again with the bridges

I live in Minnesota. You may or may not remember the 35W Bridge collapse occurring in my state back on August 4th, 2007. I know that I and every other person in Minnesota remembers that day. I was on my way to test-drive the car that I now own when while listening to MPR when the BBC world news did its hourly report or however often they happen to review the top news stories. It was the lead story on the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was surreal to to be listening to a local channel broadcasting a foreign news service's lead story coming from approximately 20 miles away.

What was worse was the fact that all of my friends have traveled across that bridge at least once in their life, like 75% travel on it at least once monthly for some reason or another and a large chunk of friends use it on a weekly basis if not 5 days a week. I even some have friends that live very close to there and used it multiple times a day. When I returned home I was glued to the television watching the rescue and recovery all night and for many more days. There was a bus filled with children and miraculasly only 13 people died in this travesty. I'm not downplaying that number, I just know what that thing looked like at that time of day and it easily could have been 100 dead. I don't want that again and Minnesota doesn't either but today it has become apparent that our infrastructure is decomposing below our tires.

The above links are about the state having to shut down another bridge. This bridge is an artery for the city of St. Cloud. I should know, I went to school there. I lived in the dorms for a year, just off campus for another two and downtown for for the final year and a half. I never lived more than 2 or 3 miles from that bridge and used it religiously. At the moment I travel over the Hastings bridge a minimum of 4 times a week. This issue must be dealt with immediatly. How many more bridges are in need of extensive repair or replacement and just haven't been found? How many need to fall before the government figures out how to hire someone other than Sverdrup & Parcel to build our bridges?

Hey America... Who built the Louisiana Superdome? The same guys that built two faulty bridges in Minnesota. The Superdome held up well, but the inspectors might want to take a closer look at it considering the shoddy workmanship its maker has exhibited in past work and the damage and the beating it took from the hurricane. Also, people crossing the Amelia Earhart Memorial Bridge in Atchison, Kansas and the Sidney Lanier Bridge in Brunswick, Georgia as well as people traveling the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel should be warned about possible flaws in the design.

I can't believe that more than one third of my life was spent crossing one crumbling bridge or another on an almost daily basis. I think the roads are trying to eat me.

Barack Obama Addresses The Issue Of Race

It is speeches like this that set Obama apart from any other presidential candidate in my lifetime. Next time I see a shooting star I'm not going to wish for a million dollars or for a particular girl to fall in love with me like I usually do, I'm going to wish that Barack Hussein Obama becomes the next president of the United States. This is the man that I want to lead us out of the six foot hole that the Bush administration has been digging for the past 7 years.

Obama faces controversy immediately and in the most dignified fashion. He says that he regrets Rev. Jeremiah Wright's remarks about racism in America, that he does not agree with them, but he won't cut ties with his friend and former pastor. Stop and think about your own life, think about hearing something come out of a good friend's mouth that made you jump back and wish that it hadn't been uttered. Did you end that friendship immediately? Probably not. I have a very good friend from college who is a really good guy, but from time to time he makes racist remarks. Every single time he says something I take the opportunity to remind him that I am offended by this sort of thing and that choosing the color of skin to lump a group of people together is probably the most ignorant way to find commonalities and to stereotype.

Obama doesn't skirt the issue either. This wasn't a 5 minute speech apologizing for what his friend said, he went on to explain that Black anger and that White resentment exist, and they do. People don't like to acknowledge them but these issues exist. It is the elephant in the room that has led to what I perceive as the slowing down of equality since just a few years after the civil rights movement. Don't misconstrue this, gains are made on the racial front every day, but things like the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and the Kennedy brothers, Reaganomics and the war on drugs have all slowed the process.

I think Obama is the perfect person to start this discussion because of his mixed race... He has seen and heard both sides of the argument where most people have only had one incite because of their race. If I walked into a barbershop during a discussion that involved what Obama termed "Black anger" the conversation would stop, but he has a white grandmother and because of their relationship she was not afraid to bring up issues of "White resentment."

My favorite line in his speech was this, "My dreams do not have to come at the expense of your dreams." I don't think a truer statement has ever been made, and I don't think an idea has ever been overlooked more. Humans tend to fuck each other over in order to make a better life for themselves. Our brains are wired to survive and back when we were cavemen that wiring came in handy, we did need to fuck each other over from time to time in order to survive, but now we have advanced agriculture and technology. We should be able to feed every one in the country 3 meals a day and treat any and all injuries. We should be able to put a roof over everyone's head and clothes on their backs. After that, after covering the basic needs should fend for themselves, but after that people only have wants, not needs.

By the end of the speech Obama has made his point and says that this race should not be defined by race or gender. We have to forget the remarks made by his pastor and by Geraldine Ferraro and focus on the real issues like the economy, health care, education and two wars. Obama is what a real politician should be, the only other politician I have ever trusted in this way was Paul Wellstone. I believe that he truly wants to do what he says he wants to do. I believe that he can make a difference for the better. I believe that this country is barreling toward the gutter and he is the only candidate that can stop such a thing from happening.

Greatest Quote Ever

I was just looking through some random gallery on the internet today when I ran across this front page from "The Daily Record" in Scotland. I couldn't stop laughing and figured that if anybody ever stopped here they would enjoy it, too.

On a quasi-related note I might actually write something here soon.

And it Begins

I've decided to venture out on my own in the blogosphere. Some people may who read Some People's Kids, the Minnesota sports blog that began this illustrious career in do-nothingism and time wastery, may stumble upon this site and wonder if I've given up that high paying job. The answer is no. I've decided that I needed a place to rant and rave about things other than sports. I need a place to share my stories and opinions that has a separate identity. I don't really expect anybody to read this knowing that very few people have mulled over the more established and aforementioned blog, but I'm fine with that. This site is more for me than anybody else.

I guess that the best way to start this thing off is by introducing myself to all three of you who will wander in this month. I graduated from college a little over a year ago and ever since then my main objective has been getting accepted into grad school. You see, my degree is absolutely worthless without going back... I majored in film studies. That's basically a major in not growing up, but its honestly what I want to do with my life. I want to be a screenwriter. I know that's crazy what with me not really having a great grip on things like spelling, grammar and punctuation, but the best way to become a better writer is by practicing, hence the Emporium and the change of subject associated with it. In my off time I hang out at Starbucks and hand out drinks to grumbly patrons and an assorted cast of regulars.

The bulk of the posts on here will probably deal with film, music, life at the bux, books (reading at work is the only way to make the time go by) and any other random thoughts that keep me from falling asleep at night. The word favorite does not exist to me, there is love, there is hate and there is grey, but there is no one person, band, film or book that owns my soul. I watch Tim Burton, the Coens, Scorsese, Hitchcock, Kurusawa and Truffaut but also love Bruce Willis films and don't thumb my nose at summer blockbuster popcorn movies. I listen to Bob Marley, Say Anything, Regina Spektor, Tom Waits, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Wolfmother and "backpack rap." I read Douglas Adams, Chuck Palahniuk, Hunter S. Thompson, Chuck Klosterman, Kurt Vonnegut, the classics I feel I'll enjoy and anything that Starbucks agrees to sell in their stores. I am a liberal, an optimist, a slacker and just crazy enough to still know that sanity looks like.

I don't know how often I'll post, but I promise that the content here will be far more entertaining than this particular post is.