All on one day

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
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10 September

No, not a Hollywood title of a film, conflating One Fine Day (1996) with I Don't Know What (2012, post-production), or anything else...


I'm referring to World Suicide Prevention Day* (WSPD), but, being controversial, it all does seem a bit like that Spielberg film that I could never face seeing, Saving Private Ryan:

Tom Hanks, I am sure, is fine, but not so much what is the concept (or what facts - there apparently are some - is the concept rooted in?), as what's the point of the concept? (Substitute any other industry-standard (or non-standard) screenplay-writing word for 'concept', if you object.)

Mother of four (?) can't be subjected to the announcement of the death of x of them (where x is 3 (or fewer)) on one day, I gather, so save one of them (i.e. he doesn't die), y, so his death, too, doesn't need to be announced at the same time: 'take him out of' the dangerous position in which he is, at the risk of z lives, rather than lying about whether he is dead or not.


The military, of course, always scrupulously honest, especially when (as with the Battle of Culloden (or Prestonpans, for that matter)) it comes to agreeing with the enemy where the sides will engage each other (cf. Winfrey's Last Case**), so a real bind for them to lie, if y were to have died:


How could they lie to a poor mother about whether her son is / sons are dead? Sob, sob.



Back at WSPD:

The parallel? A flurry of activity to publicize the cause, prevention and statistics of suicide on one world-wide day.

Why not a lot less, not all at once, just all the time, done properly, so that, on the 362[.25] days of the year that are not WSPD (or either side), Private Ryan gets as good a chance of getting saved then? For, aren't days*** and weeks of this kind in danger of being tokenistic, too little focused on a tiny part of the year, and no encouragement to proper funding, day in, day out?


I don't know, but when else have I had all these Tweets about suicide?: I don't mind - but don't much need - them, but couldn't they just piss off with overload and quash any compassion or understanding, when too many people wrongly think those weak who choose to end their own lives?

Requiescat in pacem



End-notes

* The name is simply wrong, in Ronseal terms.

And I type it, to check, into Google®, and Google doesn't even know what 'world suic' leads to, in its form-completion mode!


** Ripping Yarns, courtesy of Jones & Palin.


*** And I might include World Mental Health Day, because the people with an interest in it huddle (and everyone else can pretend to have been 'off the radar' or 'not to have had a signal' that day, but, never mind - there's always next year...).


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