Suicide on Rise? Especially Among Women? Among GIRLS? No, Really?????

Yes, of course, we've all read about it in the past few months.
We know, you know, 'cause people study it.
And they study it, since, umm... it's bad. right?

Kristin Holland, a behavioral scientist at the Center for Disease Control, believes there are multiple factors contributing towards the increase in suicide rate, and mental health is only one of them.
“Many people view suicide as a mental health problem, but many people who die of suicide do not have a mental health problem. It’s a public health problem,” she said.
According to Holland, the economic recession of the late 2000s and the increase of substance abuse are some of the factors leading to more frequent incidents of suicide.
The report also says that the increase in suicide rate was higher among females (45% increase) than males (16% increase), narrowing the suicide rate gap between the two genders.
The report also states that for women, the highest percent increase in suicide rates was among those ages 10–14 (200% increase)

Hmm....
How can that be, when we as a society are telling them it's wrong? I mean, we are, aren't we? We wouldn't romanticize it, or celebrate those who commit it or encourage it, or anything like that, would we?

 

Is it possible that in the modern world suicide is most acceptable, as long as you meet certain standards of education, class or beauty?

Some People Have Objections to Women Being Used As Brood Mares?

Apparently there is still common sense and decency in the world, and surprise, surprise - it doesn't break down across the left/right, conservative/liberal divide.

The Feminist Party of Spain has filed a complaint in court over an upcoming surrogate motherhood “fair” as constituting an illegal practice in the country by promoting human trafficking.
The Surrofair will take place in Madrid May 7-8. The fair will provide information and the different ways to contract with a surrogate mother.
The Feminist Party has condemned the fair, which it considers to be promoting human trafficking.
“The state of necessity of women who turn to renting their womb, for a price, is not unlike sexual exploitation,” the party said in its complaint.

I would have done it for three...

Earth Day the Wrong Way, Earth Day the Right Way

First, we have a commendation of literal tree-hugging.
A Franciscan friar:

“The two of us made a kind of journey together where we would take three steps, bow to the earth, and then take another three steps. Whenever my friend saw a flower, he would stop for a while and bow deeply. When he encountered a tree, he would stop for a while and hug the tree. You could feel the mystery of small flowers and trees…they cannot speak in the same way we do, but they are more deeply related to the mystery of God, the mystery of life.”[Emphasis supplied]

Um... no.
Just no.
"Small flowers and trees"? NOT more deeply related to the mystery of God than are humans, (who are, ya know, made in the image and likeness of God,) not more deeply related to anything other than other trees and flowers, and maybe not even to them.

Contrast to the spur of the moment remarks of a Jesuit pope:

two images came to me: The desert, and the forest. I thought, these people, all of you, all, are taking up the desert in order to transform it into a forest. They go where there’s desert, where there isn’t hope, and they do things to make a forest of this desert. The forest is full of trees, it’s full of vegetation, but too disorganized … but, life is like that. Passing from the desert to the forest is the beautiful work you do! You transform deserts into forests!...There are many deserts in the cities, deserts in people’s lives who don’t have a future, because there’s always – and I’ll underline a word here – always there are prejudices, fears. These people live and die in the desert of the cities....The desert is ugly, both the desert in the heart of all of us, as well as the desert in the city, in the peripheries, which is also an ugly thing. There’s also a desert that’s in the gated neighborhoods … It’s ugly, but the desert is there too. We must not be afraid to go to the desert to transform it into a forest, where there’s exuberant life, and to go dry the many tears so that everyone can smile. [Emphasis supplied]

Why, why... it's almost as if he's trying to tell us other people should be more important to us than trees! That the salvation of the snail darter must take a back seat to the salvation of souls!

That, dare I say? the Church rather than the Earth is our Mother!
Well done, Holy Father!
(Extra points for the reminder that the poverty with which the People of God must most be concerned is not  want of coin.)

Pretend Priest Preys on Pious People

It really pains me that someone with such exquisite taste in vestments and liturgical furnishings would prove to be a con man. I am shocked, shocked.

Well, you see, there are many different genres...

... of literature represented in the Bible Rolling Stone. Some of it is historical, you know, facts, but some is poetry, and some is editorial and some is correspondance, and some is collections of parables... you know, where a greater truth than that of the mere facts is what matters.

"Fact-checking.... what is 'fact-checking'?"

"More and more reporters now work outside of big, confident institutions. The details of what it means to check facts or seek comment aren’t always obvious to them.” -- Steve Coll

No!
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

The speaker, by the way is the dean of the school of journalism at a university which trains and gives degrees to "reporters."
And the reporter of the story -- which I fear has set back the cause of women and victims and decency in this county by decades, decades -- is not a kid, forty-ish.