bblakeney

Well, it happened again. On virtually every news site, the grim headlines are there: "NYC Crane Collapse Kills Two." This may sound familiar - it happened a couple months ago in mid-March, when a crane by the UN Building collapsed, killing seven. In the wake of the accident (read: Fuck-Up), New York's Building's Commissioner resigned, and the building inspector in charge of the site was arrested for flubbing the site's safety inspections. Mayor Bloomberg then authorized a $4 Million program to bring in 20 specialists to inspect cranes and building operations and 'all that shit' - because what problem isn't solved by throwing money at it? They even passed a piece of legislation requiring a city building inspector to be on site whenever a crane is erected or lengthened. Of course, they rescinded the requirement, but hey! Uncle Sam knows best.

So was anybody really surprised when it happened again? To be honest, I was, a little. Surely our infallible government couldn't have allowed the unthinkable to happen TWICE. Yes, yes, they can. And do, quite often, apparently. But, in their limitless wisdom, City Officials have taken steps to make sure this doesn't happen again [againer?] - BY BANNING CRANES IN THE CITY. Fantastic. That's like saying you're banning condoms because a guy who wore one on his head got his girlfriend pregnant.

SHIT'S GONNA GO WRONG IF YOU USE IT WRONG. This is not a terribly complex endeavor. It's an over-sized Erector set that you're being paid a fuckload of money to assemble. Don't cheap out on it - 10 Grand of extra metal is worth investing in, considering the alternative is a gajillion-dollar lawsuit and jail time. In the meantime, don't ban cranes in the city. What're we gonna do, "investigate alternatives"? That seems to be virtually all the suits do these days, and you know what? It's done us about as much good as a bag of hair. If these guys could make this in 1887, and these guys could make these in 2560 B.C., then the fuck's your malfunction in 2008?

All I can say is, "Welcome to the country of attention diversion." Since the advent of civilization, politicians have known that all they have to do is wave something shiny, expensive, pretty, or breast-y in the face of the public, and they're as good as distracted. Yeah, it sucks that the only way to forget about the last fucked-up thing is for us to be confronted with an even more fucked-up one, but such is the mechanism we've let 'em create. Oh, well. Maybe soon they'll cut to the chase and we can just give them the money so it doesn't cost anymore lives.

--b