35W Mississippi Bridge Collapse
Thanks friends and family for checking in on us. I don't know anyone who was affected by the collapse, but a woman at Kinko's said she knew someone who was hurt, and another woman said she had just crossed that bridge before coming to Hopkins.
I crossed the bridge on Monday to go to a Green Party meeting at the Dunn Brothers at 530 University Ave. SE. I remember being late for the 6:41 pm 5th CD Steering Committee meeting because the University Ave. exit was closed. I had to take the Hennepin Ave. exit and double back.
Here’s a related message:
>>>
Tuesday, July 27, 1999 (NOTE DATE: 8 YEARS AGO)
PERSPECTIVES ON FEDERAL SPENDING
Build On, Repair What We Have
The debate over how to allocate funds must include how best to improveour great shared assets.
By RALPH NADER
New projections of a federal budget surplus have left Washington abuzz with proposals on how the government should allocate hundreds of billions of dollars. Strikingly absent from the debate are recommendations to revitalize our commonwealth by investing in a public works program.
At no time in recent history has a program to construct, rebuild or repair crumbling bridges, schools, drinking water facilities, sewer lines, docks, parks, mass transit systems, libraries, clinics, courthouses and other public amenities and infrastructure been so urgent or achievable. Too many of our roads and bridges are decrepit;
Full text:
Ralph Nader Perspectives on Federal Spending
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posted by Tom Cleland @ 8/02/2007 02:58:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
To All Here:
I believe it was Ann who asked if there were some local groups that people could send contributions to help in regards to the bridge collapse. I remember Ann specifically mentioned not trusting the Red Cross and I tend to agree with her.
I just found out that a member of my honey's Church was killed in the collapse. The Church, All Nations Church is an Indian, Native American Church located in a poor neighbourhood of south Minneapolis. Her name is Julia Blackhawk and she has left two young children behind. The family were poor before the tragedy but now they are basically destitute. Contributions can be sent to
Julia Blackhawk Memorial Fund
C/O South Metro Federal Credit Union
15045 Mystic Lake Dr.
Prior Lake, MN 55372
Also, the busload of children that I mentioned were from a Waite House a local community center, which is located in the Phillips area of Minneapolis. This centre helps families in Phillips, which is an impoverished neighbourhood in south Minneapolis and about 20 blocks from where I live. The kids and their families have been obviously been traumatized by the events on the bridge collapse.
Contributions can be sent to
Waite House
2529 13th Ave S.
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Please feel free to forward this message to any groups or listserves that you may feel are appropriate.
Thank you all in advance for your generosity. Ann, thank you specifically for asking the question.
I shall be unavailable for further comments as I am leaving with my honey for vacation for the next week.
Michael Cavlan
Minnesota
From the book “Bankruptcy 1995” by Figgie and Swanson published in 1992, page 14 (of course there was no national bankruptcy in 1995, but this part was prophetic): “Paul is in the hospital. Betsy said he’s probably going to be all right. The other boy in the car, though – he’s dead. Drowned. The Webster Avenue bridge collapsed. You know, the one they tried to pass the bond issue for, so they could replace it. Three cars went into the river. It was no one’s fault. You’d better go.”
I'm just putting the question out there: Comparing the bridge failure to the
levy failure, is white America being treated with more compassion than black
America? They're talking about spending more money on bridge inspections,
etc. Was it the same after Katrina, which was much larger? Could it be a
factor that more people are affected by bridges than levies?
Tom Cleland
Golden Valley
----- Original Message -----
From: "greenpartymike" Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 10:13 PM
Subject: International Tribunal for HurricanesKatrina
and Rita
> For Farheen Hakeem and other Cynthia McKinney fans:
>
> Just recieved this from Cynthia herself.
>
> Michael Cavlan
>
>
> Hello all! Today I participated in a press conference in New Orleans
> launching the International Tribunal for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I
> am
> proud to join activists and the best and most committed legal minds in an
> effort to find justice for people so abused by our own system of
> protection. I was given a tour today that put in stark relief the
> situation
> faced by survivors who want to come home and that faced by those who have
> already returned. House after house, street after street, neighborhood
> after neighborhood, showed the very same thing: abandoned houses, rubbish
> heaps, formaldehyde trailers, lots with no houses. Mold, receded toxic
> flood waters, Blackwater mercenary troops, abandonment, hope. They tell
> me
> that to really see the effects of cumulated government inaction, I have to
> have a night tour--eerie, because there are no lights at night, no
> electricity. Where is this? The United States, you say? The world's
> great
> superpower? Not in New Orleans, that's for sure. I look forward to the
> work of the Tribunal because what is happening here is a travesty.
>
> Please visit the website at www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com for pictures
> of
> my New Orleans visit and regular updates on my travels. Thanks for your
> support!
>
> Here's what I had to say in New Orleans:
>
> Cynthia McKinney
> Hurricane Katrina International Tribunal
> Press Conference, New Orleans
> August 2, 2007
>
>
> I am pleased to be among this tested and true group of activists who are
> committed to Katrina Justice.
>
> We come together to do what is right for our country and this community.
>
> We are told that the failures of the government to protect its citizens on
> September 11th was a "failure of imagination." In the case of Katrina
> survivors they tell us that it was a "failure of initiative." The
> operative
> word in both tragedies, however, is failure. And the families of the
> victims have been left, in the words of Fred Hampton, with "answers that
> don't answer, explanations that don't explain, and conclusions that don't
> conclude." Katrina survivors looking for a road home have found that road
> pockmarked by the potholes of racism, discrimination, and ineffective
> elected leadership. While President Bush failed to even mention Katrina
> in
> his 2007 State of the Union address, the Democratic majority in Congress
> failed to include Katrina survivors among their priorities for the first
> 100
> days of Congressional action. The United States Government, including
> both
> political parties, has thus far been unwilling to accord both the dignity
> and justice that is deserved by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita survivors.
> This
> action is initiated by them and the people who care deeply about them as
> they struggle to secure their rights.
>
> The Hurricanes Katrina and Rita International Tribunal seeks nothing more
> than the justice these survivors deserve.
>
> Thank you.
>
>
> --
> "Reasonable men adjust themselves to their environment. Unreasonable men
> attempt to change their environment to suit themselves. Therefore all
> progress is the work of unreasonable men." George Bernard Shaw
>
> The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but
> shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend
> more,
> but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and
> smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees
> but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more
> problems, more medicine, but less wellness. . . . George Carlin
Very good post.
This happened the same day the bridge collapsed:
Dozens drowned after a boat capsized in Sierra Leone.
Wildfires in KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa killed at least 19.
Approximately 100 people were killed in the Congo when a train derailed.
Drug gangs in Guatemala have taken out at least 26 people in the run-up to elections this September.
A car bomb killed nine in a bus depot in Pakistan.
Heavy flooding claimed 186 lives in India and Bangladesh.
76 people were killed in bombings in Baghdad.
That's it in perspective.
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