And The Bridge Falls

I read this editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today. It’s pretty good. I especially liked a couple lines:

“There isn't any bigger metaphor for a society in trouble than a bridge falling, its concrete lanes pointing brokenly at the sky, its crumpled cars pointing down at the deep waters where people disappeared.”

“…we are left to conclude that it was worse than any of those things, because it was more mundane and more insidious: This death and destruction was the result of incompetence or indifference. In a word, it was avoidable.”

"Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics." (The Twins have postponed the groundbreaking for their new stadium.)

His overall point is that government has failed the people.

I listened to Barbara Kingsolver today too. She’s written a book (Animal, Vegtable, Miracle) about her family’s experience of eating only local food for one year. There’s some pretty excellent stuff in the transcript.

But for the topic du jour:

“We have a tendency to blame anybody but us, especially the government, and say, 'Well, the government needs to fix this.' Well, here's the trouble. The government is us. We have the laws that we allow, that we're willing to put up with. We're terrified of sacrifices, it seems. We're really afraid of giving up the things that we're accustomed to.”