I think George Will was specifically talking about high-speed trains. 'Cuz those would compete more against flying than driving.

My parents sometimes freak out about us kids, or act like they had a hard time with us, and I remind them that we all graduated college and are supporting ourselves, no one got arrested or has a drug habit...what more do they want??

Every time I read George Will I decide you can too be too rich. Because people who have flown recently have plenty of f-words for the airlines, but not one is "Free," Honest.

Yes, he was, which makes it doubly bizarre, but just the waxing poetic about car culture is very @@.

I mean, I usually take the train to work. Sometimes Jon drives me. Neither are a big deal, except that on the train or bus, I can read or watch tv or talk to you people. I like that.

I'm not going on and on about riding the rails much as our hobo ancestors must have.

Two good things about working at home: I am physically far away from my boss's crazy, and I can keep a bottle in my office.

Parenting. I think to my parental generation (my grandparents and my mom) there was no concept of good or bad parenting. Parenting was just something a person did. If your kid had shoes and clothes and food and a roof over his head, and you made him go to church most Sundays and school at least until the State would let him quit, and you took him behind the woodshed if he did something wrong, then you'd done your job. If the kid had behavioral or emotional or health problems, that was just how the Lord made him.

George Will wrote an article about trains being a tool to beat the rugged car individualists down into accepting collectivism.

Yeah, because having fewer choices allows us to be more individual.

I remind them that we all graduated college and are supporting ourselves, no one got arrested or has a drug habit...what more do they want??

I have so many relatives to point at that we're either doing ostensibly better (read: saner) than, or at the very least more easily than, but it doesn't always count. We're not breeding, see?

Egad, Sox.

I avoid my parents, which is relatively easy because I live in a different time zone. Unfortunately, the wacko cousin that got our (unlisted) phone number is going to be in town next month, and he has ordered me to have dinner with him. And, no, that is the right word.

I am not kidding.

Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they--unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted--are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.

Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they--unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted--are masters of their fates.

That reminds me -- I haven't driven across the Atlantic Ocean lately. Time for a road trip.