Have you had enough of the Minneapolis bridge collapse? Me too.

Minneapolis bridge collapse. So far 5 people had died; 8 missing. Numerous cars fell into the river when the bridge collapsed. Maximum possible death toll: 13. Yes, 13, ok? How many people are dying in Darfur or Iraq on a daily basis?? Do they get an instant 250m dollars, heck no! Substance, please.

I just don't get it. Since day one of the collapse, we were informed structural engineers from state had raised questions about this bridge, more than once. It was not on the list to be fixed because the state simply didn't allocate enough money to maintenance.

The problem lies in where the money gets spent. Transportation bill hasn't been small, to be fair. However, large amounts of the money from those bills fund new constructions: building bridges leading to nowhere, highways facilitating more suburban sprawling and more vehicular traffic. It is politically popular to do new projects: it creats job; it makes places look like an American dream, concrete lanes diving up green space, packed with shiny roads and cookie-cutter houses. The existing transportation infrastructure, including roads, bridges, railroads and subways have been neglected as a result.

So explain to me why the hell do I need to be listening to breaking news such as these: "the governor is calling state wide inspection of all bridges", 'Massachutes transportation department is also inspecting our bridges per the Governor's request'. First, this is too little too late. You can't fix the briges tomorrow. Second, the fundamental problem was and is not, if and how we do inspections. In fact, we do a fine job at it. The problem is the fricking money. The money is not going where it should be. More money needs to go to maintenance and less needs to go to new construction projects. And of course, unless people start dying, pork barreling is business as usual. In this case, it's bringing home the concrete instead of the bacon, that's of high interest to the local politicians.

Even better yet, that CNN article says our politicians are going to pass a bill up to $250m just to fix this one bridge in Minnesota. If we already know hundreds of bridges, roads in the country may be in need of fixing due to years of neglect, why spend so much on one single bridge? Why not explore options such as building bridge at a different location, a tunnel or even a rail line on the bridge instead of car lanes? Minnesotans, are you ready to stuff your faces?