At last: suicide comes for the GOP

God may not be enough for religious states: they lead the nation in anti-depressant use.

Obesity and mental illness are closely linked, especially in northern tier states like South Dakota.

In fact South Dakota is slipping. Just last year,the state ranked 19th but even that ranking would put us well behind most of our neighboring states. But why does South Dakota rank so low and what's being done to improve that rank? It's a test South Dakota is failing.--Jake Iverson, KSFY.

The Mitchell Republic is hardly a bastion of progressive thought; yet, editor Seth Tupper is often a guest on Dakota Midday's political junkie segment. I wince, cringe, even clinch to constipation whenever publisher Jon Hunter of the Madison Daily Leader appears as a guest on that program.

It was with pleasant surprise that part of this interested party's manifesto popped up in the online pages of the Mitchell publication. Reporter Frannie Sprouls interviewed some catholic hospital employee for her piece:

In the Upper Midwest, adequate exposure to the vitamin D in sunshine is hard to come by. During the summer, the temperature rises and people stay inside with air conditioning. During the winter, the temperature lowers and people stay inside huddled under blankets. “It’s hard to get it into your diet, so you have to rely on the sun,” said Megan Vilhauer, a nutritionist at Avera Queen of Peace Hospital in Mitchell. “You want to do it just right, so you don’t get sunburned or get skin cancer.”

No wonder obesity, depression, and xenophobia plague the chemical toilet as the state wrestles with whether to ruin gasoline engines with local ethanol.

Rapid City is a scary place: just look at the bags under Gordon Howie's eyes. Shorter days and longer nights especially around the winter solstice mean more people die by their own hands.

Cindy Uken reports from the Billings Gazette that Montana leads the nation in suicide rates:

The victims are military veterans, American Indians, senior citizens and teenagers. Often, they are depressed and hundreds of miles from the nearest mental health professional. Even where they can get help, they tend to "cowboy up," afraid their illness will be seen as weakness. People who live in areas with high concentrations of guns are more likely to die by suicide, according to a 2007 study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Alaska suffers as do northern tier red states where access to affordable health care is virtually non-existent. Megan Edge writes:

Alaskans have to wait until December 21 to see the light slowly increasing daily, and for most that day can’t come soon enough. “It looks like seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) is related to low light levels,” said psychologist and depression specialist Suzanne Strisik. “[That] is when we are around the holidays and we are trying to adjust to those low light levels.”

Rich people can save themselves: they merely flee South and complain that immigrants are taking over the workforce; but, poverty chains those who live in despair year 'round.

Gun carrying people are saying they are being responsible (but won't be held liable) for our safety if the rest of us don’t, or refuse to, carry.

Stand your ground has become vigilante justice because the courts are overwhelmed with suspects in the war on drugs, our communities are becoming armed camps and we’re barricaded in our homes afraid to let our kids go to school.

There are 83 vacancies on the federal bench where zero American Indians serve. The New Jim Crow has created a generation of felons in a non-white school to prison pipeline. Bullied kids, some to become young white men, have retreated into their virtual sancta and believe victims are the problem or that killing them would be sparing them a future torture.

Have the gangbangers always been right because a gun is power?

Is this how Americans really want to live? Carry rifles and sidearms into every bar, church, and arena?

Milch has pointed out repeatedly in interviews that the intent of the show was to study the way that civilization comes together from chaos by organizing itself around symbols (in Deadwood the main symbol is gold). If history is written by the victors, Deadwood is all about giving the losers their due. In the first season, magnificent bastard Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) came off as a villain; this year, his inevitably doomed campaign to save the lawless town from annexation by the United States and exploitation by robber barons served as a brilliant allegory for the evolution of American capitalism.

How many more people will be caught in or die from as yet uncounted crossfires?

Ending the war on cannabis is essential to the process as concurrent possession is illegal. It also would free resources to hire those professionals to whom Craig Moore alludes.

From KCRW's To the Point:

Overconsumption: The American Way (12:07PM) 

This is the holiday when gluttony is not just acceptable, it’s almost required if you try to taste everything on the Thanksgiving table. But ask yourself: is this the only time you eat more than you ought to? Obesity is a national epidemic, and over-consumption of another kind is on the rise. Credit card debt is up by 66 percent since last year and by 368 percent since 2009, when the Great Recession made Americans try to be frugal. Why do we want so much more than we can afford and, probably, more than we need? Is there a relationship between mindless eating and manic buying?

Maybe this would be a great time for a piece of rhubarb pie.

Migration must be celebrated, not outlawed. Statehood for Mexico would mean more people could save themselves from brutal winters in the North.

Find something that works or die.

Rewild the West.