First a water pipe broke near UCLA spewing millions of gallons of water, breaking concrete roads, flooding parking lots and buildings, including the famous Pauley Pavilion.  Then underground gas lines exploded in Taiwan, destroying buildings and killing people.  Then the water supply in Toledo got contaminated with a toxin from algae, causing a run on bottled water and shutting down restaurants.  All of these may seem like isolated incidents but I am wondering if more of these things will increase in the future.

I am not sure what happened in Taiwan.  It maybe an accident from nearby petroleum companies.  The UCLA situation is obviously a sign of crumpling infrastructure.  The pipe that broke was over 90 years old.  It is estimated that the pace of repair and changing pipes in southern California is such that it will be 300 years before all the pipes will be repaired or changed.  So if the pace is not picked up greatly soon, I see a lot more pipes bursting.  And it is not pipes underground but bridges are not being maintained in this country also.   Remember the bridge that broke in Minnesota a few years back?  That bridge was fixed but I have not heard of a national effort to check and repair all the bridges.  There will be more collapsed bridges for sure.

The detection of toxins in Toledo actually worked well, giving warnings before anyone got sick.  But isn't algae always going to be growing in Lake Erie?  Are there any proactive plans to prevent contamination in the first place?  I think most of the time, the local government spent money on what the people can see, such a police, fire and schools.  Most people never think about what is under the ground or the electric grid until something happens.  So unless we demand that our infrastructure be upgraded, we are just waiting for the next disaster to happen.

Besides exposing our poor infrastructure, I am worried that what happened in the last few days also give terrorists ideas.  It seems to me that if they have a few smart scientists they can figure ways to cause explosions in gas pipes or contaminate our water supply.  So besides upgrading, we also would need to find ways to protect our infrastructures.

Meanwhile I am thinking what my late grandmother used to admonish me:  stock up on more rice and water!  I am also going to drive faster when on a bridge so that I will spent less time on it!

The LA Times editorial recently called out three Asian American California state senators for backing out of their support for repealing prop 209 which banned affirmative action.  Supposedly the three liberal Democrats withdrew their support because they received "thousands" of complaints from Asian Americans fearing that the repeal will decrease Asian American enrollments at Berkeley and UCLA.  The Times said that the debate should be about whether diversity in universities is a benefit and not whether a particular group gain or lose acceptance letters.

First, I would agree that we should argue whether diversity is important enough to justify racial and "gender" bias.  By the way, if prop 209 is repealed, then gender affirmative action can also be used.  In that case, it would benefit males as they represent less that 45% of the enrollments at Berkeley and UCLA.  I would like to see what liberal female groups think about that!  But by singling out selfish desires of Asian Americans, the Times is being dishonest.  I am sure that Latino and Black groups who want affirmative action are not doing so because of diversity but because they want increase in enrollment of their own group.  If these groups and liberal whites believe diversity is that important then they should have complained about black colleges and women colleges.  Would they come out and say the students in these colleges receive an inferior education due to lack of diversity?  Anyway, I would submit that Berkeley and UCLA is more diverse as it is compared to most elite colleges.  Its white enrollment is less than 40%  compare to some famous liberal art colleges that are 70% plus white.  Asian Americans ARE a diverse group.  There are big difference between East Asians, South Asians, South East Asians, Pacific Islanders etc.  They are also diverse in socio-economic status, immigration history and religious preferences.  They are also diverse in conservative and liberal ideology.  I would argue that a political science student at UCLA would have a more diverse experience than someone at Howard or Amherst.

I do believe that the playing field is not level.  Kids who go to private schools and have SAT tutoring have big advantage over poor kids.  So to me using affirmative action due to socio-economic status is fair.  A kid who came from a poor family and went to a bad school, regardless of race, should be given extra points against my kids when applying to college.  But Obama's kids should not have an advantage against my kids just because their parents are black.  I am sure the president would agree with that.

An aside, MSU and Michigan put up good fights.   The Big Ten could have easily gotten 3 of the final 4 spots.