Sasha's commentary for September 16, 2013: Keep Bringin' on the Crazy

It seems that no matter what anyone does, the world only becomes a crazier and crazier place. And sadly, there is not much we can do to change that. My heart goes out to the families of the victims of this morning's shooting at the Naval Yard in Washington D.C. Although I believe that almost any one who wants to own a gun should have the right to, there are also people who are willing to go on mass rampages who probably have the mental state that would allow them to do such a destructive deed. Even words can be destructive.

Fix the Family is one of those pro-family Catholic groups and one of their writers believes that college is harmful to young women, and that women need not have post-secondary education. Hogwash, just hogwash. Anyone who has the academic aptitude for higher education should go for it, no questions asked. And the whole "sinful environment?" You'll find that anywhere and everywhere. And plus, college could quite likely make a future mother a better one, as she might study biology and have a better understanding that if, God forbid, her child have a lingering medical condition through his childhood. This group seems just like Focus on the Family, Roman Catholic edition. And by the way, disapproving dads, here's something that might be of comfort: women make up the majority of a majority of college campuses in the United States. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if less men enter college in a few years. Of course, the stay-at-home mother role is always nice (and stressful) but at the same time if a woman wants a career, let her go for it.

Marianne Johnson-Reddick appears to have had a tortured soul, sadly, or something seriously wrong. When your kids trash you in an obituary either it's a prank or they mean it. Quoting the obituary, which was taken offline:

She is survived by her 6 of 8 children whom she spent her lifetime torturing in every way possible. While she neglected and abused her small children, she refused to allow anyone else to care or show compassion towards them. When they became adults she stalked and tortured anyone they dared to love. Everyone she met, adult or child was tortured by her cruelty and exposure to violence, criminal activity, vulgarity, and hatred of the gentle or kind human spirit.

On behalf of her children whom she so abrasively exposed to her evil and violent life, we celebrate her passing from this earth and hope she lives in the after-life reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty, and shame that she delivered on her children. Her surviving children will now live the rest of their lives with the peace of knowing their nightmare finally has some form of closure.

Turns out that she had another dark side, quite possibly: 

in 1970, Marianne Reddick, owner of the Academy Personnel Agency, testified before the Nevada Equal Rights Commission that she had "White Only" printed on work referrals because she didn't want to embarrass African-Americans, apparently by sending them to jobs where businesspeople wanted only whites (she said a local businessperson had chewed out one of her job counselors for sending a black applicant on a job referral);

Fun, right? And this is something I didn't know: there's a movement to ban paid obituaries. That's one of the stranger ban movements I've seen. However, being hateful towards people, especially children is just plain wrong.

State legislatures had five years to do this: start coughing up money or find a way to bill Amtrak for passenger rail service. In two weeks, many of Amtrak's regional routes might be canned due to a lack of funding. Do that, and you're going to be in for trouble. Amtrak has sadly been neglected by Congress since it's inception in 1971 and Amtrak has always seemed to have one foot in the coffin. We shouldn't be trying to kill passenger rail in the country but instead have it grow and blossom. Then again, Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Corbett could give any less care about the state of PA's infrastructure, and the last thing that is needed is more SEPTA routes to be cut. I feel that Congress should extend that by another year and give the states time to get their act together. Otherwise come October 1st, Amtrak is going to be a hollow shell. Although many transit providers need very little in the way of actual operations funding, many (like Amtrak) need capital funding to buy new equipment/build new infrastructure and to maintain the equipment/infrastructure.

And finally, I didn't know this, but there's actually a proper way to read a textbook. Wow!