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It's In The Mail                                       #388 By Hank Silverberg    I saw an ad on TV the other night that was trying to recruit people to work for the United States Postal Service. I was surprised to see it, because the Post Office has been cutting back services for so long that their need for more workers didn't seem logical. The days of receiving first class mail in three days anywhere across the country are long gone.  These days it can take weeks for a bill sent by first class mail to reach you from across town. I send out my checks at least ten business days before the due date hoping that they arrive on time. Yes, I know many of you are thinking, "Hey, just have the money taken out of your account automatically on the due date and there's no problem!" But frankly, I don't like that. I do it with my auto insurance because they gave me a substantial discount t...
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Revisionist History                                #387  By Hank Silverberg   I spent part of this past Wednesday revisiting Mount Vernon. My brother and sister-in law were in town and they had never been there.  The estate of our first president, a 45 minute drive from my home on a good traffic day, is right along the Potomac River with a spectacular view. It has been preserved very well, and right now the mansion itself is being restored again.  (The view form the Washington's back patio)  The interpretations you will see there are a fair representation of what George Washington's life  was like when he wasn't fighting a war, and after he left Ferry Farm where he grew up. As I wrote a few weeks ago (see the 4/26 blog), there is a distinct effort right now in the Trump Administration, as we approach our 250th birthday, to sanitize our history. They want to whitewash over ...
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The Sun                                                    #386 By Hank Silverberg As I write this on a sunny Sunday morning  the solar panels on the roof of my home are producing 4.93 kw of power although it goes down with some cloud cover at any time. With my computer on,my washing machine going, and various appliances like the refrigerator plugged in, I am using .61 kw. So at the moment I type this,  I am sending 4.32 kw into the power grid. That's good for a chilly day in May.  And it makes me think those "credits" I am earning now from my utility company, Dominion Power, for sending extra power to the grid, will really help keep the electricity bill down in July and August when the temperatures hover around 90 degrees  and the air conditioning is needed to fight off Virginia's  oppressive summer humidity.   (Some o...
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  America 250                                #385 By Hank Silverberg Over the next few months there will be celebrations across the country to commemorate the 250th birthday of the United States. This is certainly something to celebrate. Our form of government, revolutionary in 1776, has survived rapid, often uncontrolled growth, a bloody Civil War, the racial inequality that still stains our ideals, corporate greed that divides us by class, and political turmoil that seems to crop up again and again every 30 years or so.   (Washington reconstructed boyhood  home at Ferry Farms I thought about all this as my wife and I visited Ferry Farm in nearby Stafford County, Virginia. Though most people think of Mount Vernon as Washington's home, it was Ferry Farm where he spent his childhood. He lived there until he was 22 years old with his mother and four siblings. His father died when George was...
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  Loss of Faith in Journalism                  #384 By Hank Silverberg  Who, what, when, where, why, how. Those are the questions all journalists are taught at the beginning of their career. I have always added another H for "How much" to my reporting, because a dollar figure was often attached to many stories.  But beyond that a reporter's job, above all else, is to tell the truth as best you know it.  Both the Radio,Television, Digital News Association and the Society of Professional Journalists have a code of ethics emphasizing the truth, along with fairness.  But somewhere along the line, "truth" part seems to have gotten lost. A mentor of mine, the late Jim Farley, used to instill in his reporting staff "Get it first, but FIRST get it RIGHT". And that too seems to have gotten lost with the prevalence of the internet, "influencers" and social media posts. Being the first to post on line has drowned out reporting ...
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 Gerrymander                                                                                                         #383  By Hank Silverberg   Commentary It all started back in 1812. Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, at the request of his political party, ironically called the Democratic-Republican Party, signed a bill that redrew state legislative districts to give them an advantage in the next election. The districts were bizarre, with one of them looking very much like a salamander. Gerry didn't like the whole thing, and actually called them "highly disagreeable," but he signed the bill anyway prompting the Boston Gazette to coin the term Gerrymandering. Gerry lost his re-election bid, even though his ...
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