thank you so much for articulating in such a charming and succinct fashion the ghosts of ideas and opinions that slink around the back of my mind but aren't actually recognized until someone brilliant like yourself actually puts them into words. So relieved to hear that no one had sex w/that woman and that everybody did a heckuva job. Just keep telling us what we wanna hear.

...a week after a hurricane passes because their government doesn't give a shit about them.

They also aren't supposed to die invading a country for Bush's lies or in a building that's hit by an airplane because our president can't be bothered to read and act on his daily security briefings.

even as I realized how absurd to worry about you when the chances of you being there were non-existent even if you were in MN.

But that is how much you are connected to MN, and I bet thousands or tens of thousands of your fans were thinking: Garrison Keillor + Minneopolis= how is he? This then puts you in a position to talk of the Bridge. I always love your articles and yet this one eluded me. Maybe it's my jetlag, but I thought you would do something beautiful, like a tribute to the dead and the worried friends, or the mothers of those missing.

Maybe, as most of us, you don't realize how much you and your words mean to a lot of us. I'd love to see another article on this bridge that is more like your usual poetic and/or angry and/or relevant essays.

That said, I'm surely glad you and yours weren't harmed.

I have colleagues who commute from Minneapolis. I was in New Orleans when this happened. On one hand, I was in such shock- that is not supposed to happen in Minnesota! They do things right over there, don't they? They don't have the corruption of Louisiana, the craziness...

Then I thought about it. The state and federal governments have been obessed with keeping taxes low, and they did it by not maintaining infrastructure properly. As I listened to a structural engineer explain that the state/fed DOT chose a year ago to simply step up inspections over the recommended fix of reinforcing the structure with steel plates, I heard echoes of the decisions of the decisions that weakened the levees in New Orleans.

It wasn't just the corruption, etc. We must maintain our infrastructure. I hope these governments learn from this in a way they haven't learned from Katrina.

One of my students was on that bridge. Dear Lord.

...going to help, yeah just like he did after Katrina. And they are still waiting. That is exactly what is wrong and deadly with the Rethug party.

And another thing I thought about immediately after I wondered about you Garrison is the damn Republicans are behind this tragedy in some way. Then I remembered The governor of MN is a rethug. Damn them all.

Everything they touch turns to tragedy and death. And I know who put the bum in power, the right wing voters put him in power. So they too have more blood on their hands. Right wing voters, the catholics, my religion but not me, are the most selfish voters in this country.

Now that infrastructure(bridges etc.) are failing they want everything privatized. The rethugs are the partyof death for profit; be it in Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans(Bush cut the money for levee repairs) Minnesota, W.VA(Bush cut the mine inspections and stopped the prosecutions thereof) mines, the N.C. mines and now the Utah mines.

And that is what the rethugs and the religious right (catholics and evangelical fundies) are all about. Their philosophy of death for profits is an abomination unto God and man. And the innocent people of MN paid the price with their lives.

PRO-LIFE they are not, only pro-birth, pro-death and pro-profits all done no matter the cost.

If Bush and his right wing religious friends stopped killing people for oil they would have a huge amount of money to fix bridges.

As a catholic I am ashamed to admit that the right wing catholics, which is/are most catholics are an integral part of the Repub party's death for profits agenda.

PRAY for Peace

PRAY for the innocent and helpless lives lost in MN.

I am one of those Scandinavian Minnesotans. 34 years old, half Norwegian and half Irish. Born, raised and still living in Minnesota.

The bridge is a mile from my house and a route that I take often. Friends and family called me all night to make sure I was okay. My cousin was running on River Road and watched it come down in front of him. He helped people climb up piles of concrete.

What now is the point of speculation? What will be accomplished by pointing fingers and declaring empty accusations? I've spent this week listening to all manner of unqualified people share their theories. They are not structural engineers, they are not educated in the physics of making a bridge stand. Yet they stand there with a look of smug satisfaction, as though they themselves discovered the secret Minnesota bridge conspiracy, and tell me that it's because we use too much salt on our roads in the winter. Or the construction crews were doing something wrong. Or global warming eroded the riverbank.

These people who have never studied the sciences required to know such things, these people who have not had access to the actual evidence are now smarter than the scientists? While all scientists and engineers are as fallible as the rest of us, I certainly put more faith in them knowing about this than I do in the security guard standing in my office.

Did Minnesota fail? I don't know. I don't know enough about this. What I do know is that there are people better qualified to answer that question than you or I and I am a patient Minnesotan. I will wait until real answers come out before I accuse and yell.

The falling of the bridge was a terrible moment in our history. One that hurt us deeply. There is nothing in this article that helps, it is nothing but self service paragraph masturbation for a check.

(don't think I don't still love your show, I'm a faithful listener. I just don't like this article.)