Eccentric Flower:199906/Bridges and kidnappings

And now, the news.

Just in time to seriously complicate Memorial Day weekend traffic, one of the support girders on a decaying two-deck bridge which makes up a large part of Boston's Central Artery partially collapsed, requiring emergency work to replace it, and making that section of road nearly impassible for days.

The Big Dig, the massive public works project to replace the Central Artery, is supposed to be finished in 2007. In a way, I think this problem was a good thing: It made people aware of what I've been saying ever since the first time I drove the Artery, that 2007 may not be soon enough to replace the thing before it all collapses. That is simultaneously one of the busiest and most decrepit roads it's ever been my dubious pleasure to travel.

I may have mentioned Stephen Fagan many months ago when the case first made the news. He kidnapped his two daughters twenty years ago - they were 2 and 5 years old at the time - and vanished. He finally turned up under another identity, and this all came to light, in the middle of last year.

He's raised his daughters well, apparently, and they love him (despite his having told them that their mother died in a car accident). They so far have refused all attempts from their mother, Barbara Kurth, to resume contact. Fagan's sentencing on 28 May was the first time Kurth has seen the girls since the kidnapping. The girls did not speak to her.

Fagan claims that at the time Kurth was neglectful and alcoholic, not feeding or clothing the children properly, et cetera. and he would never have used the means he did except that he felt there was no other workable way. Fagan obviously believes that no court at the time would have overturned Kurth's custody of the children, and I am inclined to agree.

Fagan was given a suspended prison sentence in exchange for five years of probation, 2000 hours of community service, and a $100,000 donation to a charity Kurtz has chosen.

It is believed that the Middlesex County prosecutors chose to accept the plea bargain primarily because of the attitudes of the daughters. As the Globe points out, the daughters could not have been presented to a jury as victims unless they conceded to the roles.

In a statement, the daughters said, "We want the court to know that if we could retroactively give our father the consent needed to take the action he did twenty years ago, we would do so without hesitation."

Kurtz's written statement said, in part, "Some days I believe that Stephen Fagan would have been kinder to really have murdered me rather than having done so only in the minds of my children."

If you're expecting me to take a position on this matter, forget it. No one gets to win - except maybe the daughters.

Our sponsor for tonight's news stories is Entertainment Weekly, which this month is having a contest where the winner gets a Compaq notebook and $10,000 in cash "for all the software and peripherals you want!"

I don't have the heart to point out to them that I could take the $10,000 and buy three computers, all better than the stinky Compaq Armada they're trying to tout.