Linda Bowles.
Photo courtesy of worldnetdaily.com
Posted on 05/15/2003 7:59:03 AM PDT by SlickWillard
Linda Bowles. Photo courtesy of worldnetdaily.com |
By Rick Silva - Managing editor
Nationally-syndicated columnist Linda Bowles died April 30 at Merced-area hospital after she committed suicide, the Paradise Post learned yesterday.
No memorial service will be held out of respect for her final wishes.
Bowles, 51, whose column appeared in the Chico Enterprise-Record, the Houston Post, Washington Times, Chicago Tribune, Arkansas Democ-rat-Gazette and WorldNetDaily.com, reportedly never recovered from the loss of her husband Warren. She also appeared on and was a frequent guest host for Liveline with Bruce Ses-sions show on KPAY.
In a statement released by her only daughter Mi-chelle Bowles early Wednes-day night she said, "The coroner's re-port will tell you she purposely overdosed on antidepressants. The reality is she died due to complications of the heart."
"To say she had a weak or failed heart would be untrue," the statement continued. "To say she suffered from a broken heart would be an understatement."
John Arguelles, a deputy in the Merced County Coroners office said Bowles' death is still under investigation.
"We haven't completed our investigation and we haven't ruled on the manner of death," Arguelles said.
County officials say that toxicology reports will come back in four weeks.
Her death comes nearly a year after her husband, Warren, died of an inoperable brain tumor. The illness forced Bowles to discontinue her column for Creative Syndicate on Feb. 25, 2002.
In her column that appeared on WorldNetDaily she told readers "This may very well be the last column I will write … I can't see beyond the battle to the future."
Joseph Farah, the CEO and editor of WorldNetDaily, said yesterday Bowles' death was a loss and she never recovered from the death of her husband on May 31 of last year.
"She told me she couldn't live without him," he said. "I kept telling her that she could, just one day at a time. She was devastated by her loss and, frankly, never recovered emotionally from it."
Farah met Bowles when she was a columnist for the Sacramento Union.
"Linda Bowles was an unusually gifted writer," he said. "She had a way of reaching deep into people's souls with her use of the language. It was our honor at WorldNetDaily to carry her column until the day she suspended it due to the death of her husband."
Former Butte County Sheriff Scott MacKenzie said he met Bowles once at a political function and was impressed by her.
"She seemed to be a straight-forward, very sincere person," he said "who was an honest individual and who wrote exactly what she believed."
He called Bowles' death a "real tragedy and a real loss to those who read it and was a good conservative?"
Republican Assemblyman Rick Keene, who represents the Ridge, met with Bowles a few times for dinner and saw her give a couple of speeches.
"Every time she spoke, she spoke about how special her husband was," Keene said. "She adored him. It's very sad to hear and she was gracious person."
Keene said her columns were good for the political debate in the country.
"She stimulated good debate, pulling no punches and that is rare in this day and age," he said.
The company that syndicated her column to papers like Enterprise-Record, Creative Syndicate Inc., didn't know about Bowles' death until a reporter called Wednesday morning asking about it. No one at Creative Syndicate Inc had any comment yesterday.
Her columns also appeared at TownHall.com and for the Conservative Chronicle. A secretary for the Conservative Chronicle said she was unaware of Bowles' death, but had no further comment and TownHall didn't return phone calls yesterday.
Bowles began her writing career through a weekly political column in California's Mariposa Guide. This opened the door for a regular column in the now-defunct Sacramento Union n where Farah was an editor.
She also wrote, various self-syndicated and freelance articles for newspapers across the country until she met Creative Syndicate's Rick 051, through Farah. That led to that company's decision to offer her a"syndicate contract," which Farah said was "very unusual for a practically unknown writer."
She was known to enjoy irritating liberals, telling Townhall.com that "I believe a large audience awaits a good, thorough whacking of left-wing icons and ideology, done with parody and satire."
"To me, Linda was not only a gifted writer," Farah said. "She was my friend — a valued friend. I am feeling the loss today.""
The article was in the Washington Post, among other places and was an FR thread:
Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat
The article was based on a large study of the FDA's own clinical trial data for antidepressants. See my post #201 in that thread for an explanation and references.
I don't know about depression ---I always thought suicide was usually a result of "despair", which Catholics aren't supposed to do. I guess some people have clinical depression ---a real medical condition but a guy from work I once knew really didn't fit the image you get of depression ---he would go to work every day, laugh, joke at lunch but one day he just went home and killed himself.
Who knows what other factors were working in her life. I know things sometime get to the point where you just have to hang on to any bit of flotsam that drifts by. All the same, there comes a crossroads for all of us in such a crisis of faith. Looks like she took the wrong turn.
World of hurt out there.
If not in God in whom? In you? After you call them religious quacks? Man, you're garbage.
Asking a severely, clinically-depressed person to just "trust in God" is the height of irresponsiblity.
Man, you're garbage.
Are you a religious quack?
You know nothing about mental illness.
(Well, maybe you do, as Exhibit A.)
Mental illness is "visible" by the marked necrosis of the brain and or its associated necrotic thinking.
(Well, maybe you do, as Exhibit A.)
Personal attacks on people and religious people like you do figure in the DSM IV references of mental illnesses as antisocial and denial behaviors, all related to an inability to think constructively, showing morbidity and necrosis of thought processes.
See, I don't have to believe you. That's the beauty about God. Now go ahead believe yourself and let us watch the monkey show and laugh.
The issue is whether you are a self congratulating and insulting quack.
No. The issue is how many more suicides would there be without anti-depressants. That's what started this whole discussion.
Leaving a clinically-depressed human being to "God" is the equivalent of standing in front of a train and expecting God to make the train come to a stop.
How Tragic that a Woman with Such a Keen Mind Couldn't be Saved!
I, for One, Loved her Commentary; I think we Let Her Down--I Believe that there were Lots of Us who would have Supported Her Had We Known!
WHAT a TRAGIC LOSS!!
Doc
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