Tag: Deaths

Gun Violence Comes To The Coast

I apologize if the title is misleading…..we do have the occasional shooting between individuals or some shoot out with the police but we have not had many mass shootings but that came to an end.

Last weekend students from the sleepy little town of Bay St. Louis in Hancock county…..it was an after prom party and all student from local schools were invited to come and hang out.

The party was going well and all seemed to be enjoying themselves and the a 19 year old showed up to confront a student about his sister….the argument got heated and the 19 year old got a gun and shot and killed 2 and wounded 4….the shooter was tracked down and arrested.

All that made me think about the shooting after something I read in VOX.

No other high-income country has suffered such a high death toll from gun violence. Every day, 120 Americans die at the end of a gun, including suicides and homicides, an average of 43,375 per year. Since 2009, there has been an annual average of 19 shootings in which at least four people are killed. The US gun homicide rate is as much as 26 times that of other high-income countries; its gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times higher.

Gun control opponents have typically framed the gun violence epidemic in the US as a symptom of a broader mental health crisis. But every country has people with mental health issues and extremists; those problems aren’t unique. What is unique is the US’s expansive view of civilian gun ownership, ingrained in politics, in culture, and in the law since the nation’s founding, and a national political process that has so far proved incapable of changing that norm.

“America is unique in that guns have always been present, there is wide civilian ownership, and the government hasn’t claimed more of a monopoly on them,” said David Yamane, a professor at Wake Forest University who studies American gun culture.

https://www.vox.com/23142734/cleveland-texas-mass-shootings

I am not trying to convince people that more gun control is needed….all this is just to try and explain how we got to this point in our history.

My thoughts are on record here on IST…..I will not convince you to my way of thinking as your efforts to do so for me are also wasted efforts.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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And Yet Another School Shooting

Seriously?

How many is that now?

There have been 398 children killed by gun violence….and yet there is very little public outcry (how sad is that?)….At least 57 people have died in 38 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this month, with another 133 injured.

The newest incident is in Nashville…..

The three students shot to death Monday at a private school in Nashville were all 9 years old, police said—two girls and a boy. Officials identified them as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, the Tennessean reports. The adult victims were Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61. Hill was a custodian, Koonce the Covenant School’s headmaster, and Peak a substitute teacher, investigators said. In an afternoon press conference, Police Chief John Drake said, “I was literally moved to tears to see this and the kids as they were being ushered out of the building.”

The six were killed by Audrey Hale, 28, a former student at the school, Drake said. Hale was killed by officers less than 15 minutes after the shooting began. Hale had no criminal history and obtained two of the three weapons used locally. In a search of a house later, police said they found a plan for the attack, including maps showing existing surveillance and points of entry, as well as a written screed. All entrances to the building were locked, per USA Today, and Hale got in by shooting a door. Police said Hale was a transgender man who used male pronouns, per the Tennessean.

What kind of POS does it take to want to shoot children?

The White House has had enough (don’t make me laugh)

“Enough is enough,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Monday’s briefing, hours after three children and three staff members were killed in a mass shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville. “How many more children have to be murdered before Republicans in Congress will step up and act to pass the assault weapons ban, to close loopholes in our background check system, or to require the safe storage of guns?” she said, per the Washington Post. “We need to do something.” Police said the shooter, a 28-year-old woman armed with two assault rifles and a handgun, was shot dead by officers at the scene.

President Biden addressed the shooting during a small-business event at the White House, the New York Times reports. He called the shooting a “family’s worst nightmare” and urged Congress to pass gun control measures. “The shooter in this situation reportedly had two assault weapons and a pistol,” the president said. “So I call on Congress, again, to pass my assault weapons ban. It’s about time that we begin to make some progress.” “It’s ripping at the soul of this nation, ripping at the very soul of this nation,” Biden said of gun violence.

Jill Biden, speaking at a National League of Cities event in Washington, also condemned the Covenant School shooting, USA Today reports. “I am truly without words and our children deserve better,” the first lady said. “We stand, all of us, we stand with Nashville in prayer.”

Do you really think Biden and the Dems will do anything?

Do you really think Congress will step up?

Don’t make me laugh!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“No Foul Play Suspected”

Those terms come from the ME office when a death is investigated.

Then there is the report from my home state of Mississippi….

On Oct. 2, a frantic Rasheem Carter called his mother and told her “three truckloads of white men” were chasing him. She told him to call the police, and when she didn’t hear from him again, she reported him missing. A month later, his body was found in a wooded area near Taylorsville, Mississippi, where he’d been working. It had been dismembered, with his head and other body parts severed, the Washington Post reports. The local sheriff initially said there was “no reason” to suspect foul play—but now, months later and after outcry from Carter’s family, he’s changing his tune. More from the coverage:

What happened: Carter was working in Taylorsville, about 100 miles away from his home in Fayette, Mississippi, on a short-term contracting job as he saved money to reopen his restaurant, which shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic. His mother says he fled the job in October after some sort of disagreement with at least one co-worker, NBC News reports. She says he mentioned multiple people from the job as possibly threatening him. The sheriff confirms there were “a couple of verbal altercations” between Carter and at least one colleague, but hasn’t revealed what they were about.

  • Not himself: Smith County Sheriff Joel Houston says everyone at that job has been interviewed. “They said [Carter’s] whole demeanor had changed. They weren’t sure what was going on,” he says. “They just said he kept to himself more. He usually joked around, and in the last week or so they weren’t able to do that.” The colleagues mentioned as possible threats were confirmed to have been at another job site almost 100 miles away when Carter was last seen alive.
  • Timeline: Carter did go to the police station after his last conversation with his mom, but Houston said last year that Carter did not report that he was in any sort of danger, and simply appeared to be in need of a ride back to his hotel. Carter was last spotted in the woods around 4:30pm on Oct. 2 in footage from a private landowner’s game camera, apparently alone.
  • Police theory: Houston says that “there’s no indication that someone killed him. The evidence we do have does coincide with what animals would do to a body.”
  • Family disagrees: But Carter’s family isn’t buying the idea that an animal is responsible for dismembering Carter. “There is nothing natural about this. What we have is a Mississippi lynching,” family attorney Benjamin Crump says, per the BBC. “This was a nefarious act. This was an evil act.” Carter’s mom says he was lucid when they spoke, not under the influence of any intoxicants, and that he had no history of mental health issues.
  • Sheriff’s current stance: On Tuesday, the day after a family press conference with Crump, Houston clarified that he has not ruled out the possibility Carter was murdered. “Nothing is being swept under the rug. There’s nothing to hide,” he said, adding that the investigation is ongoing and search warrants are in process.

This is not the only time this announcement was made over a death….

Just a little homespun news for my readers….get to know Mississippi.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

David Crosby–R.I.P.

One of may favorite groups back in the day was CSN&Y…..sad news from the music world….David Crosby of that same group has died….age 81….

David Crosby, a singer-songwriter and founding member of two hugely influential and successful folk-rock groups—the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young—has died. He was 81. His family announced his death Thursday, saying only that it came after a long illness. Crosby had remained active on Twitter up until Wednesday, Variety reports, when he joked about heaven, posting, “I heard the place is overrated… cloudy.” And he’d released an album, Live at the Capitol Theater, last month. Crosby, who contributed to both groups’ intricate and sublime harmonies, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, once with each band.

Crosby grew up in Los Angeles. His father, Floyd, was an Academy Award-winning cinematographer, per Rolling Stone. He took a brief spin at college, then pursued a music career, starting as a solo act in folk clubs. He joined a band in 1964, when the Beatles had made bands all the rage, that already included Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark. Two incarnations later, the Jet Set were the Byrds, to which Crosby added his signature harmony on such hits as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” As a songwriter, he was overshadowed by McGuinn and Clark, who fired him in 1967 as tensions in the band escalated. They gave him a list of reasons, including his songwriting, and said he was impossible to work with. “All of which is partly true, I’m sure, sometimes,” Crosby later said, adding, “But it was a drag.”

At Joni Mitchell’s house a few months later, Crosby ran into Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. They sang a song together three times, learning how their voices could best blend in harmony. “When we sang that third time,” Nash later said, “my life changed.” The first Crosby, Stills & Nash album came out in May 1969 with three songs written or co-written by Crosby: “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” and “Long Time Gone.” The record was a hit, and the group began a tour after adding Neil Young. Their second concert ever was at Woodstock, in front of an audience of almost 500,000. In his memoir, Crosby wrote: “For that one moment we did something that tells you what’s possible with human beings. … Woodstock was a time where were was a prevailing feeling of harmony.”

His voice and his music will be missed….in memory of his music…..

You will be missed….and thank you for great memories.

Falling Russian Syndrome

There has been an uptick of a dreaded disease that is running rampant through Russia’s ‘High Society”…..a situation that started during the dark days of the Covid outbreak in Russia.

I wrote about it before in the early days……

Those Russians And Windows Are Back!

The disease has struck again…..

It’s been a while since the murky death of a Russian oligarch or other high-profile exec has made headlines, but this month saw that streak broken. Per the BBC, 65-year-old sausage magnate Pavel Antov, who’s topped Forbes‘ list of the richest Russian businessmen, was found dead Sunday at a hotel in Rayagada, in the Indian state of Odisha—apparently after a fall out of a window, according to local cops. The Jerusalem Post notes Antov, who’d just celebrated his birthday, was discovered lying in a pool of blood.

A local police superintendent suggests Antov died by suicide, as he’d been “depressed” over something that had happened at the hotel just two days earlier: His friend Vladimir Budanov, a 61-year-old Russian businessman who’d accompanied him on the trip, had been “discovered unconscious” in his own hotel room, surrounded by wine bottles, per the Daily Beast. He later died at a nearby hospital. Budanov was said by Indian and Russian officials to have died of either a stroke or heart attack. As is often the case in these mysterious Russian deaths, Antov’s past included alleged criticism of the Russian government: The BBC reports that in June, he’d reacted to a Russian missile attack on a Kyiv neighborhood, posting on WhatsApp, “It’s extremely difficult to call all this anything but terror.”

Antov later denied he was the one behind the post, which was deleted, claiming someone else had posted it and that he was a “patriot of my country” who supported President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. WION reports that an investigation is ongoing, and that “they are probing all angles in this case, including an accidental fall.” The Beast notes there’ve been more than a dozen strange deaths of Russian businessmen this year, often executives in the gas and oil industry. One of those deaths happened over the same weekend that Antov and Budanov died: Alexander Buzakov, head of Russia’s Admiralty Shipyard, died “suddenly and tragically” on Saturday at age 66, his cause of death unclear.

How far will this go?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Halloween–2022

Today is the day we set aside of observe some pagan ritual that we have re-labeled as Halloween.

In that vain I would like to offer up a ‘spooky’ post in honor of this day.

Have you wished you could somehow access the thoughts of your dead loved ones?

If so I have a post for you……

On its face, it’s not that strange that James Vlahos can talk to his father, John, any time he wants to on the phone. He can ask him about his favorite sports team when he’s curious. Or when he wants to ask him what his favorite song is. When the feeling strikes, Vlahos can just shoot his dad a message to see how he’s doing. Whatever it is, his dad is always quick to respond—sometimes with a straightforward answer, and sometimes with a joke.

But here’s the thing: Vlahos’s dad is dead. He passed away in February 2017, due to stage-4 lung cancer. The person Vlahos can chat with today on his phone isn’t his father exactly. It’s an AI chatbot that father and son created after the family learned about John’s terminal diagnosis.

“We knew we were going to lose and were scrambling to find ways to remember him,” Vlahos told The Daily Beast. “Meanwhile, I was working on a book about conversational AI, so I was learning about all of these ways that we can teach computers to talk in human-like ways.”

Vlahos came to the idea rather suddenly. Instead of simply recording John’s memories and stories on audio or video, he could have a more interactive way to revisit his father’s memories and personality through the same AI technology he was already exploring. “That was what gave me this idea that I could make this memory-sharing chatbot that I came to call Dadbot,” Vlahos said.

 

He went on to pen a story about Dadbot for Wired in 2017. Then word started to spread. Emails and calls came in from people from all over the world who were dying or who had dying loved ones that wanted to create similar chatbots of their own. Would you make a Mombot for me? Would you make a Dadbot for me? This became the inspiration for HereAfter AI, a web app created by Vlahos that lets you “preserve meaningful memories about your life and interactively share them with the people you love,” according to its website.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/chatbots-by-james-vlahos-and-hereafter-ai-are-letting-you-talk-to-the-dead

Interesting, eh?

I do not need this ‘service’ for I was close with my father and knew full well what his thoughts were….he was a screaming bigot, he was also commenting on the female anatomy….and those were the main themes of his thoughts.

Check it oit and tell me your thoughts.

Happy Halloween

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–26Sep22

I have written many times about the rate and the causes of the suicides by our veterans. It appears that the numbers are higher than have been reported in the past.

The number of US military veterans who have died by suicide could be far higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs has reported, a new study indicates. America’s Warrior Partnership, which works to eliminate veteran suicide, found that in eight states, the number of suicides was 1.37 times higher than reported for 2014 to 2018. If that rate holds throughout the nation, the number of veterans dying by suicide each day would be about 24; the VA’s reported average for that period was 17.7, per NBC News. “We’re not pointing fingers at anyone,” said Jim Lorraine, the nonprofit’s president. “We’re just saying it’s sobering to look at the numbers.”

The VA bases its count on information provided by the counties where the person died, per Stars and Stripes. The new study, which took four years, went further to gather details about the veterans, working with the Department of Defense and checking state records. Other states could not release relevant data because of confidentiality restrictions, the preliminary report says. The VA’s process, missed veterans about 18% of the time, the study said. The University of Alabama and Duke University worked with the nonprofit. “It’s not the VA’s fault, Lorraine said. “The issue is the counties.”

Veterans Affairs released a statement defending its process. “We take every step possible to make sure that our veteran suicide data is accurate, because the first step to solving this problem is understanding it,” said press secretary Terrence Hayes. Loraine said he hopes more states will take part in the next phase of the study. Broader collaboration would improve the accuracy of the data, as well as prevention methods, he said. The VA’s 2020 report said more than 46,000 US adults died in suicides in 2018, more than 6,000 of them veterans. Another organization has found that suicide has killed four times as many US veterans as combat so far this century.

This problem should be far more important to the government than it is….we asked these people to give their all and then we put band-aids on their wounds instead of giving them the help they deserve.

For a damn change do something besides giving our veterans platitudes in place of adequate health care.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thoughts–21Sep22

Russians seem to be falling out of the sky about as regular as rain.

Doctors falling out windows….executives falling to their deaths and now a Putin ally has joined the club.

An executive helping to oversee development in Russia’s Far East has become at least the ninth Russian businessman to be found dead since the start of this year. Ivan Pechorin, an aviation director with the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic (KRDV), fell from his private yacht near Russky Island in the Sea of Japan on Saturday, days after attending an economic forum in nearby Vladivostok, a major center of Russia’s Far East, per Newsweek and the Daily Beast. Also in attendance at the forum was President Vladimir Putin, who gave the keynote speech, per Insider. Pechorin was considered an ally of Putin, who, according to the Mirror, personally selected him for his role.

The corporation, which the Russian government has instructed to develop energy and mining resources in the Far East and Arctic, said it learned of “the tragic death of our colleague” on Monday, per CNN. That same day, Pechorin’s body washed ashore about 100 miles from Vladivostok amid a search, per Insider. The 39-year-old had fallen from his yacht, which was reportedly traveling at full speed near Russky Island (not to be confused with an island of the same name in the northern Kara Sea) two days earlier, according to local media reports. One Russian news outlet, Baza, has claimed Pechorin and others aboard the boat were intoxicated at the time, the Daily Beast reports.

He’s the second KRDV executive to die unexpectedly this year. In February, the corporation’s director, Igor Nosov, died of what Russian media described as a stroke. He was 43. Numerous other individuals tied to Russia’s energy sector have died by suicide or under mysterious circumstances since the start of this year, including Alexander Subbotin, Sergey Protosenya, Vladislav Avayev, and Yuri Baranov. Earlier this month, Ravil Maganov, chair of the board of directors of Russian oil company Lukoil, died in a fall from a hospital window. KRDV said the death of Pechorin, in charge of aviation accessibility in the Far East, was an “irreparable loss.”

Fascinating stuff!

A Falling Russian Syndrome!

This guy could have lived nicely elsewhere but he decided to jump….why?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Queen For The Day

Today’s big story will be the burial of Queen Elizabeth II…..with that her era of influence will end and the new day of King Charles III will begin…..

Since I am not a big fan of any monarchy I thought I would post a couple of articles about the death of the Queen…..

Ukania’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, finally yielded the royal sceptre to her eldest child, who will become King Charles III. Charles’s wife Camilla will now become Queen Camilla.

The next few days will see an unparalled excess of Ruritanian/Ukanian flummery, probably the only thing Ukania is good at these days— parades with mounted soldiers and carriages; gun salutes on the banks of the Thames; special programming on radio and TV; flag-bearing crowds congregating outside the royal residences; everyone, from the new king to the archbishop of Canterbury, decked out in their finest regalia, and so on.

This will also be a rare-old-time for paparazzi and the court correspondents of the tabloids. Will Meghan Markle and Kate speak to each other? What will the reprobate Prince Andrew be up to? Which of the royal offspring will misbehave and how?

The Queen Is Dead

There is more….

On 8th September, 2022, a 96-year old woman died. Nothing unusual there. On average, 1,679 people die in the UK every day. But this time round, everyone from the British Kebab Awards to The Prodigy made gushing sycophantic statements. Britain’s idiot prime minister in waiting Liz Truss, called the deceased “among the world’s greatest ever leaders”.

As Britain was sent into 10 days of enforced commemoration, the madness also spread to Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz called her a “role model and inspiration for millions”, while Berlin mayor Franziska Giffey said that the “power of her great personality has always fascinated us Berliners.” Brandenburger Tor was lit up in the colours of the Union Flag in her honour.

Even John Lydon, who as Johnny Rotten once wrote; “God save the queen. She ain’t no human being. There is no future In England’s dreaming” got involved. He posted the following message on social media: “Rest in peace Queen Elizabeth II. Send her victorious From all at johnlydon.com”.

The Queen is Dead. Republic Now!

I doubt if the reporting will end with the burial….but it will be for this blog.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

12 September–Sabra And Shatila

Forty years ago today a massacre of women and children was committed by the Israeli army and the world just shrugged…..

I have written about this massacre several times….but for those too damn lazy to use the ‘search’….let me remind everyone…..

Forty years ago, during the week of September 12, we were working in a Palestine Red Crescent Society facility, Gaza Hospital, in Sabra Shatila camp in West Beirut. As health care workers, we were trying to heal the wounds and repair the mutilated and destroyed bodies of those injured by Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. We had been working there following the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), mediated by US Middle East envoy Philip Habib. Crucial to the evacuation agreement was the protection of the civilians left behind after the evacuation of the PLO, and Israel’s undertaking not to invade and occupy Beirut. With the guarantee of protection by the multinational peace keeping force, thousands of displaced civilian war victims returned to Sabra Shatila to rebuild their homes and lives.

Unknown to these people who returned hoping to pick up and mend their shattered lives, the multinational peace keeping force left West Beirut on 11 September 1982. On the evening of September 14, 1982, we became aware that the President-elect of Lebanon had been assassinated. Around the break of dawn on the following day, we heard planes flying low into Beirut. Within hours, sounds of heavy artillery and machine guns could be heard close by. It continued all day and soon the periphery of the camp was hit relentlessly. We went to an upper floor of the hospital where we watched as flares went off, lighting areas of the camps, followed by gunfire. As hours passed, we hectically received and tended to the thousands of camp residents who fled to us or were brought into the hospital seeking emergency medical care, safety, and security. The hospital ran out of food, water, medication – and blood for the wounded.

Remembering the Sabra Shatila Massacre, Forty Years Later

The world should never forget this atrocity….or the unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty in 1967…..

My one question is….why is Israel allowed to act as they do with disregard for human life?  Why?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”