James is vastly better qualified to be Dr. Smith. Much nearer by a hairline!

Beautifully done, gentlemen, very enjoyable right through James'pacing rant at the end. Go, James!

On getting the 97% to pay attention to classical music, there are a couple of problems. First, the world is always noisy these days -- hard to keep things quiet for a forty minute Beethoven symphony. You can't listen in the car, or at work unless as background music, and no forum our children attend have anything longer than ten minute blocks.

Second, to combat the noise problem for commuters, Classical music stations (most places synonymous with NPR) dig up Baroque and early Classical music due to (what they say is) it's more limited dynamic range, and to get away from Haydn and Bach as the sole representatives of music before Mozart, they play an obscure bunch of composers (Haydn's Landlady Composed?) they can find, played in dry Rheinemusik "only what's on the page" way that leaves the listener desiccated and thirsty for the slightest bit of emoting.

And heaven help us if it is popular! The booboisie's tastes must naturally be overcome. No Tchaikovsky for you; have some tuneless, rhythmic Phillip Glass!

Don't even start me on opera staging.

 I've been watching the Euro-dance for several years now. Mish Shedlock is a great compendium and keeps a running log of the expected Euro crash, as well as our own monetary follies. The more information that can be given to inform this reader base, the better off we all will be.