Is some people unsmart?

Disclaimer: I don’t profess to be an expert on education. I know that there are some readers of BFS who are. Feel free to critique my opinions vigorously, but please be kind. I’m just a guy trying to keep his blog from becoming irrelevant. Some of these local bloggers are posting several times a day and I just can’t keep up.

As a society, we tend to lament children who do poorly in school because of their wasted potential. A student who struggles to achieve Cs or settles into a pattern of doing D work is said to be the product of one of many factors: a lack of effort on their part, a lack of involvement from their parent(s), unqualified teachers, under-funded schools, mercury in the drinking water, Pepsi in the vending machines. A recent three-part article in the Wall Street Journal suggests another possibility, however, one that most of us would be uncomfortable in accepting – perhaps the D student simply lacks the intellect to do any better.

It’s easy to reject this theory at hand because it seems to unfairly denigrate a certain segment of the population. And, of course, we’ve all heard stories about how a very gifted teacher, who will later be portrayed on screen by Edward James Olmos or Ashley Judd, has been able to transform a classroom of half-witted layabouts into standardized-test-taking whizzes. So the problem, we presume, isn’t with the children, it’s with society.

But maybe the author of the article, Charles Murray, is on to something. His theory isn’t based on empirical data; he has science to back it up. It involves the general intelligence factor, which is said to be a widely accepted but controversial construct used in the field of psychology. I’m not smart enough to completely understand the precepts behind the construct, I blame my Kindergarten teacher Ms. Blackburn for that, but it’s related to intelligence quotients.

I’m sure there are plenty of researchers chomping at the bit to debunk the author’s conclusions, perhaps some already have, but in the interest of being progressive thinkers open to the challenge of considering unconventional and uncomfortable theories, let’s assume for the moment that some people just don’t have the intellect to perform at the level we think they should at school. What would this mean?

Well, for one, it would mean that No Child Left Behind is futile, something that a lot of people already feel, but for different reasons. But it would also mean that our entire education system is inadequate. Instead of educating children in groups based on age, they should be grouped by cognitive ability. This way, kids with less ability wouldn’t constantly be meeting with failure and those with greater ability would be continually challenged. It seems cruel to segregate children based on intelligence, but it also seems cruel to require kids to perform at a level that they aren’t capable of attaining.

One of the points the author makes in the article is that far too many people are attending college and far too many jobs require a college degree. This, perhaps more than anything else in the article, rang true to me.

Several years ago, the Illinois Department of Revenue made a four-year college degree a prerequisite for being hired as a Revenue Tax Specialist, those useful souls who answer our questions about the arcane system of taxation. But the degree didn’t have to be in finance or accounting, it could be in theology or physical therapy as well.

The department continues to train the specialists as they had in the past, teaching them everything they need to know, but they use the degree requirement as a screening process. The thinking goes, as it does in many organizations, that a person who puts it the commitment to earn a degree can generally be assumed to have a bit more going for them in terms of reliability and intellect than someone who ended their formal education after high school. And there is some truth to this, but only because so many kids today are told they must go to college if they want to get a good job.

But why should a person have to pay $40,000 for a degree that in no way aids them in doing the job they are eventually hired to do? There must be some less expensive way to find employees who possess both the analytical skills and work ethic to succeed in a job that they will be trained to do anyway, regardless of their educational background.

Back to the question of whether some people lack the intellect to do well in school, at least in its current structure, I think that there must be some truth to it. Most of us have no problem admitting that people such as Stephen Hawking are a lot smarter then we are. And even if we’re too humble to say it aloud, we believe that some people just don’t measure up to our own impressive intellect. So why is it so taboo to suggest that the reason Susie does better in school than Johnny is because Susie has a higher functioning brain?

Ad Review: Turning on the Dimmers

If you travel the Stanford overpass heading east, you’ve probably seen this billboard for Zara’s Collision Center: “We’ve replaced more headlights than Pamela Anderson.” Let’s review.

First off, Ms. Anderson-Lee-Rock didn’t replace those headlights* herself; she enlisted the services of a plastic surgeon. So what they mean to say is “We’ve replaced more headlights than Pamela Anderson’s surgeon has replaced on Pamela Anderson.” Not nearly as catchy, but it more clearly communicates what they are trying to say.

I’d be willing to accept the slightly misleading statement for the sake of a punchy headline, but only if it were actually saying something that would make me want to go to Zara’s for my next headlight replacement. Claiming that they’ve replaced more headlights than Pamela doesn’t really speak well to Zara’s experience because what they’re saying is that they’ve replaced more than two (or four, if you count her breast reduction surgery as another set of replacements.) So in their quest to be clever, they’ve unintentionally sent out the erroneous message that they may be novices.

My third quibble is this, and it’s a big one. Actually, it’s two big ones.

The only reason to include Pamela Anderson in an advertising campaign is because she can be expected to show up at the photo shoot with her, well, her headlights. She isn’t prized as an endorser because she is a savvy consumer or a trusted public figure. PETA doesn’t use her in ads because is able to effectively articulate that the cruelties being inflicted upon animals is a pox on our humanity. No, they hire her in hopes that people who are drawn to gaze at her breasts will divert their eyes just long enough to read whatever words are floating around beside them. Passing on the photo shoot and merely printing her name on a billboard doesn’t produce the same effect.

Having said all that, I’m sure there is no shortage of people who will get a chuckle out of the billboards. For some, that chuckle will erupt into a guffaw and perhaps they will crash into the car in front of them. And who would a person like that call to have their headlights and bumper replaced? Probably a plastic surgeon.

*I'm assuming that they are using this as a euphemism for breasts. If they're not, no need to read any further.

Instant Camaraderie's Gonna Get You

There’s an interesting dialogue on race going on in the comments section of the previous post. Since things are going quite nicely without my input there, I thought I’d offer something new here.

I’ve recently been contemplating a concept that I like to call instant camaraderie, or IC.

IC occurs naturally in most humans, I would imagine. It manifests itself when we discover something about another person that instantly raises their worth in our eyes. This discovery might be made when you meet someone for the first time, which can lead to the phenomena known as becoming “fast friends.” Or it might be after you’ve seemingly gotten to know someone well, in which case the discovery is even more profound and satisfying.

And what is the substance of such a discovery? Allow me to explain by way of example.

On New Year’s Eve last, my wife and I decided to bridge the gap between a quiet evening at home and a raucous night on the town. We invited over two couples and their children for a light social gathering replete with tasty appetizers and tastier ales, except not for the kids who were furnished with hot dogs and juice boxes.

One of the couples, let’s call them the B.s, we came to know because their children go to school and play soccer with some of our own. We aren’t by any means close friends, but have passed the stage of being mere acquaintances. They’re nice people and good company, however, and this is important, they didn’t seem to be of the same crowd that we would normally hang out with. Little did we know.

The first instance of IC occurred that evening when my wife learned that the B.s are euchre enthusiasts, an affinity that instantly placed them in the upper echelon of all people she has ever met, perhaps even above her own children who haven’t yet learned the hearts-like card game. Imagine the joy that a young Hebrew gentleman living in New Berlin would feel upon meeting a nice Jewish girl at the weekly Lenten fish fry, and you’ll get some idea of the rapture that embraces my wife’s soul when meeting a fellow euchre aficionado. Her excitement was palpable as she immediately began preparing a deck of cards for play.

While engaged in a round of euchre, a second instance of IC transpired. My iPod shuffled through a party mix, landing on “Little Mascara” by the Replacements. After picking up trump, Mrs. B. said the words that will forever guarantee her a place in my heart, “Oh, are you a Westerberg (Paul: singer, songwriter, guitarist) fan?”

I would have never in a million years pegged her for a Replacements fan, yet there she sat, all along a comrade in the indie rock war against stadium acts and radio-friendly popsters.

From there we began to share stories of our affinity for one of the greatest and least appreciated rock bands of all time. We compared discographies, right down to solo efforts and soundtrack contributions. We each shared our one experience seeing the Mighty Mats live. It was if I had found a new best friend. This was clearly a case of instant camaraderie.

In my experiences, IC is most commonly induced when I find out that someone shares the love that I have for a relatively obscure, at least in these parts, band, movie or author. Unless you’re extremely wanton and morally suspect, IC will occur only rarely, on those occasions when someone connects with something that you treasure but that the general populace just doesn’t get.

So perhaps you would like to share what the one thing is that you can discover about a person, even if initially he seems a scoundrel or she a ne’er-do-well, that will immediately and unquestionably make them aces in your book.

Get Ready to Rumble

As mentioned in my last posting, I’ve been neglecting This Old Blog while I try to land more writing assignments of the paying variety (not that writing for you good people isn’t rewarding, it just doesn’t pay my kids’ tuition.) I did, in fact, receive a paying assignment yesterday, along with one from my daughter’s school that I’m doing for free. Add this to my regular gig for the SJ-R and guess where BFS lands on the list of priorities. I still have no plans to close up shop here, but my visits will be brief for the time being.

Anyway, I do miss the passionate debate in the comment’s section, so, just to stir the pot a bit, here’s my no-punches-pulled, albeit abbreviated, take on today’s hot issues. Don't be afraid to fire back with your opinions.

Boy, that whole Kerosotes thing is a hornet’s nest.

How about those homeless people showing up at Alderman Bartolomucci’s fundraiser! Did that ever make a poignant statement. Or were the homeless exploited for political gain? Hmmm.

Those Christians and Agnostics are at each other’s throats in the letters-to-the-editor page again. Will they ever learn?

They may do away with the psychological assessment portion of the police and firemen’s test. That could be good, or bad.

The weather’s been pretty nice, but it’s starting to get worse. Which only goes to prove that . . . well, you know what that means.

Another bar closed it’s doors this week. The smoking ban went into effect last fall. Correlation? Causation? Coincidence? Go ahead, prove me wrong.

A halfhearted attempt to keep this blog updated

Even by my own lax standards, blogging has been light here at BFS. The holidays and the quest for more paying writing assignments are to blame. When I have the time, I will continue to post the type of thoughtful discourses on the important local issues of the day that you’ve come to expect. Until then, you’re stuck with this bloggy tripe.

Daniel Pike wrote about American Movie in today’s SJ-R. If you haven’t already, you really should see this movie. It’s a documentary, although some insisted that it had to be one of those Guestian mockumentaries because the characters and the comedy are just too perfect. I haven’t seen it in about eight years, but it was one of the first movies I searched for when I signed up for Netflix last week, so I experienced a déjà vu-like feeling when I opened to Pike’s article this morning.

My latest musical find is the Ditty Bops, two sweet-voiced ladies who play music with roots that extend into various decades of the twentieth century. I’ve heard them compared to the Andrew Sisters and I could agree with that had Maxene, LaVerne, and Patty been a bit more randy. Their music is really quite mesmerizing. I’m introducing them a song at a time into my collection and I’m currently up to three MP3s and one video, which has my two-year-old son fascinated (“Let’s do that again!”). The Ditty Bops played in Springfield last summer but I missed them, a mistake I will not repeat should they pedal their way back here.

On the literary front, I just finished a very interesting book on race relations, titled “White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era.” It was written by Shelby Steele, who sounds like the author of bodice-ripping romance novels. But as the colon in the book’s title indicates, this is a scholarly work and Steele is an intellectual of some renown. He’s a black conservative, which is rare in itself, but one of the reasons I bought the book is because I read many positive things about it from columnists of the liberal persuasion. Such crossover praise is even more rare and to me, quite persuading. No matter if you agree with Steele’s theories on race relations or not, you’re sure to find them thought provoking.

I’m following-up with another non-fiction selection. It’s a book called “Looming Tower” that examines the 9/11 plot. I’ve yet to read a negative review on it, although I’m sure some exist, and it’s shaping up to be a very interesting read.

I traditionally only devote time to one primetime television show each week. This demands that I exercise great discernment and thus my viewership should be considered more valuable than an Emmy. Today - following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Hill Street Blues, Seinfeld, the Simpsons and Arrested Development - my current show of choice is The Office. Steve Carell is a very talented comedic actor with some of the best facial expressions going. Although some of the other characters have a limited bag of tricks from which to elicit laughs, it is a large enough ensemble that, for now anyway, no one has gotten stale. And Pam couldn’t be any more adorable.

Well, that’s it. That’s how I’ve been spending my downtime. Aren’t you glad you stopped by?

Blogstradamus

I thought about penning a year-in-review column, but anyone can rehash history. Instead I’ve chosen to portend the feature, using the keen insight I’ve developed as a blogger.

Attorney Courtney Cox greets the New Year by filing two new lawsuits against the Springfield Police Department, pending allegations of some sort.

After early polls show him to be a lock for reelection, Mayor Tim “Dear Leader” Davlin issues a proclamation demanding that all campaign contributions be accompanied by panegyrical poems or songs written in his honor. The odes are read by Todd Renfrow in a weekly simulcast that preempts A.M Springfield and the Jim Leach Show.

IKEA releases plans to build a 200,000 sq.-ft. factory outlet store in the middle of the Cobblestone subdivision, displacing dozens of homes. Neighbors, including those forced to relocate, welcome the move, hailing the development as a boon to economic progress that will provide a much-needed boost to neighborhood traffic.

Hundreds of non-smokers “Pick-up the Habit” in the name of freedom and in deviance of the local oxygen Nazis. In related news, residents of Jerome enjoy a sunless summer as the smog emanating from the Barrel Head enshrouds the village.

In a case of art imitating life, a front page story reports on an SHG student who commandeered and disarmed a runaway bus that was rigged to explode if its speed dropped below 50 mph, thus saving the lives of a terrified and ethnically diverse group of commuters. Commenters on the SJ-R’s Web site complain that the story isn’t newsworthy and is just another example of how the private school has a stranglehold on the local media. Others assert that the student was recruited to the school for the sole purpose of performing Hollywood-grade rescues, and that he never had to pay tuition or attend class.

The Illinois Times discontinues Jim Hightower’s column and replaces it with “The View from the Canopy”, a weekly tirade from someone calling himself Monkey Boy.

After further tightening its grip on the underground canasta racket, the Red Hat Society muscles-in on local craft bazaars, demanding protection money and a taste of the action. Knitters of decorative lawn geese clothing are left shaken.

Frightened by an early rush of ticket sales, state fair management cancels a scheduled appearance by John Mellencamp and replaces him on the bill with fair-friendly Montgomery-Gentry, assuring that no crowd control expenses will be incurred.

Ex-aldermen Redpath, McNeil and Yeager form a dissident coalition and attempt to overthrow city government. Their coup is thwarted by Dear Leader’s newly-formed royal guard. The three are exiled to Grandview where they resort to blogging about the city’s inept government. They finish second in the IT’s Best Blogger category, barely losing out to . . .

Who I'm tipping this holiday season

Because so much of the Christmas tradition involves parting with our hard-earned cash, I thought we set aside the smoking ban issue for a bit and instead discuss what obligations we have to provide gifts ($) to our favorite service providers as a sign of appreciation and good cheer.

Many publications publish helpful tips on tipping during the holiday season so that we can know who has something coming and how much we owe them. Higher class rags will have you gifting everyone from the doorman to the manicurist of the lady who cuts your personal trainer’s hair. Those magazines with a more bucolic sensibility will merely suggest that you leave a little something extra for your favorite waitress down at the diner, say, maybe 15 percent.

My wife and I tend to fall towards the bucolic. If you have served us in some way in the past year, please know that we hold you in the highest esteem, but the chances are good that we won’t be expressing our gratitude monetarily.* Unless, you are one of the following:

The garbage men are always due a gratuity. We pay to have two barrels-full disposed of each week and on those occasions when we go over by an extra bag or so, they can always be counted on to haul away the excess refuse. And even though they knew it was a dirty job when they signed on, I can’t help but feel we contribute excessively to the displeasing nature of their work. We’ve given them seven solid years of damp and soiled diapers to contend with so it’s only good form to acknowledge them on the holidays with something green and crispy.

Anyone carrying on the fine tradition of newspaper carrier deserves a tip as well. I’ve found that trying to eat breakfast without a newspaper to read is quite disorientating, almost to the point of being debilitating. I’m quite certain that if I didn’t have such a reliable carrier who never fails to deliver by the breakfast hour, that I would be wasting away late into the morning, rocking in my chair in a trance-like state while mumbling incoherently into my omelet. That has to be worth a double sawbuck, right?

Our recycling agent received a tip for the first time last year and appeared so grateful that it would be cruel to deny her this year. Her job doesn’t seem as onerous as garbage hauler, but things can get sticky and unpleasant when my wife fails to rinse out the wretchedness from her vile Miller High Life cans.**

Then, of course, there are the gifts to teachers and the babysitter, although they are already the richer, and wiser, for having the good fortune to spend time in the company of my progeny.*** Still, they must be shown our appreciation.

But that’s about it for us. We’ve never tipped the mail carrier; we hardly ever see him or her and so are of the mind that the mail just magically appears in the box six days a week. We don’t have any personal attendants or favorite maitre d's, and although several of my fellow bloggers have provided me a consistent source of entertainment and insight this past year and surely merit my benefaction, most blog anonymously so I don’t know where to send the cash-stuffed Christmas cards. Same goes for the regulars in the comments section. Alas.

And now it is your turn to confess or herald the extent of your largess to those who worked on your behalf this past year. Even though you already paid them at the time of service, did you recently hand over a little something extra in the spirit of the season?


*This somewhat stingy attitude doesn’t apply to charitable giving. I’ve yet to turn down an opportunity this year to add an extra dollar to my grocery bill to benefit the less fortunate.

**If you read the Christmas message I posted here last year, you’ll recall that I wrote about how my wife had just recently kicked the latest in a series of drug addictions. Just to be clear, that was satire. And while she does enjoy an occasional beer, drinking straight from the can most times, I don’t want to imply that our recycling bin is overflowing each week with her empty beer cans. There are, however, always a lot of empty Sudafed boxes in there. She doesn’t have allergies so I’m not sure what she does with it all.

***You might be tempted to read this as satire, but I truly believe it to be true.

A Dateline exclusive: Thirst Parlor or Gulag?

This week’s winner for best hyperbolic sentiment in a letter-to-the-editor goes to Glenn Stevens for his portrayal of the smoking ban as a dictator inflicting torture on the destitute. It was a chilling performance, almost Ceausescu-esque in its brutality. I, for one, am ashamed of my support of the smoking ban and my complicity in allowing this reign of violence to terrorize innocent Romanians, I mean smokers.

Let’s set aside the sarcasm and get psychoanalytical for a moment.* This letter, which at first glance appears to be nothing more than the effects of extreme nicotine withdrawal, is actually quite revealing. Despite all of the protestations concerning freedom and property-owner rights, the real reason that some smokers are so incensed over the ban is because it forces them to face the fact that they are hopelessly addicted. Freud might add that they are also exhibiting behavior consistent with a maladaptive oral fixation and that they subconsciously long to be nurtured by a mother figure, which means, if you buy into all of this, that Betty Crocker would probably do better at hawking smokes than the Marlboro Man, although I should add that many of Ziggy’s theories have been debunked over the years.

The situation chronic smokers** face in a post-ban society is analogous to a scene in the movie “The Lost Weekend” where the main character, a binge alcoholic, explains why he needs to have alcohol readily available, even during periods of sobriety:

What you don't understand, all of you, is that I've got to know it's around. That I can have it if I need it. I can't be cut off completely. That's the devil. That's what drives you crazy.

And so it is with hardcore puffers. It’s not necessarily that they can’t physically get through a horseshoe and a pint without lighting up, it’s the distress that is caused by knowing that they can’t reflexively slide a butt between their lips should that urge arise. And I believe the alcohol analogy is an apt one.

If I find out that the wedding reception I’ll be attending will be a dry one, it may temper my enthusiasm a bit, but it wouldn’t keep me from going, although the thought of being made to listen to REO Speedwagon ballads without the buffer of a slight buzz is pretty distressing. An alcoholic, however, would be utterly dismayed and would most likely decline the invitation, especially if that skimpy dress she just bought won’t conceal the necessary flask.

Likewise, hardcore smokers are now turning down invitations to eat and drink in public because of the embarrassing incontinence they would suffer. Without their drug, their eyes turn red and their noses run. They begin to twitch and turn surly, as if an Adam Sandler film festival were playing inside their head. Rather than bear the shame of revealing the depths of their jones, they stay home or travel to villages where it is safe for them to fix in public.

It’s sad really, that they’d rather fight than quit. But it’s their choice to inhale and I wouldn’t deny them that, they just can’t exhale all over the public.



*If this sentence doesn’t immediately send you searching for another blog, you are a faithful BFS reader indeed.
**Notice that I qualify so as to not paint all smokers with the same brush. Some do enjoy whatever pleasure can be derived by introducing smoke into the lungs without suffering from the vapors when in a non-smoking environment.

Who wants to be an alderman?

Recently, the SJ-R has been reporting on the candidates who have announced the will seek an aldermanic seat. Reading the background information provided for each, I admit to being a bit underwhelmed in most cases. These people don’t seem any more qualified than I am and I certainly wouldn’t expect anyone to vote for me for anything (except maybe Best Blogger in the Illinois Times 2007 Best of Springfield contest that will be upon us again before you know it.)

When I was younger, I assumed that people elected to public office must be ahead of the curve in terms of intelligence. I figured that they must be highly motivated to serve the public, even those who only saw it as a means to power and prestige. Even as I grew more skeptical about their character of some of these office holders, I still thought that you had to have something pretty positive going for you to get people to vote you into office.

As I’ve become more astute in the ways of politics, I’ve come to realize that there isn’t necessarily anything special about politicians. Sure, some are really intelligent, others may drip with Clinton-like charisma, and the occasional one will provide a combination of both. But for the most part, they’re just average Joes and Janes, especially at the local level.

While being an alderman is an important job, it doesn’t seem all that desirable. It doesn’t pay well and you’ll still have to buy your clothes off the rack. It won’t get you into the Sangamo Club and it offers little in the way of graft. And as Chuck Redpath can attest, the job isn’t necessarily a springboard to higher office.

It seems an ideal job for retirees. They no longer have a full-time job to contend with and if they have kids, they’re probably out on their own. This leaves plenty of time to bone-up on the issues and field complaints from people who feel CWLP is acting out on a personal vendetta by denying them electricity. Then there’s that whole with age comes wisdom thing. Of course we wouldn’t want an entire council of retired people or there’d soon be an Old Country Buffet in every neighborhood and designated Rascal paths along every thoroughfare.

But if a candidate isn’t yet retired, does it matter what she does for a living? Is an insurance agent more likely to do a better job than a waitress? Is the business owner running to look after his own interests? Is the state worker campaigning on state time?

I know people who would be good aldermen, but none of them seem inclined to run. But I don’t know any of the people who are running, so how do I know who’s worthy?

Such quandaries call for a litmus test, a single issue on which a candidate’s response will determine their worthiness. For many, the test would involve party affiliation. For others, it might come down to smoking or non-smoking, or deal or no deal when the Sierra Club is at the negotiating table. Or it might involve something trivial such as their zodiac signs or if they wear white after Labor Day. Personally, I think that I can devine all I need to know about a person by their taste in music (Is there or has there ever been any James Blunt in your iPod?).

But I’ll put it to you. If you had one question to ask the candidates who are running in your ward (or any local election), and you had to base your vote solely on how they answer, what would that question be?

(This post doesn't merit a clever headline)

My first story for the SJ-R’s Heartland Magazine ran on Friday. Given the widespread power outages, I’m assuming that a good number of subscribers used it for kindling. So in that respect, I suppose you could say it was a very enlightening story. (Get it? Because it was used to light fires.)

As far as I can tell, the Heartland stories aren’t available online so I’ll reprint the first couple of paragraphs here.

It's 6 p.m. on a Saturday, and the temperature sits just above freezing on this late autumn evening. On the north side of town, they're kicking off the Class 5A state football semifinals. On the south side, the stage is being set for a more visceral competition. It's trivia night - firefighter style.

In the Springfield area, trivia nights are fast becoming a popular alternative to going to the movies or bars on a Saturday night. They’re also popular fundraisers for the schools and organizations that host the events. From fall through spring, a trivia night can be found almost every weekend. Tonight, the action is at the Firefighters Lake Club.

The rest of the article is a gripping, real-time account of the event. I hope in at least some small way, it helped to keep people warm.

Although it pales in comparison to the smoking ban, the proposed ordinance requiring filling stations to adopt a pay first policy is generating some debate locally.

When analyzing issues such as this, I tend to downplay such aspects as constitutionality, business owner’s rights, and the public good, and instead determine its relative merit based on how it will affect me personally. It won’t, so go ahead and pass the ordinance. What do I care.

I pay exclusively at the pump through the magic of the debit card. I don’t drink coffee or 67oz. Mountain Dews so I seldom venture into the convenience store, save for the occasional emergency gallon of milk or six pack. And I never drive off without paying. Since this ordinance will not hamper my fueling habits in any way, it’s beyond me why anyone would oppose it. I love democracy.

Jeff at the Occasional Potato has a feature called Cool Band Names where he post a list of fictional band names. (I’m pretty sure he thinks them up all by himself.) Anyway, there’s always some good ones and I thought it might be fun to provide brief fictional bios to some of the bands. So I did, and it was. You should try it.