Monday, August 06, 2007, 22:06
When the Unthinkable Has Happened (The 35W Bridge)
It's really something about the 35W bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis, isn't it.
I was on my way home from a newspaper meeting Wednesday evening when I turned on the radio in my truck. The station was an oldies music station, so I was surprised to hear what sounded like a news segment.
Then it hit me. . . it *was* a news segment.
And with dawning horror, I realized they were talking about a bridge in Minneapolis that had collapsed into the Mississippi River. The 35W bridge.
And with increasing concern, I couldn't help thinking about the editor of the newspaper I write for. Her son had been in motorcycle accident over the weekend, and they were going that afternoon to bring him home from a hospital in the Twin Cities. I wasn't sure where the hospital was in relationship to 35W bridge. I sincerely hoped she and her family were not on that bridge at a little after 6 p.m.
As it turned out, they were not.
But there were other people on the bridge at the time, as I'm sure everyone knows from hearing it on the news. The news channels in the Twin Cities are reporting that 8 people are missing all together, including a pregnant woman and her young daughter and another mother and her adult son with Down syndrome.
Structural deficiencies
And now they know, too, from recent bridge inspections, that the 35W bridge had "structural deficiencies." News reports also indicate there are many bridges in Minnesota with structural deficiencies and poor ratings. Not just Minnesota, of course, but all over the country. There are bridges all over the country in that kind of shape. Apparently there's not enough money to do proper maintenance on bridges and replace them when necessary.
Hold on a minute. Back up the truck here, Mabel.
Did I just say there's not enough money to do proper bridge maintenance to keep the American public from falling into a river when people are driving home from work?
Let me see if I can get this straight.
Oil companies are allowed to make record profits at the expense of the American public. Their motto is, "Let's bleed the citizens of the United States dry -- and more power to us."
Credit card companies are allowed to make record profits at the expense of the American public. Their motto, too, is, "Let's bleed the citizens of the United States dry -- and more power to us."
Insurance companies, as well, are allowed to make record profits at the expense of the American public. Want to take a guess about their motto? "Let's bleed the citizens of the United States dry -- and more power to us."
We can also spend billions on a war that American politicians started just because some of them felt like starting a war.
But there's not enough money to fix bridges. Or to do things like fund education or make sure everyone has adequate health care. But those are subjects for another rant. The subject here is bridges.
Taxes
The American taxpayers, politicians say, don't want to pay higher taxes to do things like fix bridges.
Excuse me?
Higher taxes?
What about the politicians spending the money we are already giving them in a better, more responsible way? All they have to do is shut their ears to the special interest groups and keep one goal in mind: looking out for the American public and doing what is best for the average, ordinary American.
Is this so difficult? To look out for the average, ordinary, hard-working Americans who keeps the economy going? The people who buy groceries. And pillow cases. And towels. And shampoo. And get haircuts. The people who don't have much themselves, but if they see someone else in need (a benefit auction for a neighbor with medical problems, for example) they will give what little they have to help.
The people who get up and go to work every day, knowing that they are at the bottom of the pile, so to speak, knowing that the politicians who run the country don't care that they are having trouble feeding their families and making ends meet or getting the medical care they need or the medication they need or if they are losing their houses -- just as long as the politicians get their salaries and can provide favors for their rich buddies.
Wake-up call
A collapsed bridge on a major arterial highway in a good-sized Midwestern city ought to be a wake-up call. But I don't think it will be.
European and Scandinavian countries already view the United States as a country that does not care about its people.
This is not going to be any different.
In the meantime, 13 families in Minneapolis and St. Paul are hurting because their loved ones are dead or missing.
Let us keep them all in our thoughts and prayers.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Saturday, August 04, 2007, 19:25
Tick-Tick-Tick. . .
Tick-Tick-Tick. . .
Tick-Tick-Tick. . .
It is a sound that strikes terror into the human hearts around our household here at Rural Route 2.
On the other hand, it is sound that brings joy and delight to the feline members of the family.
Which is, of course, why it strikes terror into the human hearts.
That's because Tick-Tick-Tick is the sound of. . .
A katydid.
In the house.
That will attract cat attention by sound of the second Tick-Tick-Tick. . .
And it has. The other night I took Pixie outside. When I cam back inside, I heard it. Tick-Tick-Tick. . .
Our little gray kitty cat Sophie, who was 2 years old in July, came flying into the kitchen, eyes wild, staring up at me.
"What's with you, Soph—"
Then I heard it, too.
Tick-Tick-Tick. . .The sound of one of the bright green insects that is larger than a grasshopper.
"Oh, oh," I said. "There's a katydid in here."
Randy and I have not let any katydids remain in the house for long. We are afraid to. We are afraid, I tell you -- for the furniture. For the lamps. For the hand-painted turkey eggs I bought from a Native American artist at a craft sale. For the blue pottery bowl made by a local potter with flower cut patterns out of the side so that when you put a votive candle in it at night, it is lovely. We are also afraid for the pictures on the wall. The toaster out in the kitchen. The laptop computer on the kitchen table. The hanging lights over the sink. Books on the bookshelf.
In short -- we are afraid for anything in the house that might be remotely breakable, because when the kitties, especially Sophie and Snowflake, hear a katydid, they come on the run. Then they begin leaping everywhere trying to catch it.
So far, I have been successful in making a quick lunge and a pinch-grab, nabbing the katydid, and escorting it out of doors again. Where it will be safe. Or at least much safer than it is in the house.
LeAnn R. Ralph