Discussion: No Evidence Of Foul Play Found In Death Of Anthony Bourdain

Sad for his passing. As a tangent, I think I have read that there has been a large upswing in people being diagnosed as clinically depressed since Trump was selected. Has there been a similar upswing in suicides?

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Yup!

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I’d love to see the numbers since November 2016


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Well, if they continue to keep hidden the actual CAUSE of death, conspiracy theories are going to commence. With a vengeance.

They’d better release more info as soon as they have it.

This “no evidence of foul play” in part could be responding to Alex Jones’ intimation otherwise in a typical could be because line of horse shit I won’t dignify with a link.

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It makes sense that people prone to Depression would feel further despair just watching the news. (depending on their worldview of course)

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Which is why it is important that while we maintain civility here on the TPM boards we also be allowed to cuss and express the aggression and anger that will help some of us survive this most foul period of United States and World History.

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I’ve been trying to understand this. Has anyone heard any reasoning behind Bourdain’s suicide?

I know rich, successful people can sucomb to depression. Look at Robin Williams - success, beautiful wife, a pack of loving children. Here we have another incredibly successful person, beautiful girl friend, beautiful daughter - so much to live for.

I guess I just don’t understand depression. Depressing!

I will miss you, sir.

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Roberts is a staff writer at WaPo, has occasionally been on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on NPR.

Also, Gavin Newsom current CA Lt., now candidate for Governor in November, has described how his grandfather killed himself in front of Gavin’s mother and aunt because of his memories of the Bataan Death March.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/suicide-is-desperate-it-is-hostile-it-is-tragic-but-mostly-it-is-a-bloody-mess/2018/06/08/ecf66aee-6b54-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?utm_term=.629db380b85d&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

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succinct sə(k)ˈsiNG(k)t|
adjective
(esp. of something written or spoken) briefly and clearly expressed: use short, succinct sentences.

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Proof positive that the greatest enemy of Human life is hopelessness. For that is the dark corner into which you must go in order to contemplate ending your life. Even if you consider it as an act of liberation, to free loved ones of some present or future burden which you might carry, there is a vast cratered landscape of the mind that must be crossed. and on the other side lays heartache and pain for loved ones and the ultimate expression of hopelessness, for which death is seen, at last as the only escape.
The other dark truth we must face as a people, on a single blue planet, is that today, in so many ways, we cultivate hopelessness.
We raise it like a crop and ignore the reports of its harvest, in order to make ourselves feel more secure and above the consequences which we don’t wish to consider.
One of the platitudes that insulate “civilization” today is that every life is unique, even sacred. It is a keystone in a moral foundation that will let us weep for someone like Bourdain, but lets us be conveniently blind to tens of thousands of others, every hour of the day who stand at the edge of hopelessness, as the cratered ground crumbles away beneath their feet.
Today, this hour, this very minute, money and resources beyond all measure will be spent to keep people “safe.” To make certain that some will prosper, perhaps above all else. But while all that is happening, ask yourself how much of that treasure, and the treasure of the Human Spirit is being “spent” to give hope to the hopeless? How much do we ourselves “spend” each day to do the same?
These are not comforting questions in the face of sadness and loss. But the more often we face up to asking them and demand truthful answers from ourselves, our culture, and “civilization” as a whole the better the odds will be that the hopelessness gnawing away at another life right this minute can be overcome, and the alternative of life over death be re-affirmed. Because in driving away hopelessness, all of us choose and re-kindle life and hope.
L’Chaim!

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Whatever the reason, I hope he had one last good meal before he ended it.

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“[H]e wasn’t a mere gastronomy tourist. His programs ultimately were about the dignity of humans.”
— Gustavo Arellano

The incomparable Gustavo Arellano wrote an outstanding tribute to “Toño” in today’s Los Angeles Times. It perfectly captures Bourdain’s unwavering defense of cultures and peoples and his belief in our undeniable connectedness. He was truly a great humanitarian.

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This from the SF Chronicle is by two of its food writers

“Anyone who doesn’t have a great time in San Francisco is pretty much dead to me. You go there as a snarky New Yorker thinking it’s politically correct, it’s crunchy granola, it’s vegetarian, and it surprises you every time. It’s a two-fisted drinking town, a carnivorous meat-eating town, it’s dirty and nasty and wonderful,” he said in a 2011 New York Times interview.

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You have to be cursed with it to understand it, and even then you still don’t.

I sincerely hope you never will.

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Of course, if you are looking for a Trump Effect in the suicide upswing, statistics from 1999 to 2016 won’t show it. Be careful when looking for cause and effect–was this the Bush/Obama upswing?

Long before 1999 a friend of my better half killed himself. The friend’s father a few years back had killed his wife, then himself, so the friend was familiar and maybe even comfortable with it when his marriage ended suddenly and he knew he’d never see his daughter again. It’s hard to describe how shocking it was.

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I hope you’re not speaking from experience.