Times are bad. The most popular name for baby girls in America during 2012, "Katniss", is the product of a Harry Potter-esque writer's imagination (the big one for boys this year being "Finn"). There's something sad in that, as largely (and deliberately) uneducated, frightened children - who nonetheless possess high levels of self-esteem - produce children of their own and name them after fictitious heroes and heroines, those children will likely never be afforded so much as a chance to play outside on their own; let alone even marginally to develop the skillsets of their namesakes.
Like their parents, they are destined to become legends in their own minds; pliant, frightened, and unaccomplished.
