Sounding off.

Who decided that every waking moment of our public life has to be scored? I was just kept waiting for a bank officer and had to listen to loud, strident, elevator music. But I have to listen to someone else's choice of music everywhere I go. At Starbucks, on the trolley, at every restaurant, lounge and bar, even at Barnes & Nobles, which is one of the worst offenders. There are hundreds of kinds of music. Who has the right to decide what I must listen to? I don't like rock, rap, or jazz, but those are the predominant sounds that offend my ears almost everywhere I go. I'm never in danger of having to listen to classical music, not when there are rock songs sung by talentless sound-alikes often with a single lyric line repeated more than twenty times. Okay, millions love rock and roll. More power to them. I can't stand it. But I don't force those who love it to listen to opera or America's songbook. Why am I forced to listen to music I find jarring, tuneless and unpleasant? It's not a free country when you are forced to be constantly exposed to someone else's choice of what you must listen to. Another aspect of this problem is that Americans are being denied the one thing that is sure to make them smarter, happier, and more well-adjusted: Silence.