From The Onion: "Town Hall Meeting Gives Townspeople Chance To Say Stupid Things In Public"

This "story" is from 2007. It's amazing how prophetic it is.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/town_hall_meeting_gives?utm_source=infocus

NEW BEDFORD, MA—In a true display of democracy, a town hall meeting held at the New Bedford High School auditorium Monday gave the crowd of approximately 550 residents the opportunity to publicly voice every last one of the inane thoughts and concerns they would normally only have the chance to utter to themselves.

Though the meeting was ostensibly held to discuss a proposed $21,000 project to replace the high school's grass football field with synthetic turf, City Councilman Thomas Reed inadvertently opened the floodgates to a deluge of ill-informed, off-topic diatribes on inconsequential bullshit when he allowed those in attendance to demonstrate their God-given gift of language.

"I don't want to have some kid's torn ACL or ALS or whatever on my conscience," said 42-year-old contractor Tom Wareheim, who had apparently not heard the portion of Councilman Reed's opening remarks just moments before explaining that the risk of injury on grass and turf is virtually the same. "I also heard somewhere, I think from my cousin, that the fibers in that stuff can cause cancer."

before the teabaggers, there have always been the crazee cspaners. the weird ones. and your local greedy bastards.