I hadn’t noticed the downed trees.  Driving home tonight I passed through a stretch of road historically so thick with trees you would think it’s twilight at noon.  A couple of acres have been cleared.  This county is roughly 85 percent fields and forest and I’m not opposed to the latest development but the change was nonetheless jarring.  A fellow comes to the radio station every Wednesday and does a segment with me about finance, economy and investment.  We’ve become friends and I like a phrase he often uses.  “The only constant in our lives is change”, he tells me.  September the 5th I mark two years on the job here at the Lower Shore.  Two years ago tonight a short Asian man was barking orders at me, instructing me to hand sort third and second class mail before loading an automated machine.  When he wanted to speak with me he would walk up and take my identity badge in his right hand and look at my name and then babble at me in some failed effort to communicate in English.  “Beeeeelllll”, is all I understood. 

While life here is quite different and a boon for my self esteem, not much about day-to-day life has changed around the house or at the grocery store.  I met my buddy Phil Plack at the diner the other morning and we had breakfast in anonymity.  I still cherish being unnoticed in public.  The redhead dropped by on her way to a doctor’s visit and we talked about our hopes for the future.  Too many to mention in my letter and perhaps we didn’t share nearly enough of our fears.  Phil and the woman with the long red hair suggest I start making some demands at work.  Hey, I’m just happy so many people are listening.  Saturday I get to meet many, many of them. 

A few weeks ago some folks affiliated with Delaware Tea Party asked if I could be the master of ceremonies at the first centrally located statewide tea party.  Of course I accepted.  I’m getting four hours in the sun on the Legislative Mall in Dover.  We’ll see some of the national folks from across the big bay joining us and there was a rumor Glenn Beck would drop by, or some fellow on Facebook identifying himself as Glenn Beck.  Tomorrow’s program is a warm-up for September the 12th in Washington.  In between I’m squeezing in a vacation for my daughter.  Last summer I postponed the time with my teenager because I was on a mission to Washington.  One hundred twenty one miles by bicycle to deliver petitions to our elected officials and our state’s member of the House of Representatives brushed it aside.  And he now wonders why he faced an angry “mob” on June Thirtieth.  It was the spark igniting the powder keg.  Georgetown, Delaware may well become the historical “Ground Zero” of a populace taking its government back from an insensitive House of Lords.

Not long ago I didn’t see much hope for my country’s future and it mirrored my time in the wilderness in late 2006 and 2007.  The forest around me appeared an immovable object.  Today I’ve been experiencing inner stirrings I haven’t felt in years.  The feeling you had throughout the 24^th of December, as a kid, as you watched the ticking clock and the anxiety multiplied exponentially.  I see light.

Yesterday an old coworker sent me a note and said there was a time 4 years ago when I warned the country was heading for a crack-up that she thought I was cracking up.  So did my employer, a company now heading for the fire sale.  About the same time I made the on-air prediction I had a lunch meeting with an old friend, Father Chuck Vavonese.  He’s the actual administrator of schools for the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese, even if the title belongs to someone else.  We talked about our nation’s cultural and economic rot and he suggested a second civil war was approaching.  It wouldn’t be regional, he explained, instead it would pit neighbor-against-neighbor.  For Father Chuck it was 1850 all over again.  Last week I thought the experience was 1859 and from what I’m observing today we could be at 1861 by summer’s end.  Like the land down the road stripped bare of trees there won’t be any cover for which to hide.  Now we’re riding history’s tide and it promises to sweep away so much and leave us a clean slate. 

A Perfect Storm Is Brewing

by Pam Geller

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I
think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or
a credit crisis. Yes, these exist but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a
sharper focus.
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and
how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has
been evolving for about 10-15 years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demanded and then codifi ed into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we knew could
never pay back? Why? We learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has
“loaned” two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or
disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously
just this past September.
Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I
thought this was a government of “We the People,” who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we
are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate.
Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition
that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing
possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that
radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into
a banana republic. To what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system
is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education
system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length,
breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x 10. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending
people of the same religion who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a
town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fi elds of employment,
and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary. (Surely you have heard him
speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our
borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah
Palin’s pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important.)
Mr. Obama’s winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change…radical change. Why?
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now. This man campaigned on bringing people
together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical
lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed
coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the
savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing.
What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom
they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough,
people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were
afraid to speak out for fear that his “brown shirts” would bully them into submission.
And then he was duly elected to offi ce, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but
surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy.
The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people
on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex.
He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising
to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world.
He did it with a compliant media - Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and…change. And the
people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people
objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out
the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed
into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.
Don’t forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals,
laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years - a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency
- it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors
against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective
pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from
across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring
around me.
Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to
look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe - and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong. But, I do not think
I am.

About the author …
Pamela “Atlas” Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of
The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child, but remained involved
in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic
Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School .
After 9/11, Atlas had the veil of oblivion violently lifted from her consciousness and immersed herself in the education and
understanding of geopolitics, Islam, terror, foreign affairs and imminent threats the mainstream media and the government
wouldn’t cover or discuss.
Please use the power of the Internet to get this message out. Talk it up at the grassroots level.

I’ve been battling with folks on the left for almost a decade and can look back 25 years when I battled alongside them and reach some sober conclusions.  First, I usually wasn’t sober when I was involved with radical leftist groups.  As no one made me take the drink I can’t dismiss once playing for the other side.  All I can do is now work to make right the wrongs I committed against my God and my country.  The second thing I’ve noticed is the left can’t seem to make logical connections.  Which is why I guess the government schools are constructed in the current tense.  You create more liberals when Johnny can’t read and has only the dole as his only resort.  Last week a writer at The Christian Science Monitor bemoaned the lack of modern critical thinkers.  This infers critical thinking is something you can teach.  It may just be some folks are wired differently and can think on several levels at any given time while others don’t have the talent.  I believe I can make this statement because the left argues wiring is the root of all differences between people we used to consider just making lifestyle choices.  Notice I wrote I believe and not I feel.  The only thing I feel is the sometimes knot in my stomach when I’m asked to cheerlead for a cause that makes me uncomfortable.

A Roman Catholic Bishop I once heard saying a homily claimed the knot was part of God’s wiring and a reminder ethics aren’t situational. 

Over the weekend I had quite a bit of time for reading and came across the words of a columnist at The Washington Post.  Jim Hoagland writes the American people are getting angry.  Very, very angry and the anger he believes may get very, very ugly.  Hoagland, from what I know, has never been a paragon of the political right.  He’s just an observer witnessing what a great many others are seeing.  This morning I received an email from one of my friends serving in Iraq.  He was telling me 50 percent of working Americans are just two paychecks away from disaster.

Yesterday I attended a committee meeting of the Sussex County Community Organized Regiment.  A local man with a house just a few miles from where I live hosted it and he has a family, pets and a very good job.  These aren’t people frothing at the mouth and searching for a revolution.  There were ten people in attendance ranging from 19 years old to retired.  There had been an earlier committee meeting where something called “Victory Garden” was a discussion topic.  It appears these bitter clingers have ten acres of land available for tilling and planting.  Members of the group will grow vegetables and then, say it isn’t so, can them for what could be tougher months later this year and early next.  Any member who works on these plots is entitled to share in the bounty.  The barter economy is back. 

Before the session wrapped up there was light banter about the public reaction to creation of the organization.  Liberal bloggers in Wilmington are railing against the toothless right wing goons inhabiting the forests below the ditch.  You know the story.  The salons of the state’s biggest city can’t conceive of how folks can survive without big government.  Worse yet they can’t understand why you wouldn’t want the nanny state in your lives.  The beautiful crime and drug free streets upstate should be convincing, I guess.  Someone mentioned the follow up posts at the blogs contained liberal fears about the good people of Sussex County.  Some worry they’re at a disadvantage because we can handle guns and they can’t but if the figures are correct most of the “Wards of the State” locked up in prisons originally called New Castle County home.  The wards are often locked away because they committed gun crimes and often against liberals even more fearful of weapons they could use in self-defense against criminals. 

I don’t speak for the members of the Regiment but if things get interesting this summer some hungry lefties may be looking for a bite to eat.  God help them.  He just might if they could come to their senses.

Judy Mangini joined us on-air on Friday, December 05, 2008.  Judy hosts a “Cookie Exchange” every year.  Participants bake cookies, which are then shipped to our troops overseas.  She suggests others can do the same.  The care packages are sent to the following address:

Trina Gardner

at:  Cartina Hill

KBR

APO AE 09391

Judy offers that if you can bake the cookies she can also ship them.  Cookies can be dropped off at the WGMD studios during daytime business hours and Judy will pick them up before the end of the business day on Friday, December 12, 2008.  Wrap them well!  She has also recorded a Christmas CD and for a small donation you can pick up a copy at our studios.  Money raised from donations for CDs will be used to provide a Christmas for a needy Delmarva family.  Every year Judy and her husband anonymously provide for one family.  The CD is a delight.  Judy has a fine voice, recently winning a talent contest at Long Neck. 

Thursday is the 7th anniversary of the terror attacks on America - also called Patriot Day

Already too many people ask why we would want to remember such an event every year - it’s too depressing, it’s not happened again, etc. Well - if we don’t remember it - and we become complacent, it will happen again.

With more and more countries coming out of third world status, and countries that we never took much notice of in the past suddenly showing up front and center in the news – and suddenly a lot more modern and advanced than we remember them being. We aren’t so much the world power that we were 40 years ago. But as we do defend our own and fight our battles and others when asked – we make more and more enemies, who are now able to stand up and fight.

9/11 is now history – but it’s history that is still fresh in our collective memory and something we don’t want to see repeated on our soil.

Like they say – those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it.

Some of the numbers involved in 9/11 -

• 65,000 - personal items recovered from ground zero 
• 437 watches
• 144 rings
• 119 earring
• 80 bracelets
• 77 necklaces
• 2,998 - Total number killed in the attacks - (excluding the 19 hijackers)
• 2,603 – in the WTC and on the ground in NYC
• 343 firefighters and paramedics
• 246 – were on the planes (excluding the hijackers
• 200+ people jumped to their deaths from the burning towers
• 125 – at the Pentagon – 55 were military
• 90 – countries represented among the dead

                             Don’t your forget.

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!

This is a Scotish aire partially written by the poet Robert Burns, but not published until after his death. “Auld Lang Syne” means ‘old long ago’ or ‘the good old days’ and is sung at midnight in nearly every English-speaking country to ring in the New Year.  Because the song is generally sung about once a year, the melody is more recognizable than the words - which usually are sung incorrectly past the first line or two. 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?

CHORUS
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
And surely I’ll buy mine!
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give us a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

While to us the song is one that represents beginnings - in some Far Eastern countries and Hungary - it represents endings or farewells and is sung at graduations or funerals!  It also represents endings and farewells in Brazil, Portugal, France and several other European countries.  

The melody we are familiar with may or may not be what was originally intended by Burns, but it’s what was made popular by band leader Guy Lombardo who actually had the song released as a single in 1947. 

Happy New Year!  May 2008 be everything you want it to be. 

I lit a candle outside…
trying to remember so many names……
remembering how many died……
and so many families left unsaid….
some still wishing for that one day to come…
they will get a call saying they found their loved one…
     (author unknown)

You can light a candle in memory to someone lost or loved - the candles will remain lit for 48 hours - just click on the candle   And remember all who have died in the war on terror, but especially your neighbors from Delaware and Maryland

Patriot Day was created through a proclamation (Public Law 107-89) by President George Bush after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. The day is in memory of the nearly 3000 who lost their lives at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, DC and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. President Bush has made the resolution and proclamation to designate September 11 as Patriot Day each year since 2002. The legislation requests that President designate September 11 as Patriot Day each year. The day is a discretionary day of remembrance – which means it is not an official public holiday.

How or when Patriot Day is observed depends on your location. US flags are to be flown at half-staff and flown from residences as well (that includes US buildings abroad as well). Now, here’s where location will make a difference. Americans are asked to observe a moment of silence beginning at 8:46am (EDT) to mark the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, crashing into the World Trade Center in New York City. A moment of silence could also be held at 9:03am (EDT) when the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, struck the second tower of the World Trade Center, at 9:43am (EDT) when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon or at 10:10am (EDT) when United Airlines Flight 93 went down in a field near Shanksville, PA.

Initially the day was called the “National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of the Terrorist Attacks.” Then changed to Patriot Day by a by Joint Resolution 71 which was approved in the US House by a 407 – 0 vote (25 members didn’t vote) on October 25, 2001 and approved unanimously by the US Senate on November 30, 2001. President Bush signed the resolution into law on December 18, 2001.

People have had some trouble wrapping their thoughts around Patriot Day – with most referring to the day as 9-11 or September 11th instead. Another problem with the day is that it is often confused with Patriots’ Day (one has an ‘s’ and one doesn’t). Patriots’ Day is observed on the third Monday in April and is a civic holiday in Massachusetts and Maine. It is also a public school observance day in Wisconsin. Patriots’ Day has nothing to do with Patriot Day.

Canada shares the observance of Patriot Day as well with flags on the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and all Canadian diplomatic missions in the US flying at half-staff.

Why do the good people of Delmarva fear snow?

What is it about the white puffy moisture that causes so many people to fear for their lives? Why does normal life come to a complete end on this peninsula every time a stupid weatherman mentions that unmentionable,….”Chance of Snow”?

Like a flock of screaming children at recess, you run to the supermarkets, mini-markets and roadside stands to purchase Milk, Eggs, Bread and Toilet Paper. OK, so this leaves me to believe that the fear of snow brings about the massive hankering for French Toast which you apparently don’t have the digestive tract to properly handle, hence the toilet paper.

Question: When was the last time people in this area were literally ’snowed-in’ so bad that they were unable to leave their home because of the high snow? When was the last time the roads were so un-navigable that nobody, and I mean nobody, was able to drive including Police, EMS and newspaper delivery people? How many of you live so far from civilization that if you were snowed in and ran out of toilet paper, you would be too far away to walk to a neighbor’s house and borrow some? And finally, why are the elements to make French Toast so important to you in the event of snow?

I was transferred to North Carolina some years ago by the retail company I worked for at the time. My store was in Hanes Mall in Winston Salem, we lived in a tiny town called Advance. Our first winter there was the worst in anyone’s memory. The snow wasn’t so bad, it measured almost 12 inches, but the following ice storm took out power lines all over the area. We were without power for 5 days. Since the state had very little snow in this area, local municipalities never felt the need to purchase snow plows or even road salt. Being from Pennsylvania, I was accustomed to driving in heavy snow and easily drove to and from work while many stayed home to wait it out. In our home, no electricity meant no cooking, we had an electric oven. We did have a fireplace and actually made some stew in it as well as heated up leftovers and such. Mostly, we ate out during the outage. The locals, who were not used to driving in snow made the most of it by working together. Farmers drove their big tractors around to neighbor’s homes, seeking lists of needed supplies before driving to the local filling station/mini-market. Folks with 4-wheel drive or who were brave ventured to Mocksville, to the supermarkets, armed with many shopping lists, especially for the elderly.

People just automatically came together to help one another in the ‘crisis’ as I believe they would here as well! They also used the time to play. A neighbor with a four-wheeler stopped by our home to let the kids grab their sleds and hold a rope as he pulled them through the neighborhood. He told us of a plan to gather at the top of a local road which had a nice hill for sledding that night. We drove (much to their astonishment) instead of walking the 3 miles with our sleds. They had a huge bonfire and a large farm tractor which would drive down the hill with a huge tow-rope, pulling the kids back up the hill so they could have more fun without getting so tired of the reverse trek.

But here, well, that’s a different story. As some of you may know, I run nearly 2 dozen weekly trivia gameshows at local (and not-so-local) restaurants and other venues. One such venue is a new game inside the private gated community, The Peninsula. For our premiere event last Sunday the staff had acquired reservations for more than 50 people to sit in a nice restaurant inside their community, with a warm fire, protected by a back-up generator, where their was plenty of eggs, bread and milk as well as a supply closet full of toilet paper, and enjoy a trivia game with a house-cash prize. Slowly but surely these reservations cancelled one-by-one until we had but one team left for the game. Why? “Chance of snow.”

By the end of the game that first massive snowfall of 2007 had grown to nearly an inch with ‘bitter’ temps in the upper 20’s and virtually no wind. Why should such a minor meteorological event prevent people from going out to have a good time? Why do we scare so easily? I don’t let such occurrences prevent me from events. When I was young I didn’t let blizzards prevent me from honoring my commitment to a girlfriend for a date to the movies. Why should I start fearing the white fluff now?

My final point is to encourage you folks to stop being so scared of your own shadows! You have to live your life to enjoy it. Your end will come, but here on Delmarva it is very unlikely it will be caused by hunger due to a snowstorm. Get out and live!