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Random bits of interest.

1. Schizophrenia Gene May Have On/Off Switch Interesting, specifically for people suffering from schizophrenia and their families. The study was done on mice and there is no guarantee that the results will transfer over into humans, but the mice supposedly displayed behaviors similar to those that are seen in people with the disorder. Hopefully we’ll hear about this again someday, as opposed to many of the seemingly revolutionary medical tests I read about in the news that mysteriously disappear.

2. Amish donate cash to school gunman’s widow Although I am wary of people who urge universal forgiveness, I was struck and impressed by the sympathy in this act. For the Amish people to be able to make such a kind gesture toward a woman who has probably suffered a great deal since the incident in question - when her husband took several Amish schoolgirls hostage, eventually killing four and injuring others - is thought-provoking and inspiring.

3. Commuting Sucks One of the most beneficial perks of living in New York City is the top-notch public transportation system. NYC is the only place I have ever lived where the public transportation system was so comprehensive and reliable that it greatly diminished your need for a car. In most American places, people have to rely on cars because they have no alternatives - places where public transit is limited to poor to non-existent. This study isn’t telling people anything they don’t know. Comprehensive public transportation improvements need to be a higher priority of the American public and of our politicians.

4. White Stripes cancel all 2007 tour dates :*[ Anyone who has read of my love of the White Stripes knows this is distressing news. Here’s hoping Meg gets better sometime soon. If she needs a break, she needs a break. I’m just glad I was able to see them when I did.

This is ridiculous:

Out-of-synch lip-synching. Lethargic movements that seemed choreographed by a dance instructor for a nursing home. The paunch in place of Spears’ once-taut belly.

People really do loathe her, don’t they? Otherwise I don’t think this kind of ‘reporting’ would be acceptable. It’s not a fanboy evaluation. I’m not reading what Perez Hilton thought of the VMAs. It’s an a-r-t-i-c-l-e. Unprofessional, juvenile, and sexist, but an article nonetheless.

A boy I knew growing up murdered his x-girlfriend the other day. While I was reading an article about the incident, I remembered wondering what became of him once I had moved away. I didn’t know him very well until I was forced to sit across from him in class. He didn’t know me before that either, but he immediately keyed into the fact that I was an upstanding goody-two-shoes and that, without a lot of effort, he could get a reaction out of me.

Most of the time he wasn’t mean to me. He wanted my attention and he would say or do whatever he thought would work to get it. His way of engaging me was through harassment - the time-tested technique many adolescent boys use to get girls to pay attention to them. Sometimes he could hold a civil conversation; sometimes he couldn’t; but I used to talk to him and periodically he would open up and tell me things about himself.

He grew up in a rich/upper-middle-class white neighborhood. He was fascinated with violence and gangster movies. Once he told me that his dream was to run off to New York City and join the mob. He had a very short attention span and would become antsy and distracted very easily. When he was in a good mood, he was hilarious and charming. When he was in a bad mood, he was cruel and abusive. He wasn’t stupid but his grades were poor. He got thrown out of class at least once a week. He would alternate between having violent outbursts and lethargic moments where he could hardly stay awake. Maybe our teacher sat him with me because she thought I would be a tempering influence on him or something. My good-girl status was often getting me punished like that.

Last week, this same kid - the kid who once jumped up on our table in the middle of class and shouted, “Praise Jesus!” - beat, strangled, and stabbed the woman he once dated. He left her body in the bathtub of their apartment, his fingerprints smeared in the blood along the wall. This is what allowed the police to immediately connect him to the murder and arrest him shortly after.

Even when he was a kid, everyone knew he needed help. That was back when he was merely dreaming of becoming a violent criminal; back when someone could have attempted to stop the destructive, tragic path his life was on. I wonder if it would have even made a difference.

I think about the person he was when he was doing well, when he was happy, and how much potential that person had. I think about how he was constantly getting in trouble and it resulted in nothing. No one ever wanted to deal with him. He always seemed to be punished in the same way, in a useless, cyclical fashion, even when his inappropriate behavior escalated. I remember thinking many of these things at the time, too, but hoping he would ‘grow out of it’ despite the fact that there was no reason to believe that he would. Now a well-meaning girl who probably saw a lot of the same things I saw in him is dead.

What a complete waste.

7 dead as Mississippi River bridge falls amid rush hour in Minneapolis

Why did this happen?

I am not familiar with the intricacies of bridge architecture or the public laws surrounding its maintenance. I know construction work was taking place on the bridge at the time of the collapse, but the authorities in Minnesota are claiming that the work had nothing to do with the bridge’s structural integrity.

Was this not something the local/state/federal government knew was coming? Something they could not have predicted? Who was in charge of checking? I’m asking these questions genuinely because, although they seem like they should have simple answers, they may not. Maybe the structural problems of the bridge weren’t easy to identify; maybe it was decaying and crumbling from within. Still… it seems like something should have been happening that wasn’t.

My goal in these questions, rather than try to figure out who to blame, is really to understand more about the circumstances surrounding the situation. If anyone reading this post knows about any of these things, I encourage you to leave a comment pointing me in the right educational direction.

Maybe this will encourage New York State to be more serious about replacing/rebuilding the Tappan Zee Bridge.

More children molested because the Catholic church broke the law. Repeatedly.

Priest Says Church Knew He Was Abusing Girls

MacArthur told lawyers in a 2004 deposition for an out-of-state civil case that he was bounced around by church leadership, from South Dakota to Wisconsin to Texas, because of the abuse. Stops in Wisconsin include St. Phillips, St. Roses and the Beaver Dam hospital.

The suit, filed in Milwaukee County Court, is on behalf of a Jane Doe, a woman who said she was abused in the 60s in Milwaukee. Her lawsuit includes a photo of her with MacArthur, as well other documents that victims advocates say proves a cover-up by church leadership.

If you were one of those victims, who would you hate more - the priest who molested you or the men who enabled him to do it? The men who unconscionably, unscrupulously, and immorally placed a predator into a position of power and assumed trust?

The men of the Catholic church who supported, enabled, and protected child molesters should be going to jail. They are equally culpable in these crimes and, in addition to having the arrogance to circumvent the law, have committed crimes themselves.

That’s a damn shame.

Man guilty of abducting mom, leaving daughter to alligators

I have to quote this, because it is so despicable and nauseating it’s almost unbelievable:

He choked Maycock until she was unconscious and then forced her and Quatisha into his car, the woman testified. At one point, Maycock gained consciousness, grabbed the child and jumped out of the moving vehicle.

Braddy stopped, choked the woman again and put her in the trunk, she testified. Maycock never saw her daughter again. Prosecutors said Braddy then drove to a section of Interstate 75 in the Everglades known as Alligator Alley and dropped Quatisha in the water beside the road.

She was alive when alligators bit her on the head and stomach, a medical examiner said.

Authorities found the girl’s body two days later, her left arm missing and her skull crushed, prosecutors said.

This gentleman, highlight of modern society that he is, was released early from prison for ‘good behavior’ before he did this. Before he fed a 5 year old girl to alligators. How sick and angry this makes me. Nothing comparable will ever happen to him.

“Punishing” him with a lifelong prison sentence is useless. At this point, the only purpose in his sentencing would be to keep him out of general society. He’s beyond a lost cause.

How do you successfully stop someone like this? I mean, beyond feelings of vengeance, justice for the victim’s family, all of those other factors - could there ever be any successful hope of rehabilitating someone who does something like this?

I honestly don’t know that there is.