by Don Hermann
Columnist

That’s what ran through my mind as I read your post in The Moderate Voice.

In effect, you’re saying disregard past problems. Extend the Welcome Mat. Make peace.

Commendable? Could Mr. De Niro be experiencing senility issues?

As no surprise, Donald Trump’s name came up. You described a sick, disturbed, frightened individual. My words, Trump is dominated by Trump. Survival. Doing everything possible to keep himself out of jail.

He has converted his fear into Hate. Made Hate acceptable as a means of having a better life. His strategy is to go after achievers. Successful people. Those in authority. Try to diminish them. By doing do so elevate his own status.

Unfortunately there are Trump like people all over the world. In this country. In Israel. Palestine. Europe. Asia. Everywhere. So what De Niro has said is let’s put our differences aside and reach out to each other. Mr. Trump be damned. If we want our kids and grandkids to more than survive, let’s explore. Let’s communicate.

Most of the things we’ve tried haven’t worked. Do we give up? Or try to find a way out there to make it happen? That’s history.

De Niro and I are of an advanced age. We may have lost some hair. And a step or two. But our egos are not interfering with our thinking. He has set ground rules for a better life. Permit me to expand on his foresight.
Are you sitting down? My solution is music. Think about it. You don’t need a translator to touch other people through music. Interestingly, it works with all groups from fetuses through people with Alzheimer’s. You don’t believe me?

Researchers in Boston, led by a Harvard neuroscientist, divided extremely premature babies into two groups. One group received standard neonatal care. In the other group, each baby heard, for three hours a day in the incubator, recordings of their mother singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and reading Goodnight, Moon, as well as a reproduction of her heartbeat. Thirty days later the researchers discovered that the babies who had received the extra inputs had thicker auditory cortices, a phenomenon correlated with better hearing and language development.

From the very first moments that you are physically able to hear a beat, music is beginning to shape you. Furthermore, they realized that music isn’t merely entertaining, it continually reshapes your ever-changing “neuroplastic” brain…for better and worse.

There’s evidence that music can play a key role in healthcare. There is compelling research around the arts showing that people who have more experiences like attending concerts, live longer and are sick less frequently. The use of music therapy with dementia patients is being used extensively. Music’s connection to memory can be leveraged to help dementia sufferers remember things they might otherwise forget.

Is all this magic? Who knows? We do know that it’s a language that can establish a common bond. Our State Department uses music as a way to promote peace and democracy. With the press of a button someone can go from Rap in Harlem to Classical in Moscow. Country Western in Nashville to Opera in Austria. Music can make you laugh. Or cry. Maybe it can even get you to say “OK”. Let’s listen to each other. And to Robert De Niro.

Let’s hold hands. Dance. Smile. Compromise.

The information about music was sourced from “DO EVERYTHING BETTER WITH MUSIC. REVERBERATION.” AUTHOR: KEITH BLANCHARD, FOREWORD BY PETER GABRIEL. EDITOR MICHAEL HERMANN, CONTRIBUTOR ANNA GABRIEL