Having just been to Minneapolis this past weekend, I took special interest in the bridge calamity of earlier this week. However, I do not want to write about the specifics of the problem of this bridge, or any other infrastructure problems across America. I write to discuss how focused the media gets on this kind of story. I have seen report after report and statistic after statistic about the 13,000 plus bridges in America that were in worse condition than this bridge. My question is what about the tunnels? What about the roads and the potholes that can ruin cars? What about the steam disaster in NYC two weeks ago? What about the aging oil refinery system that because it is so archaic that we have price gouging legitimized because the pipeline is bottlenecked? What about the aging infrastructure across all American Cities? What about the war in Iraq? HUH, you say. How does the war come into this conversation. The answer is as simple as one word. MONEY. If we weren’t involved in Iraq and the costs of prosecuting the war and re-building their oil business and their roads and schools, we could be spending that money on our home front. To use our government’s money for homeland security (or fronts far from our homeland) we are not focusing correctly on using money for our homeland. Let us not worry so much about building walls to protect us. Let us build our nation to make us safer from every day potential disasters. Let us build our systems and our cities so that they are 22nd century cities ready for all that the future promises. Our citizens ( or visitors) should get the benefit of our expenditures, to make the quality of life better every day, and safer from both terrorists, natural disasters, as well as just the things that happen. The focus on this story should be money and our priorities as a nation. We must raise our voice and say this disaster, the NYC disaster, the realization that we must provide for a safer future is our number one priority and then with left over money lets spend on our military and protecting against terror. If we change our focus we, each member of American society will be happier and safer. This is the wake up lesson of the infrastructure problems that is upon us, rather clearly and convincingly. Starting today, Let us clearly convince our Congress to spend money for us.