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.""
Maybe I would have given your arguments more merit if you had started off that way instead.
Good. People who ridicule anti-depressant medication TODAY deserve to be offended, often. Anecdotal stories about one person who had a bad drug experience is not indicative of the general experience.
As to Ritalin, you're right. It was patented in 1950, though it did not become widely prescribed until the 1980s, when ADHD became "fashionable."
I agree with this; from a lot of what I've read and heard. I see a lot of people turning to medication to alleviate problems that never needed medication to treat before. I would like to think that yes, life is hard, and in order to get through it you have to work at it. I'm not specifically speaking of extremes - suicide attempts, proven chemical imbalances, etc. But people needing pills to get through the day to day trials of life, I cannot understand.
I can only speak from my own experience: I've been through cancer twice, have MS now, and have lived mostly on the borderline of poverty, struggling day to day to keep sane, let alone keep afloat. I've managed all this without choosing pills. Even when I was prescribed them by a doctor for "panic attacks" I gave the benefit of the doubt to the expert, tried it, then felt it was making me worse, so I stopped. I felt much better afterwards. Strong support systems from family and friends count for a lot - maybe all, for those of us who haven't chosen pills as our lifelines. My husband and family have been there when I've needed them. It's sad to read about people who don't have that kind of support system.
I'm certainly not denouncing those who need them (scientifically) - examples above. But using them to cope - as a crutch, I cannot understand.
Prayers for her daughter after losing both parents in such a short time. May God help her find peace and may she realize the respect and love that so many had for her mother.
I respectfully disagree with you -- severe mental illness is often physiological in nature, and for these illnesses, anti-depressants are a godsend and literally a matter of life and death. In many tragedies where anti-depressants are involved, the media/lawyers confuse cause and effect -- they blame the medications as a cause, rather than the underlying depression (an analogy: many patients who die of diabetes are taking insulin -- but it does not follow that the insulin treatment is the cause of death). That said, medicating children is a different matter entirely.
I'll nit-pick here. You can't die after committing suicide because you'd already be dead. You can die after *attempting* suicide though.
Linda was the only person I ever wrote to to tell how much I admired her clear thinking writing. I had wondered why I hadn't read her lately.
How small, of all that human hearts endure
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Dr. Samuel Johnson
Prayers said.
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