Bridge collapse, volume II

A bridge in China has collapsed, an eery reminder of what happened just two weeks ago in Minneapolis. The difference? Over twice as many people were killed.

Oddly, Minnesota's transportation secretary was actually in China when the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis.

The death toll from this morning's Chinese incident stands at 29, but could rise. This bridge was still in the construction phase, though it was scheduled to open soon and workers were taking down scaffolding when the 1,000+-foot bridge collapsed.

Interestingly, CNN failed to even post the story on their main page. Apparently Benjamin Netanyahu's political victory in Israel was more important. I was able to find it on MSNBC's main page, buried down in the World News. Fox news mentioned it in their World section as well.

Still, it strikes me as a classic example of how focused Americans are on ourselves. I was trying to teach my wife to play Spades the other evening and went to Yahoo! Games. I was playing with a person from Switzerland and one from Georgia. When the Swiss found out I was from Minneapolis, he immediately asked about the bridge collapse. However, my guess is that more than half of those reading this never heard about the Chinese bridge collapse, which took more lives.

America probably does deserve the reputation for self-centeredness that we have. Part of it does have to do with the fact that we're all more interested in what hits close to home. But I think there's another part of it that revolves around the fact that we just don't care about anyone else.

Regardless, I think we need to mourn for 29+ Chinese workmen.