For those who missed the excellent retirement concert conducted by Dr. Tom Smith at Lakeview Baptist last Sunday afternoon, May 28th, 2006, it is possible to order recordings. A CD is $10 while a DVD is $20. Make checks payable to Pam Morris and mail to Dale Farmer, Music Dept., 101 Godwin Building, Auburn University, AL 36849.

Previously, the Artist Series at Auburn United Methodist Church on Thursday, May 18 featured an inspiring concert by Larnelle Harris and Sandi Patty. Larnelle, from Kentucky, is a fascinating minority role model. Married to the same woman for 35 years, his two children are an electrical engineer and a bank loan officer respectively. The range of his voice is truly remarkable.

These musicians send a message, along with the books below, to a society with so many unnecessary problems.

Representing the 2,700 students involved in AU’s music groups during Dr. Smith’s 34 years, alumni noted his success in teaching them, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” That reminded me of another extremely successful teacher, John Wooden, and a recent book he has just published, “Wooden on Leadership” (2005 – McGraw-Hill). Coach Wooden led UCLA to a record ten national basketball championships.

But the book is about far more than a game; in fact, it is meant to be used in teaching organizational success. In the Preface to the book, Steve Jamison gives the secret to the coach’s success, “Coach Wooden taught good habits.”

Too many in our country are intent on living a life of bad habits, and struggle to discern what’s “worth doing right.” Our country cannot continue to survive if such trends infect more of our population.

Is it difficult to define what’s worth doing right? Is it difficult to identify what are bad habits? Good habits? No, these are not difficult.

But we have let moral relativism mask the difference between right and wrong. We have let our country’s foundational principles be severely distorted and compromised. We have let our government schools be invaded by those who push all kinds of things under the guise of their various agendas, many really not “worth doing.”

And we have become gullible to market forces that paint wrong as acceptable, like the current digital camera TV ad involving a phone conversation between the person who lost a camera, and the one who found it and is holding it in her hand. (It appears all right not to own up to finding it – in order to keep the very nice camera.) There are many other principles that the Woodens and the Harris’s and the Smiths would most likely not allow to become a part of their lives or the lives of their children.

The 2005 book, “The Marketing of Evil,” (WND Books) describes many of the current nationwide problems very well, including “anti-Americanism, the sexual revolution (in middle school!), TV degeneration, criminalizing of public prayer, and failure of marriages,” among others. Increasingly, it’s “harder to know if experts are telling us the truth,” hence the book’s title.

I recently visited Toccoa Falls (which is higher than Niagara Falls) on the campus of a small college in northeast Georgia. In 1977 a dam broke above the falls, a dam that held back a 45 acre lake. The resulting flood.killed 39 and injured 60. The lake was not rebuilt due to the inherent danger that became so apparent, without warning, early one peaceful morning.

Bad habits and things-not-worth-doing are like that lake, with all of us living downstream of the waterfall. In contrast, good habits and things worth doing right are a much better way.

Dr. Malcolm Cutchins is an emeritus professor of engineering of Auburn University and writes a weekly column for The Opelika-Auburn News.