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Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Line of the day
From Garrison Keillor of all people:
On the other hand, many people felt that a time of tragedy is no time to be pointing the finger of blame. Many men who have shot their wives have felt the same way.1 comments
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
35W Bridge -- a very worthwhile read
The Minnesota Monitor's Eric Black takes a close look at the 35W bridge collapse. It's really fine journalism. Here's one point that bares repeating:
I asked that question of Elwyn Tinklenberg, who was Jesse Ventura's transportation commissioner (so he knows how this stuff actually works and doesn't) and whom I view as fair-minded (although a Democrat).
He said the issue has to go beyond the question of the blameworthiness of a particular transportation commissioner and governor. He felt that the eight years of the Arne Carlson administration before Ventura came to office had been years of infrastructure neglect. He knew when he was commissioner that roads and bridges needed increasingly urgent attention, but he couldn't get the level of funding necessary to really tackle the job. So he said he "feels some sympathy" with Pawlenty and Molnau, standing there holding the bag when the nightmare became horrible reality.
Tinklenberg makes a good point, but I highlight this passage for another reason. Black finds a source he thinks is honest and knowledgeable. He discloses the most relevant facts that bear on the source's credibility (the source is a Democrat). Finally, Black tells us what the source says.
Black is putting his reputation on the line here, which is good. The journalist should bear some responsibility for what is printed under his or her name. Oftentimes readers are better served by hearing from one expert, properly disclosed, rather than hearing from multiple experts.
Labels: 35W
0 comments
Saturday, August 04, 2007
You're doing a heck of a job, Carol
Man, did Minnesota Department of Transportation Commissioner Carol Molnau sound testy in her interview yesterday. Nobody was accusing her of anything (yet) but the woman who for years has been trying to run her department on the cheap (remember the ridiculous attempts to find a contractor who would self finance the Crosstown Highway repair so the state could pay them back at some later date?) really sounded defensive. She angrily claimed that she would never have short changed I35 bridge maintenance since her own daughter often drove on it.
When I heard that my first thought was of a scene from one of my favorite movies. In Jaws, after the whole town finally sees a person killed by the shark Chief Martin Brody puts the screws to the mayor to get him to hire someone to kill it. A freaked out and defensive mayor tells him, "Martin, my kids were on that beach too." No one in the audience feels much sympathy for him as the mayor had refused to take any action after the prior attacks because there were too many tourist dollars at stake.
Could better transportation funding have made a difference this week? Who knows, maybe not. But we sure as hell don't have any reason to think Carol Molnau was interested in doing much to rebuild infrastructure, no matter what roads her daughter drives on. For 25 years I've been hearing the Republican party tell me that government is the enemy and the best thing America could do was to defund it as much as possible. They referred to it as "starving the beast" and Grover Norquist famously said he planned to shrink the size of government until it was small enough to drown in a bathtub. Well, there was some drowning this week all right, and I don't think it is going too far to lay at least some of the blame on the folks who have been trying to convince the country that having the government spend money is some sort of sin.
Labels: 35W, government spending
1 comments
Thursday, August 02, 2007
35W Bridge Collapses
There's a lot of coverage on the 35W collapse: local, national, international.
I have little to add. We should find out why the bridge collapsed and take steps to prevent such tragedies from happening again.
Update by Jambo
There's not that much we amateurs can say about events like this but I think the role of the internet in the aftermath of these things is interesting. I saw a news crawl on one of the local stations last night that said USInternet was making its wifi system in the area (a city wide service that won't be fully on line until this fall) available for communication since cell phone circuits in the area were jammed. A story in the Strib this morning recounts how Wikipedia has been updating it's entry on the subject since less than half an hour after the collapse. And of course there is the email. As someone who used to take that bridge to work (I've driven over it probably 1500 times) I've received tons of email from friends making sure I was OK, including one of my friends in Argentina who saw the news on TV last night.
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