What's Wrong With This Picture?

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I'm not feeling particularly disgruntled today but here's a thought I've been kicking around for a couple of years now: what's up with Ground Zero?

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Construction was started on the Empire State Building on January 22, 1930. It was completed on May 1, 1931. That's 1 year and 45 days! 1930. No Windows XP, no AutoCAD, no problem. Just a set of blueprints on a drafting board and a lot of manual labor from a number of men who were happy as hell just to have a job. In 1945, a B-25 bomber pilot hit the pin on his tee shot and crashed his aircraft into it. It's still there. Nice navigating, Magellan.

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Scroll on down to exhibit B:

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This would, of course, be the Boulder Dam. It was dedicated as such by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the name was later officially changed to the Hoover Dam by President Harry S Truman.

Call it whatever you like, it's an impressive piece of engineering. More impressive is the fact that water from the Colorado River was first diverted around the dam site in 1932. The last concrete was poured in 1935. Final construction was completed in 1936, two years ahead of schedule and just in time to kick back for a few years before marching off to fight in WWII.

Exhibit C:

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This one's the Golden Gate Bridge. Ground-breaking was 1933 and it opened to traffic in 1937.

.Take a good look at Exhibit D, above.

Wow. That would be a current photo of Ground Zero, our underwhelming monument to political correctness. The spot where, 4 years ago, the World Trade Centers stood. You see where I'm going with this? This is what we accomplish when we worry about offending someone more than getting things done.

I suppose the people in charge these days are busy taking bribes from union officials, calculating exactly what percentage of future construction crews should be gay/female/minority, and, in general, letting political correctness trump reality and impede progress in a million other ways. By the time everyone gets their heads and their asses wired together and we actually break ground, the men of the 1930's would've already built the Empire State Building, the Hoover Dam AND the Golden Gate Bridge! At this rate, we ought to have a new building sometime in 2050 or so- about the same time the new Puerto Rico quarter is due out.

We had a chance to defy our enemies and reassure the rest of world by reconstructing those towers 10 stories higher, in record time. Instead, we've opted to piss that opportunity away. Just what have we proven over the past 4 years? If we can't rebuild two buildings that were a symbol of American power, then who is going to be so bold as to suggest we can rebuild the entire Gulf coast? I don't know if I want the answer to that one.

Build new buildings. Build a monument. Build an amusement park. Let the Indians put up a damn casino, I don't care. Just DO SOMETHING! The silence, thus far, has been deafening.

The 1930's- a dollar was worth more then. Apparently, so were the men who worked to earn that dollar.