The Truth about Veteran Suicide Prevention- Fighting for Veterans Healthcare

The Truth about Veteran Suicide Prevention

Fighting for Veterans Healthcare

2/27/2018 6:12 PM

  

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View this email in your browser Dear FFVHC supporter, We wanted to send you a quick note. An article was just published in the Federal Practitioner that connects the dots on veterans’ suicide. Here’s the bottom line:  Proposals to outsource veterans’ mental health services to non VA-providers will result in lower-quality, less-effective care for America’s heroes. Why does it matter? Because veterans like Bob and Joshua (watch their stories below) need a health care system that knows and cares about them - not one that treats them like lines on a health care company’s shareholder report. Please read and share this article with your friends and family. The only way we’re going to combat veterans’ suicide is by understanding how to best prevent it. Sincerely, Diane Reppun Secretary Fighting for Veterans Healthcare P.S. Your support helps us fight for veterans. By making a small donation you’ll ensure lawmakers hear veterans’ stories and get objective policy analysis that helps them make informed decisions about legislation. If you donate, you’ll also get an “I Love My VA” bumper sticker. - Diane Bob, a Vietnam Veteran and former law enforcement officer, struggled with PTSD - undiagnosed by private sector doctors - for too long. Watch his story >> Joshua, a Veteran of the First Gulf War, battled pain, opioid addiction, and depression. He’s blunt - he says he’d “be dead” without the VA. Watch his story >> Copyright © 2018 Veterans Healthcare Action Campaign, All rights reserved. You signed up on our web page. Our mailing address is: Veterans Healthcare Action Campaign 10200 Firwood Dr Cupertino, Ca 95014 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Curbing a president's nuclear authority

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Having trouble viewing this email? Click here to view an online version. What you need to know about the president's nuclear launch authority Since the election of President Donald Trump, a great deal of anxiety and attention has been aimed at a US president’s authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. But policy experts who study the nuclear chain of command have long expressed concerns, with many advocating for checks on that power. Is sole authority over nuclear weapons necessary for nuclear stability? Here’s what you need to know: How a nuclear attack order is carried out now Lisbeth Gronlund, David Wright How to limit presidential authority to order the use of nuclear weapons Lisbeth Gronlund, David Wright, Steve Fetter A reminder from Hawaii Lauren Borja, M.V. Ramana What America can learn from Hawaii’s mistake Karthika Sasikumar What We’re Reading: Duke University's Peter Feaver on the president and US nuclear command and control Reconsidering the nuclear demigod called Mr. President A Republican senator calls a hearing on a Republican president’s nuclear weapons authority Eric Schlosser on Trump's tweets and nuclear war Can Congress stop a president waging nuclear war? Bulletin editor John Mecklin with a Reuters op/ed Rocket men Science and Security board member Jon Wolfsthal in the New Republic Bonus reads: What you need to know about the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review The 2018 Doomsday Clock Statement. Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons:  Is it Legal? Is it Constitutional? Is it Just? The Bulletin's Kennette Benedict and Hugh Gusterson participated in a November 4th conference at Harvard University. Watch a 6-minute video summary, and read the transcript of the day's remarks at Public Books. Get informed about the issues that matter at thebulletin.org. Some images provided by Shutterstock. Receive this message as a forward? Click here to sign up for future mailings.  Share this message on Social Media: To unsubscribe from ALL future emails from the Bulletin, please click the 'unsubscribe' button below. Copyright © 2018 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Mainers Call for Opposition to L.D. 1781 A Grassroots Campaign Succeeds in Calling Attention to Corporate Welfare for General Dynamics

Mainers Call for Opposition to L.D. 1781

A Grassroots Campaign Succeeds in Calling Attention to Corporate Welfare for General Dynamics

 

Bath, Maine, USA

On Saturday, March 3, Maine citizens will gather outside of Bath Iron Works (B.I.W.) in Bath, Maine.

 

Combining an annual “Lenten Vigil” (sponsored by Smilin' Trees Disarmament Farm) with opposition to L.D. 1781, Mainers will gather outside of B.I.W. (a subsidiary of General Dynamics) to “stand together to witness to our absolute need to stop war and our preparations for war” and to say “No!” to L.D. 1781.

 

WHAT: A press conference related to the Opposition to L.D. 1781, “An Act To Encourage New Major Investments in Shipbuilding Facilities and the Preservation of Jobs”.

 

WHO:

• Bruce Gagnon: member of Maine Veterans For Peace -- as of Saturday, on the 20th day of his Hunger Strike in opposition to L.D. 1781

We Need Your Help! William Joiner Center, UMB

'doug stuart' via SmedleyVFP

3/2/2018 7:15 PM

To  smedleyvfp@googlegroups.com  

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I'm forwarding the urgent news below, from Paul Atwood.

Doug Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Atwood <Paul.Atwood@umb.edu>
To: Jeff Brummer <jsbrummer1944@gmail.com>; rpajemian <rpajemian@gmail.com>; doug stuart <dstuart698@aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Mar 2, 2018 6:27 pm
Subject: Fw: We Need Your Help!

---

From: William Joiner Institute <joiner@institute.ccsend.com> on behalf of William Joiner Institute <joinerinstitute@umb.edu>
Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2018 4:14 PM
To: Paul Atwood
Subject: We Need Your Help!

 

Restore Full Funding to the Joiner Institute! Sign our Petition today! This past week the Joiner Institute found out that UMass Boston will no longer fully support our mission to address the social and health consequences of war. Our annual budget will be significantly reduced and our staff positions slowly de-funded, with no full time employees starting July 1st, 2018.  We ask for your immediate help in supporting the vital mission of the Joiner Institute to continue our work that, since 1982, has served veterans, refugees, and their families whose lives have been scarred by war.    In the most immediate future, these funding cuts will impact our annual Writers' Workshop (now in its 31st year), our "Humanizing How We Teach about War and Violent Conflict" High School Teachers Workshop, our Music Therapy programs for veterans, our research into the health effects of the Iraq War, our collaborative and creative exchanges with the countries of Iraq and Vietnam, as well as numerous other programs such as our Speaker Series, translation projects, veterans outreach support programs, which address the long term impacts of war and the possibilities of healing, reconciliation, and the transformation of trauma and conflict through creative arts. We ask that you sign our petition to demand restoration of full funding for the Joiner Institute.   Please sign your name, leave a comment, share this campaign, call your local senator, representative, or the president of the UMass System to share your support for the continued work of the Joiner Institute and for its future.  Read our full petition below and sign your name today! We are grateful for your support and advocacy. https://www.change.org/p/charlie-baker-keep-your-promise-to-veterans-fund-the-william-joiner-institute Tell the state and UMass System:   Fund the William Joiner Institute,  Keep Your Promise to Veterans  Donate to the Joiner Institute Today William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences The University of Massachusetts Boston STAY CONNECTED:

William Joiner Institute, The University of Massachusetts Boston,100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125 SafeUnsubscribe™ paul.atwood@umb.edu Forward this email | Update Profile | About our service provider Sent by joinerinstitute@umb.edu in collaboration with Try it free today

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In The Time Of The Nine Realms-A Walk Down Valhalla Lane-Marvel Comic “Thor” (2011)-A Film Review

In The Time Of The Nine Realms-A Walk Down Valhalla Lane-Marvel Comic “Thor” (2011)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Laura Perkins

Thor, starring Natasha Portman, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleton, Marvel Comics Production

You never know in the publication business, the staff writer end of the business anyway, what you will wind up writing about and why. Normally in a film review I go right to the topic with some kind of first paragraph lead which sets up what I want to look at in the film. The film under review Marvel Comics Thor is a little different in that it is both a film I would not usually touch with a ten foot pole and is not a film which under recently departed old regime would have come up for assignment with that same ten foot pole. There is no need at this late date to go into the details of the regime change, my long-time companion and fellow writer Sam Lowell has outlined the key parts elsewhere. (See Archives, dated February 10, 2018). The new site manager Greg Green as part of an attempt to reach a younger audience, the tweens, teens, twenty somethings from the subject matter at hand early on in his tenure decided that this site needed to drift away from the classic black and white film noir type films that were the staple here but which he wrote off as strictly for aficionados and 1960s and 1970s cheap college date retrospective freaks and reach the younger crowds and thus this wall to wall coverage of the Marvel and DC super-hero comic book come to screen film line-up.

Therefore every writer in the stable, younger or older, was forced marched into reviewing Batman, Superman, Ironman, whatever Marvel or DC put on the screen. And in a funny way given the 2018 mega-hit Black Panther there is certainly a niche on a site dedicated to various aspects of American culture, including popular culture, to run the rack on this genre. Things did not work out, have not worked out so simply though. First every writer, young or old, pro-old regime or dedicated to the new regime complained in the public prints about this particular shift. More importantly the admittedly older readership base started asking WTF was going on with this craze for fantasy super-hero stuff. And that was the rub.

Attempting to get to the younger set through some misplaced sense that we needed to be more relevant ran up against one hard fact. The kids who would go crazy for action fantasy super-hero comic book characters don’t read, don’t read arcane blogs or other such venues to get a grasp of what is playing at the movies. Hell, my companion Sam who has had to both write some of these type reviews and sit with me to watch them, has made the whole staff laugh with his comment that Marvel and DC were onto something when they went cinematic-the kids won’t sit still to read a freaking comic book much less a review. So that is genesis on the matter except to say that once Greg got wise to what we had all been telling him he had already committed to doing the whole universe of such films in the interest of completeness finish what was started and so here we are.                              

    

One of the things I learned from Sam about film reviews that it is always good to give a little summary, what he calls “the skinny” a term from his old neighborhood days in North Adamsville of what you are reviewing. So here goes. Everybody has heard of the great Thor, either from Greek times or more likely the various Viking sagas out of Northern Europe. You know the guys from Valhalla, the warriors who died on their shields, plundered and pillared when necessary to keep order. Here we are in the realm of the nine planets (don’t worry Earth will be one of them), in Asgard where the old king is ready to turn over his kingship to one of his younger sons, Thor, played by hunk (sorry Sam) Chris Hemsworth, or Loki, played by Tom Hiddleton, with Thor the odds on favorite to win the crown.         

The problem for Thor though is the times are out of joint for warriors just then, especially brash upstart warrior-princes when the old man is trying to work out a lasting peace, a peace particularly with the nemesis Frost Giants whose leader and the king have clashed before. So to teach the brat a lesson after Thor and his small intrepid band of devotees tried to tame those same Frost Giants he is banished to, well, to Earth and deprived of his magic hammer. Not good.

Seemingly not good except through interplanetary flight Thor winds up in New Mexico when a team of hot shot astrophysicists led by Jane, played by Natasha Portman last seen in this space in The Black Swan when we were looking at more arty movies here, founder the old regime, find  him or he finds them. After some confusion about what they have found, a guy from the past, a hunk (an early beefcake shot of him has Jane’s college student assistant and maybe Jane too ready to take off their clothes and get under the silky sheets with as Sam likes to jokingly say), a guy pretty non-plussed by cellphones and modern life in general) they get the idea he is from another planet, an alien, an alien, earthling or not, not a good thing to be these days. Especially when nefarious intelligence agendas working for who knows who maybe the Chinese get on to who he is.             

Enter Loki who had not only had a lifelong jealous rage over his favored brother but was not a real brother rather as it turned out an orphan from earlier wars with the Forest Giants and is no other than the son of that nefarious Frost Giant leader although he looks strangely more like a Viking than Frosty the Snow Man. So Loki tries might and main to kill Thor and usurp that treasured crown mainly by keeping Thor hamstrung on Earth. Not to worry though because Thor’s trusty devotees come into the scene on good green Mother Earth to help bail him out. Better that early look at the beefcake Thor has our staid Jane astrophysist all a-flutter acting like a silly schoolgirl while figuring out what makes him tick.

But back to the good versus evil, Cain and Abel business as Thor and Loki start the inevitable show-down for who will be king of the hill especially when Loki has ugly Oedipal plans to kill his real father and waste that planet for good creating who knows what kind of interplanetary problems. Goodbye peace in any case good planet or bad.  Thor in a sign of these times going back to an “Asgard First” policy destroys the bridge to the other worlds including Earth thwarting Loki’s plans and leaving Thor forlorn about that budding romance with Earthling Jane and she him. Stay tuned since you should already know there is a sequel, two in fact.