

The Battle.

Have you noticed the bizarre climate the Republicans have tried to create? It's the battle between the two types of Americans: the snooty, haughty, full-of-themselves, cosmopolitan heathens living in the vile city...versus the value-driven, family-lovin', country-living small town folk who do nothing but praise the Lord and sing patriotic tunes. From what gutter do they come up with this putrid drivel? I almost shit a brick when Rudy Guliani, the former mayor of New York City, stood at the Republican National Convention and called Barack Obama too "cosmopolitan".

Too Cosmopolitan? Coming from the former leader of the city that defines "cosmopolitan"?!

And then months ago to watch John McCain, a man who owns 7 houses and 13 cars, call Barack Obama, a man who grew up in a single-parent home, "elitist"? How can he even utter these words?

I'm so tired of the implications of the Republican party. By claiming that they are "value-voters", they are incinuating that anyone else who votes differently are non-value voters. By claiming "small-town principles", they are saying that anyone who lives in the city somehow lives void of principles. Talk about elitist! I consider anyone who proclaims themself to be full of virtue, value and principle to be the first one questioned as to the merits of these claims. Haven't you seen it before? If you make a declaration, then show the proof. And when it comes to small-towns, I'll tell you exaclty what they're like: small towns are like a beautiful rock you see from afar. When you first get a glimpse, you're immediately impressed and you want to see more. As you move closer and closer, the vision takes a grander focus and it just looks too charming to be true. But once you touch the rock and pick it up, the feeling isn't the same. An incredulous sense will come over you, and you'll turn the rock over, only to suddenly be horrified to see the grime, mud, mildew and bugs crawling all over the bottom. It's like the bed of a prostitute, so rancid you wouldn't sleep there if your life depended on it.

Don't tell me small-town values are admirable. Small towns are the largest source of crystal meth in the country. Small towns are where the greatest forms of ignorance can be found: from racism to sexism to homophobia, all it is is a stewing pot of intolerance, hatred and the perpetuation of bigotry. Small towns are where women are too afraid to speak up, gays are too terrified to come out and where minorities are wise enough to avoid at all costs.

That's not to say all small towns are somehow evil. In fact, there are plenty of small towns that are nothing of the picture I painted. But it's the dichotomy I'm trying to attack: value-voters in the small town versus filfthy sinners in the city. Instead of posing us against each other, we should all be working with each other.

So, John McCain, don't tell me that I should have small town values. Don't tell me that the only values in this country are found in the little towns in fields. For if that's true, our values are only found in proclaiming God on Sunday, and smoking crack on Saturday.