From today's Thomas L. Friedman column: "China may have great airports, but last week it went back to censoring The New York Times and other Western news sites. Censorship restricts your people's imaginations. That's really, really dumb." I can think of about half a dozen other things Chinese censorship is, besides "dumb." Immoral and unjust, to name two. Still, this column is thought-provoking. You read a lot about the shoddy state of Kennedy Airport, the Acela Amtrak train, etc. But you hardly ever read about the sources of such degradation. It's hard to believe that lack of funding is the main problem, though that may be the case. Even if it is the case, however, lack of funding can't be the only problem facing American infrastructure. After all, the United States is still the richest country in the world. When we talk about infrastructure spending, we ought to spend some time talking about the human element: the lack of public oversight; inefficient and sclerotic public authorities; and an individual preference for private transportation -- the automobile -- over public.