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Eupseiphos,

Learn your history.  No major transportation infrastructure in the last two hundred years of this country was done simply by private capital.  Local, state, and federal government subsidies were critical for initiating, sustaining, and completing interstate roads, canals, transcontinental railroads, and interstate highways.  In the last fifty years the state has been the primary initiator of light rail, passenger rail, and high speed rail around the world, and in every case those decisions turned in part on a recognition that rail transit is significant for reducing pressure on airline and automobile congestion.  Having ridden rail systems in Europe and Asia, the system between Boston and Washington, DC in the East, and commuting weekly on the Cascades line between Portland and Vancouver, BC, my wife and I can tell you that systems outside the US work much better and serve the public much better than the present Amtrak system in the US.  It's easy be on the side of cynicism.  All you have to do is say "no" and ignore vast amounts of experiential and scholarly evidence on how rail is a crucial tool for the future.  It's easy to leave the mess to your children and children's children.  If you're mind is open, however, start with a blog piece I posted last month at High Country News, follow the links, and learn: http://www.hcn.org/blogs/range/public-transportation-systems-come-at-a-high-price.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Several years ago my wife and I had a rude awakening to the difference the ADA makes, one that's hard to understand unless one has lived in a time or place without its coverage.  Seven years ago I took a job at a Canadian university.  Soon we realized our daughter was not developing normally, and eventually she was diagnosed autistic.  The British Columbia health care system delegates responsibility for treatment to parents, who must apply for funding and vet providers and treatments on their own in a "market" with services ranging from scrupulously scientific to bizarre and fraudulent and not well regulated.  Our school district at first seemed to engage our daughter's problems, but two months into kindergarten her teacher, principal, and district superintendent informed us that, because of cuts to provincial and federal funding, they no longer had the resources to teach our daughter.  They "offered" us the "option" of promoting her with her cohort, but she "would probably not earn a certificate."  Other parents with disabled kids called this the "non-diploma track," and noted that it was a fairly standard experience in Canada.  The reason?  Canada has no duty-to-teach laws; there is no equivalent of the ADA.  We figured two months into kindergarten was a bit early to give up on a kid, so we studied a broader array of options and learned that the Beaverton School District has an extremely nuanced approach to learning disabilities and reliable funding.  When their assessment team met with us, we immediately saw a difference in professionalism.  The upshot is that we sold our house and moved to Beaverton, I now commute to my Canadian university, our daughter now reads and writes and is moving toward a true mainstreamed educational experience.  This is what the ADA means to us, and we are eternally grateful to Senators Harkin and Dole.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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Having studied climate science since the 1970s, and having lived in Canada and seen firsthand the consequences in the far north, I have no doubt the world is facing a massive problem, yet listening to this show, I'm having a massive problem taking the conversation seriously.  The environmental community has spent several decades trying to legislate change.  Kristin Sheeran and many others are very good at proclaiming all that we have to do, but I find myself shutting down when she starts talking, not because I disagree with her, but because everything I see, and everything I've ever studied about the past (I'm a historian) suggests that her approach is not how societies actually change.  I hate to sound like a disciple of Stewart Brand, but I wonder whether we would be further along the path if Sheeran and company spent less time trying to legislate and more time building that non-carbon grid. For better and worse, this is a country and culture built on entrepreneurial energies, not policy.

posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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