Amid last week's news of the president indoctrinating our children to socialism and the release of a remastered Beatles catalog, I seem to have missed Suicide Prevention Week.

I think a lot of us missed it. News of a suicide just isn't news. The media rarely cover suicide unless it involves a celebrity. We prefer to think of it as a statistic.

• More than six times as many males as females ages 20 to 24 die by suicide.

• Of every 100,000 people ages 65 and older, 14.2 died by suicide in 2006. The rate was 10.9 suicides per 100,000 people in the general population.

• Non-Hispanic white men 85 or older had an even higher rate, with 48 suicide deaths per 100,000.

• Native Americans have the highest rate for ethnic groups -- 15.1 per 100,000.

Are you moved? Probably not. Data are boring, cold and impersonal. Every now and then a suicide is publicized. A grieving family or friend bravely comes forward. But we tend to treat their story as entertainment. We want to know how and where they did it, who found the body, what was in the note.

We get those answers and move on. We don't want to think about it anymore. Let the experts deal with prevention. Besides, the family should have seen it coming. Right?

So, let's take a few moments to think about what most of us didn't even know happened last week. Let's make suicide real.

Women kill themselves at the same rate that firearms kill children in the United States -- about one every 90 minutes.

In Florida, there are about 2,000 suicides every year -- twice the number of homicides. Next time you pick up a newspaper, look at the amount of space dedicated to homicides. Double that space and you have equal coverage for suicide.

In 2006, 216 U.S. children under 15 killed themselves. The youngest was 5 -- about the age of the trick-or-treaters who will knock on your door Oct. 31.

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