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[SJC <indexer AT localnet.com>]

Marie McHarry wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 10:59 AM,  <DSanner106 AT aol.com> wrote:
>   
> > I had seen that, but since all 4 countries are in the top ten in suicide
> > rates,
> > the ultimate measure of personal happiness. I have to question the source.
> > Most of the
> > top ten are socialist or communist nations actually.
> >
> > 1 Lithuania
> > 2 Russian Federation
> > 3 Finland
> > 4 Ukraine
> > 5 France
> > 6 Denmark....
> >
> > These leaders have a suicide rate as much as 4 times higher than the US.
> >     
>
> Except for France, all of those countries are northern countries.
> People tend to kill themselves more when they get less than a given
> amount of daylight. Also, the US has a high incidence of violence and
> murder. I'm wondering how the suicide rates compare with the murder
> rates? After all, whether you drown yourself in the river or die as
> the result of a knife fight at the local brew shop, you're still dead.
>
> Marie
Interesting to ponder.  Even France is somewhat north, being about even 
with farther with the northern US, seems to me it's up to about lat50 or 
so (I'm at 44.5, roughly)....

Another point about suicides; I know in sociology and psych classes we 
were taught that happiness is a reflection of ability to deal with life, 
and that suicide reflects the inability to do so.....

Another comment on suicide:  several of the suicides I've been privy to 
information about seemed to have other sorts of causative factors than 
the oft-cited depression.  Some even seem to be a sort of  'unltimate 
one-upmanship' sort of thing:  an "I'll show you!" statement has been in 
several suicide notes I've seen.  Not that that's any healthier than 
depression; it's just a different form of failure to cope.

There was just a case tried in Maine today that dealt with this issue:  
some guy killed his wife.  His statement in court today was that he 
didn't mean to kill her, but that he had gone to her house (they were 
living apart) with a loaded gun to kill himself and a struggle ensued:  
his statement continued thus, :  "I wanted to shoot myself in front of 
the kids so she would have to explain it to them."

Whether we believe what he said or not, there are some wacky folks on 
this earth.

SusanJane, in Maine, where it continues to rain, and rain.......