14 Comments - Anonymous - Tuesday, Feb 8, 05 @ 11:16 am: Enjoy that Amtrak ride while you can Rich. If the president and his party have their way either that ride will cost you twice as much or the train may not even run. - Drew Hibbard - Tuesday, Feb 8, 05 @ 1:23 pm: Good choice, Rich. Amtrak’s cheap and decently fast. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Feb 8, 05 @ 9:58 pm: Rich, Believe it or not most people around the capital respect your work and the effort that goes into its production. Please don’t complain about sitting on a train and little keyboards, there are actually people who read this blog that put in an honest days work. I am aware that you hardly ever encounter a person fitting this profile in your work around the government. Making a statement like that makes you sound as though you were born and raised in the center of the universe (Chicago). I thought you were raised on a farm to know the meaning of work. Would you make the same complaint to an aquaintence who had been castorating piglets all morning and nearly fell off a 30 foot bin this afternoon? We are all proud that you built something from nothing rich, don’t blow it by sounding like one of those people who think I married my sister and am unable to read because I reside south of I-80. Keep up the good work and enjoy your time on the train. Maybe you should interview a couple John Q. Public types in your spare travel time. Remember when you look out at the praire state that there are still some people working who don’t care who wins they just want considerate representation. This is scary but More and more of those hard working people are looking for an alternative voice and for now you are that source. - Drew Hibbard - Wednesday, Feb 9, 05 @ 12:17 am: I don’t like laptop keyboards either, but that doesn’t mean I devalue the work of others because of that preference. Sheesh, man. He just made a comment. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Feb 9, 05 @ 7:01 am: …the dark side of blogging…? - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Feb 9, 05 @ 8:29 am: I was actually referring to the keyboard on my cellphone. - Drew Hibbard - Wednesday, Feb 9, 05 @ 8:44 am: Ah, yeah, that is pretty tiny. I feel for ya there. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Feb 9, 05 @ 8:59 am: I thought I was the King of downstate overreaction . . . Yikes. That guy needs to refuse the (farm) subsidy. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Feb 9, 05 @ 12:25 pm: I must have read the original post 50 times, and I have yet to see anything that’s even remotely critical of downstate Illinois. WTF? Hey, it’s a credit to downstate Illinois that trains are even a viable alternative in the first place. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Feb 9, 05 @ 6:45 pm: i am not sure, but i think the farmers point was that chicago people, rich is now one, complain when they have to go to the end of the earth (springfield) - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Feb 9, 05 @ 8:26 pm: Ah, you think that’s really it? Talk about sensitive. Thanks, because I was completely baffled by that comment. - Dan Johnson-Weinberger - Thursday, Feb 10, 05 @ 3:05 pm: (a) That comment from the sensitive Downstater is incoherent. (b) For an AMTRAK angle, see if Governor Blagojevich includes an additional $10 million to buy two more daily round-trips on the Chicago-Springfield-St. Louis line in this budget address to tie into the Lincoln Library opening in April. (Full disclosure: the Midwest High Speed Rail Coalition is a client, so I can try to justify this endless blogging as business. . . ) - Anonymous - Thursday, Jul 7, 05 @ 10:14 pm: If we had Midwest HSR you’d have a lot faster and more frequent service throughout the whole midwest. - Anonymous - Thursday, Nov 10, 05 @ 4:32 pm: Is anyone else stunned by the silence around the implicit subsidies for non-Amtrak travel alternatives (car, plane, etc.) - i.e. all those subsidies for highway maintenance and construction, airport (and seaport) subsidies, and $240MM Alaskan bridges to nowhere? I’m amazed that this is not part of the dialogue on - and defence of - Amtrak. It seems Amtrak’s subsidy requirement is just a standard element of a completely subsidized transportation network. What am I missing? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.