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October 24, 2021
The Tappan Zee Bridge
I know this isn't the most pressing problem plaguing America. But it is one of the most obvious and most galling. From post offices and office buildings to train stations and bridges and tunnels; most publicly funded construction eventually gets named for some politician whose claim to fame might be negligent homicide of a young woman (Ted Kennedy), or just a scummy mobbed-up machine politician (Mario Cuomo) whose soon-to-be disgraced son strong-armed NY into naming the new Tappan Zee Bridge after his father.
It's one more indication of their inflated sense of their own worth and the contempt with which they hold the rest of us. The Tappan Zee Bridge should be named after a great New York figure...perhaps a brave soldier or a great scientist or maybe even just leave it the way it was.
But the conceit that elected representatives have some right to have their names emblazoned on buildings and bridges is disgusting, and one that should end.