Ground Zero Suicide Driven by Election

Sun Nov 7, 6:12 PM ET AP

NEW YORK – A 25-year-old man from Georgia who was apparently distraught over President Bush’s re-election shot and killed himself at ground zero. Andrew Veal’s body was found Saturday morning inside the off-limits site, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A shotgun was found nearby, but no suicide note was found, Coleman said.

Veal’s mother said her son was upset about the result of the presidential election and had driven to New York, Gus Danese, president of the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, told The New York Times in Sunday’s editions.

Friends said Veal worked in a computer lab at the University of Georgia and was planning to marry.

“I’m absolutely sure it’s a protest,” Mary Anne Mauney, Veal’s supervisor at the lab, told The Daily News. “I don’t know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic.”

Police were investigating how Veal entered the former World Trade Center site, which is protected by high fences and owned by the Port Authority.

that story reminded me of this post from last year around this time:

Monday, November 24, 2003

i get lots of emails from lots of people and i would say that most of them are from college-aged young men.

now this isnt the way that i set this shit up to work out, but you get what you get and you live with it.

every once in a while i get a troubling email from a young man who says he wants to end it.

i hate those emails. it puts a lot of pressure on me. and libras arent the best shoulders to cry on. we might just be the worst.

so heres what i will tell you, my friend. college is tough. its the best time of your life, which is sorta freaky, but it’ll still be tough.

there were times, especially in college, when i wanted to end it all. and i am happy that i didnt.

since college ive done an awful lot. i still dont have a car. i still dont have my dream job. but no way could i have known in college that my life would have ended up the way it has, and in lots and lots of ways its way better than i ever thought it would be.

when i was in college, for instance, there was no such thing as mp3s

or free porn

or paris hilton having sex on my computer

there wasnt anything like blogger.

we werent hooked up for the internet in any of the homes that i lived in.

the cubs didnt have any pitching.

hot girls werent emailing me pics of their hot bodies.

you couldnt type tony into google and it would be second only to the Tony awards.

there wasnt even Google.

so much changes so fast my friends that it could change for the good, even if you dont see the light at the end of the tunnel.

you’ll have to trust me on this.

one thing that i did when i was in my darkest hour was this: if i thought i was going to take a dangerous risky dumbass risk, i first asked out a super hot girl to the movies.

if she said no, i asked out a girl even hotter than her.

if she said no, i went to the movies alone.

then i wrote something.

some might say all that college angst and struggle ended up starting a pretty good habit.

keep rockin,

and drink the beer. it’s there for a reason.

tony

196 baby + gnome girl + stupid evil bastard + pepito smith

dear karl rove,

karl rovei saw you on meet the press this morning saying how the nation has moved in the republican direction and you know youre full of shit but youre so easy on the eyes that i’ll let it slide. this time.

you know as well as anyone that if the dems could have gotten 100,000 ohio democrats who had registered to actually vote you wouldnt have been on meet the press this morning, youd been helping the bushes pack their shit.

this nation hasnt moved anywhere. bush won all the same states that he won four years ago as if nothing significant had happened since 1999.

however the nation has surely moved towards a direction of greater intolerence. if you want to claim that as a republican direction be my guest.

intolerant of people choosing who they wish to marry, intolerant of a woman choosing what she wants to do with her womb, intolerant of americans choosing not to be believers in the easterbunny/santaclaus/godblessamerica Christianity that has more to do with politics than scripture

intolerant of facts

intolerant of the UN, fiscal responsibility, and the US constitution

edwards was right about two americas and you need to look no further than the electoral college to see that. or some of the better maps.

theres the city folk and the country folk.

the city folk are educated and worldly and diverse. they work with gays and foreigners and unwed mothers and people with turbans.

they know these people and see that theyre no more fucked up than the country folk or other city folk. if anything the city folk understand that everyones fucked up but the way to make things better isnt to exclude, shun, or discriminate. it’s to embrace.

the country folk live in suburbs or farms, on acres or culdesacs. only bus they know is the school bus. the only gays they know have moved or keep quiet.

when the country folk dream of sending their kids to great colleges they dream of city schools, where all the best art is, all the best music is, and all the best companies are.

giving middle america the chance to ban gay marriage is like giving urban america the chance to ban country music. its an orgy of ignorance. a fiesta of fear.

a bukkake of bigotry.

and definitely nothing to crow about mr. rove or spin as something positive about who your party attracts.

while the cockblockers came out in droves to screw the gays they also voted for your guy and then lied to the exit pollsters

in embarrassed shame.

meanwhile republicans in ohio and florida tried to intimidate, confuse, and prevent democrats from voting in those key states.

is that the gop direction that you’d like to see continue in this nation?

heres my suggestion to you mr rove: keep the president away from the press as you did so smoothly last term

keep america in fear like you did so flawlessly last term as well.

but knock off this shit that this is a republican country

this is a divided nation stuck with an idiotic electoral college

and the line in the sand isnt big government vs small government

it’s love your neighbor vs write laws to discriminate against your neighbor.

and dont think that even the country folk dont know that.

xero 79 + star sailing + mah two cents