Wes Phillips

Over at The Times, Terence Kealey begs to differ, not just with Barenboim's (and Plato's) premise that music uses sound to educate the soul in virtue, but also that "making music and playing it in an orchestra is the best way to understand democracy."

Next, we have this article, submitted by Jonathan Scull, which says the lectures rail against "passive noise pollution"—that Daniel Barenboim claims we are too frequently forced to hear music over which we have no control and, thus, we listen too infrequently to music we have actually chosen.

Today's posts follow a common theme. First, we direct you to the Reith lectures on BBC4. And yes, dear readers (this means you, Clay White), this time you get transcripts as well as audio streaming and podcasts.

So I don't mind if you think I'm a hopeless dweeb for loving last night's West Wing. After all, when I asked my flight attendant for a special service on Saturday, I said, "you'll probably lose all respect for me . . . ."

Here's something counter-intuitive, despite the fact that cooking shows seem to be ubiquitous on the higher numbered channels, Americans' cooking skill have atrophied to the point that recipes now avoid once common terms like "dredge," "fold," and "cream." God forbid you should use my old fudge-making nemesis, "Cook until the soft-ball stage."

At least, that's what In-Stat's survey shows. Seems low to me, but maybe a lot of folks are putting white earbuds on those $25 flash-drive players.

Huckleberry looks pensive—which is definitely not in his nature.