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.""
Often people who commit suicide ARE on drugs, prescribed, legal drugs. Somehow the media and the psych industry has the public convinced that all depressed people have to do is take a pill, and all will be well. Unfortunately, that's not true. Often there is no answer to the person's suffering and they simply choose not to go on. I knew a man who blew his head off because his daughter had died of a terminal disease and she was everything--literally--he had in the world. What would a drug do for him? Turn him into a zombie? Make him happy? Drugs are also bad because they are over-prescribed and used as a crutch. And drugs, even the newer ones, are never free of side-effects. There are no easy answers.
You've got to be kidding. I don't know of a single mainstream Christan minister of any demonination that doesn't consider suicide a sin in the eyes of God.
There are no easy answers to anything, for heaven's sake!
But, it is a proven fact, your anecdotal references aside, that anti-depressants have saved lives. Why, there are those who attest to such on this very thread.
The arguments against anti-depressive drugs is over. Those who rail against them have lost.
Probably because it's pretty obvious that God didn't make the exception that murder becomes OK when the person you murder is yourself.
Say WHAT?
The choice to murder another, to commit adulter, to lie or steal is ALSO a matter of one's personal decision.
Since when does free will sanctify sin in God's eyes?
God is the One Who gives us life and sustains us. Committing suicide is not only a sin, but it is an act of incredible ingratitude toward God.
Anti-depressants helped me quit a 2 pack a day/ 30 year cigarette habit.
That was 4 years ago. I am very thankful.
A good thing, too, since you are, IMO, doing the Lord's work on the homosexual threads.
Drugging people is NOT a good thing.
The fight is far from over. And its not a hopeless fight, either. Progress has been made on some local fronts, although its a difficult fight. One of the fights is to stop little boys from being prescribed Ritalin for "hyperactivity" when their only "crime" is being a boy.
Drugging perfectly normal human beings is the hallmark of modern psychology. And the majority of depressed individuals are perfectly normal--they are depressed for a valid reason and to dismiss their emotions and feelings with the prescription of a drug is the ultimate rejection of their individuality. To preserve individuality and rail against the 1984 scenario of a drugged population is a worthy endeavor. Its nay-sayer people with atttitudes like yours that during the days of slavery were trying to convince people like the menoites and Quakers not to fight against slavery--that the fight was lost. Its good they ignored those admonitions and continued to rail against injustice.
But, if you think drugs are such a good thing, then take some yourself, or pump your own kids full of them.
Its amazing how so many people here can call themselves conservatives, and yet buy into the whole psychology load of garbage that leftists have foisted upon society.
You clearly have no knowledge of clinical depression, which is a physical pathology which influences emotions but is not caused by them.
Ritalin is an entirely different matter from anti-depressive treatments for clinical depression.
Do some reading on the subject, then we'll talk. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Precisely: Neither shalt thou murder another, nor shalt thou murder thyself.
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