The Bear Comes Every Night. The Bear Comes Every Night.
The Bear? Comes Every Night.
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Rap saves lives. Math proves it.
There’s a song by the rapper Logic called “1-800-273-8255”. The song is named after the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s number and it’s about suicide prevention. The study tracked the times Logic performed the song at big events like the Grammys.
The study showed that the lifeline received 9,915 more calls in the 34-day period after the three events, an increase of 6.9% relative to the expected number over a typical time frame. The study concluded that the song’s impact led to 245 fewer suicides than expected over that period.
I mean, that seems awfully… pat? But at the same time, I certainly can’t argue it.
Anyway, here’s the video. Don Cheadle is in it.
It’s certainly better, in terms of mental health, than the Kars for Kids jingle.
Covid is messing up our kids
Chapter 817.
Or so.
Because there’s a story about this all the time and a lot of people are still stuck in this “children are resilient” trope that prevents them from taking this crisis seriously.
Anyway, here’s another one.
A study of pediatric insurance claims filed between January and November 2020, conducted by the nonprofit FAIR Health, found a sharp increase in mental-health-related problems, especially generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder and intentional self-harm. These and other distressing trends recently led the American Academy of Pediatrics and two other health organizations to declare that children’s mental health is currently a national emergency.
Burke Harris says those patterns arise from what pediatric health specialists term adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). These events include 10 types of specific traumas that range from direct abuse and neglect to overall household dysfunction. The adverse experiences activate the brain’s fight-or-flight system—a normal response to an immediate physical danger such as a bear rushing at you. But “what happens when the bear comes every night?” Burke Harris asks. Because adverse events put children in prolonged and repeated danger, it extends their stress response and creates damage.
The bear comes every night.
The bear comes every night.
I’ve been saying for a long time now that we don’t even know what kind of mental health damage covid is causing. We don’t know! We won’t know for a long time. And there will be individual cases of people doing okay - which is great - but as a collective? As a society? We’re going to be messed up. Those kids are going to grow up damaged and then they’ll run society.
We have no idea.
The bear comes every night.
He’s not talking about THESE bears, thank god.
And now something about oranges. Two things, really.
Something I like about this time of year is the availability of tiny oranges. Clementines. Satsumas. Cuties. The small ones that are easily peeled. But this year I’m all out of sync with them. I don’t buy the right ones or I eat them too late. I think there’s something about being tuned in with one’s fruit.
In the summer, we sometimes get boxes of peaches from Trader Joe’s.
And peaches are tricky as hell. If you bite into one too early, it tastes weird and you’ve just wasted the dang peach. If you wait too long, that’s no good either. And the peach doesn’t help you out with specific coloration like the banana has the common courtesy to do.
But when I’m in the zone, man, I eat all those peaches.
Also, my daughter and wife both report that everyone has gone crazy for public school oranges lately. Daughter is a student, wife is a teacher. Why are the oranges so delicious? NO ONE KNOWS.
The Bear Comes Every Night
I can’t get over that phrase.
THE BEAR COMES EVERY NIGHT.
That’s what this dang covid has been for all of us. Especially kids but not just kids.
I was my friend Neil’s house once, over in Wisconsin. And he took us down to see his bee hives because he had some. My kids were there and didn’t wish to be stung so they were nervous. Neil had us watch the bees flying to and from the hive and noted that they always take the same air route. “So as long as you don’t stand in that path,” he said. “You’re fine.” Which I did not know.
He also said you have to do a lot of bearproofing of a hive in order to make sure the bees don’t ever get in, even once. Because if they get to the hive and taste that honey, no bearproofing will ever keep them away.
Covid is failed bearproofing. It got through.
And now?
The bear comes every night.