Today’s issue of The Washington Post has stories and graphics in three places about rebuilding the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
The heroic quotes, striking photos and detailed graphics are very 21st century. A reading of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond calls to mind a different perspective. One wonders if the same exhilaration and sense of purpose was not felt by those carving the moai on Easter Island, building the Mayan temples at Tikal or erecting the statue of Ozymandias memorialized by Percy Bysshe Shelly.
After all, few believe that rebuilding the Wilson Bridge or any other transport facility without Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns will make regional traffic congestion any less onerous in 2011, 2015 or 2050. See “Self Delusion and Fraud,” 7 June 2005 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com
EMR