31 January 2008

suicide and the military

Back in November, around Veteran's Day, I posted a bit about the skyrocketing suicide rate of our military (See it here.) Today, I see there are two new stories in the news pertaining to this very subject. One on the homepage of the Washington Post dot com and the other an AP story at Talking Points Memo.

This is an important topic that should have a far wider audience than it does and I'm ashamed of our media for not making it so. I understand this is an election year or that Britney Spears needed a police escort and two police helicopters to take her to the hospital (your tax dollars HARD at work, California!!) and that makes for important or entertaining news, but that our Soldiers and Marines killing themselves is a BIG deal and EVERYONE should be talking about this.

This war hasn't touched as many people as WWII or Korea or Viet Nam and maybe that's why not as many people know or care about what's happening. We can't keep pretending this problem doesn't exist.

Please do what you can - try contacting your congress person or senator, letting them know you want them to help make sure our veterans get the care and support they so badly need, write a letter to the editor of your local paper... Please just do SOMETHING.

Thank you.

UPDATE: Sadly, No! and Digby also have posts related to this story.

08 January 2008

foggy jerze


Last summer... early morning, foggy surf sesh. No one out but us.

I made a little photo essay of images from this session, please go check it out here. If you vote "YEAH" for my essay it might get published in the next issue of JPG Magazine. I think that would be pretty cool.