Brig. Gen. Stephen Townsend speaks to soldiers at Fort Campbell, Ky., about suicide prevention Wednesday, May 27, 2009. Townsend said the post leads the Army in suicides this year. (AP)
Suicides at Fort Campbell
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The general in charge of Fort Campbell in Kentucky shut the base down in an attempt to prevent more soldiers from committing suicide. This year, 11 soldiers based at Fort Campbell have killed themselves. We speak with Mary Clare Lindberg whose son, Sgt. Benjamin Miller, killed himself last year. We also speak to Pastor Tommy Vallejos of the Faith Outreach Church in Tennessee.
- Support for family members dealing with the loss of someone in the military can be found through the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors
Mental Health Help from the Army
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The army is launching a new campaign and website to reach out to soldiers experiencing psychological trauma. The army’s top psychiatrist, Brigadier General Loree Sutton joins us to talk about the Real Warriors Campaign.
- The toll free number of the Real Warriors Campaign is: (866) 966-1020
Caught on Tape
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Embattled Illinois Senator Roland Burris, already facing an ethics probe in Congress and a perjury investigation back home, faces new questions after newly released audio tapes show him expressing interest in being appointed to the US Senate. He also offers to donate money to the campaign of then Governor Rod Blagojevic. We’ll speak with Clarence Page, syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
No More Engine Idling
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George Pakenham is a Wall Street banker, but he spends his free time knocking on the windows of New York City drivers who are idling their engines. He’s trying to enforce a 1971 law that makes it illegal for drivers to idle for more than three minutes, except in certain cases.
Bad Parenting
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Literary critic Steve Almond joins us to discuss a slew of new memoirs in a hot new genre that some are calling “Bad Parenting.”
- Authors discussed in the segment: Diana Joseph, Robert Wilder, Rebecca Woolf
- Find Steve Almond’s Essays in the anthologies, “Blindsided by a Diaper” and “The Book of Dads“
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
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How do you liven up Jane Austen’s classic romance? Just add zombies! We speak to Seth Grahame-Smith, the author, along with Jane Austen, of the mash-up novel “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”.
Music from the show
- Mercury Program, “Tequesta”
- MMW, “Bloody Oil”
- Fugazi, “Recap Modotti”
- “Rondeau,” (Theme to “Masterpiece Theatre”) performed by the London Promenade Orchestra with Eric Hammerstein
- Michael Jackson “Thriller”
- The Hooters, “All You Zombies”
No one inside or outside the media or the military discusses the fact that these men and women with wartime-related mental illnesses are trained killers. One day these deployments associated with Iraq and the war on terror will eventually come home to roost in a series of current military personnel-related and/or veteran-related shootings in the US. Is it possible the military is not doing its job to check the psychology of these individuals prior to letting them in military? Has changing the standards of recruitment created individual’s prone to mental illness due to length of deployments? The military is a closed culture that doesn’t like civilian scrutiny, but it is time to start investigating these issues.
Posted by Patrick Miller, on May 28th, 2009 at 11:28 amI hate to blow Steve Almond’s (and all the other “Bad Parenting” folks’) bubble, but “30 or 40 years ago” things were not all that different. On the wave of the feminism of the era came young feminist mothers who were more than willing to share their feelings about the darker sides of motherhood. Even without the blogosphere and publishers turning a blip into a bubble the sham of the “perfect mother” ideal was exposed. Somewhere in between we got “Competitive Yuppie Parenting” and the ambitious “helicopter parents” which inevitably had to crash. I think the current narrative is just the latest reflection of the conflict between ambition and reality. For the parents of this generation of parents it was a push against the 1950’s ideal of the perfect mother and the struggle to “have it all”. Its something all parents are still struggling with, each of them in their own way.
Posted by Carolyn Koper, on May 28th, 2009 at 12:00 pmRobin quoted Mr. Darcy on the requirements of a truly accomplished woman in this piece. I believe the actual speaker of this quote was Miss Bingley.
A small point.
Thanks!
Paige
Posted by Paige Burns, on May 28th, 2009 at 12:59 pmI have to disagree with Steve Almond also. At one point Steve said that the biggest difference between then and now, blah, blah, blah…to be honest I don’t remember what Steve said was the big difference, but whatever it was he was wrong.
Posted by Frank F, on May 28th, 2009 at 1:13 pmThe biggest difference between when “we grew up” and now is that many parents today are only part time parents. Unfortunately, far too many parents, for whatever reason (and I’m not saying that it’s always greed for material things) but too many families consist of two working adults and kids in daycare, sometimes right from infancy.
If you work eight or more hours a day and commute you probably only see your kids long enough to feed them dinner and put them to bed The kids are being raised by strangers, that’s what I see as the biggest difference between when we grew up and this present generation.
I can’t help wondering how many of these parents who are complaining about the stress of changing diapers or are feeling guilty that they sometimes have less than perfect love for their kids are only really part time parents. Imagine the stress having to deal with the little ones 24/7 would cause these bad parents.