Thursday, August 02, 2007

A time to repair


Not a good view from this part of the world today. We’re socked in with smoke from fires. The city in a haze, red air alert. Two small towns east of here had purple air alerts.

But this is nothing compared to the tragedy in Minneapolis. To have a busy interstate highway bridge just collapse like that—something is seriously wrong, far beyond the structural problems of the bridge. At both the State and Federal levels. Sometimes it seems like we’re so busy going after the next new thing (or conquest…) we forget about taking care of the old infrastructure systems already in place. Systems our daily lives depend upon.

I hope this forces budget-makers to divert more dollars into upgrading our bridges, levies, dams, and the like. Perhaps a start would be to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and use the "savings" to take care of what we need to fix at home…

^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^
A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
~ John F. Kennedy

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