In Which I Prove Myself To Be a DFH

I guess I have a weakness for lists.  This one is ostensibly about trains, but in the end I will prove myself to be a DFH, just you watch:

• I just scored a first-class upgrade for my flight to Denver.  I stand 6'00" and weigh in at 190; Economy is Torture, and Economy Plus is Reduced Torture.  It's not like I'm fat, I fit more than comfortably width-wise into an Economy seat; it's the my-knees-in-my-face that I can't take, especially when the sleepy person in front of me reclines that seat backwards.  First Class today is what we all remember airlines offering as Coach back when we were kids, am I wrong?  Free decks of cards and little lapel-pins in the shape of the airplane?  Food?  served with silverware?
  
• On that note, I swear that this is going to be the last time I ever fly within the continental United States.  Trains are just so much nicer, in every possible way.  The plan for New Years (tentative) is to go to California, a straight shot south on Amtrak Cascades.  So what if it takes me 16 hours, I can deal with that on a train.  Heck, I could even split the trip into two or three segments, and chill out in cities along the way.  Maybe meander back for a beer or two in the dining car.
  
• Of course, in Europe, the above train trip would take two to four hours by the fast rail.  That's because the rail system in the USA is a redheaded stepchild to even the crappy Italian regional rail.  Here in the US, our passenger trains pull over and let every freight train pulling a load of chinese drywall and diapers go past, because that stuff is what paid for the (single set of) tracks, not to mention stopping at every single two-light town, because there's only one passenger train a day going either direction on the Cascades route.
• People in Seattle are all worked up about the viaduct, the cost of living, and parking.  I wonder how many of them would live here in B'ham if they had reliable high-speed commuter rail that took them to King Station in an hour... or 45 minutes... or even 30 minutes?  Heck, I've waited in stalled traffic on I-5 for a couple of hours before, no big surprise.  Two miles in two hours, and whup!  There went the Amtrak, zipping past on the right.
• For anyone who hasn't traveled between major cities by rail in Europe, allow me to enlighten you, for I used to do it all the time.  I lived in Nürnberg, Germany once, and I often had to travel to Munich or London.  Now, going to London takes a little preplanning, but within the continent itself, not so much.  If I had an appointment in Munich at noon, I would get up at 8:00am, get dressed, and show up at the Hauptbahnhof (main station) around 9:00am after walking  a couple of blocks to the U-Bahn (subway) and a pleasant 10 minute ride there.  Then I'd look for the next train, which I hadn't bothered to look up in advance.  I was never late.  They ran often, and fast, and the system they set up to find the next one was a no-brainer: a big board shows destination, platform, and departure time.  You buy a ticket from a machine; it tells you the platform and the car to board.  There are no security checks: you go from front door to comfortable train ride in a matter of minutes, without taking off your shoes or having your hair gel confiscated.  The worst part about it was figuring out which of the Straßenbahnen (street cars) I needed to board to reach my ultimate destination, but that took all of 5-10 minutes to figure out.  9:00am -> 11:00am.
  
• Now think about how we travel by air between major cities in the USA.  My flight leaves at 3:00pm.  This means that I need to be at the airport at 1:00pm, according to the airline.  It's a two hour drive from my house to the airport parking, and add another 15 minutes for the shuttle since I choose the cheaper off-airport parking.  I'm lazy, so I don't allow two hours, so let's ignore the 15 minutes.  At any rate, now I'm leaving the house at 11:00am, but oh crap, there's a closure of I-5 in Everett: down to one lane.  Okay, now I'm leaving the house at 9:30am.  When I finally land in Denver, it's 6:30pm local time, but the airport is way out in bumfuck nowhere not in the middle of the city like a sensible train station, so it's more like 7:30pm by the time I'm at my real destination in the city.  9:30am -> 7:30pm.
• Okay, granted, Denver is a little farther away from B'ham than Munich is from Nürnberg.  But I bet you get my point.  Train: no worries about parking, no security crap, comfortable seats, smooth going.  Flying: hell all around.  (FWIW, the German air security was 10x what we had in the USA back in 1995, when I was there: they were confiscating fluids et al. even back then.  It's just so easy to kill hundreds with a downed flight, not so easy with a train.)
  

Finally, and in summation, allow me to sum up, with a summary:

• There was once a time when the train system in the USA rivaled anything in Europe.  The early part of the 20th century, in fact.  Then a man named Ford and another man named Firestone teamed up to kill the rails, and kill them they did.  (Do not click that link if you hate auto-starting music, which I do -- I just couldn't find a better link.)
• Around that time, and for a long time afterwards, getting ill did not necessarily imply that you would be financially ruined.  No, that started with Nixon and his embrace of privatized for-profit health care.
• Conclusion: there are, in fact, some areas of life and living in which freewheeling capitalism might be a bad solution for those of us who actually have to use the resulting systems.  (N.B.:  I never actually thought I'd find myself writing those words, after having lived with the German health care system.  The difference now is, I was earning less than 1/5th of what I am now, and I paid the Germans $80/year for comprehensive health insurance.  Now, the same level of insurance here in the US would cost me half of my monthly income.  So of course, I have no health insurance.  I was pissy then because I had to wait in line for a few hours when I needed to see a doctor.  Sigh.  Would but that I could see a doctor for anything less than $200 now, and the delay is the same.  Add in lab fees, and I'm looking at $300-$500 for a single visit.  For the fucking flu.)
  

So, an alternate summary, with no mathematical summation signs, even:

• Yep, I understand that the Europeans pay a hell of a lot more in taxes than we do here in the USA
• Nope, I don't think that Libertarian bravado is worth the shitty health system and useless travel setup that we have to put up with here, and I will posit that perhaps the evil socialist Euros have in fact figured something out on those two points that perhaps we could take under consideration.  I'm not saying that we have to be exactly like them, I'm just saying that we could see how they do things, and see if maybe we can't do something that is isomorphic, for about the same price.  I mean, seeing as how Americans pay a shitload more for everything than everyone else, with only a fraction of the benefits, and all.  Just saying.  Sure would be nice to pay less for more.  Eh?
• No, I don't think that looking at the way that other countries do things, and trying to fix our own shit, is going to cause us to become some kind of Socialist Nightmare.  Call me crazy, but I think that looking at how functional systems work and trying to emulate them might be helpful.
• Yes, I think that government is for the people.  Not for the corporation.
  
• Hence, I am a Dirty Fucking Hippie.  QED.  Oh, also, I opposed the invasion of Iraq at the time.  Double the credentials, at no extra cost!  Call me stupid, but invading countries for no real reason seemed like a stupid idea.  Stupid is as stupid does, right?