Since the Ulvade massacre of children, people are talking a lot about mental health. Mental health is an umbrella term for a myriad of psychiatric diagnoses. Most people who have been diagnosed do not randomly kill people, unless weíre dealing with a sociopathic serial killer.The front page articles this month cover two topics always in the news these days: the housing market and mental health.The housing industry in Falcon and the eastern plains area has drastically changed in the last 25 years. Obviously, itís no longer just a rural area that attracts people who want to distance themselves from the city and buy a house that offers more for their buck. Erin Malcomís article shows that homes in Falcon and Peyton sell for as much or more than homes in Colorado Springs, not to mention the building boom that surrounds us.Erin also tackled mental health, and focused on the availability of mental health services in rural areas, along with partnerships between sheriffís deputies and mental health professionals.With the inconceivable rise in mass shootings in this country, mental health has suddenly caught the attention of politicians. Many of these mass shooters are being targeted as mentally ill; however, there are statistics that dispute that idea.According to a May 28 online article from ABC, a 2018 FBI report found that only 25% of shooters from 2000 to 2013 had been diagnosed with a mental illness.The article states that experts agree there are some aspects of mental illness associated with mass violence, but those experts ìinsist that it is truly a multi-layer and complex crisis, driven by a confluence of other factors as well, such as widespread access to firearms, stalled gun reform and exposure to increased stressors and crises.îìThe notion of blaming this on the mentally ill is an intentionally disingenuous scapegoating of people who have enough problems already — that they don’t need to be insulted by politicians who were looking for a way to avoid a more complicated discussion,î said Joel Dvoskin, a clinical and forensic psychologist who served on the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Reducing Gun Violence.Dvoskin also told ABC News that there is no ìthe mentally ill. Itís all of us. Itís our kids, our families, our uncles, our cousins.î He spoke of the Uvalde tragedy as a ìa public health crisis.îItís going to take a village to determine how to proceed in combatting this deep stain on our society. I think it will take a genus of ìvillage people,î from mental health professionals to educators to law enforcement to parents in order to determine a path to sanity and healing in this country.This month, we also have some great columns like Terry Stokkaís water article and Mark Stoller and the Rolling Stones. Ava Stoller brings us a bit of history ó the Korean War ó that is as the title states, often forgotten. For pet and animal lovers in general, Bill Radford brings humor to his column as he describes new possibilities to add to his menagerie; and Dr. Jim Humphries educates us about how to assess pain in cats and dogs. Robin Widmar covers a book about a photographer embedded with wildland firefighters. I would like to thank our columnists for all that they contribute to the NFH.Judy von Ahlefeldt, the former publisher of the Black Forest News and a tireless advocate for the preservation of Black Forest, has written an important editorial on land leases in the area.I hope you are enjoying your summer so far. You probably are reading this after all the Fourth of July celebrations, but Happy July 4 anyway.See you in August!– Michelle
