Rush

You know you live in Austin when you measure the distance somewhere in minutes, not miles. The time of day also is your deciding factor if you really want to go somewhere because the traffic is just horrendous.

Todd Hemingson says that the buses taking the toll lanes to get people to their destination faster will make people want to take the bus rather than drive themselves. Which will, in turn, reduce the traffic overall. That is great news and all, but if everyone suddenly wants to take the bus the buses will fill up and there will be an overcrowding. Just like it was a great idea to have a train that took people into and out of Austin. Don't get me wrong, the train does do that. The downfall to that is that there is only one track and it doesn't branch out into many parts of Austin. The MetroRail was a good idea, the outcome isn't as efficient and convenient as imagined. The buses will eventually have their downside, too. Once this lovely toll lane is added to MoPac. It all seems really great in theory, but will it live up to the expectations.
 
The toll lane is supposed to have a goal of keeping the traffic flow at at least 50 miles per hour. Sounds awesome, right? Until everyone wants to be in that lane and will pay the price it takes. The problem isn't just the roads here in Austin, it is the constant growth we have. Roughly 130 people move into Austin a day. In just one day. So, is building the new toll lane the best option?
Sure, adding more lanes to MoPac will be awesome for the commute but that doesn't change all these folks moving here.

I'm not saying that I have a better solution to the traffic problem (except to tell people to GO HOME), but I'm not entirely convinced that the one extra toll lane is going to help solve the problem completely. Austin grew too fast for the roads to handle this amount of traffic constantly on it.
It has been noticed that people prefer to drive themselves everywhere they go anyways. So, making the buses look more attractive to ride might be harder than Hemingson thinks. Hopefully there is some change soon because I don't think that any of us can handle the traffic much longer.

Same-Sex Marriages

In the blog post Dear GOP windbags dog whistling on marriage equality written by Harold Cook, Cook has a very humorous way of expressing his opinion about the passing of Same-Sex Marriage back in June of this year. He supports same-sex marriage and is simultaneously putting down Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz who claim that same-sex marriage affects their religious practices. He calls it "un-American". Cook is raining on their parade and making an extremely valid point against those who appose same-sex marriages because it interferes with their beliefs. It is just like saying you're mad at someone for eating a cupcake in front of you because you are on a diet, it just doesn't make sense. He makes a joke of it at the end telling Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz to not go "marry any dudes" and that that is all the religious freedom they have. Cook seems to be addressing this to, obviously Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz, but also to those who are offended by same-sex marriages because it is against their religion. Cook puts in a very straight forward manner and to the point of where people are going wrong with what they say like everyone else cares to hear it.

The argument being made by Cook sure convinced me, mostly because I think that anyone and everyone is aloud to be stuck with one person for the rest of their life if they chose to do so, it does not matter about the sex of the partners. The comments that people left also shows that others agree and think the same way about the subject that he does. It is hard to change someones mind about their religious beliefs and preferences but telling someone to stay out of business that does not concern them is even harder to do. Which I'm sure everyone had seen back in June when the law passed. When it comes to changing someones religious views that they have known their whole life and stand by through thick and thin, good luck changing that. I know that Cook may not have done well at changing peoples minds about the same-sex marriage but he makes a point to stand up to them to tell them what they are doing is wrong, or "un-American".

Food for the Future

We can all remember waiting for Friday’s to get our rectangular shaped piece of pizza just like it says in the article We call all remember waiting for lunch on Friday’s and get our rectangular shaped piece of pizza just like the article Editorial: Texas moving wrong direction on school lunches, so it's up to the feds, “That time gave way to the age of the french fry and the vending machine in the cafeteria. Pizza Fridays became pizza every day. And if kids washed it all down with a can of soda, well, at least they were eating their lunch.”

The audience that is obviously being targeted is the group of parents who send their children to school where they buy a lunch there every day. Parents send their children to school all day and expect that they are being educated well and taken care of-meals included. Also, voters who vote for these laws are being targeted. At the end of the article the author lists a few reasons why the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act should be supported. All very good, healthy reasons.

The author is trying to get the readers to see their point of view, which is to massively support the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. The author gives many good reasons why you as a reader should support this Act and vote for it. The way it is written it makes you feel almost a little guilty for not being aware of such a thing and that you should want to change this ASAP. The author uses statistics to show how much the food for lunch has changed the weight in youth across America, and uses Dallas as a prime example as what the rest of the country should aim for.

I can completely see what the author is getting at in fact, I pretty much agree with what they are saying. I would agree that the foods that are being put into your body should be healthy choices that are beneficial for healthy growth. Our bodies at such young ages need the nutrients and proteins and the vitamins that healthy foods provides for us.

Back in high school, were you ever late to class and just brushed it under the rug because, "tardies don't count"? Interesting enough, tardies do count and they add up into absences and you get charged with truancy. In the article Texas Turns Away From Prosecuting Truants by Claudio Sanchez he explains that truancy has been around for too long-20 years! Governor Greg Abbott signed a law that no longer lets truancy be treated as a Class C Misdemeanor. With this new law being passed it is a lot of relief for the students who have busy lives and cannot always make it to school on time, if at all. The amount of student who were being charged with truancy and were not trouble makers was outrageous and has since gone down. The real question and problem is how do we keep students in school who aren’t busy with more important things in school? And how do we differentiate between the ones that are missing school because of family emergencies and the ones who are skipping school because they have nothing better to do?

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