Apparently, bridges fall down ALL THE TIME in the U.S. but they aren't usually very dramatic and therefore get no media coverage. Roads are boring. People don't want to elect officials who promise to put money into old things when there are so many shiny new things to be had. The media doesn't want to spend time on talking about the decay of our infrastructure until there are people dead, good photo ops and stories of triumph to fill up their newscasts.

It's not any one group's fault. I blame it on the short attention span of our whole country. I blame it on our lust for flash and melodrama. It would require so much more than we have at this point to get a majority of people interested in ANYTHING even vaguely slow and difficult.

I have no idea what the answer is to this gross apathy that I am plenty guilty of myself. Turn off the TV? Read more books? Extoll intelligence as much as we extoll mediocre half-dressed talent? What the hell, it might be worth a shot.