A schediastic hootenanny

No politics today! I'm sure you're all thrilled. Instead, the same level of ill-mannered, noxious bitchiness, but not about politics at least.

Here's a couple of things I can do without:

1. People who think they are being high-larious when they refer to celebrities they don't like by using Cracked-Magazine-level puns on their names, like "Shitney" for Britney or "Christina Skankulera" or "Ben Affuck". I have zero interest in defending the famous and marginally talented, but come on, people. This just isn't funny.

2. Aging hipsters who brag about how uncool they are, and how they only listen to music from their heyday. As an aging hipster myself, I certainly (wrongly) look upon the mid- and late-'80s as a heyday for music, and play my Minutemen records quite a lot, but there's no reason to be PROUD of giving up any attempt at curiosity for the world around you. Boasting that you're a 40-year-old "uncool" guy who only listens to stuff that sounds exactly like what you expect is nothing more glorious than an admission of defeat. If you don't want to try and stay cognizant of your culture, that's fine. It's tough, frustrating work. But don't brag about it.

3. People who think their opinions are objectively better than other people's. For that matter, people who use the word "objective" and "opinion" in the same sentence without the words "is not" linking them. I, naturally, think I am right about everything and everyone who disagrees with me is wrong. Everyone does. But let's not flatter ourselves that we're universally correct, hmmm? Objective truth belongs only to God, and since God doesn't exist, you can see where that leaves us.

(Note: This may SEEM political, but it's not, I swear. Okay, it is. I lied. I lie a lot.)

1. Minorities are deliberately excluded from education for hundreds of years. This causes their general level of education to be poor.

2. In an attempt to redress this problem, the government begins forcibly integrating schools. Certain people complain that, because of their poor academic performance, the minority population is self-evidently less intelligent, and is dragging the school system down. This is used to justify a campaign to end busing and forced integration.

3. Now given the choice, the majority population, who would rather drill a hole in their faces than have their children attend schools with minorities, begin to systematically pull their children out of public schools and place them in private schools. The expense is thought to be an acceptable loss, when the alternative is making children associate with undesirable minority elements.

4. As more and more white students leave public schools, and as the tax base dries up (due to white flight to the suburbs), those same public schools receive less and less funding. The fact that school funding is calculated on the property value of its district, combined with the atrociously low salaries and poor working conditions of public school teachers, exacerbates this problem.

5. As a result of poor funding, public schools -- which, by now, have almost entirely minority student bodies -- are in terrible condition, and the quality of education is poor. Because of this, the student perfomance is generally bad. Certain people complain that, because of their poor academic performance, the minority population is self-evidently less intelligent, and is dragging the school system down. This is used to justify school vouchers that would allow people to place their children in private schools.

(Note: I make no comment at this time on the quality of the band; only their name.)

1. GG Allin and the Scumfucs
2. When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water
3. God's Favorite Band
4. ....And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
5. Holly Beth Vincent and the Italians
6. GG Allin and the Murder Junkies
7. People Under The Stairs
8. Ass Ponys
9. The Band
10. Dazzling Killmen