Janet Holmes; Like many of the NPR commentator-writers, he needs an educated audience; at the same time, there's an appeal to the audience that they're not snooty know-it-alls, they aren't pointy-head "academics," they're regular people who sit at their breakfast bars in the suburbs, listening to music from an entertainment center, letting the dog out--a mutt! not a purebred!--just wanting a good laugh, etc. The anti-intellectualism of the elite class. . That's such a perfect description of what I used to call the "middle-brow" before I learned people would give me endless grief for calling it that.