Looks like all the fearmongering regarding the operation of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has finally borne fruit. Inspired by numerous reports that the ginormous particle accelerator could potentially jump-start black holes which would then consume the planet, 16-year-old Chayya Lal took an overdose of medication to avoid dying in the ensuing cataclysm.
Chayya’s parents said she had spoken of her fears about the “Big Bang” experiment.
“Chayya had asked me a number of times whether the world would end as they were saying on television,” her father Bihari told the Hindustan Times.
“We tried to divert her attention and told her not to worry about any great disaster,” the Mail Today quoted him as saying.
The Mail said the local police inspector had raised doubts about the reasons for Chayya’s death and had vowed to investigate.
As sad as this is, I have to amusedly wonder what one has to lose if the world is going to end anyway? Why kill yourself when you’re convinced the entire world is going to be swallowed whole by a black hole? Dead is dead, ain’t it? And why choose certain-death over maybe-death?
Boing Boing notes that Japanese artist Nagi Noda, who directed the video for Yuki’s ‘Sentimental Journey’ (embedded below) died earlier this week. Noda apparently suffered ongoing complications from a car accident some time ago, but it’s not clear whether the accident was ultimately responsible for her demise.
A rash of underage suicides has moved a Shanghai bookstore to ban the comic believed to be the source of inspiration. ‘The Rabbit Who Wanted to Kill Itself‘ (shouldn’t that be ‘The Rabbit Which Wanted to Kill Itself‘, since ‘itself’ implies non-personhood? Sorry…) reportedly prompted a slew of teen suicides, as well as a sales surge in psychological self-help and suicide-prevention tomes.
“The comic used to be popular among young readers,” said Zhu Bin, public relations officer at the book city.
In the story, the rabbit comes up with various ways of killing itself, including pouring sulfuric acid to its head, jumping off a building and sticking its head into a revolving door.
Zhu also said that since last Wednesday, the sales of books on teenage psychological guidance have soared, as parents are becoming more concerned about the mental health of their children.
“In the past, reference and exercise books were parents’ favorites. However, last weekend, the first weekend after the new semester started, there was a sales rush on psychology-related books,” he said. “Some even sold out.”
Announcing his resignation following an emergency meeting, Mr Toshimitsu said: ” I have troubled the Sumo Association and its fans so I have resigned. I must reflect deeply by myself.”
The ancient sport, which dates back 2,000 years, has long required its wrestlers to adhere to a strict moral code and lead an ascetic life of abstinence and hard training.
The drug scandal first came to light last month when a Russian wrestler known as Wakanoho was arrested for possession of marijuana, prompting the association to take the unprecedented step of expelling him.
In order to restore public faith in the troubled sport, sumo chiefs ordered random drug tests for the first time in its history among the nation’s 69 top ranking wrestlers.
So says a recent study that investigated the correlation between religion and the mental health of minorities…and speaking as a Filipino-American recovering Catholic (snicker), I can totally grokk where this is coming from.
Among adolescents who never attended church, Asian-American adolescents reported 4 percent fewer symptoms of depression in the preceding week than did their African-American peers.
In comparison, Asian-American youth who attended church at least once a week reported 20 to 27 percent more symptoms of depression than their white and African-American peers who attended at the same level.
Latino adolescents fared about the same as Asian Americans, reporting 6 to 14 percent higher rates of depression symptoms than did African-American and white teens when attending church at least once a week.
The results showed that in stark contrast to the findings for white and African-American adolescents, Asian-American adolescents who never attended services and Latinos attending at intermediate levels were the least likely to be depressed within their groups.
I always feel depressed when I’m dragged into a church service, usually because it means giving up doing something useful in lieu of paying lip-service to someone else’s invisible sky-friend.
Fans of exploitative martial arts films will surely remember the Barry Gordy-produced shlock-fest The Last Dragon. Sadly, actor Julius Carry - who memorably portrayed the baddie Sho’nuff opposite leading man Taimak - died of pancreatic cancer two days ago at the age of 56. Carry never really moved up to the a-list, but genre fans will also remember his stint as Lord Bowler on the short-lived (though much beloved) Bruce Campbell vehicle The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Those of you actually following the Beijing Olympics probably already know about this, but I’ll bravely move forward for those who aren’t. The U.S. Olympic softball team was handed a huge Godzilla-sized plate of defeat at the hands of the Japanese - their first loss in nearly a decade. Many tears were shed. Military action against Japan is sure to follow.
Another gold was certainly within reach. Instead, they walked off Fengtai Field with their heads bowed.
The U.S. team never led and made two uncharacteristic errors in the seventh inning to help the Japanese add an important insurance run — one they didn’t even need.
When Caitlin Lowe grounded to third for the final out, Vicky Galindo, who led off the U.S. team’s seventh inning with a pinch-hit single, wrapped her hands over her helmet and cringed.
Moments later, U.S. coach Mike Candrea huddled his stunned players, many of whom couldn’t even look up. Lowe choked back tears as slugger Crystl Bustos tried to console her overwhelmed teammates.
Bustos, who homered in the fourth for the Americans’ only run, was first in line to congratulate the Japanese players. As she shook hands with the U.S. team, Japan catcher Yukiyo Mine was overcome by tears.
“You don’t want it to end this way, but it’s all we could do,” said Bustos, who attended the medal ceremony wearing sunglasses.
When I read William Gibson’s Neuromancer, one of the images that lingered after I finished (and I’m not alone in this) was the coffin hotel that Case calls home in Chiba. The inverse of a ‘coffin hotel’ is, of course, a ‘hotel coffin’ - where presumably the dead would go to spend their after-lives in catered comfort. The problem - and the solution - are really the same for both…namely, how do you house lots of people who aren’t going anywhere in a limited amount of real estate? Simple - just stack them on top of each other.
For 79-year-old Shinya Shimada, paying his respects around the time of Japan’s annual Bon festival, when the spirits of ancestors are believed to return home, means a visit to a modern vault rather than a traditional graveyard.
“Initially, I was a bit uncomfortable with a high-tech grave. But now, I have come to see it positively,” Shimada said.
At the nondescript three-storey building alongside a Buddhist temple, Shimada uses an identity card to dial-up the gravestones and urns carrying his ancestors’ ashes.
A library-stack-like machine behind altars transports them, complete with accompanying music and pictures of the deceased on a TV monitor.
“Looking at their pictures, I actually talk a lot more to my deceased parents and sister,” Shimada said. “Unlike the usual gravestone, this makes me feel nostalgic.”
If you’d asked me five minutes ago which Asian country has the highest suicide rate per 10,000 people - between Japan and South Korea, I’d have said Japan…and as usual, I’d have been wrong. Nope, the winner of the Suicide Rate Sweepstakes does in fact go to South Korea. I am called to wonder what the suicide rate in North Korea is like.
Up to 56 percent of suicides were committed by the jobless, with the female suicide rate posting a 19-percent rise between 2003 and 2007, Lim said, citing police statistics.
Suicides now stand as the No. 4 cause of deaths in South Korea. South Korea’s suicide rate has been the highest in the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since 2005.
An average of 25 out of every 100,000 people kill themselves in South Korea, followed by Hungary (22.6 persons), Japan (20.3 persons) and Belgium (18.4 persons).
“The increasing suicides in Korea have become a pan-national issue which the government must tackle with more strategic plans,” Lim told Yonhap News Agency.
Golly gee willikers!
Fans of exploitative martial arts films will surely remember the Barry Gordy-produced shlock-fest 
