The Seedling

The horror of this story is hard to fathom. A possibly mentally ill man followed 2 young, harmless boys into a nearby park and beat them severely in the head. Then walked back to his home. The boys suffered such extreme injuries that they both died a day after Christmas. Thanks to a neighbors surveillance camera the police were able to identify the man and arrest him. Just leaves me speechless that such things occur in this world. I work in the mental health arena as a crisis counselor, and it scares me to think anyone of the clients I have seen could have this inside them.

Well, I guess the real danger isn’t all that partying that ASU is known for but instead the dorm rooms themselves. Best Hall is becoming a wealth of health issues lately. The issues range from asbestos to weird growing goo puddle in the carpet. Hmmmm…..somethings rotten in Denmark…or in this case dorm life. I lived int he dorms for a year and a half and luckily never had anything to worry about. Or did I?! Who can really be sure that all those old dorms are not full of mold and other unhealthy things. I think it is wrong that ASU doesn’t immediately refund rooms to those who have legitimate complaints, such as the mysterious goo puddle that turned out to be hazardous. Really? A goo puddle is hazardous? Not really rocket science there. For those of you planning to live in the dorms at ASU, my advice would be “STAY AWAY FROM THE OLD ONES!”

Two Arizona inmates gave a little something back to the community by crafting a headstone to be used for a woman’s daughter whom she lost in a car accident. One of the inmates was in prison for the very same reason this woman’s daughter is dead: drunk driving. While the two inmates are imprisoned for reasons unrelated to the death of the young girl, when given the opportunity to give something back, an atonement if you will, they jumped at the chance. While I am a believer in punishments for crimes, I am also a believer that people can give something back to the community that they took something from. I hope the state continues to utilize prisoners time in this fashion and maybe put a little bit of humanity back in their lives.

An artic seed fault opened its doors today to house seeds from all over the world in an attempt to maintain food crops in case of extreme climate change due to global warming. Very interesting concept. Glad to see something like this in place.

Sadly, school shootings are not a thing of the past and certainly don’t seem to be stopping any time soon. This past week there was another shooting on a college campus. This time a man walked onto stage in a packed auditorium and open fired into the crown of students.

What is going on in our society that this is what people turn to? This is not a solution by any means. We are all left with trying to figure out how these events can be stopped. It is a scary time to be students. It is a scary time to be parents. As a mental health professional, I read of these events and I can list things we should look for in our kids but sometimes I wonder if it is so much more that the obvious. Does it go so much deeper that it may be impossible to figure out how to curb these shootings.

Note: for a comprehensive list of school shootings since the 60s, Wikipedia does a decent job.

I guess there is no end to the senseless acts one person can do to another. According to this article from azcentral.com, a man on foot was chased down by a man driving a truck. Hmmm… the outcome cannot be good on this one. Yes, the man did die but don’t worry, the assailant fled from his car leaving police with valuable evidence that helped determine who the culprit was.

I know we can all come up with excuses as to why recycling is “so hard” but it really isn’t. We all need to do what we can to lessen the amount of trash in our environment. Here is a great website for environmental action as well as a list of 21 items that you probably didn’t know you could recycle. Give both a look and maybe, just maybe, it’ll spark your recycling interest.