My younger brother Greg, his wife Carla and my baseball all-star nephew, Jackson, arrived in the Detroit area on Sunday to begin Team Iowa’s quest for the Junior League World Series title. My wife Betsy and I, along with another nephew Ari, trekked to the suburb of Taylor which sports one of the finest public baseball fields I have ever seen. And you thought Iowa had the “field of dreams.”
Upon exchanging hugs prior to game time, my brother looked at me and said, “God, the roads are terrible here.” What he didn’t know was that one of the major freeways in the Detroit area had ground to a halt due to a ginormous pot hole that had blown out more than two dozen tires earlier in the day. The pot hole was so egregious you could actually see through the road. You may have heard of the advertising slogan “Pure Michigan.” Well, the sorry nature of the roads and bridges in one of this country’s most beautiful states can only be summed up as “Putrid Michigan.”
Who’s to blame for this growing disaster? Start with the government morons who sign the contracts to rebuild the roads. Michigan for decades has given the road work to the “low-cost” bidder. As they say, you get what you pay for, and Michigan taxpayers have been paying for roads that crumble within a few years of their creation or re-creation. While we lived for a little more than a decade adjacent to one of the busiest roads in metro Detroit, Telegraph Road, it was completely redone three times.
Sure, sure, sure, Michigan roads take a pounding from the big trucks supplying the auto industry, are subject to vast swings in weather – from hot to extreme cold – and receive boatloads of road salt in the winter. Regardless, Michigan roads quickly disintegrate as if they are made of papier mache. By the way, shame on the road construction companies; you folks know what crap you are putting down.
Villain number two is a combo of the Michigan legislature – both parties – and Governor Snyder. Let’s work backwards. Governor Snyder swept into office as the self-proclaimed “one tough nerd.” He would be the “anti-politics” politician. But, so far he has failed deliver his “no nonsense” approach when it comes to kicking the legislature’s a— in order to get them to find a funding bill to get the roads fixed.
Which brings us to the Republican and Democratic fools in the Michigan legislature. Each day these clowns delay in finding the revenue to pay for new roads, the bill keeps climbing higher and higher. What’s on the legislature’s mind: two hypocritical freshman Tea Party legislators, both married to other people, who apparently have been doing the “wild thing” and then concocted a bizarre scheme to hide their extracurricular activities. It is apparent that this is “where the rubber trumps the road.”
Hopefully this disaster will be remedied. I hope the next time my brother visits Michigan it is finally smooth sailing. And, the holier-than-thou hypocrites doing the horizontal bop no longer represent their constituents in Lansing.
p.s. Team Iowa smoked Team Virginia 9-4 and plays Team New Jersey tonight. I wonder if Chris Christie will be there. I think I might ask Governor Snyder to close a bridge as a practical joke.
whatdidjesusdrive 