Male Suicide: Where’s the Outcry?

AmericanInterest

The geographic caste of suicide underlines the communitarian argument made by Emile Durkheim in his classic work, Suicide. Durkheim stressed that men (note that men kill themselves at much higher rates than do women) are more likely to commit suicide when they get disconnected from society’s core institutions (e.g., marriage, religion) or when their economic prospects take a dive (e.g., unemployment). So, men are more likely to thrive and survive when they have a job, a wife, and a community connection to a church or some other group that grounds their lives.

Unemployed men are 126 percent more likely to kill themselves than their employed counterparts. And as we’ve written before, unemployed men are generally unappealing candidates for marriage, hurting their romantic prospects and increasing their sense of alienation. Unmarried men are a whopping 240 percent more likely to take their own lives than married men.

Perhaps most shocking about this story is the relative silence with which it has been met. If women were taking their lives in record numbers, largely due to their inability to find employment or husbands, you could bet that federal tribunals, support groups, and cries for policy change would abound. But thousands of men take their own life, lost in the shadows, and much of the press seem content to let the stories remain there.

NYT Pushing California “Comeback” Over Heads of Poor, Jobless

Please Come Back!! Said no one ever…

Over at the New York Times, where the California Comeback tune is sung louder than anywhere outside Jerry Brown’s office, Timothy Egan has written a heartfelt paean to what he sees as the Golden State’s bright future. Egan boasts that, despite “California-hating naysayers” predicting a Greek style collapse, California in fact “is dreaming once again”:

All of it together — the rerouted rivers, the train moving at the speed of Superman, taxing the rich and welcoming a Latino majority — is a road not taken by any other state. You can laugh at the sunbaked barbarians, even wish them ill. But you should not fail to see in their fledgling renaissance another chapter in the American experiment, no less daring than the Golden Gate Bridge or the castle that Hearst erected at continent’s edge.

Fittingly, the same day Egan’s hymn was published, the California State Auditor reported the state’s net worth – its assets minus its liabilities – at negative $127.2 billion. Also reported were $167.9 billion in long-term obligations, not including $60 billion in unfunded liabilities for retiree health care, or those for state employees’ future pensions. These are not just “bills.” These are benefits for public employees and services for the poor that won’t be delivered as promised.

California’s public school system, both one of the most expensive and one of the poorest performing in the country, is not improving. The state’s prison system is both so overcrowded and underfunded that the US Supreme Court deemed conditions “cruel and unusual punishment.” And despite 9.8 percent unemployment (tied for highest in the country), tax, regulatory, and zoning policies make blue-collar job creation in manufacturing and real estate development next to impossible.

Egan and other turquoise dreamers seem to look at tenured teachers, happy prison guards, and fleeced one-percenters and believe conditions are promising enough to move on to romantic dreams of the future. Over the heads of undereducated kids, the chronically unemployed, and the poor, they see a high-speed train zooming along the sparkling coast. This is not how progressives used to think.

HiViz Says Adios to Colorado

Voting With Their Feet…

April 1, 2013, Fort Collins, CO–HiViz Shooting Systems (a division of North Pass Ltd.), announces plans to relocate operations out of the state of Colorado due to recent changes in Colorado state gun control legislation. HiViz President and CEO, Phillip Howe, states that talks are currently under way with officials of a neighboring stater egarding the move.

Mr. Howe comments, “I make this announcement with mixed emotions. Colorado is a beautiful state with great people, but we cannot in clear conscience support with our taxes a state that has proven through recent legislation a willingness to infringe upon the constitutional rights of our customer base.” Mr. Howe notes that prior to the changes in law in Colorado, he made several attempts to persuade state officials via emails and telephone calls to proceed slowly with gun control legislation that would impact individual shooters and the shooting industry as a whole.

 

Great…

284,000: Number of American college graduates working in minimum-wage jobs in 2012

The Wall Street Journal this week reported on the troubling trend of college graduates getting stuck in low-skilled jobs, a problem that new research suggests may endure even after the economy improves.

As the story noted, college graduates tend to earn more than their less-educated coworkers, even within the same field. But that isn’t true for everyone: According to the Labor Department, there were 284,000 graduates—those with at least a bachelor’s degree—working minimum-wage jobs in 2012, including 37,000 holders of advanced degrees. That’s down from a peak of 327,000 in 2010, but double the number in 2007 and up 70% from a decade earlier.

Retirement is Going the Way of the Dinosaur

WSJ

Fifty-seven percent of U.S. workers surveyed reported less than $25,000 in total household savings and investments excluding their homes, according to a report to be released Tuesday by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Only 49% reported having so little money saved in 2008.

The survey also found that 28% of Americans have no confidence they will have enough money to retire comfortably—the highest level in the study’s 23-year history.

Beware the Queen Bee In the Workplace

Queen Bees: ‘Their Assaults Harm Careers and Leave No Fingerprints’

The female boss who not only has zero interest in fostering the careers of women who aim to follow in her footsteps, but who might even actively attempt to cut them off at the pass.

This generation of queen bees is no less determined to secure their hard-won places as alpha females. Far from nurturing the growth of younger female talent, they push aside possible competitors by chipping away at their self-confidence or undermining their professional standing. It is a trend thick with irony: The very women who have complained for decades about unequal treatment now perpetuate many of the same problems by turning on their own.

A 2007 survey of 1,000 American workers released by the San Francisco-based Employment Law Alliance found that 45% of respondents had been bullied at the office—verbal abuse, job sabotage, misuse of authority, deliberate destruction of relationships—and that 40% of the reported bullies were women. In 2010, the Workplace Bullying Institute, a national education and advocacy group, reported that female bullies directed their hostilities toward other women 80% of the time—up 9% since 2007. Male bullies, by contrast, were generally equal-opportunity tormentors.

I discovered this phenomenon in two recent places of employment –  first, where the only female manager in a major computer company manipulated us, her underlings, lied about statistics and basically persecuted those whom she did not like until they quit or were fired. The second was in the field of education, a female Dr. Both times, I was stunned at their meanness. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me for not recognizing the pattern…

When Will Obama Bail Them Out?

Five Days of Mail a Week Is Still Too Much

The United States Postal Service announced plans today to end Saturday mail delivery later this year, as part of its spirit quest to become something other than a $16 billion sinkhole. Good! But it’s not enough. In an age where we’ve already started to leave email behind, five days of bulk catalog and sweepstakes deliveries is pure, unmitigated excess.

Let’s go further.

It’s important to remember two things about physical mail. First: that it still exists at all is a testament more to power of bulk advertising—84.7 billion pieces delivered by the USPS in 2011, totaling $17.8 billion in revenue—than our desire to send Christmas cards. And second, that it derives the majority of its value from sentiment. Handwritten letters are a delight, sure. But they’re rarely urgent. If they were, they’d be a phone call.

We live in a world of instant communication and endless options. We email, we tweet, we DM, we Facebook message, we chat, we text. Physical mail is a thoughtful indulgence. It’s for birthday cards and thank you notes and birth announcements and wedding invitations. It’ll keep. Outside of poor planning, there’s rarely a rush to send or receive it.

How To Re-Enter The Creative Process

DesignTaxi

After the creative person has been in an immersed state of creative flow, at some point he or she must exit this space. Whether it’s the result of having to tend to other responsibilities or ideas have run out, departing from this creative bliss can feel terrifying to the artist.

As one steps back and reviews the work that’s been created, this leaves the artist susceptible to self-doubt and self-criticism. During this pause, anxiety and panic can resurface. What felt like an intense and energized period of creating can suddenly shift to self-judgment and a lack of self-confidence. For this reason, one may have difficulty re-entering the creative process and instead find themselves creatively blocked.

It’s important to understand that this is a normal occurrence for anyone who is creating. Accepting that this can happen at any moment during the creative process is the first step to better understanding one’s own creative practice. It doesn’t matter how many years of experience, how well one has mastered their skill, this still occurs with even the most advanced creative professional.

How does one re-enter that flow of creativity after exiting a phase that seemed so productive? It’s important to turn to alternative realms of immersion in order to avoid becoming blocked. Immersed experiences happen outside of one’s regular creative work. They ignite inspiration and offer ways to connect to oneself and others. Other forms of immersion, nurtures and refuels the artist, preparing them to reengage with the creative process:

 

Hahahahaha!!

Crushed unicorn dreams: ‘Why is my paycheck less’ turns to Obama vote regrets; ‘I should have voted Romney’

Guess the libs are experiencing buyer’s remorse, eh?

California Poaching…

Who needs a “business recruiter” to convince people to move their businesses out of state, when you’ve already got Jerry Brown and the California Legislature? . . .

Last year, Californians voted to raise taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents. They also voted to close a tax loophole that had allowed multistate corporations to avoid paying tax based on their California sales. Meanwhile, auctions got under way in November for California’s cap-and-trade program for emissions, forcing businesses to start paying for the rights to release more than a certain amount of greenhouse gases. This year, California companies will be held responsible if the warehouses they contract with underpay employees.