Tom’s Big Picture

Steve Sailer does more original investigative reporting in Obama’s past.  Democrats, please nominate this man!  A) If Republicans nominate a real conservative (not likely but possible), he could win against Obama and B) it will be a darn entertaining 2008 for those of us who enjoy being spectators to politics, what Huey Long called the “Sport of Kings”.

This morning I was struck when I watched the following video featuring former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski.  Materialism, especially in a soulless alienating place like New York, can completely consume one’s identity.  Kozlowski was taken down on a technicality, avoiding sales tax by shipping art to New Hampshire instead of New York.  But his real crime was the ugly materialism- when you consume like he did, you make yourself a target.  The video also highlights the complete decadence of our elites- those who should be our leaders waste their time and money holding four-day parties complete with Jimmy Buffett.  We’ve come a long way from the days of Jefferson, when the wealthiest were often those most interested in projects, notably politics and education, to improve their state and country.

This video is a warning to anyone lucky or skilled enough to accumulate wealth- materialism has no upper limit, and I think there has to be a harsh judgment for someone who allows so many financial resources to be utterly wasted on meaningless stuff.  To him whom much is given, much is required.

The Real Solution to Illegal Immigration: Kill the demand, and the supply will disappear.  It’s a start at least.  I think it would take just 20 or so executives serving time and it would be over…

This is an enjoyable poem from Henry Timrod, one of the forgotten Southern writers of the 1800’s who were cheated of their literary legacy because their political opinions on the War Between the States were not compatible with the spirit of our age.

Right now I am enjoying a novel called The Golden Christmas by South Carolinian William Gilmore Simms (the first of a genre Simms invented, the plantation romance), a contemporary of Timrod’s. Simms may have been our country’s most prolific novelist at the time, authoring over 82 works of fiction and poetry; Edgar Allen Poe, no literary slouch himself, said that Simms was “The best novelist which this country has, on the whole, produced.”. Yet only two of his novels are in print, thankfully due to the efforts of the William Gilmore Simms Society and the University of South Carolina.

Simms’ novels are steeped in Biblical allegory- even his most famous non-fiction work, A City Laid Waste, documenting Sherman’s crimes against humanity in the capture of Columbia, SC, alludes to the book of Job. The South, in his view, was like Job- beaten, many of its residents literally in sackcloth and ashes, and everyone assumed that their fate was God’s judgment. Simms hoped his work in documenting the unprecedented evil of the Union armies under Sherman would put a lie to that notion, and that a self-confident South could re-emerge, like the phoenix, sometime in the future. With the federal government insanely commiting financial suicide with entitlements and foreign entanglements, perhaps Simms’ dream of a South restored after much abuse, like Job, is not too far off. Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.

But I digress. Back to Timrod.

Timrod’s works are still published online, and this one is a light and pleasant one I thought many would enjoy:

A Year’s Courtship

I saw her, Harry, first, in March –
You know the street that leadeth down
By the old bridge’s crumbling arch? –
Just where it leaves the dusty town

A lonely house stands grim and dark –
You’ve seen it? then I need not say
How quaint the place is — did you mark
An ivied window? Well! one day,

I, chasing some forgotten dream,
And in a poet’s idlest mood,
Caught, as I passed, a white hand’s gleam –
A shutter opened — there she stood

Training the ivy to its prop.
Two dark eyes and a brow of snow
Flashed down upon me — did I stop? –
She says I did — I do not know.

But all that day did something glow
Just where the heart beats; frail and slight,
A germ had slipped its shell, and now
Was pushing softly for the light.

And April saw me at her feet,
Dear month of sunshine and of rain!
My very fears were sometimes sweet,
And hope was often touched with pain.

For she was frank, and she was coy,
A willful April in her ways;
And in a dream of doubtful joy
I passed some truly April days.

May came, and on that arch, sweet mouth,
The smile was graver in its play,
And, softening with the softening South,
My April melted into May.

She loved me, yet my heart would doubt,
And ere I spoke the month was June –
One warm still night we wandered out
To watch a slowly setting moon.

Something which I saw not — my eyes
Were not on heaven — a star, perchance,
Or some bright drapery of the skies,
Had caught her earnest, upper glance.

And as she paused — Hal! we have played
Upon the very spot — a fir
Just touched me with its dreamy shade,
But the full moonlight fell on her –

And as she paused — I know not why –
I longed to speak, yet could not speak;
The bashful are the boldest — I –
I stooped and gently kissed her cheek.

A murmur (else some fragrant air
Stirred softly) and the faintest start –
O Hal! we were the happiest pair!
O Hal! I clasped her heart to heart!

And kissed away some tears that gushed;
But how she trembled, timid dove,
When my soul broke its silence, flushed
With a whole burning June of love.

Since then a happy year hath sped
Through months that seemed all June and May,
And soon a March sun, overhead,
Will usher in the crowning day.

Twelve blessed moons that seemed to glow
All summer, Hal! — my peerless Kate!
She is the dearest — “Angel?” — no!
Thank God! — but you shall see her — wait.

So all is told! I count on thee
To see the Priest, Hal! Pass the wine!
Here’s to my darling wife to be!
And here’s to — when thou find’st her — thine!

Al Mohler recently got himself attacked from both the dogmatic left and right by posting the following piece talking about the possible biological origins of homosexuality:

www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=891

For my part, I find it hard to believe that it could truly be genetic, especially occurring as often as claimed in the sheep studies. Microevolution would deal with that defect quite handily it would seem. However, the fetal development of male mammals would imply some level of vulnerability. While genetically male, every male starts out as female, and as I have heard it explained, there are three relatively discrete exposures to testosterone that occur during fetal development that develop the three essential traits of the male organism:

1. The most robust feature, the development of male anatomy. Though, there are rare women out there who are women in every way but who have an XY genotype but never experienced any of the testosterone exposure, even this first one.

2. The second feature, and second most robust, that of sexual attraction to females. The “female” fetus with an XY genetic code must have its brain reprogrammed by testosterone to hard-wire attraction to females, and,

3. The third feature, and least robust, is male behavior patterns and male ways of thinking. This tends to produce male traits like logical thinking, male ego, reduced emotional response, etc, i.e. male personality traits.

We can see how these three discrete testosterone exposures can function like dip switches to produce the variety of phenotypes (i.e. the physical manifestation of a genotype) of the same genotype, XY. We have homosexual-inclined males, who obviously received burst 1, but not bursts 2 and 3. We have heterosexual males with feminine personality traits, which would reflect bursts 1 and 2 without burst 3. And of course, there would likely be a normal distribution and continuum surrounding these “discrete” bursts, as everything is variable to some degree.

The interesting thing about this is that it is all incredibly Calvinistic, which I think accounts for the evangelical criticism of Mohler’s comments. If one must believe in free will, as most evangelicals do, then we must all have “equal opportunity” for sin, or else our conception of justice is misinformed. Cognitive dissonance ensues, causing the usual reaction of shooting the messenger of uncomfortable news.

Phenomena like this explain my own reluctant embrace of Calvinism. My main reasons for finally resolving myself to the concept of predestination are A) it is the only internally consistent and logical explanation for our understanding of God and B) it accounts for observed phenomena like the possible predestination of some people for sinful, destructive behavior.

My objections to Calvinism reflected my own offended sense of justice. One of the darkest Biblical verses from a Calvinist view is from Romans 9:

9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.

The thing that always bothered me about this vessels of wrath concept was offense at the idea that I myself might have the unlucky role to play as a vessel of wrath. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the concept of total depravity implies that anyone worried about being a vessel of wrath probably isn’t, but has been gifted by God with conviction of his sin and thus is well on his way to being a vessel of mercy.

Throughout college, I resisted Calvinism, often arguing against it with my roommates- the problem with arguing about it is that free will requires a lot more faith, since I would estimate that the Bible is 70%/30% biased in favor of a Calvinistic view. I had to fall back on essentially existential arguments about justice, making “fairness” the arbiter over Scripture and logic.

The final fall was logic itself. In college physics and chemistry, one learns about the concepts of relativity and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. These are complicated mathematical expressions of observed reality that make no sense to the human brain. Yet, observed data confirms their essential truth. If the hard data of science could show that human senses are more unreliable than abstract, impossible-to-really-understand mathematical expressions, then it would also be possible for the human sense of justice to be limited in its perspective as well.

What seals the deal for me logically is chaos theory- this is the idea that things only appear random because we lack information on the hyper-sensitive initial conditions of a chaotic function. A roll of the dice or weather are examples of such functions- they are not truly random, but are hyper-sensitive to small, unknowable changes to human senses that make them appear random.

Similarly, unless we completely reject our Western heritage and the idea, first derived independently by Aristotle, of a completely omniscient and omnipotent God (an example end-run around this is what’s known as “Kingdom Theology”, which holds that God does not know the future and exists within time), then we must assume that God knows every function and every initial condition, including the chemical reactions in our very brains that determine what we do and who we are. And that when He laid the foundation of the Universe, and at every subsequent “edit” with Creation and Man, He knew exactly what changes in initial conditions would be wrought and thus the exact outcomes of His actions. Thus, predestination happens by default, which means it happened on purpose since God had the means to modify the initial conditions as He saw fit.

I have hope that God did the best He could to optimize the equations, to maximize the number that would be predestined into the Kingdom without violating His holiness. But it would not be required on His part.

Which brings us back to Mohler’s points. Many Calvinists insist that those predestined were out of “God’s pleasure” and nothing worthy in those predestined. This is technically true, since all deserve eternal punishment. But I’m not sure that it’s very useful practically, as any practical application would imply a somewhat random distribution of the predestined, when what we see are clumps of the elect, running through families, nations, tribes, maybe even genes themselves. In fact, if God DID optimize the equation, then genetics would be one of the most robust (i.e. relatively insensitive to initial conditions) ways to maximize the elect.
Our genes are no credit to ourselves either, since we didn’t get to choose them- they are a gift, or a curse, as the case may be. And God obviously will save some in spite of predilections to the contrary, to increase His glory in individual cases, but this would not change the overall slant of evidence.

Twin studies have shown that genetics account for 44% of a person’s likelihood to be religious. Now Mohler reports that specific sins may have their own biological markers.

I used to agree with this statement by Luther regarding the utility of Calvinism as a practical concept:

A dispute about predestination should be avoided entirely… I forget everything about Christ and God when I come upon these thoughts and actually get to the point to imagining that God is a rogue. We must stay in the word, in which God is revealed to us and salvation is offered, if we believe him. But in thinking about predestination, we forget God . . However, in Christ are hid all the treasures (Col. 2:3); outside him all are locked up. Therefore, we should simply refuse to argue about election.Such a disputation is so very displeasing to God that he has instituted Baptism, the spoken Word, and the Lord’s Supper to counteract the temptation to engage in it. In these, let us persist and constantly say., I am baptized I believe in Jesus. I care nothing about the disputation concerning predestination.

For this you should know: All such suggestions and disputes about predestination are surely of the devil.

From his commentary on Romans:

In chapters 9, 10 and 11, St. Paul teaches us about the eternal providence of God. It is the original source which determines who would believe and who wouldn’t, who can be set free from sin and who cannot. Such matters have been taken out of our hands and are put into God’s hands so that we might become virtuous. It is absolutely necessary that it be so, for we are so weak and unsure of ourselves that, if it depended on us, no human being would be saved. The devil would overpower all of us. But God is steadfast; his providence will not fail, and no one can prevent its realization. Therefore we have hope against sin.

But here we must shut the mouths of those sacriligeous and arrogant spirits who, mere beginners that they are, bring their reason to bear on this matter and commence, from their exalted position, to probe the abyss of divine providence and uselessly trouble themselves about whether they are predestined or not. These people must surely plunge to their ruin, since they will either despair or abandon themselves to a life of chance.

Luther couldn’t have known at the time, but the concept may have more practical utility than we think, especially if the line of predestination manifests itself in physical form in our very genetic code.

A well-meaning but IMO mistaken Christian lawyer friend of mine once defended the proposition that the whole idea of “judicial tyranny” was misguided, and that Christians and conservatives are overreacting.  I think it would cause him too much cognitive dissonance between his chosen profession and reality to believe anything else.  Not sure if that’s the case with my friend, but I’ve seen before where lawyers drink the Kool-Aid in first-year law school about how THE LAW and its inbred bureaucracy of judges, attorneys, prosecutors, etc is the only thing keeping us from all killing each other, and though imperfect, it is the best we have.  Which conveniently justifies why it costs $10,000 for a lawyer to write three pages of information (personal experience, don’t ask), as obviously the high priests of such an essential system are entitled to just and equitable compensation. 

 The law bureaucracy is really just a racket, i.e. a business posing as something other than a business, and our people have always known that- which, for example, is one of the reasons when our people wrote the Texas Constitution they put the homestead and worker’s wages out of reach of judges’ and plaintiff lawyers’ greedy hands.

Here’s the latest outrage of judicial tyranny, and I don’t think I’m overreacting by calling it what it is.  In healthier days, our people would know exactly what to do with judges like this, as encapsulated in the Virginia state motto: Sic Semper Tyrannis!

I have been around a lot of dispensationalists who point to Israel’s “against all odds” victories in wars with Arab states as proof of God’s blessing, but I’m not impressed.  There have been greater victories in our own history, against worthier opponents- the average American Christian doesn’t really understand the advantage that 110+ IQ Jews with modern weapons have over 90 IQ Arabs with rusting Soviet junk; they’re picturing scenes from the Old Testament when Israel really was disadvantaged and needed God’s intervention to win.  Similarly, I was just starting to think that Iran’s president had something up his sleeve, with the escalation of rhetoric that (in my mind) would only make sense if he had a surprise prepared.  But, of course, in the end it’s just another example of Middle Eastern incompetence, as Iran apparently hasn’t been paying its bills.  Let me get this straight: you’re picking a fight with a nuclear power, and you most need nuclear capability yourself to ensure your sovereignty; you have gobs of oil money, but you don’t pay the friggin’ nuclear fuel bill??!!  This also explains why the richest region in the world needs good old boys from Schlumberger and Chevron to pump their oil for them, and why 9/11 hasn’t been repeated…I think the Arab/Muslim “threat” has been overblown, especially if we simply deported all of them through a sane immigration policy.  Then we’d have no need to be in Iraq, foolishly trying to turn people whose idea of justice is a severed head into Jeffersonian democrats…

The German strategist Von Clausewitz described war as “politics by other means.” I believe the inverse is true as well- politics is simply war by other means. This is why I am somewhat annoyed at people who object to “negativity” and “mud-slinging” in politics, as fighting with words and going home to sleep in peace is much preferable to a physical fight to the finish. And since negative ads are the only ones with any real content (as the public is generally not interested in dispassionate analysis of the issues), they’re the only chance to work out serious issues before things get to the physical fighting stage.

But most people don’t realize the nature of the war of ideas in the culture, especially conservatives, who are always trying to apologize for who they are in hopes of gaining approval from their sworn enemies. What they don’t realize is that the Left has a play-book for defense, an escalation strategy depending on how hard you hit them. These escalating strategies are summarized below:

1. The Religious Nut Attack

2. The Freudian Attack

3. The X-ist or X-ic attack, where X is a variable depending on the offense, whether that’s racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic or another choice liberal charge.

4. And finally, their biggest gun, The Nazi Attack.

All other things being equal, the Religious Nut Attack is their favorite, as the Left has contempt for traditional religion, and they simply dismiss you as an idiot. Most of the time this happens to hapless Christians who don’t understand the Lord’s admonition to not throw pearls before swine.

If instead of quoting the Bible, one focuses on Leftist behavior, they bring out the old standby, The Freudian Attack. This attack was conceptually underpinned by the great pseudoscientist Freud and perfected by the cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School (who were kicked out of Germany in the 1930’s for their culturally destructive theories, which explains their obsession with Nazism) in their famous studies on “The Authoritarian Personality” (now debunked due to their poor experimental methods). The TAP studies were essentially rigged “experiments” whose inevitable conclusions were that religious families with strong father figures are the building blocks of “fascism”. As I’ve explained before, this is why father figures (especially white male father figures) are hardly ever portrayed in a positive light by the liberal elites who run Hollywood and television- they literally think that such a portrayal will lead to “fascism” (which in their mind is just conservative government and society based on traditional families), which would be bad for people who make their living degrading the culture. It’s kind of a catch-22 for them mentally- they believe that they have to degrade the culture to prevent “fascism”, but it is their degrading of the culture that makes the “fascist” scenario so dangerous for people in their position.

The Frankfurt School, through the debunked TAP studies, essentially described conservatism and traditional family life as a mental illness. In the Freudian mythology, when conservatives get angry with Leftist behavior, it’s because they’re sexually repressed. Seriously, that’s the essence of the Freudian attack- circular reasoning that says liberalism is correct, any objection to liberalism is mental illness, and (in the Freudian mythology) mental illness is caused by sexual repression, the details of which could only be dreamed up in Freud’s sick mind and are not suitable for a family site.

Now, if instead of being angry, a conservative actually points out facts that are uncomfortable to the Left, they bring out the X-ist and X-ic attacks. As Rush Limbaugh once defined the term, a bigot is someone winning an argument with a liberal. This attack is also based on circular reasoning, the Marxist mythology of absolute human equality. When this postulate of the Left disagrees with reality, as it often does, they are forced to bring out various conspiracy theories like “racism” and “sexism” to explain the diversity of outcomes for various groups. Since many issues are linked to the essential nature of man (or the different varieties of man, there being no abstract universal “man”), and the nature of each man or woman is tied intimately to genetics and gender, conservatives who make arguments based on reality will brush up against the Equality Mythology quite often in a way that makes the Left uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, most conservatives are double-minded about this issue, and try to make reality-based arguments while still mouthing the Equality Faith, at least publicly. However, reality and non-equality are so intimately linked that liberals will make the connection for them, and then proceed to call them a nasty name of the X-ist and X-ic variety. Conservatives, always wanting to please liberals, quickly repent of their sin against the Equality Cult and say stupid things that undermine their other arguments, all to please the liberal and avoid the dreaded X-ist and X-ic label.

What happens to conservatives who don’t repent? What happens to those who have the courage to make reality-based arguments and resist X-ist and X-ic attacks? Liberals call these people Nazis. You see, anyone who refuses to confess the Equality Creed is figuratively burned at the stake as a heretic, and in our degraded culture the only real sin is intolerance, and so heretics get smeared with the worse curse word little liberal minds can dream of in their rather limited moral system: Nazi. Never mind that Hitler was small-time compared to the hundreds of millions murdered in the name of the liberal Equality Creed through Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and Roe. In their moral system, Nazism is it, the polar axis of evil to which all others must be compared.

So what does this have to do with Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary? Well, Mohler said some interesting things about biology and homosexuality last week that offended the Left- most notably, a call for medical intervention to prevent homosexuality if were determined to be biologically-based. And for that sin, the idea that not all sexual “orientations” are equal, and that this disease ought to be wiped out like polio, he is called Josef Mengele, the Left’s arch-demon of their Nazi-obsessed mythology.

The article below summarizes the controversy:

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17615602/from/ET/

Mohler’s original piece here:

www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=891

My thoughts on the specifics of Mohler’s article in part two…

Bush to Mexico: “”Mr. President, my pledge to you and your government - but, more importantly, the people of Mexico - is I will work as hard as I possibly can to pass comprehensive immigration reform,” Bush said, in a sunny courtyard at a resort near here.”

It seems that I can’t go a day without a reminder of how proactive I must be as a parent, lest my kids accept the destructive pop culture defaults. Case in point: my wife and I live in a country subdivision, partially to have space for the kids to play (and to garden, enjoy the outdoors, etc), partially for safety, and partially for the sanity of mental separation from both the urban (non-negotiable and unacceptable) and suburban (acceptable but artificial) modes of life. Yet even out in the woods the culture comes to us.

For the first 18 months we were in our house, at least once a day (more often at night), we were treated to the experience of our windows shaking to a hip-hop beat emanating from a twentysomething young man’s Ford Ranger- you know the type who lives with their parents after high school with $3000 worth of speakers and amps in a $2000 truck. He has normal enough parents, successful upper middle class ones at that, yet he identifies culturally with 80-IQ felons and their tribal misogynistic grunts and obscenities marketed to our youth as “music”. How did this happen? How does someone who is heir to the greatest musical traditions in the world degrade his tastes to this level?

The answer is that it happened by default. Unless parents take proactive steps to displace the cultural defaults, the child will simply accept the music of his peers.

Hip-hop and rap is particularly dangerous. Here’s why, and I’ll try saying this as delicately as possible: the IQ of the target adult audience of rap and hip-hop is equivalent to your child’s at age 12, possibly younger depending on how much above average your child is. Thus, a lot of the problem with kids like my neighbor’s is early exposure to a form of “music” that is optimized for their young minds- and since it combines simplistic rhythms with a high level of aggression, it can be quite addictive for a young man experiencing the testosterone surge of early adolescence. Hip-hop and rap are naturally attractive to our children at young ages, and thus we must intervene and prevent their exposure to much of it before it’s too late.

But more than preventing listening to bad “music”, we must cultivate a taste in good music, which is pretty hard and requires some digging.

Much “Contemporary Christian” music is not much help in this regard. While fun to listen to and without the destructive messages, it does little to cultivate better taste in music. Yet many Christian parents, presumably some who homeschool, who would be horrified if their high school child were unable to read beyond a 3rd grade level, accept musical illiteracy as a matter of little concern. While some CC music is artfully done (much of my wife’s Caedmon’s Call and other similar bands is more complex lyrically than any secular music), the danger is the availability of the same illiterate grunting with a Christian label. Grunting for Jesus is still illiterate grunting, regardless of the Christian veneer, and we should expect more from our children. We also must remember that CCM is now a manufactured product owned and marketed by secular companies. We should not let our guard down because it is in a Lifeway store. And it would be an especially bad mistake to insist that this music be the only music a Christian family should listen to.

My call here is not for an elimination of CCM or non-destructive pop music (increasingly rare as the culture continues its decline, but a lot of music from the 50’s and 60’s would qualify), but for deliberateness and moderation. Reading, watching videos, music listening and any other form of media consumption are analogous to a diet, and what we read, watch, and listen to affects us. Not only that, we need to realize that, for our children, there is a finite amount of time available for reading, listening and watching. If we choose to consume one thing, we are choosing NOT to consume another. This is another example of opportunity cost.

Yet it can be daunting to begin to expose your children to better music, chiefly the broad category labeled “classical music”. There’s so much of it, it’s not well-marketed, and the jargon is confusing. In addition, many of the orchestral compositions from the 1900’s are ugly, dissonant pieces, the musical equivalent of modern art, interesting for musical theorists but painful for normal human beings to listen to.

As a person who only really started listening to classical as an adult (as recently as 2001 my musical diet consisted of mostly U2, Metallica, Creed, and the like), I thought I would share advice as to how to get started. First, it’s ok to listen to only the classical you really like. There’s nothing shameful about listening to “popular” classical pieces instead of obsessing over obscure mediocre pieces- like any hobby, the connoisseur of a given hobby is typically more interested in impressing others with trivia and knowledge of the hobby than enjoying the hobby for its own sake.

So first, I’d suggest you go to the classical section at a large store and buy a multi-disc album with a label like “100 Greatest Classical Pieces of All Time.” That will be a pretty good sample of what’s generally been well liked by a lot of people over time. Once you find a piece or composer you like, you can dig deeper into the composer’s work to find more music you enjoy.

As a general guide, I would start with piano sonatas- these are pieces that involve only the piano typically, and avoid the sensory overload of orchestral music. Beethoven is still the best IMO, and is the composer I keep returning to as the greatest, even though Wagner is my favorite (unfortunately, I don’t get to listen to Wagner much, as it is too emotionally intense for background music while I work- Wagner’s music must be listened to loud with one’s full attention- maybe I should get a massive amp and speaker system for my car and drive past ghettoboy’s house at 5 in the morning with Ride of the Valkyries turned up till my ears bleed). Chopin’s solo piano music is also excellent, esp. if you enjoy melancholy themes- you might want to avoid Chopin’s etudes, as these are pieces intended to build piano technique, not primarily for listening pleasure.

From piano pieces it is very easy to expand to violin sonatas, esp. Bach’s solo violin works. A little bit of searching on Amazon can yield a lot of leads in this area. Both violin and solo piano music make excellent background music for study and dining.

Next, you can add string quartets by various composers, as well as piano concertos, which are typically pianos backed by an orchestra. Finally, consider Beethoven’s symphonies and some Mozart and Bach masses- if you’re learning Latin at home (still undecided on this one), this can be a great exercise to look at the words of the mass, typically printed on the album insert. Beethoven’s Mass in C Minor and Mozart’s Requiem are both great starts for choral music.

If you’re deciding between pieces, I find that something in a minor key is usually much more emotionally complex and nuanced. This is an interesting phenomenon, as minor keys are “sad” in tone, yet listening to them makes us happy, even transcendent (Beethoven’s 9th being the greatest example). Most Christmas carols are in minor keys- esp. the ones that move us most powerfully, like Silent Night and Little Town of Bethlehem. There’s something about the starkness of the minor key that is comforting, esp. in these songs we sing every year.

In addition to exposing children to this great music, it’s important to cultivate a real, emotional connection to it- not as a museum piece, but real, living music that expresses the highest ideals of our civilization. Here are a few things I’m doing. First, when we listen to classical, I describe it to my girls as “pretty music.” Now the oldest one will often volunteer this (as a near three-year-old, she gives a play-by-play commentary on everything) when I turn it on. I do a couple of other things, at the risk of sounding silly, but it’s worth mentioning.

I will take great classical themes, while they’re playing, and work the girls’ names in, singing the tune. So, for example, the famous first four note theme of Beethoven’s 5th is sung to the lyrics of my youngest girl’s name, repeated over and over again as the tune progresses. Fur Elise, perhaps the most recognizable Beethoven piano piece, has its theme sung as the three-syllable name of my oldest daughter. Children are really attached to their names, and music at the toddler stage being rather abstract, this is a way to help them emotionally connect to the music. Now the oldest, when she hears Beethoven’s 5th, says “that’s baby’s song”- or will even sing it to her sister in a sotto voce, doing the best her little voice box can at imitating my baritone.

I also will make use of Chopin and Straussian waltzes (Richard Strauss was an exception among 20th century composers, in following the traditions of his German forebears in producing real classical music, as opposed to the “modern” variety- Strauss is the composer of the 2001 Space Odyssey theme, Also sprach Zarathustra), and do my awful best to “dance” with the girls, which they really seem to enjoy. The youngest, who is too young to fear anything, especially likes being dipped. The oldest will jump around herself “dancing” if the Nutcracker theme is played. Waltzes in general are wonderful light classical pieces, with a nice rhythym and pleasant melodies.

Anytime you can help small children do something active instead of passively listening, you stimulate more neurons in their sponge-like brains and make more of a permanent impact.

I also believe children should be exposed to the folk music of their culture. Country music and particularly Bluegrass are the folk music of our country (as Country/Bluegrass is the only genre that appeals to a wide age range, as opposed to pop/rock and its dependence upon rebellious youth for its marketing appeal)- not all of it is worth listening to, but if you pick and choose (hint: iTunes is esp. nice for country music, with its 30 minute albums with one good song) you can get the very best with no compromising moral messages. George Strait, Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, etc, all have good songs and bad songs, so pick the good ones (moral and appealing). As for Bluegrass, and I know I’m simplifying, but all you need to know is to order every album put out by Alison Krauss- much of it is moral and uplifting, some of it explicitly Christian.

Ok, after reading this, my editorette said that I have probably overwhelmed my audience here with suggestions (music is one of my hobbies). Let me give you a really easy way to take action on this, with two words: satellite radio, or any commercial-free radio source. Thank goodness we no longer have to listen to liberal public radio, begging for money every 20 minutes, to get good classical music. XM or Sirius both have two dedicated classical and one bluegrass station. For the most part, you can turn this on and forget about it, as neither genre will have anything very destructive that could come on by accident. Of the two (I have both), XM plays a better mix of real classical, while Sirius plays more 20th century modern junk. However, the bluegrass station on XM seems to have a lot of compression (like listening to a bad MP3), whereas the Sirius bluegrass station sounds more like a CD. So each has their ups and downs, but since I listen to much more classical than bluegrass, I would consider XM to be the superior choice. The nice thing about this option is that you don’t need to know or buy anything- just start listening. If you pay for digital cable or Dish or DirecTV, you already have CD-quality music stations which include these genres. Make use of them.

I’m not saying certain types of music must be the exclusive things we listen to, but that we should at least choose the proportions. My goal is that at least 1/2 of the music I enjoy, and 75% of what my children enjoy, be either classical or legitimate folk music. Much like the mind must be stretched before one can read full-strength literature, so must the mind be stretched to appreciate good music. Those who advocate the moral and technical equality of all forms of music are as ridiculous as someone arguing that People Magazine is equivalent to Charles Dickens or Jane Austen. Music is not some abstract cloud of personal preference, but rather has a discrete language than can be studied note by note, chord by chord (or in the case of hip-hop, grunt by grunt)- and it is anything but equal. To say so reflects a lack of knowledge or a leveling, Marxist mindset- and we should be trying to teach our children to be better, not equal.