Aug. 5, 2010
2 Killed, Dozens Hurt in Mo. School Bus Crash
Girl and Pickup Driver Killed after Two School Buses En Route to Amusement Park Crash into Tractor-Trailer and Pickup Truck
(CBS/ AP) Two buses carrying high school band students to an amusement park were involved in a freeway wreck with a semi tractor and a pickup truck Thursday that left two people dead and dozens injured, officials said.
Missouri state troopers say a girl on one of the buses and the driver of the pickup were the victims of the crash about 10 a.m. near Gray Summit, 32 miles west of St. Louis.
Ashley Wiehle, a spokeswoman for SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis, said 36 kids were en route to the hospital. She said they appeared to be in good condition and were going to be examined as a precaution.
Six more children were taken to St. John's Mercy Medical Center. A hospital spokesperson tells CBS affiliate KMOV that the condition of the victims ranges from red to green, red being critical condition.
A spokeswoman at St. Clare Health Center in Fenton, Mo., said four other patients were taken there with minor injuries.
The buses were carrying St. James high school band students to the Six Flags amusement park roughly 10 miles from the crash scene.
read the rest here
2 Killed, Dozens Hurt in Mo. School Bus Crash
Thursday, August 5, 2010
U.S. couple's 3 kids found dead in Scotland amid custody battle
U.S. couple's 3 kids found dead in Scotland amid custody battle
Local reports say they were stabbed; mom in serious condition in hospital
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 8/5/2010 11:34:11 AM ET
LONDON — Three children who were at the center of a custody battle between their American parents have been found dead under "suspicious" circumstances at their home in Scotland, police said Thursday.
The children's mother was in "serious but stable" condition in hospital, police said, after apparently jumping or falling from a third-story balcony of their home in Edinburgh.
She was sedated and had been unable to speak to police, detectives said. The children's father, who BBC News said works for oil company Shell, lives in Aberdeen, about 120 miles north of Edinburgh.
read more here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38571850/ns/world_news-europe/
Local reports say they were stabbed; mom in serious condition in hospital
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 8/5/2010 11:34:11 AM ET
LONDON — Three children who were at the center of a custody battle between their American parents have been found dead under "suspicious" circumstances at their home in Scotland, police said Thursday.
The children's mother was in "serious but stable" condition in hospital, police said, after apparently jumping or falling from a third-story balcony of their home in Edinburgh.
She was sedated and had been unable to speak to police, detectives said. The children's father, who BBC News said works for oil company Shell, lives in Aberdeen, about 120 miles north of Edinburgh.
read more here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38571850/ns/world_news-europe/
Chaplain Kathie on Let’s Get It On tonight
I'll be talking about healing. What veterans and their families need to know to heal. The mind-body-spirit connection and the need for communities to get involved, especially the clergy. I will also talk about how the Marines just released their latest suicide report stating clearly the numbers have gone up just as the Army stated theirs' did last month too. No matter how many people contact the suicide prevention hotline the numbers keep going up and no one is asking why so many reach that point in their lives where suicide is an option.
NAPFE Radio Show
Welcome to "Let’s Get It On" hosted by Warren Powell and Gale Thames. This program is broadcasted every Thursday 6:00-7:00 PM EST on WWW.WCLMRADIOONLINE.COM. This program features information on Postal, Federal Employees, and Veterans. Subjects are Health tips, Labor Relations, Global Affairs, Latest Developments, and any others topics of interest. Each week there are special guests and informational professionals.
Is God pleased with you?
Papa Roy sent this today and I wanted to share it because this is one of the struggles I usually have. I always wonder if God is pleased with me.
When it seems as if you're always disappointing someone, it's hard to think you may not be disappointing God. How can you think otherwise if everyone is telling you what you're doing wrong, telling you that you need to do things you've already done that didn't work, or worse, when they just turn their back on you? If their turning their backs, it's not a far leap to think God has too.
People come into our lives and offer help, support, an ego boost or a caring ear, but then vanish. You wonder what you did to cause them to want to help you in the first place and then wonder what you did to get them to turn their back on you. Sometimes it seems no matter how hard we try, how much we care, it just never seems to be good enough for anyone. If you focus on pleasing other people sooner or later you run into someone you would have to sacrifice what you believe to please them. In the end, you please no one and make yourself miserable.
When it seems as if you're always disappointing someone, it's hard to think you may not be disappointing God. How can you think otherwise if everyone is telling you what you're doing wrong, telling you that you need to do things you've already done that didn't work, or worse, when they just turn their back on you? If their turning their backs, it's not a far leap to think God has too.
People come into our lives and offer help, support, an ego boost or a caring ear, but then vanish. You wonder what you did to cause them to want to help you in the first place and then wonder what you did to get them to turn their back on you. Sometimes it seems no matter how hard we try, how much we care, it just never seems to be good enough for anyone. If you focus on pleasing other people sooner or later you run into someone you would have to sacrifice what you believe to please them. In the end, you please no one and make yourself miserable.
A Touch of Encouragement
Good morning, "experience more of His blessing."
Would you like God to be proud of your life?
Are you seeking to correspond your life with God's provisions for you? Are you, therefore, pleasing God? Are you interested in giving God pleasure? We cannot please everyone so we might as well please the Lord and let the chips fall where they may. Would you like God to be proud of your life? When your children make a good play in baseball we are proud: "That's my boy/girl!" On the other hand, when our children embarrass us by their behavior when we have company, we want to disown them or make out like they belong to our neighbors. God is not ashamed to call us "brothers" (Heb. 2:11). Are you walking in such a way as to warrant the smile of heaven? Are you living with a great amount of spiritual aberration? God is not happy with erratic spiritual walk. Everything we do reflects on God. (Warren Doud )
That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy. (Colossians 1:10-11)
To know God means that you are always turned on about everything because you see God everywhere: in nature, in people you meet, in trials, hardships and challenges, everywhere. That is why people who know God are always exciting to be with. They lift your spirits when you meet them. Faces light up as they enter a room: They know God, and the excitement of that captivates and changes them. That is what Paul says will happen as we "grow in the knowledge of God" and put into practice these three goals in our lives. This is what Jesus means when he says to the woman at the well, "I will put in you a well of water, springing up unto eternal life." It is always there: that refreshing quality of knowing God. (Ray C. Stedman)
Strengthened with all might: As we walk worthy of the Lord, His strength is there to help us meet all of life's challenges, and to endure and overcome problems with circumstances (patience) and people (longsuffering) with joy.
Depending on His grace.
Papa Roy ><> ><> ><>
Marine suicide rate up again
Here's a thought, how about we stop treating them like victims and start regarding them the way they really are, as survivors? Do you think that would finally open the door to getting them help to heal? Do you think that would get rid of the damn stigma standing in their way, keeping them from asking for help? How about we finally manage once and for all to actually have the right things in place for them instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again? WTF is it going to take to stop losing them? (Yes a chaplain swore but considering this story and how long the military has had to get this right, it's appropriate.)
The Army reported an increase in suicide deaths last month. Wonder if this month they'll say it went up again? Considering how much effort the military has put in to saving their lives, do you think they will finally get the fact they are jumping up and down on the edge of a cliff patting themselves on the back?
We can count the numbers all we want but the truth is, we will never know exactly how many commit suicide or how many reach the point of desperation when it seems to be their only solution to ending their pain. We can talk all we want about this being a wound because trauma is Greek for wound, but we can't get it into their brains that this was not caused by anything they did wrong or any flaw within them. They won't get that message as long as they keep getting the wrong messages drilled into their brains.
This isn't rocket science if someone like me can figure this out. This is about human nature and common sense.
Hopes just crashed to the ground. I was wrong to think they finally got it last month,,,,,,
also on this
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Camp Pendelton investigates apparent suicide of 18 year old Marine
I can keep screaming about what they need to do but no one with the power has listened. After all, I'm not in the military and I'm not a veteran, so all the meetings I've had with members of the military and VA employees has done no good at all. Sure they listen and are very polite but the end result is they stop answering my emails and phone calls. They have already decided there is nothing they need to hear from me.
I keep saying that the best therapists either have PTSD or live with someone with it for the simple reason they see all that comes with PTSD first hand. Reading it in a book or seeing someone once every couple of months does not give therapists any kind of understanding of what life is really like for them. If therapists don't ask what they were like before military life, they won't know how much they've changed, what is behind the changes and then they'll never know how to get them back on their feet.
Here's some of my thoughts;
First, get rid of the stigma of PTSD by providing real education on PTSD at their level and stop the psychological language they don't understand. Talk to them like humans on a human level. What good will your ego being fed do them? If they don't already respect you with your degree hanging on the wall, psycho talk won't gain you anything other than a patient thinking about how long he/she has to sit there listening to you.
You are not the only answer to the veteran's problem. Get the families involved so you can really find out what's going on in their lives and then work with the families so they understand what PTSD is and what they can do to help instead of unknowingly feeding into the problem. They are very important in this. No matter how hard you try to help them heal if you do not enlist the families the next time the vet comes into your office you may find the family has broken up and they are spending their nights on the couch of a friend.
If therapists keep doing the same thing over and over again that have not worked, they will never do more good than harm.
The Army reported an increase in suicide deaths last month. Wonder if this month they'll say it went up again? Considering how much effort the military has put in to saving their lives, do you think they will finally get the fact they are jumping up and down on the edge of a cliff patting themselves on the back?
We can count the numbers all we want but the truth is, we will never know exactly how many commit suicide or how many reach the point of desperation when it seems to be their only solution to ending their pain. We can talk all we want about this being a wound because trauma is Greek for wound, but we can't get it into their brains that this was not caused by anything they did wrong or any flaw within them. They won't get that message as long as they keep getting the wrong messages drilled into their brains.
This isn't rocket science if someone like me can figure this out. This is about human nature and common sense.
Hopes just crashed to the ground. I was wrong to think they finally got it last month,,,,,,
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Marine Corps sees big drop in monthly suicide statistics
Please, please tell me it is because they get it and are going for help instead. Tell me they are getting the support they need from their CO and their buddies. Tell me they are getting support from their families and friends back home. Tell me that they are finally, once and for all, hearing what they need to know to heal and live. Above all, tell me that this is not just a fluke and the numbers will stay down.
MILITARY: Marine suicide pace picks up in July
After falling to only one in June, six suspected self-inflicted deaths reported last month
By MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.comOne of the latest suspected suicides occurred last month at Camp Pendleton, where 18-year-old Pfc. Derek Capulong was found hanging from a rifle range observation tower.
Capulong's family in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., had called base officials the night before saying he was despondent and that they were worried about his safety, according to published reports in Detroit-area newspapers.
The U.S. Marine Corps is reporting six suspected suicides and seven attempts in July, returning to a near-record pace of self-inflicted deaths.
Officials were cautiously optimistic that outreach efforts were working after only one Marine committed suicide in June.
So far this year, 28 Marines have killed themselves. A record 52 Marines took their lives in 2009.
The Marine Corps' suicide rate of 24 per 100,000 is the highest among all branches of the military and higher than the civilian rate of 20 per 100,000.
This year's suicides include 13 troops with no deployment history and 10 who had been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Five Marines killed themselves while on deployment to a war zone. Eleven Marines killed themselves while assigned to a war front last year, according to service statistics.
read more here
Marine suicide pace picks up in July
also on this
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Camp Pendelton investigates apparent suicide of 18 year old Marine
I can keep screaming about what they need to do but no one with the power has listened. After all, I'm not in the military and I'm not a veteran, so all the meetings I've had with members of the military and VA employees has done no good at all. Sure they listen and are very polite but the end result is they stop answering my emails and phone calls. They have already decided there is nothing they need to hear from me.
I keep saying that the best therapists either have PTSD or live with someone with it for the simple reason they see all that comes with PTSD first hand. Reading it in a book or seeing someone once every couple of months does not give therapists any kind of understanding of what life is really like for them. If therapists don't ask what they were like before military life, they won't know how much they've changed, what is behind the changes and then they'll never know how to get them back on their feet.
Here's some of my thoughts;
First, get rid of the stigma of PTSD by providing real education on PTSD at their level and stop the psychological language they don't understand. Talk to them like humans on a human level. What good will your ego being fed do them? If they don't already respect you with your degree hanging on the wall, psycho talk won't gain you anything other than a patient thinking about how long he/she has to sit there listening to you.
You are not the only answer to the veteran's problem. Get the families involved so you can really find out what's going on in their lives and then work with the families so they understand what PTSD is and what they can do to help instead of unknowingly feeding into the problem. They are very important in this. No matter how hard you try to help them heal if you do not enlist the families the next time the vet comes into your office you may find the family has broken up and they are spending their nights on the couch of a friend.
If therapists keep doing the same thing over and over again that have not worked, they will never do more good than harm.
Dad freed after 5 years when DNA points to ex-Marine
Illinois man freed after DNA from killings points to ex-Marine in Virginia
By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 5, 2010
An Illinois man who had been charged with fatally stabbing two young girls was freed Wednesday after DNA evidence linked the slayings to an ex-Marine accused of attacking women in Northern Virginia.
Jerry Hobbs, 39, spent the past five years in jail awaiting trial on capital murder charges in the 2005 slayings of his daughter, Laura, 8, and her friend Krystal Tobias, 9, in Zion, Ill. But Lake County prosecutors, who previously said they would seek the death penalty, dropped all charges Wednesday. It was a little more than a month after genetic evidence gathered at the crime scene was matched with a sample that had been entered in the national DNA databank.
The investigation into the girls' killings now is focused on Jorge "George" Torrez, 21, who is charged in Arlington County with two assaults on strangers. Torrez grew up in Zion, where he lived only blocks from the victims' homes. He has not been charged in the slayings, but law enforcement sources said he is the chief suspect.
In February, Arlington police arrested Torrez, an ex-Marine who had been stationed at Fort Myer.
read more here
Illinois man freed after DNA
By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 5, 2010
An Illinois man who had been charged with fatally stabbing two young girls was freed Wednesday after DNA evidence linked the slayings to an ex-Marine accused of attacking women in Northern Virginia.
Jerry Hobbs, 39, spent the past five years in jail awaiting trial on capital murder charges in the 2005 slayings of his daughter, Laura, 8, and her friend Krystal Tobias, 9, in Zion, Ill. But Lake County prosecutors, who previously said they would seek the death penalty, dropped all charges Wednesday. It was a little more than a month after genetic evidence gathered at the crime scene was matched with a sample that had been entered in the national DNA databank.
The investigation into the girls' killings now is focused on Jorge "George" Torrez, 21, who is charged in Arlington County with two assaults on strangers. Torrez grew up in Zion, where he lived only blocks from the victims' homes. He has not been charged in the slayings, but law enforcement sources said he is the chief suspect.
In February, Arlington police arrested Torrez, an ex-Marine who had been stationed at Fort Myer.
read more here
Illinois man freed after DNA
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Fatal St. Petersburg wreck brings more scrutiny to alcohol-energy drinks
Fatal St. Petersburg wreck brings more scrutiny to alcohol-energy drinks
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 04:48 PM
Four Loko, the caffeine-fueled malt liquor that Demetrius Jordan downed before he is accused of driving drunk and killing four people, is part of new breed of beverages stirring controversy across the country.
Almost two dozen states have investigated, the FDA is studying whether the drinks should be banned and a University of Florida researcher says they are designed for one purpose only — to get people drunker.
Read complete story...
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 04:48 PM
Four Loko, the caffeine-fueled malt liquor that Demetrius Jordan downed before he is accused of driving drunk and killing four people, is part of new breed of beverages stirring controversy across the country.
Almost two dozen states have investigated, the FDA is studying whether the drinks should be banned and a University of Florida researcher says they are designed for one purpose only — to get people drunker.
Read complete story...
Trust fund for McConnell family set up
Trust fund for McConnell family set up
Man charged in the crash that killed father, 3 sons released from hospital
By Susan Jacobson, Orlando Sentinel
4:11 p.m. EDT, August 4, 2010
A trust fund was set up this afternoon for the family of Orange County triathlete Roy McConnell and his three sons, who were killed in a car crash police say was caused by a drunken driver.
Contributions to the McConnell Family Fund can be made at any Bank of America Branch, said Burlin Webster, a family spokesman. Donations will offset expenses incurred by the widows of the men and pay for some day-to-day expenses of the two children they left behind.
A portion will be donated to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, he said.
Elroy "Roy" McConnell Jr., 51, and sons Elroy "Roy" McConnell III, 28, Nathan, 24, and Kelly, 19 died Sunday in a crash on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street in St. Petersburg.
read more here
Trust fund for McConnell family set up
Man charged in the crash that killed father, 3 sons released from hospital
By Susan Jacobson, Orlando Sentinel
4:11 p.m. EDT, August 4, 2010
A trust fund was set up this afternoon for the family of Orange County triathlete Roy McConnell and his three sons, who were killed in a car crash police say was caused by a drunken driver.
Contributions to the McConnell Family Fund can be made at any Bank of America Branch, said Burlin Webster, a family spokesman. Donations will offset expenses incurred by the widows of the men and pay for some day-to-day expenses of the two children they left behind.
A portion will be donated to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, he said.
Elroy "Roy" McConnell Jr., 51, and sons Elroy "Roy" McConnell III, 28, Nathan, 24, and Kelly, 19 died Sunday in a crash on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street in St. Petersburg.
read more here
Trust fund for McConnell family set up
Report on Arlington National Cemetery that documents the waste of millions
Report blasts Arlington for 'improper or questionable' spending
Army contracting officials have produced a scathing report on Arlington National Cemetery that documents the waste of millions of taxpayer dollars, supposedly used to pay contractors and purchase supplies at Arlington. The Army probe found little proof of services rendered for some contracts and payments.
Investigators mostly discovered a convoluted, incomplete and sometimes conspicuously absent paper trail to account for the money -- both at the cemetery and in the files of Army contracting officials who oversee the cemetery.
The Army launched this stand-alone financial investigation in June as the yearlong Arlington scandal exposed by Salon rapidly became more public. Salon reported that many at Arlington had tried to blow the whistle on questionable spending to computerize burial records, under the supervision of deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham, with contracts going to some of the same people more than once, even after they failed to produce a product. After spending somewhere between $5 million and $20 million, Salon reported, the cemetery's years-long effort to computerize its records wasn't completed.
click link for more
US billionaires "pledge is a moral commitment to give"
Can you imagine what good these people will do in this country by doing this? Most of us can't imagine having that kind of money but to be willing to give half of what they have away will not only bless the people they give it to, but them as well. Wonderful!!!!
40 US billionaires pledge half of wealth to charity
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 -- 1:05 pm
Forty of America's billionaires and their families pledged Wednesday to give more than half of their fortune to charity in a drive organized by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
The group includes CNN founder Ted Turner, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Hollywood director George Lucas, as well as Microsoft mogul Gates and investment guru Buffett.
The idea, which was announced just six weeks ago as "The Giving Pledge," is to convince billionaires across the country to give up most of their money -- 50 percent or more -- to charity.
"The pledge is a moral commitment to give, not a legal contract," a statement released Wednesday said by givingpledge.org, a drive spearheaded by Buffett and Gates.
read more here
US billionaires pledge half of wealth to charity
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