(Originally posted Monday, October 15, 2007)
After the bridge collapse a few months ago in Minneapolis, the nation’s politicians, scientists, engineers and educators have been speaking out about how we are not spending enough money to protect our country’s infrastructure. Of course, repairing bridges has never been as sexy as building them, but that’s because we haven’t spent the time making it interesting for our children. As a former editor at a civil engineering magazine, I’ve been thinking of ways that we could make the study of the topic more interesting and hip and “Gen Y.” Thus, here are the stories I would be writing if I were an editor at such a magazine today:
1) Hey Loser! Cement May Be Your Santa Claus
A long look at how cement and concrete aren’t the same thing, with your hosts Marilyn Manson and his ex-girlfriend Rose McGowan.
2) Core Barreling: Don’t Come Too Fast
We go on a hunt through the long tunnels of Boston with the two Coreys chasing skirt and looking for structural deficiencies, corrosion and worn epoxy coatings in the rebar.
3) How Serious Are Civil Engineers About Grout? Would They Eat It?
In a civil engineering contest that is Fear Factor x100, we see if our engineers are up to the task of laying grout without air pockets. If our lovely hostess Dian falls through a sinkhole in their work, then some unlucky engineer is going to have wolf that grout down.
4) Unlined Pipe: Yeah, We’ve Got Your Unlined Pipe
We go bareback into some dark holes with your host Gene Simmons.
5) Sexual Harassment at the Concrete Canoe Races
Bet you didn’t know concrete could float. Even worse, bet you didn’t know that some pickup lines will sink straight to the bottom.
6) Why Civil Engineers Think Sandra Bullock is a BABE!
Sandra Bullock? Large gusset plate retrofitting? Need we say more?
7) Boston’s Sunken Tubes, by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Gen-X substance abuser, Prozac Nation writer, psycho-slut and respected author Wurtzel gets down and dirty in Beantown on a hunt for reverse-corrosion electrical anodes.
8 ) Violent Youth, Concrete Sewers
How street smart are you now when your streets are running with sewage? A tale of star-crossed love, run-off, and impervious cover.
9) Goth Kids In Black Learn How to Operate a Hydraulic Sluice
Hey Cure fans, come over here and help out before the dam breaks, you dolorous posers.
10) What if Civil Engineers Dug a Hole to Hell?
Of course it couldn’t happen. But COULD it?
11) Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Treated Wood by Camille Paglia and pan-sexual friend “Shirley”
Of course, Camille Paglia hates Rousseau and all those “back to nature” types. Well that puts her perfectly in truck with civil engineers, who fondly remember a time when they were heroic tamers of nature. Sit down for talk with chatty Camille as she discusses the Vamps and Tramps of Geosynthetics, the sexual renegades of pre-stressed concrete bridge design, and the bitter stoic geniuses who make our retaining walls and embankments.
12) So, Your Girlfriend is a Slut…
Well, hey. Civil engineers have problems too.
Beauty is Imperfection 
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