“Where hacks come to spew nonsense” - B2B
The Andrew Meyer clearly wanted to be a famous journalist.
He got half way there.
Or maybe I am confusing infamy with fame.
Is taking a megavolt of power through the body worth getting a shot on CNN?
I hate these critical mass rides. In my opinion all they accomplish is getting a bunch of motorists pissed off thereby provoking the potential for violence.
Critical mass riders are attempting to convey an important message but I think the manner that they are using to attempt to convey that message is not at all effective and does their cause more harm than good.
It also creates a great opportunity for those with intentions that are less than noble to come along for the “party”.
Were the cops over the line? Let the investigation play itself out and we shall see. In the mean time, if you don’t want trouble then don’t cause trouble. Some of us are just trying to ride our bike on the road and we have to put up with enough bullshit on a daily basis as it is.
As promised, here is my valuable opinion.
As opposed to those who think it is some kind of depraved desire to blood and guts, I think it is quite natural to want to see for yourself when “something big” happens. Look at the turn out when a building is demolished. People just want to see big changes for themselves. They want to capture the event in their own memory. There is nothing sick or twisted about it.
Sure, there is a minority that wants to see all the gore, but I think most of the people that came out to see the bridge collapse just wanted to see the missing bridge itself. That bridge was used regularly by hundreds of thousands of people every day and every one of those people, like me, thought about what they would do if they were on that bridge when it went down. Seeing for themselves is just a natural step in understanding the event.
Having said that, I would have controlled access to the site in exactly the same way that the police did. Giving people access to the Stone Arch Bridge and the Cedar Avenue Bridges in the days following the collapse would have most likely created massive crowd control issues in some fairly small and confined areas. In order to provide security and assure the safety of those crowds the police would have needed to patrol those areas heavily and this would have taken away from the rescue and recovery effort. So, while it may appear to be overly authoritarian to some, I think it was a logical issue of resource allocation.
“They discovered they were going to get all the money from the federal government and they were taking all they could get,” he said. In essence they took the opportunity “to screw us,” he said of the funding grab.
“I’m in fear for the survival of the republic. People want to get their deer rifles out and go to the barricades.”
U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) regarding the $250 million emergency bill for the reconstruction of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River.
OK, on my own free while will mind you, I decided to take those stealth photos down.
Stealth photos published online will only motivate others to try and take more stealth photos to publish online and I don’t want to be a party to that crap. Stay out of the way of recovery workers for christs sake.
However, having said that, I have no problem with those individuals who want to go down to the site and see what there is to see while respecting the police lines.
Seeing for yourself is a natural part of the coping process and we don’t want to screw up someone’s coping process now do we?
8/9/07 10:15am - Thanks to Ray for the spell check.
{Previous redacted}
The new perimeter area around the scene is much smaller than the original and is being secured with fences at least 8 feet high, as well as motion detectors and cameras that allow police monitoring via the city’s wireless network.
Martin said that 16 people have been arrested for crossing or attempting to cross the perimeter, including two people on Tuesday. “You’re not going to get anywhere near it without being arrested,” he said.
UPDATED 8/9/07 1:35pm
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| Minneapoli |
From yesterday.
Jeremy Hernandez leaves the Interstate 35W bridge after he helped rescue youngsters from a school bus after the bridge collapsed last Wednesday.
Gary Babineau, 24, of Blaine, Minn., who was on the Interstate 35W bridge, rear, that collapsed over the Mississippi River and helped schoolchildren from their bus to safety.
Two guys that stepped up when they were needed.
Guess which one President Bush decided to make the photo op with?
“Bring on the surburbian white boy!”
Oh well, Hernandez got some good news today. Strib:
Hernandez said that he was working as a youth worker at Waite House after he’d been forced to drop out of Dunwoody for lack of money. The school’s tuition and fees typically run $15,000 annually.
If [he] wants to resume learning auto mechanics at Dunwoody College of Technology, he can do so without charge.
The Minneapolis school made that offer to Hernandez’s family Saturday.
Nice to know that Hernandez is getting some recognition for his heroism.
