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Things you get to read about yourself in the newspaper after you survive a 39-story jump from a building in Manhattan.

From today's Daily News, the story of a failed suicide:

1. The headline says the man ? Thomas Magill ? "lives to tell tale," but the "tale" he's told so far is "My leg! My leg!"

2. A construction worker who witnessed the fall has opined that the man survived not because he landed on a red 2008 Dodge Charger, but because the car contained a set of rosary beads.

3. He landed feet first, "twisted like a pretzel," in the backseat of the car. The car seat! That, not God, accounts for the soft landing, as shown in this reenactment:



4. The man's Facebook page shows that he regarded his interests as "being mean" and "making fun of people." Does that make you less likely to scold me for being mean and making fun of him? I am making fun of him, but I deny that I'm being mean. This post is part of my ongoing effort to deter people from committing suicide. I believe stories about suicide are full of the kind of sympathy that creates a romantic aura around suicide. I want to give suicide the kind of awful image that will make less easy to embrace than facing up to your problems in the material world.

Full post as published by Althouse on September 01, 2010 (boomark / email).