Tag: Suicide

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Entertainment

Meet Polka-Dot Man and Different Characters From ‘The Suicide Squad’

Meet Polka-Dot Man and Other Characters From ‘The Suicide Squad’

It may seem like a job for Superman to take on a giant intergalactic conqueror, but in The Suicide Squad, it’s up to the Task Force X D-List supervillains to save the day … or, more often, die trying .

After David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad, this new take of James Gunn (in theaters and on HBO Max) brings back and adds Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) a new group of squad members, drawn from the depths of DC Comics history. Here’s a guide to the comic book origins of some of these lesser-known squad members.

A reluctant Task Force X leader, Robert DuBois (Idris Elba), is a seasoned mercenary who goes by the name of Bloodsport. The character first appeared in the Superman comic series in 1987. DuBois dodged being drafted for the Vietnam War, but his brother went in his place and lost both arms and legs in the fight. In response, Robert suffers a nervous breakdown and begins a murderous rampage against innocent civilians. His brother finally talks him down, but not before Robert seriously injures Superman with a kryptonite ball.

The cartoon character Bloodsport was equipped with technology that enabled him to seemingly pull weapons out of nowhere, and the film incarnation achieves a similar effect by hiding weapons in his armor. While his Vietnam-era motivation for the film has been dropped, Bloodsport’s family remains important to him: he joins the team to keep his daughter from going to jail for a minor crime, a sentence given by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), the vengeful head of Task Force X.

In the film, John Cena plays this self-proclaimed pacifist who will kill anyone he needs to keep the peace. In this incarnation, the character is much less at odds with the contradictions between his mission and his methods than when he made his debut on the Charlton Comics series Fightin ‘5 in 1966. He was Christopher Smith, a diplomat who wasn’t involved in the fight against crime – resort to deadly tactics. DC Comics acquired Charlton’s characters in the 1980s, and Peacemaker was reinvented as a deadlier character, a person who resembled Marvel’s Punisher, albeit more psychotic.

Peacemaker’s bizarre helmet originally had the ability to shoot lasers, and for a while he thought it could use it to communicate with the souls of the people he had killed, although it was later found to be a symptom of mental illness. Cena will repeat the character on a “Peacemaker” TV series coming to HBO Max.

Cleo Cazo (Daniela Melchior) is a female take on Ratcatcher, a Batman villain who first appeared in Detective Comics in 1988. The original ratcatcher was a rodent expert who trained rats to attack and kill its enemies. His real identity was Otis Flannegan, a plumbing worker who was jailed for murder. He sought revenge by holding captive the people who took him away, though Batman eventually discovered his hiding place and freed his surviving prisoners.

Friendlier and friendlier than its comic book counterpart, the movie’s Ratcatcher 2 was unfairly imprisoned when their ability to control rats was seen as a deadly weapon. As her name suggests, she is not the first; her father appears in flashbacks and is played by filmmaker Taika Waititi.

Portrayed in the film by David Dastmalchian, Polka-Dot Man is a symbol of Batman’s Campier opponents of the 1960s. In the comics, Abner Krill, originally called Mister Polka-Dot, was a criminal with access to a range of punctiform weapons and technology, including circular saw dots, projectile dots, and dots that lead to a flying saucer.

Given the character’s silliness (Gunn called him “the dumbest DC character ever”), it’s not surprising that Polka-Dot Man has had very few appearances in comics over the years. His powers were also revised for the film; Instead of using polka dot technology, he now has a troubling state that causes deadly polka dots to grow inside his body; if they are not evicted, they will kill him.

King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone) is an extremely dangerous and extremely stupid human-shark hybrid. The character first appeared in an issue of Superboy in 1994, but he was also an archenemy for Aquaman. Unlike most of the other characters in the film, King Shark has a long history as a member of the Suicide Squad in the comics, and he was originally considered for inclusion in the first film.

Although the character was remodeled into a hammerhead shark in 2011, the film returns to its original great white shark look. Most recently, a tech geek version of King Shark, voiced by Ron Funches, appeared in the animated series “Harley Quinn”. Even though he’s less evil than his comic book counterpart, he still maintains his fondness for human flesh.

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Health

Suicide makes an attempt amongst younger ladies surged by greater than 50% throughout pandemic, CDC says

Suicide attempts among young girls surged by more than 50% during pandemic, CDC says

Chameleon eye | iStock | Getty Images

Suicide attempts increased among 12 to 17 year olds, especially teenage girls, during the Covid-19 pandemic and got worse the longer the social distancing orders and bans on, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Government continued.

Visits to emergency rooms in hospitals among adolescents had already increased in early May 2020 as the pandemic spread in the United States, the CDC said in a study published on Friday. From the end of July to the end of August 2020, the average weekly number of emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts in 12 to 17-year-old girls rose by 26.2% compared to the same period of the previous year.

The disruption of daily life from pandemic lockdowns and social distancing orders could have contributed to the increase in suicide attempts, the CDC said. In spring 2020, there was a 16.8% decrease in emergency room visits for men and women between the ages of 18 and 24 compared to the same period in the previous year.

As of June 2020, 25% of the same age group surveyed adults reported having had suicidal thoughts in the past 30 days related to the pandemic, in line with 2019. However, actual visits to the emergency room for attempted suicide increased during the pandemic, the CDC said With.

For adolescent girls, the average weekly visits to the emergency room for suspected suicide attempts increased by 50.6% from February 2021 to March 2021 compared to the same period last year.

Visits to the emergency room for suspected suicide attempts include visits for suicide attempts as well as some non-suicidal self-harm, according to the CDC.

The data was collected by the CDC from the National Syndromic Surveillance Program emergency department visit data in 49 states. Not all states had consistent emergency room visit dates, and no data on race and ethnicity were available at the time of the study.

Suspicions of suicide attempts are often higher in young girls than in young boys, but in this study the difference was more pronounced due to the pandemic than in previous studies. The study points to an increase in emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts, not an increase in actual suicides, the CDC emphasized in the study.

The increase in alleged suicide attempts by young people could be attributed to social distancing, including a lack of connection with schools, teachers and friends. Other factors could include mental health barriers to treatment, an increase in substance abuse, and concerns about the health and economic situation of the family at home.

Average emergency room visits due to mental health problems and suspected child abuse have also increased in 2020 compared to 2019, potentially contributing to the increase in alleged suicide attempts.

The study finds that the increased amount of time spent with children at home may have made parents aware of their children’s mental health issues and prompted them to seek emergency room treatment, which may have contributed to the increase.

The study also found that the data likely underrepresented the actual number of alleged suicide attempts as Americans were reluctant to go to hospitals during the pandemic for fear of contracting Covid-19.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.

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Politics

Air Drive Tries Digital Actuality to Stem Suicide and Sexual Assault

Air Force Tries Virtual Reality to Stem Suicide and Sexual Assault

MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. — The three airmen sat quietly adjusting their headsets, murmuring to their colleague, who was in distinct trouble. “Everyone goes through rough patches sometimes,” each said, a few moments apart, to the same despondent and mildly intoxicated man, whose wife recently left him and who seemed immersed in suicidal thoughts.

The airman on the other end of the headsets was virtual, but the conversation was all encompassing, a 30-minute, occasionally harrowing journey among three actual airmen and a virtual actor, whom they each tried to coax into getting help.

The three were trying out a new virtual reality program this month that the Air Force is using to target two problems that continue to vex military leaders: suicide and sexual assault within the ranks. Years of prevention training — often in the form of somnolence-inducing PowerPoint presentations — have done little to stem the rates of either problem.

Whether the virtual reality model can ultimately do better remains an open question. But military officials are encouraged by the early self-reported responses to the training.

Over 1,000 Air Force personnel have participated in the training so far; 97 percent of those who tried it would recommend it, and trainees reported an increase in the likelihood to intervene with a person in crisis, Air Force officials said. And among those ages 18 to 25 — a generation more used to interactive virtual experiences that makes up the bulk of new recruits — the impact increased sevenfold. Officials intend to train at least 10,000 airmen with the program this year.

The training is meant to take on problems that, if anything, have worsened in the military in recent years. Between 2014 and 2019, the suicide rate for all active-duty troops increased from 20.4 to 25.9 suicides per 100,000 according to Pentagon data; in the last three months of 2020, suicides among National Guard troops nearly tripled to 39 from 14 over the same period the prior year.

In 2019, the Defense Department found that there were 7,825 reports of sexual assault involving service members as victims, a 3 percent increase from 2018.

The Army recently reprimanded 12 soldiers in an Illinois-based Army Reserve unit and took disciplinary actions against two senior leaders for mishandling sexual assault complaints, with investigators noting that leaders lacked “basic knowledge and understanding regarding core tenets” of the Army’s sexual assault prevention program.

One of the few effective tactics for both problems, experts say, is intervention by bystanders. They may witness harassment in a bar, for instance, or increasingly alarming messages on social media representing a suicide threat.

In the military, intervening, especially against someone of a higher rank, can be culturally difficult, especially for younger recruits. “Barriers sometimes get in the way from people intervening,” said Carmen Schott, the sexual assault prevention and response program manager for the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command. “If someone is higher rank, you might be more timid to say something. The Air Force has put a lot of effort into making clear nothing negative will happen if you intervene.”

The aim of the virtual reality program is to act out scenarios with airmen in simulated environments. The technology allows the airmen to select from cues at the bottom of the screen to have an interactive “conversation” with a photo-realistic virtual actor, one whose facial expressions and reactions are meant to make the training more effective.

In this behavioral rehearsal, airmen learn what may be useful to say, such as asking their buddy if he has a gun in his house, and why some other responses — like “man up” — are not helpful. Participants get feedback on their “empathy” score and tips on how to improve in future encounters.

“Virtual reality training puts the user in a scenario, not in a classroom where you are zoning out and on your cellphone,” Ms. Schott explained. “You are an active participant. You have to be ready. I think that it is going to help airmen retain and remember knowledge. We don’t want people to feel judged. They may not make perfect decisions, but they will learn skills.”

Kevin Cornish, the chief executive of Moth+Flame, a virtual reality learning firm in Brooklyn, looked a little like an interloper on the Air Force base here, a casually dressed artist among uniforms. Mr. Cornish, who was working on Taylor Swift music videos when he became entranced by the immersive experience of a 360-degree camera used in one of them, said that there was “something so invigorating about somebody making eye contact and talking to you.”

He said he was increasingly seeing companies turn to virtual reality to simulate difficult work conversations and game out scenarios, especially around diversity and inclusion.

As the airmen took turns interacting with their suicidal virtual colleague via their headsets, some spoke quietly and a bit awkwardly, while others sounded like stage actors as they tried to persuade their fellow airman to hand over his gun and go with them to see a supervisor. Sometimes they would nod as they listened, or lower their voices or wipe a tear.

“I loved that it was hands-on,” said Annette Hartman, 23, a senior airman. “It was better than sitting through a briefing and waiting to sign off on a roster. Some of the responses I wouldn’t have thought to say, like, ‘Have you thought about suicide? Do you have a gun?’”

That type of experience is set to expand: Another bystander program, which will roll out in July, will place the users in a bar, watching a scene of sexual harassment unfold.

“In an immersive experience, you get much closer to the feelings of a real story than you do with a computer screen,” said Nonny de la Peña, the chief executive of Emblematic Group and an early creator of virtual reality experiences. “We are starting to see that our world is not flat, and learning and experiencing and connecting is not going to be flat much longer.”

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Health

What Can Be Discovered From Differing Charges of Suicide Amongst Teams

What Can Be Learned From Differing Rates of Suicide Among Groups

It’s a much discussed connection. A recent systematic review of studies found that attending church services is not particularly protective against suicidal thoughts (thinking about or planning to commit suicide), but rather against attempted suicide and possibly suicide.

Other types of group activities can create a similar sense of belonging. According to a 2019 study, volunteers with caring responsibilities have a significantly reduced risk of suicide. According to a 1976 study, social support is anything that leads one to “believe that he / she is cared for and loved, valued and part of a network of mutual obligations”.

Jonathan Lee Walton, dean of the School of Divinity at Wake Forest University, sees a different angle on black religiosity that could lower the suicide rate. “It is in black theological tradition that in this life you will face difficulties and difficulties,” he said. “Unfortunately, this is the result of tragic experiences in this nation. This prepares one for the path of desperation, the lonely path of heartbreak, perhaps in a way that white Americans do not learn equally or from a young and formative age. “

Single parents are another possible explanation. Black women are more likely to be single parents than white women and have the lowest suicide rate in any race / gender group. (Suicide is generally less common in women than in men.)

“For single parents, the fact that they are the only financial, instrumental and / or emotional supporter for children can deter suicide, even in times of extreme need,” said Professor Mouzon. Another way single parents can reduce the risk of suicide is to bring together extended family and community support to care for the child. It is possible that this support, once in place, will also provide mental health benefits that reduce the risk of suicide for the mother.

Experts say that some reasons for the relatively low suicide rate among Latinos – who also tend to be poorer and face discrimination – are close social and family networks that can build and maintain resilience, and moral objections to suicide based on religion. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that migrant families can lose some of this protection as they adapt to Latino culture and lose their bond.

While it is impossible to predict who will attempt or complete suicide, the general risk factors that contribute to suicide across all races and ethnic groups are largely documented. These include mental health problems and psychiatric disorders, suicide by others, bullying, substance use, loneliness and social isolation, and exposure to stressful life events.