Posted on 05/05/2012 6:20:18 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
ISGAS.
I Scarcely Give A SH....er....SmellyOBama.
Football will be replaced with a government run sport.
Bread and circuses, folks.
Adam "Pac-Man" Bernard Jones would be ok with me.
Sports are the opiates of the inebriated.
I read the article, though, and I hardly see how the sport is killing its players. It's not like plenty of people who aren't pro athletes don't commit suicide as well.
One claim made in this article I have a hard time buying: that this particular man shot himself in the chest so that his brain would be preserved; that way it could be examined for signs of football-related trauma which might have caused his depression.
I have a little trouble with someone who is suicidal thinking things through quite that far. If he was capable of that, then why was he not capable of seeking help for the suspected injuries?
I would rather suspect that a gunshot wound to the chest rather than the head would be a vanity thing- I'll be dead but still be a good-looking corpse.
Oh brother.....
Big Oil
Big Tobacco
and now.....Big Football.
Helmets would prevent these tragedies.
but not every mother gets to call a press conference to do it.
So you think that this govenment could design a new sport that would catch-on with the masses better than football? Didn’t know that they were that all-powerful.
Roger Goodell is destroying the game by tinkering with the rules and enforcing ad-hoc justice in an attempt to take some of the violence out of the game.
The NFL may decline in popularity, but that’s not the same thing as creating something new to take its place.
A prior NFL player who committed suicide shot himself in the chest in the same manner. In his suicide note he asked to have his brain examined to determine the cause of his depression.
It appears (on the surface) Mr. Seau did it the same way . . .
Why not just limit all the players to five years of playing time and then cut them. Ungrateful jerks! If you have a problem, go see your doctor and get it figured out. Don’t be a coward and kill yourself.
The nation needs “Bread and Circuses” to keep the gun toting, bible thumping rabble at bay.
Simple solution ... no pads. Without them, they’ll stop launching themselves like cruise missiles and just tackle in the old-school manner.
Speaking as somebody who has had to deal with that level of depression in the past, people in the middle of depression don't think that way.
So, what occupations actually have the highest suicide rate?
Dear Straight Dope:
Do you know which occupation has the highest suicide rate? Is it prison guards, by any chance? Or psychiatrists?
There is an urban legend, recently repeated on Seinfeld, that dentists have the highest suicide rate of any profession. This is false. I recently spoke with a public affairs representative at the American Dental Association. They actually did a study on the subject, and found the rate among dentists is about the same as the population as a whole.
Prison guards seem to be a likely candidate, since they exist in a rather depressing environment. So do psychiatrists, since as a group, they seem to border on insanity. So which is the correct choice?
Well, it hasn't been easy to track this one, and I'm not sure I've got a definitive answer. Let's start by noting that suicide statistics are questionable at best. Many suicides are classified as "accident" to spare the family from publicity. So the statistics are only a rough indication.
I easily found statistics on the Internet about suicides by age, region, gender, and race, but very little about occupation. Actually, since suicide is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. among those age 15 to 24, probably the answer is "student", but I don' t think that's what you're looking for.
I called the library of the Society of Actuaries, thinking they'd know. The librarian said she used to work at a large psychiatric library, and that about 8 years ago, the answer was psychiatrists/psychologists/related. However, she couldnt quote me a source or cite a statistic, except what she says she knew.
A study of 24 states reported data on causes of death by occupation, for people ages 20 to 64, from 1984 to 1988, and came up with physicians, health aides, and "food batchmakers" as the three highest. Food batchmakers are at the top but only by a small (statistically insignificant) margin. Psychiatrists weren't reported separately from other physicians. I'm not sure exactly what the numbers below mean, perhaps suicides per million of active population:
Food batchmakers (241)
Physicians (222) and health aides (excluding nursing) (221)
Lathe and turning machine operators (199)
Biological, life and medical scientists (188)
Social scientists and urban planners (171)
Dentists (165)
Lawyers and Judges (140)
Guards/sales occupations were tied at 139
Tool and die makers (126)
Police, public servants (118)
So, I'd say, it's still pretty ambiguous.
There are different kinds of depression. The onset of dementia likely caused Seau’s depression. Losing your ability to think clearly or remember simple things is too much for some people. At age 43, it must be overwhelming.
I find it hard to care about pampered millionaire athletes with celebrity status. His death is no more or less tragic than any other’s. So now it is the NFL’s fault? Some lawyer must be smelling money.
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