Time to Think

Time to Think  By Hank Silverberg                                                                     Out of Control on Gun Control                    O n April 18, 1775, 700 British soldiers left their barracks in Boston and marched towards Lexington, Massachusetts where they were told rebellious colonists were storing a cache of weapons, powder and shot. Word quickly spread about their mission thanks   to   riders   like   Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott. B y the time the Redcoats got to Lexington on April 19, they were met by local militia. Someone, it has never been clear who, fired what became known as "the shot heard round the world" formally starting an armed revolution against King George III. The bloodied British force was stopped at Concord by a larger group of militia and never got the cache of weapons. It took eight years to win the American Revolution. It was war of attrition at great cost.    (Single shot rifle replicas at t

Time to think By Hank Silverberg Why we all hate I-95      In the summer of 1919 the U-S army decided to send 81 vehicles from Washington, DC to San Francisco to test the ability to move men and machine from one coast to another. It took 62 days over back roads, through mud and across narrow mountain passes to travel the 3,251 miles to the west coast. Among those who made the trip was a young Lieutenant named Dwight D Eisenhower. Twenty-four years later as Supreme Allied Commander he witnessed how fast Germany was able to move its troops along the Autobahn as American troops defeated the Nazis.  Eisenhower would remember both events.  Promoted by President Eisenhower out of military necessity, the Interstate highway system was created by Congress on June 29, 1956. It took almost 50 years for the originally planned 48,000-mile system to be finished.  For decades it seemed Ike’s dream of an efficient continental road system had worked.  The completion was announced at a news

By Hank Silverberg   How to avoid “Fake News” I was standing at the checkout counter at the supermarket the other day and I noticed something was missing. People Magazine  was there, as well as some fashion magazines with the latest diet trend. But the old tabloids with the huge headlines like “60 Year Old Woman Gives Birth to Two Headed Baby,” or “Elvis Spotted At Gas Station in Toledo,” were missing. That kind of fake news, the obvious kind, moved to the Internet a while ago.  And why not? They have plenty of company, though it may not be so obvious. REAL “fake news” has always been around. People actually bought News of the World (now defunct)   or  The National Enquirer for a good la ugh or for some entertainment. No one really took them seriously (at least I hope not), even though on occasion the Enquirer would actually print something that was true.  There is also a long standing tradition of political satire in the United States. The Onion is still going strong an

On the O utside L ooking in By Hank Silverberg      I confess. For 38 years I was a journalist. I got paid to write about politicians, government, criminals, crime fighters, corporations, celebrities, and just ordinary people who had an interesting story to tell. In many cases I was on the inside, getting information and facts that other people did not know until I reported it.     I admit I was also a conservative journalist. Notice the small “ c . ”  I don’t mean Conservative as in politics. I mean conservative as in doing it cautiously, the right way, with good solid information that was confirmed and attributed to sources who were named and quoted.                                       My close friends and relatives  and some former colleagues know where I s t and politically ,  but those who heard me on the radio or saw me on TV , did not know   my politics.  It never got into my work. If there was the slightest question about that, I always ran it by an editor o