Only in fantasy can there be a folk of quiet and simple decency who are quite unlike the loudness and abrasive desperation of people so typical of American haunts:

Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools. Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk', as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find. They are quick of hearing and sharp-eyed, and though they are inclined to be fat and do not hurry unnecessarily, they are nonetheless nimble and deft in their movements. They possessed from the first the art of disappearing swiftly and silently, when large folk whom they do not wish to meet come blundering by; and this they have developed until to Men it may seem magical. But Hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of any kind, and their elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill that heredity and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, have rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier races….

At no time had Hobbits of any kind been warlike, and they had never fought among themselves. In olden days they had, of course, been often obliged to fight to maintain themselves in a hard world; but in Bilbo's time that was very ancient history. The last battle, before this story opens, and indeed the only one that had ever been fought within the borders of the Shire, was beyond living memory: the Battle of Greenfields, S.R. 1147, in which Bandobras Took routed an invasion of Orcs. Even the weathers had grown milder, and the wolves that had once come ravening out of the North in bitter white winters were now only a grandfather's tale. So, though there was still some store of weapons in the Shire, these were used mostly as trophies, hanging above hearths or on walls, or gathered into the museum at Michel Delving. The Mathom-house it was called; for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a _mathom_. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, and many of the presents that passed from hand to hand were of that son.

Nonetheless, ease and peace had left this people still curiously tough. They were, if it came to it, difficult to daunt or to kill; and they were, perhaps, so unwearyingly fond of good things not least because they could, when put to it, do without them, and could survive rough handling by grief, foe, or weather in a way that astonished those who did not know them well and looked no further than their bellies and their well-fed faces. Though slow to quarrel, and for sport killing nothing that lived, they were doughty at bay, and at need could still handle arms. They shot well with the bow, for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows. If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well.

All Hobbits had originally lived in holes in the ground, or so they believed, and in such dwellings they still felt most at home; but in the course of time they had been obliged to adopt other forms of abode. Actually in the Shire in Bilbo's days it was, as a rule, only the richest and the poorest Hobbits that maintained the old custom. The poorest went on living in burrows of the most primitive kind, mere holes indeed, with only one window or none; while the well-to-do still constructed more luxurious versions of the simple diggings of old. But suitable sites for these large and ramifying tunnels (or _smials_ as they called them) were not everywhere to be found; and in the flats and the low-lying districts the Hobbits, as they multiplied, began to build above ground. Indeed, even in the hilly regions and the older villages, such as Hobbiton or Tuckborough, or in the chief township of the Shire, Michel Delving on the White Downs, there were now many houses of wood, brick, or stone. These were specially favoured by millers, smiths, ropers, and cartwrights, and others of that sort; for even when they had holes to live in, Hobbits had long been accustomed to build sheds and workshops.

…and there in that pleasant comer of the world they plied their well-ordered business of living, and they heeded less and less the world outside where dark things moved, until they came to think that peace and plenty were the rule in Middle-earth and the right of all sensible folk…. (Fellowship of the Ring, in .pdf format)

—J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. —Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt was born in Paide, Estonia, a small town near Tallinn, the country's capital, on 11 September 1935. In 1944, Estonia saw the occupation of the Soviet Union, which would last for over 50 years, and would have a profound effect on his life and music….

Living in the old Soviet Union, Pärt had little access to what was happening in contemporary Western music but, despite such isolation, the early 1960s in Estonia saw many new methods of composition being brought into use and Pärt was at the fore front. His Nekrolog was the first Estonian composition to employ serial technique. He continued with serialism through to the mid 60s in pieces such as the Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2 and Perpetuum Mobile, but ultimately tired of its rigours and moved on to experiment, in works such as Collage über BACH, with collage techniques.

Official judgement of Pärt's music veered between extremes, with certain works being praised and others, like the Credo of 1968, being banned. This would prove to be the last of his collage pieces and after its composition, Pärt chose to enter the first of several periods of contemplative silence, also using the time to study French and Franco-Flemish choral music from the 14th to 16th centuries: Machaut, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Josquin. At the very beginning of the 1970s, he wrote a few transitional compositions in the spirit of early European polyphony, like his Symphony No. 3 from 1971.

Pärt turned again to self-imposed silence, but re-emerged in 1976 after a transformation so radical as to make his previous music almost unrecognisable as that of the same composer. The technique he invented, or discovered, and to which he has remained loyal, practically without exception, he calls "tintinnabuli" (from the Latin, little bells), which he describes thus: "I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements —with one voice, two voices. I build with primitive materials —with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells and that is why I call it tintinnabulation." The basic guiding principle behind tintinnabulation of composing two simultaneous voices as one line —one voice moving stepwise from and to a central pitch, first up then down, and the other sounding the notes of the triad— made its first public appearance in the short piano piece, Für Alina.

Having found his voice, there was a subsequent rush of new works and three of the 1977 pieces —Fratres, Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten and Tabula Rasa— are still amongst his most highly regarded. As Pärt's music began to be performed in the west and he continued to struggle against Soviet officialdom, his frustration ultimately forced him, his wife Nora and their two sons, to emigrate in 1980. They never made it to their intended destination of Israel but, with the assistance of his publisher in the West, settled firstly in Vienna, where he took Austrian citizenship. One year later, with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange, he moved to West Berlin where he still lives.

Since leaving Estonia, Pärt has concentrated on setting religious texts, which have proved popular with choirs and ensembles around the world. Among his champions in the West have been Manfred Eicher's ECM Records who released the first recordings of Pärt's music outside the Soviet bloc, Paul Hillier's Hilliard Ensemble who have premiered several of the vocal works and Neeme Järvi, a long time collaborator of Pärt who conducted the premiere of Credo in Tallinn in 1968 and has, as well as recording the tintinnabuli pieces, introduced Pärt's earlier compositions through performances and recordings…. (arvopart.info)

Music samples:

Bogoróditse Djévo, (Old Church Slavonic for "Rejoice, Mother of God")

Collage über B-A-C-H, for strings, oboe, harpsichord and piano, 2nd movement

Statuit ei Dominus, (performed by Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir)

Friends! Countrymen! The solutions are legibly here for one and all on issues generally considered important. Posted individually and subject to future improving modification, they will be brought together in a new category named The Final Solution. Let us make haste, for diversion and Sophists have ruled the day—until now. Let the superciliousness begin!

Education: The Final Solution 

1. Local and federal government will require all schools in the U.S. to be completely overhauled to ensure teaching that what is “good” and “what is right to do” and "how to live rightly" is a good or right in itself. This will be the basis of a "Values Based Learning" schooling system to be taught as the better and more proper direction for learning and living one's life. The writings of well known thinkers such as the Stoics, Greek philosophers, Christian philosophers, and others of the philosophy of moral universalism should serve as a start to understanding and teaching this system. On the local level, citizens of the community should be requested frequently to share their experiences in promoting moral universalism.
    
2. Grammar, high schools, and universities will require a class teaching moral universalism to be taken concurrently with any course work. This class will apply philosophical exploration, principles of understanding, and direct moral guidance upon the question of how one should live one's life with Socrates' "The unexamined life is not worth living" quote as a backdrop. All teachers throughout the curriculum will be thoroughly familiar with "Values Based Learning" and integrate, not separate, this way of teaching into their curriculum. Family values as a man and woman respectfully together will be specifically promoted, and divorce, one-night stands, homosexuality, and sexual disrespect will be discouraged.
    
3. Students must be taught to think for themselves and understand a principle or action because they know it to be true, not because the teacher told them so. Rote, trivial pursuit type learning will be minimized in favor of layered reasoning that grasps the principles behind facts.
    
4. Techniques of argument, or how to make sense with what you say, will be taught to maintain clarity in all forms of communication. Argument as a method of back and forth dialog for the purpose of coming to agreement will be utilized. Challenge and improvement will be applied to student individual expression.
    
5. Student learning will progress from the student's perspective while guided by the teacher. Discussion, writing, and tests will emphasize the student's ideas, experiences, and knowledge with objective learning. Traditionally objective classes such as math and science can include the student in this way by discussing everyday application and requiring personalized assignments.
    
6. Schools will be downsized, preferably to between 100-300 students to allow a more friendly and close knit interaction between parents and student, teacher and student, parents and teacher, and community and school. Learning structures will be architecturally, comfortably, and humanely designed to facilitate the higher aspirations of learning.
     
7. Being outdoors, at play, and learning about nature will be integral to the learning process and the student's concept of self and community. School architecture, site planning, and landscaping will be radically rethought to more connect the student with her natural surroundings. For example, building a school along a river or within a forest, tending vegetable gardens, tree identification walks, and recycling projects are a basic start to this. Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling (3R) will be an integral part of the curriculum.
    
8. In order to maintain a learning atmosphere instead of a fashion show, a general dress code such as pants, brown or black leather shoes, and a dress shirt and tie will be required for grammar and high school. Dress codes for girls should specifically correct any tendency of sexualizing styles and ways of wearing clothing. Skirts, for example, should be at or below knee. Students will be encouraged to take pride in their neat and trim appearance, healthiness, and cleanliness. Overweight students will be assisted in losing weight, and being overweight will not be taught as acceptable or healthy. Food served by the school will consist of healthy food with increased vegetable and fruit servings and lessened sugars and fats. No sodas or other unhealthy drinks will be allowed. Desserts may be provided in limited portions and no vending machines with sugary/fatty items will be allowed.
    
9. Students will not be regarded as a cog in the machinery and teacher attentions should be placed on the uniqueness and creative potential of each particular child. For example, if a child shows interest in astronomy, business, or sculpture, this should be encouraged and developed, along with the learning of the standard curriculum. In addition, agricultural work, factory work, restaurant work, and other vocational work will be promoted and encouraged as academic professions jobs will be.
    
10. Real life involvement together with book knowledge will be taught by the various curricula. Class trips to see the rock strata, discussing with the manager how the pricing works at the food store, taking a tour of Thomas Jefferson's home, and discovering the many facets of the local community are necessary to involve the student meaningfully with the curriculum knowledge they are learning. Basic life skills will be taught to students to guide them in becoming functioning social adults, such as money management, simple cookery and even conversation. In regards to money management, the responsible handling of money will be taught such as writing a check, starting a bank account, employment ideas, and how to spend money rightly, efficiently, and for a good purpose. 

One of the more troubling aspects of allowing illegal immigrants promoting a separate and distinct culture into the U.S. is that they will, despite efforts to make them legal and somehow "equal" to existing American citizens or to still classify them as "undocumented workers," most likely be regarded with disdain and relegated to inferiority for future generations to come.

Inferiority of illegal immigrants has long been perceived because of their overwhelming numbers working at lower skill jobs, such as food service, landscaping, and construction - jobs that by themselves are honorable and worthwhile, but upon which the immigrant's illegal status and poor skill sets casts a glaring deficiency. A person illegally in the United States shows a lack of genuineness on their part and this combined with no real effort by the U.S. government to arrest and deport illegal immigrants adds further to the disdain with which they are perceived. Getting away with a crime is almost as egregious as the crime itself.

Further, the poor social skills exhibited by Latinos illegally crossing the U.S. border is particularly insincere: disinterest in learning English, sending much of their wages back to their home countries, promoting the "Latino" image, and generally carrying on the Hispanic culture for better or worse to the exclusion of others. The work that is done by illegals can only suffer under this insincerity towards their new communities. For example, not knowing fluent English means a translator has to be used which tends to isolate the immigrant's job so that they "work in the back." Mix ups in work tasks are inevitable even with a translator - English deficient workers don't know what the customer wants.

A similar but unjustifiable outlook occurred in 16th century America towards African blacks when they were considered inferior in and of themselves and therefore enslaved and disenfranchised. However, the modern version of immigrants regarded as inferior has nothing to do with the color of their skin, which has little to do with anything, but everything to do with the insincere actions of the Latino illegal immigrant community. Despite the tensions between blacks and whites continuing on past slavery's end, suffrage, and racial equal rights, black people have no true fault to carry on with them to the next generation - they were innocent. Illegal immigrants, especially of Hispanic origin, by their chosen actions and willful inaction, are guilty.

The popular focus on Hispanic illegal immigrants should not eclipse the disregard that other immigrant races have towards U.S. immigration laws, their numbers estimated at 25% of illegals with Latinos making up the rest, but the numbers can be persuasive: If the Latino population is estimated at 43 million as of July 1, 2005, and the number of illegals at 7-20 million, this would yield a low of 14% and a high of 54% of Latinos that are in the U.S. illegally. These are significant percentages already without delving deeper to calculate the percentage of the Mexican race who are illegally in the U.S.

By these statistics breed the vilification of all Latinos when their ranks swell with law violators and those interested in promoting Mexican culture to the detriment of their newfound host communities. The difference between guests and invaders is very distinct, even with so called "legal" immigrants who did nothing to gain their citizenship except for being born within the borders of the United States by an illegal immigrant at U.S. taxpayers expense.

A guest arrives at a host's home through invitation and is held to a higher standard of courtesy. An invader breaks the door down, sits down at the dinner table and says, "We don't cook beans like that in my country." After many more like-mannered invaders, and many door replacements, the host eventually doesn't want to hear about the new bean recipe or have anything to do with those who eat it.