Go up the incline to see the top of Lookout Mountain if you get the chance!

If I have the time, I will.

They're talking again about modifying the Golden Gate Bridge to make it harder to jump off: [link]

It would really bug me if they did this, but I can't come up with any good arguments against it besides aesthetics....

The assumptions -- including the deeply held but incorrect belief that the suicidal are determined to die -- are as stubborn as the boutique agency that governs the Golden Gate. Last year, at least 37 people died after jumping from the bridge, a suicide every 10 days. Yet for seven decades, the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District has pushed aside evidence that prompted the construction of effective barriers on other bridges and landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, the Bloor Street Viaduct in Toronto, the District's Duke Ellington Bridge and, most recently, the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge outside Santa Barbara, Calif.

There, the state transportation agency that controls every bridge in California except the Golden Gate is hastening to install a barrier on a span with 1,250 fewer fatalities. CalTrans officials point to a University of California survey's finding that nine out of 10 people prevented from jumping off the Golden Gate were still alive years later or had died of natural causes, despite the rationale that a barrier would prompt them only to "go somewhere else to end it."

The study is part of a growing body of scientific literature that explodes persistent myths about suicide while reinforcing a simple principle: When it is harder to kill oneself, fewer people do so.

The study is part of a growing body of scientific literature that explodes persistent myths about suicide while reinforcing a simple principle: When it is harder to kill oneself, fewer people do so.

I wish more people could start thinking about guns that way.

ETA: Also, that article would be way more effective if their first example wasn't a guy that had already tried to commit suicide with pills before trying the bridge.

Last week I got a latte from the Starbucks lite in the student center and then a breakfast sandwich from the cafeteria - the clerk told me that he'd heard that Starbucks was going out of business.

I wonder if he was referring to that all-Starbucks retraining thing that they did the other week?

I had read that they're considering closing some locations and scaling back on the crazy expansion here in the US. Though they do still want to grow their international business. It's part of their new overhaul plan.

When it is harder to kill oneself, fewer people do so

If fewer people can, then fewer people do--I don't have any arguments with the potential truth of the position. But that's not the same as

the deeply held but incorrect belief that the suicidal are determined to die

I need to see more data.

Speaking of dying, I tried to reboot my home PC this morning and it was having none of it. At the very least it will be off all day which means my primary email account will pile up a few hundred spams I'll have to delete by hand.

I couldn't believe the number of Starbuck's I saw in Paris last month. Just a few years ago there were 3.

Can we throw out Monday - it's gotten awfully stale. Le sigh.

As a non-American I find this a useful resource indeed.

Or not.

I just realized: there's a starbucks in the strip mall up the road that also has a Barnes&Noble. Which also has a starbucks inside (& right by the door.) They are the same sized. That's just bizarre.

Good grief people are being idiots today. On my neighborhood listserv, some actually wrote "please call the police if you see minorities on our block" (after having a house break-in) - hello! Minority people probably LIVE ON YOUR BLOCK! AND ON THE NEXT BLOCK TOO! Happily the listserv is smacking hard. And at work, it's not bigotry, but still butt-headedness. Dear web support person - do not email a faculty member and say you will ask me to do something unless you ask me to do it. These things have a way of getting back around and making us both look bad, and it's your fault. Thxbye.