Robin Williams was a comedic genius. His death has left many reeling and mourning. There is something terrible and sad about suicide always, but particularly when a life was dedicated to making others laugh.

His suicide is a springboard to a broader point about combating suicide. For if current “death with dignity” folks have their way, we’ll soon have no logical reason to decry suicide at all.

How do we help people in a severe depression see through to a brighter time?

Certainly not by selling exit bags on the Internet. Pardon the extremely macabre nature of this, but exit bags are placed over one’s head, tied at the neck and used with a sedative-type drug so that our natural instincts for survival don’t take over when the carbon monoxide levels rise in the bag.

(Some help combat suicidal tendencies. Others provide the tools. It’s truly almost hard to believe.)

There has been no approval of suicide after his death, only shock and mourning. Suicide is always tragic, let it not be considered a viable option in any circumstance. Death with dignity does not mean providing an exit bag, it means providing hope. If Robin Williams had thought his death through more completely, and requested it, under current euthanasia legislation presented in Quebec right now, he would be granted it.

Things to ponder as we try to create a brighter world for people suffering in the dark realm of depression.

Robin Williams, Rest In Peace.

Domestic violence, sexual abuse, incest, physical abuse and prostitution (quelle surprise) -rooted in a lack of fathering or a lack of mothering… these are not gender based issues. Radical feminism has not been the antidote to a lack of love. Love is the antidote to a lack of love. Erin Pizzey says many things, truthful, wise and all of it counter to the domestic violence narrative, including this: “The radical feminist movement has nothing to do with the pain and suffering of people and children. They’re not interested. It is an empire. It is an evil empire.”

This will be the best half hour you spend today… unless you have some parenting to do.

It isn’t news that we live in a time where relationships with our pets have transformed from greatly loved companions to equals. I remember several years ago when ethicist Margaret Somerville warned us at a pro-life gathering that this cultural shift was occurring in the ”intelligentsia.” I didn’t doubt her. Nor did I doubt our rudderless North American culture to be able to reason against the notion that pets are people too.
Are we at the point where pro-lifers must start from scratch and use animal images to stir hearts? To identify when life begins?
So be careful who you share this with. These graphic images come with their own warning and may disturb you. Disturb you because the fuss is reserved for the animal kingdom today, not the pre-born of the human species.

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Andrea adds: I am very unhappy to see these animals killed for no reason. People who protest abortion are very often sensitive to a lack of care for the natural world too, myself included. That we should limit our empathy to animals, though, is beyond all reason.

How times have changed. The essence of what a child needs hasn’t changed, but the expectations surrounding parenting sure have.

I am struck by the sheer beauty found in these black and white shots taken 50 years ago, and re-discovered just recently.

I love the close physical contact between the mothers and their children. I love the nakedness of the children. I love the warm hugs, that eternally nurturing posture. I love the ordinariness of their affection.

But most of all, I LOVE that these photos were taken in a time before the concept of the Yummy Mommy or the Hot Mama, in a time before the perpetually sexualized woman. These images have a carefreeness about them that betrays today’s misunderstanding of love, of womanhood and of motherhood.

Some progress.

This news story   brought to mind Amanda Marcotte . She is the writer who is famous for her incendiary comments on abortion in The Raw Story.

Given the choice between living my life how I please and having my body within my control and the fate of a lentil-sized, brainless embryo that has half a chance of dying on its own anyway, I choose me….Either way, what she ( a mother) wants trumps the non-existent desires of a mindless pre-person that is so small it can be removed in about two minutes during an outpatient procedure. Your cavities fight harder to stay in place,” says Marcotte.

I am relieved to read that these British MPs are outraged. There is enough outrage to go around on this one. It is particularly applicable in Canada should physicians in Ontario loose their protection of conscience rights. The options will be dictated to them, no matter how barbaric.

But in this UK story, as in Marcotte’s piece, it is the utter failure of these responses to crisis and to fear that also shape a culture. Pure ugliness vs the beauty of compassion. And whether in word or in deed, brutality  causes people to seek truth. It is ultimately in their humanity to do so, though some I fear, may have lost part of their humanity.

Dove for Men is peddling a product with a slick sales pitch to promote the new must-have for men. A manufactured need for men using the actual need children have for their fathers.

Am I offended? Heck no! I’m sold!

Kids need their dads. If a men’s product thinks it can jack up sales by appealing to the love a father has for his children, I’m jazzed.
Dove for dads rocks because dads rock. Happy Father’s Day!

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jpb2_YdxYM]

At the age of 53 my grandmother was widowed with seven children still at home. They had 12, total. While my grandfather was dying of cancer in the family home, he also learned that they would lose the family farm in Carlsbad Springs, due to unpaid taxes. It was 1937. Though my grandmother’s roots dated back to the 1660s in this country, generations of farmers even in France, after his death, she left the country and moved to downtown Ottawa. She didn’t speak a single word of English. Like a foreigner in her own country, she had to pack up, leave the life she knew and make her way.

Five daughters, two sons and one fierce mother moved into an upstairs Clarence street. apartment. Desperate, alone, the weight of the world on her shoulders, she had a way of saving hard-earned money. In spite of the magnitude of her loss, she laid down the first and last month’s rent on that apartment and set about to find work. The work my grandmother found was cleaning. She became a char woman, as they were called. Up at 3 am, she cleaned government offices. She came home for breakfast and went to daily morning mass, then off to Rockcliffe Park, where she cleaned homes for the rich. I don’t know if she ever learned the second native tongue in this land, but she did know her numbers and that saved them.

The stories from my mother about my grandmother are a bit muddled since my mom was the youngest in that family. A seven-year-old who also had her world ripped apart but had the face of courage as a role model. That comes in handy in life, with or without a dad. So I heard that my grandmother never bought a stitch of clothing for herself. She didn’t wear a bra. She didn’t buy toilette paper, either, rather they used the tissue that goods were wrapped in, like in today’s gift bags. My frugal grandmother supported her children until one by one they married or moved out.

Now you know a bit about my grandmother: An even tempered Catholic widow who literally counted pennies, in what seemed like a foreign land. So when I tell you that two weeks into her first month in that apartment when she looked down and saw prostitutes plying their trade below, you’ll understand the magnitude of what she did. She packed up and left, losing the rent money. She moved into one of her grown daughter’s homes. Both families shared a single bathroom; both families making the best of 1937 and desperate circumstances.

My grandmother made no bones about what prostitution really was and what was needed to protect children’s innocence and young men’s minds. She referred to them as “those poor girls” but nonethelss, when they were almost literally on her doorstep, she was gone like the wind. I read prostitution advocate and pimp Valerie Scott’s comments that “there’s always money involved when it comes to sex, whether it’s sex work or not.” The fact is there is much more than just money involved. My grandmother made yet another difficult move because she understood the language of love and family, if not English.

In the back and forth on prostitution today and the hand wringing about safety, consent and crime, I am not conflicted. I like Canada’s proposed new laws on prostitution. What we learn and what we teach about the nature of human relationships will carry future generations.

A good Madame may not care about that but a good mother does.