A lady friend chaired a community meeting last week and when it was completed she was chatting with several other women in attendance.  It appears all listen to WGMD weekday afternoons but one of these educated woman exclaimed the show host was a “neandrathal”.  Despite non-opposable thumbs this is my written reply:

I understand there are some women (and men) who don’t find the program worthwhile and I understand no product on market is 100 percent successful.  The humor ranges from some sharp wit to potty jokes.  It’s because the goal is to attract the largest possible audience.  Broadcasters cast wide nets.  Narrowcasting is really what “public” broadcasting is and it only survives with subsidies.  According to TV ratings people like entertainments, even locally the numbers for American Idol are strong.   Some women like to believe their own husbands would never laugh at the basest jokes and certainly not tell those jokes.  I’ve spent a good part of my waking life somewhere in a coffee shop booth with men (since I was a kid with my dad and his associates).  And for a time I was at the end of the end of a bar.  Men laugh at some of the grossest and basest jokes.  Roman priests, Baptist ministers, school administrators, dairy farmers, police officers and bartenders all laugh at bawdy tales.   There are people who claim radio is too important for humor.  “We need to have a serious discussion of the issues”, they claim.  Then I will recommend C-Span.  It’s very good and couldn’t survive without a subsidy.   Shakespeare had serious discussions about issues in his chosen format.  When I was a boy I went to see a production of Macbeth.  In one scene an old man is heading to open the castle gate.  It’s the middle of the night and he has just had sleep interrupted and as he walks to the gate he stops and relieves himself.  It brought a huge collective laugh from the audience.  Did the liberal women of the age condemn Shakespeare?  Did they claim their husbands didn’t laugh at such a scene?  Did they claim they were of a better cut than the author and his audience?   Newsflash for these women… Your husbands must have arrived from the factories with flaws.  Some components weren’t installed correctly or at all.  Or you don’t well know the product line. 

I don’t cure cancer between 3:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M. weekdays.  I’m not campaigning for public office and seeking tax-dollars as compensation.  I’m trying to survive all the absurdities that come before me each day.  The day does approach, I suspect for all, when we realize much that we loved has either died or gone away yet life isn’t hell.  It’s a great gift and in its brevity should be enjoyed.  From my perspective “Gertrude” must be a miserable example of humanity.  Members of these ladies families should wrestle them and snatch the telephones and computer keypads away.  The world will be a happier place.

The number of kids known to have autism has increased astronomically in recent years. It’s shocking to me that fourteen years ago, only one 1 in 10,000 children was diagnosed with the developmental disorder. Today the rate is 1 in 150. Combine that with the growth that has taken place in this area, particularly in Sussex County, and you have parents wondering, “What programs will be available for the students after they graduate the Consortium?” Are there enough group homes for these children? WGMD spoke with several parents and members of the Lower Delaware Autism Foundation, and you can hear the audio with their comments here.

You can also hear the interview I conducted with Melissa Martin, Executive Director of the LDAF here.

The Interview with LDAF Board President, John Willey and another concerned parent, Susan Patel can be heard here. 

In addition–6 reports from the interviews on this critical issue have been posted in the WGMD News section of our website in the headlines.

All of the parents say there is a need for more group homes and residential programs for adults with autism and other developmental disorders. The Lower Delaware Autism Foundation is pursuing these goals, and they want to find out what parents want specifically for their children after they graduate the Consortium. The needs vary for each individual and family. If you are a parent of a child with special needs and you want to learn more about support programs, upcoming workshops, or other programs that provide assistance, go to www.ldaf.com or call 302-644-3410

Sussex County Planning and Zoning has unanimously rejected the controversial Townsend Village Centre. From WGMD News:

Sussex County planners are recommending against a shopping center planned for Gills Neck road near Lewes.   

As for the two developments - planners have recommended they be reduced in size. The Sussex County Council has the final say on the shopping center and one of the subdivisions. The developer, LT Associates, LLC can appeal the third ruling.      

 

 And this came in from Judson Bennetts “Coastal Conservative Network:”

…THE COMMISSION MADE THEIR RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE THREE TOWNSEND DEVELOPMENTS:    

SENATORS: RECOMMENDED THE NUMBER OF UNITS TO BE BUILT, WENT FROM 242 TO 229 UNITS

GOVERNORS: RECOMMENDED THE NUMBER OF UNITS TO BE BUILT, WENT FROM 472 TO 258

THE BIG ONE: RECOMMENDED THE RE-ZONING FOR THE TOWNSEND REGIONAL SHOPPING CENTER WAS UNANIMOUSLY DENIED! THE SUMMARY THAT P& Z GAVE WAS EVERYTHING AND MORE THAT WE ADDRESSED IN SO MANY WAYS TO THE P&Z.      

 

 Bennett, who’s running for Sussex County Council against incumbent Lynn Rogers posed this question:

Now the question is will the Sussex County Council listen to them?        

Nancy Willing at Delaware Way has it  all HERE.   More to come…

Baseball season begins tonight (that’s opposed to the two games earlier in the week between Boston & Oakland in Tokyo).  It’s going to be an interesting year - with a lot of firsts, milestones and finals.  

President Bush will throw out the first pitch tonight at the Washington National’s new home National Park (they’re playing the Atlanta Braves).  The largest baseball crowd ever (they hope) 115,300 - gathered to celebrate the LA Dodgers 50th anniversary on the left coast with the last exhibition game of their season - played at their former home - the LA Coliseum.  The folks at the Guinness World Record will determine on Monday if it’s an international world record.  

It’s been 100 years since Jack Norworth composed a song that would become known as “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” which is now a game staple during the 7th inning stretch.  And it’s been 100 years since the Chicago Cubs last won a World Series! 

Monday’s Opening Day will be the last ones for two stadiums in the same city - Yankee Stadium & Shea Stadium in New York.  This year’s All-Star game will be the 4th and last played at Yankee Stadium (2008, 1977, 1960, 1939).  

Throughout the season new milestones will be reached in batting, pitching and scoring.  New managers will get their first wins and old managers will call it a career.  Players will get their first home runs, first put outs, first strike outs, more records will fall – and likely more players will get into trouble for one thing or another.  

2008 is a fresh start for a game that’s been overshadowed by the steroid scandal and other headline-making news that has put too many black marks on what is supposed to be “America’s pastime.”  But if you’re a fan – you’ll stick it out through thick and thin – just like I root on my Mets in good years and in bad.  I just hope that September 28th takes its sweet time getting here! 

PLAY BALL!

Jackson Armstrong won’t be right back.  He’s dead at 63.  I got the news just after noon today.  Childhood was 35 years ago for me but it dies only piece-by-piece.  Jackson Armstrong was the night-side disc jockey at WKBW-Radio in Buffalo.  A long time ago during the early 1970s, when I was a boy riding in the back seat of my dad’s Dodge and you could listen on cold winter nights to Armstrong.  There would be a glow on the instrument panel of the car and the voice of Armstrong somewhere an hour away in the darkness of Western New York.  He was having a good time those cold and bleak winter nights.  Legend has it that he got the job by winning a playoff against Doug Tracht.  Tracht later became known as The Greaseman and gained his own infamy.

 

Then one night Armstrong was gone.  It’s radio.  The actors pack and move to the next gig.  Years later I heard Jackson Armstrong was in L.A.  Today I heard his obituary spoken by Doug Limerick or Paul Harvey, Jr. or another one of the names from the past.

 

So many have gone to the next stage since those cold winter nights when I was a boy.  My grandfather Colley died one of those cold winter evenings I listened to Armstrong.  March, I believe, 1972.  My grandmothers died many years later and my parents are now gone along with a growing list of personal friends.  It was cold and dark and snowy all those many years ago but I was surrounded by the comfort of the familiar.  The radio was and is a constant.  Each year I read radio’s obituary and yet it endures.  It’s as reliable as the sun rises and sun sets.  You simply flip a switch and there are voices.  Some are close but more often than not these voices are far away.  The best talk only with me while also talking only with you.

 

It’s what caused me to forego law school and teaching and a government job or two.  It was caused by the nights spent on the roof of my cousin’s sugar shack.  Cloudless and cold autumn in Western New York can be little but barren.  One night I was on the roof with Sean Doyle and Kevin Donavan and someone had a radio and we tuned in WNBC and we lied on our backs against the roof and stared at the stars and knew we weren’t alone.  In the vastness of the universe there was isolation and yet redemption.  There was a voice, 8 hours away, talking with us.  The voices I would often hear at night from Chicago, St. Louis, Montreal, Boston, Cleveland and Philadelphia.  All of these voices and so many like Jackson Armstrong sharing a personal moment from so many places I wouldn’t ever see. 

 

Life is brief and usually hard and it brings its share of grief.  Thursday I will go to work and I’ll open a microphone and I’ll share my story.  It’s what I do and from as long ago as I can remember it’s all I ever wanted from life.  To touch someone on a chilly autumn night as they gaze at the stars or as they huddle for warmth in the backseat of a car, bathed in the glow of an instrument panel, while cold wind and snow howl in every direction.   It’s the voice that reassures there is more and that our dark nights will bring dawn.  A metaphor for all that we believe and hope will be there for us when there are no longer any new gigs.

One of the topics that infiltrates our airwaves, at least during my program, is that of drug abuse. Lately, particularly vicodin, oxy, perkocet, etc… Heck, we’ve even done topics on Poppy Seed Tea. One plauge that we rarely discuss, however, I hear it’s huge in Western Sussex and all across the country for that matter is the scourge of Crystal Meth.

I want you to check out a documentary I caught on Youtube called “Crystal Darkness” — I’m contemplating playing segments of the program on the air in a series. Here’s some information on the documentary from Al Tompkins:

“Originally produced for Reno TV stations in January 2007, “Crystal Darkness” used interviews with addicts from all walks of life, graphic images of the damage done and sobering violent-crime statistics. It also provided a toll-free number for people to get help.

The program that ran on all Reno stations proved so popular, says producer Mike Reynolds, a Reno advertising executive, that other communities sought localized versions of the documentary.

In May in Las Vegas, 50 percent of the households tuned in to the documentary, according Nielsen ratings. In August, 25 stations in five Oregon cities broadcast the documentary, and newspaper reports say the toll-free number was flooded with calls. And in December, San Diego stations blanketed the airwaves.”

Here are the parts of the Documentary from youtube.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

News Release from DP & L, The Delaware Electric Cooperative and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative:

The Delaware Electric Cooperative and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative havejoined Delmarva Power’s competitive bidding process to acquire land-based wind energy to supply their customers, the companies announced today.    

The utilities made the announcement after Delmarva Power received more than 35 price bids from land-based wind developers from across the region. Early indications from the bids are that buying land-based wind power through this competitive process could save customers an estimated 50 percent compared to Bluewater Wind’s current proposal to Delmarva Power for a 25-year contract. Final bids from wind providers are due at the end of March. The utilities will conduct a thorough analysis of the bids. The analysis will likely be complete by the end of April.

In addition to a lower price, most of the onshore bids have no built-in price escalators. The Bluewater Wind proposal, by comparison, automatically increases the price to customers by 2.5 percent each year, starting in January 2008.

Onshore wind energy provides consumers with the same environmental benefits as offshore wind energy but at significantly less cost, in part because of the many costs associated with building and maintaining power generation and transmission equipment in the ocean’s harsh and corrosive environment.

“We are pleased to join with the Delaware Electric Cooperative and the entire family of Old Dominion Electric Cooperatives in this groundbreaking process to bring clean, affordable renewable energy to the region up to five years ahead of any offshore proposal,” said Delmarva Power President Gary Stockbridge. “Together we can achieve considerable savings for our customers, establish a long-term source of renewable energy for both Delaware and the region, while doing what’s right to help protect the environment. The addition of the family of Old Dominion Cooperatives to Delmarva’s ongoing wind power bidding process should expand the growth of wind energy throughout the entire Delmarva Peninsula and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This is an exciting day for the development of renewable energy in the region,” Stockbridge said.   Read it all HERE

A couple things off the top of my head:

1. This doesn’t satisfy the HB 6 requirement of Delaware based energy generation. 
2. This brings no new jobs to the state, no new industry, no new educational opportunities.  
3. Can Gary Stockbridge explain how, “This is an exciting day for the development of renewable energy in the region,” when the only thing “the region” is doing is purchasing power from other states? Isn’t it an exciting day for renewable energy in other states? 
4. There’s only so much land based wind power available, and as other energy companies in other states start purchasing it, the price can only go up. 
5. I admire the Cooperatives for thinking ahead.   House Bill 6, which compelled DP&L to enter into a long term contract with a price sustainable Delaware based energy utility to avoid crushing their residential and small business customers again, did not apply to the Cooperatives. 

It didn’t apply to the Cooperatives because the Coops were already buying long term contracts and not smacking down their customers with harsh rate increases.Or to put it in easy to understand terms: They were smart.  

 

Ever wake up with one of these in your yard? I did. The stick has GPS coordinates on it and the story is that the arrows are markings for new aerial photographs of the county, and, *whew* not the proposed path of something that would go through my living room… I’m just happy there isn’t a gigantic “X” on my roof. (See Mom, over four decades of watching Buggs Bunny cartoons taught me something.)

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/yankee_dixie_quiz.html

The above link was mailed by a friend.  I scored 50 percent Dixie, which makes me believe the divide in this country is more rural/urban than north/south.  The spine of Appalachia runs south/north.  A southwestern NYer has more in common with a fellow in Kentucky than the man in New York City or Boston.  See where you’re from.

LOTS of WGMD listeners have their own websites and Dan Gaffney gave everyone an hour to promote their hard work.  Many people have asked for the links - so here’s most of the links that were called in.

• Judson Bennett for County Council - http://www.judsonbennett.com/
• Long Neck Family Practice - http://www.longneckfp.com/
•  Extreme Brewing - http://extremebrewing.com/
• Coldwell Banker/Katy Werner - http://www.cbmove.com/katy.werner
• Katy Decorates - http://www.katydecorates.com/
• Cyber Game Lan - http://www.cybergamelan.com/
• Vintage Delaware Tags - http://www.vintagedelawaretags.com/
• LowTags.com - http://www.lowtags.com/
• Bethany Beach Vol Fire Co. - http://www.bethanybeachfire.com/
• Gumboro Mudbog - http://www.gumboromudbog.com/
• Sussex County Government - http://www.sussexcountyde.gov/
• Delmarva Insulation - http://www.delmarvainsulation.com/
• Your Pet Food Store - http://www.yourpetfoodstore.com/
• Margarita Man - http://www.margaritamande.com/
• Ghost Hunting at Five Locks Canal - http://www.freewebs.com/5locks/
• Mid-Atlantic Regional Sport Stacking - http://www.midatlanticstacking.com/
• Man-Maid Cleaning - http://www.manmaidcleaning.com/ 
• Keenote Music Studio -
  http://www.makingmusik.com/servlet/KM_DisplayMain?s=3083
• Frank Prekup’s Purple Martin Houses - http://www.atlanticbreezes.com/pprekup.htm
• Johnson’s Country Market - http://www.johnsonscountrymarket.com/
• CopyRight Inc - http://www.copyrightinc.net/
• Community of Independence - http://www.independencede.com/home/
• Delaware State Housing - http://www.destatehousing.com/
• Guardian Property Management - http://www.guardian.us.com/guardian/page.html
• My Kids Support.com - http://www.mykidssupport.com/
• Sussex County Bible Church - http://www.sussexbible.com/
• Smith’s Used Cars - http://www.shopsmiths.com/
• Bella’s Cookies - http://www.bellascookies.com/
• Food 2 Go - http://www.food2gode.com/
• Isorobic - http://www.isorobic.com/
• Millman’s Appliance - http://www.millmansappliances.com/
• Indie Rocks Blog - http://www.indierocks.org/