Frank Gearhart

Frank Gearhart walked this earth from 2/16/1924 until 10:00 PM 9/9/08. He was something. My father loved us and loved America. Every day there are fewer and fewer of this greatest generation left among us. He accomplished so much that I don't know where to begin -- from father to provider to patriot. He lined up to enlist the day after Pearl Harbor and fought for our country during the Second World War from D-Day to the liberation of Dachau. He never let me forget that our American freedoms were earned at great sacrifice, and always encouraged us to keep on fighting for the American dream. This Christian soldier is now with the God he served so well.

A memorial to my father is linked below right on my "Links To The World".

The Complete Cyber Gaming Parlor Story

I don't expect the "Times-Record" to take our side, but I do expect that the residents of Ridgely get the WHOLE story about a proposed cyber gaming parlor. Both recent articles in the "Times-Record" have missed huge parts of the story, making our Planning Commission look unreasonable.

First, the proposal for the parlor was received (via our meeting information packets) a couple of days before our July meeting, in the form of an advertisement for a business that was to open August 4th -- a done deal! The Planning Commission never heard of the proposal and the Town Manager has since said that he didn't see any problem with it. The ad was for a 24/7 cyber gaming parlor aimed at getting customers here from the Western Shore. A 24/7 ANYTHING would be controversial, but a cyber parlor where games might be played including virtual rape, and other extremely violent themes, would be about as welcome as a strip club or a toxic waste dump. Again, we knew nothing about the proposal or the businessman, except that he was the grandson of a developer who has been operating in Ridgely for about a year. The Town Manager does NOT have the authority to approve such ventures.

Second, this area in question is not your usual industrial zone. It's an area for light industrial activity that has been grandfathered into the surrounding residential area. This is why the planning commission has authority to regulate any activity that would do harm to the surrounding neighborhood. If we fail to do our jobs, our neighbors will suffer because of a diminished quality of life and declining home values. The Planning Commission members are members of the community and take their responsibility seriously. The developers and their administration supporters aren't from Ridgely; those of us who live here, and are real stakeholders in our community, need to be heard.

Because of the Planning Commission, community concerns have been heard. The original proposal has been altered. It is not going to be a 24/7 operation and violent sexual content will not be allowed. A security plan will be outlined so that our taxpayer supported police aren't stuck with babysitting this business. The proposal was tabled a second time because we want the business proposal in writing. This is normal procedure. Our town attorney and the developer's attorney are to get together and put together a written proposal that will address the legitimate community concerns. From this, the Planning Commission will have something concrete with which to work. We are simply doing our jobs on OUR community's behalf.


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Stop The Spin -- Save Buck's Stable/Carriage House

Photo by Abigail Gearhart

This building is all that remains of Buck Herzog's Ridgely estate. A former Ridgely resident, Buck was a champion baseball player (career 1908 - 1920) playing for the Giants, Cubs, Reds and Braves. As many of you know, the building must be either moved or demolished to make way the planned Ridgeway Estates development. The building is in great shape and can be moved.

When the development was being planned, then commissioner, Nancy Gearhart, approached the developers(July 2007) about preserving the structure and they committed $8,000.00 to the effort. This amount was included in the Public Works Agreement approved by the Ridgely Planning and Zoning Commission. A place has been found for the building in Ridgely's railroad park and J.O.K. Walsh, Caroline County Historical Commission Chairman, will be able to secure additional funds for the move and maintenance.

Everything, is just hunky dory, right? WRONG! Once again, our Town Manager playing the role of Ridgely's very own "decider", has committed the money to fixing his budget instead of Buck's stable /carriage house. Nowhere in the agreement does it state that it may be applied to the General Fund. Further more, the Town Manager has been quoted as saying that without the $8,000.00 in the General Fund, he could be forced to go to the Commissioners to ask for a tax increase. I'm as against a tax increase as anyone. However, the $8,000.00 wasn't HIS to USE to fix the budget mess to begin with. And, since this $8,000.00 isn't tax money, using it is not the kind of spending that should lead to a tax increase anyhow. If there is a tax increase needed, it's because of the $162,716.00 that our budget is STILL off as result of the money "borrowed" from water/sewer for the General Fund last year(it's been carried over to this fiscal year).

It would seem to me that the reason that the Town Manager is fighting moving the stable is because he needs the money. I certainly agree that he needs some money! However, he alone isn't the "decider" here. We need to do all that we can to hold on to this piece of Ridgely's past.

Let's deal with this issue honestly and stop the spin and save the stable/carriage house for our "heritage park" in the railroad park.

Ramblin Blog

Here are two American classics -- a 1931 Davenport locomotive and a 1966 Coronado II Fender guitar -- brought together by yours truly. (Do I count as a classic too? I'm certainly old enough.) I did every railroad song I know while staying in a nearby caboose during our vacation in Catawissa, PA. The Catawissa Railroad Caboose hotel is a great get away and it's near Knoebels amusement park.

Meanwhile, Obama marches on. He looked very "Kennedyesque" speaking before swooning Berliners. In his very BEING, he represents an America that has finally come together. As Bruce Springsteen recently said: "He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years". OK, Bruce, I'll grant you that. I too, want to finally put to rest our sad racial divide and Obama is a physical manifestation that we are becoming one people. YET, no matter how much my HEART may find this candidate the fulfillment of an ideal, my HEAD won't have any of it. Obama's positions on the issues are the classic 60's liberalism, which TIME has thoroughly DISCREDITED. It's as if the "Great Society " hadn't crashed and burned. It's also as if Ronald Reagan hadn't come along to lead us down a more Constitutionally correct road.

2008 is even made a more difficult choice by the very flawed Republican nominee. John McCain seems to flaunt his contempt for traditional conservatives and certainly has been wrong on so many issues from immigration to "free trade". The only thing his candidacy might offer is a Supreme Court justice.

Certainly, this is the strangest election during my lifetime. The conventional wisdom that Obama was a political light weight was wrong. His political skills are excellent, he is charismatic, and looks like the probable winner. What a shame for America that ideologically he stands for the policies that gave us dysfunctional families and cities, as well as our globalized "McEconomy".

1968

There is plenty of analysis and even nostalgia for the for the year that for better AND worse set the West on its current path.

As I think of times and places of importance in my life, 1968 ranks high. I was 14 and living down the road from the very counterculture dominated Guilford College. In the middle of the then very traditional North Carolina, this "hippie freak show" was a sight to see. See it, I did. Daily, I would bicycle there to hang out and listen to local bands such as "Electric Lather" as they did their renditions of "new" songs such as "Happiness is a Warm Gun" or "Stray Cat Blues". It amazed me that anyone had the audacity to play the sacrosanct songs of the Beatles or Stones.

For my 1968 birthday, I was given my first guitar, a "Silvertone" (Sears) acoustic. I'd haul this instrument of torture with strings that seemed to be at least an inch above the fretboard everywhere. One friend, Alan Thornton, who later would become a guitarist for "Nantucket", taught me my first riff, "Wipe Out". Later, when I brought over an amazing sounding 45, "Sunshine of Your Love", he figured it out and taught it to me too.

It was the politics of the time and place that also caught my attention. Guilford students were routinely protesting in the streets of the small town of Guilford (now part of Greensboro). Vietnam was, of course, the main issue. However, even our local barbershop was the target of a protest when its barbers said to a reporter that they couldn't and wouldn't cut a black man's hair. The barbershop was boycotted for weeks. However, the impact a bunch of longhairs boycotting a barbershop was minimal.

It was the quest for individual freedom (you know,"life, liberty and the pursuit happiness"), the anti authoritarian and decentralized vision of the "good" government, that appealed to me then and now. This was the more libertarian and even conservative side of the counterculture. The term "conservative hippie" is appropriate and not an oxymoron within this context.

On the other hand, the counterculture collectivists and cultural Marxists (who would spawn political correctness)of the hard left, held no promise to me. When Johnny Lennon sang "if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't going to make it with anyone, anyhow", it was "alright" by me.

It was McGovernite liberalism AND elements of countercultural libertarianism that held sway in my mind for years.

In another time and place, Philadelphia, 1988, the liberal part of my 1968 weltanschauung was shattered. I had moved back to Philly, and my wife and I were renovating a boarded up graffiti covered house. There, in my grandmother's old neighborhood, Kensington, which once proudly boasted the moniker, "workshop of the world", reality collided with liberal theory. There, the liberal political policies and programs that I thought would usher in the "new age", had wrecked the old neighborhood. Drug dealers and junkies "did their thing". And, each new government program delivered by parasitic ward healers, seemed to eat away at what was left of the neighborhood's social fabric. Even worse, a de facto coalition of liberal activists, real estate brokers and drug dealers,(each pursuing their own very different agendas), were united against people like us. We were to them, "evil gentrifiers", to be stopped no matter what. They won.

As for the legacy of '68, I've kept a guitar as a constant companion over the years. In yet another time and place, Washington, D.C., 1985, a guitar even played matchmaker when I met my future wife while playing it in a park.

Politically, the more libertarian conservative side of the counterculture still remains with me. I strongly oppose creeping authoritarianism in our government and the increasingly centralized bureaucratic control of our lives.

Many other aspects of the '68 social and political revolution, however, did serious damage. Much of the pre-1968 American tradition that I grew up with, is gone forever. Now, as a father struggling to keep the more insidious spin offs of '68 away from my daughter, my nostalgia grows for a time and place before 1968.

Political Commercials Go To The Dogs

Mark Funkhouser, mayor of Kansas City, is no stranger to controversy. The developers love to hate him and the International County/ City Management Association (ICMA -- basically a town manager union) has profiled his conflicts with the Kansas City town manager -- rooting (surprise) for the town manager. He's an interesting pol who just might be doing what he was elected to do.

He used this great commercial during his election campaign which is linked below. (It's set up a bit different and you just click on "menu" at the right bottom of the video to start.)
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid595556248/bclid596410507/bctid595138480

A Wake Up Call From Ross Perot

If you are like me, you are very worried about where our country is headed. Ross Perot was right back in the 90s and much of what he warned about has become true. We should listen to him now for a change. He is back with his charts at: http://perotcharts.com/

Jeremiah Wright Meets Willie Horton

Right now, as I blog away, I'm sure that there is a camera whirring away (well, they don't whir anymore, but you get the picture) making an ad that hangs Barack Obama's preacher around his neck. We'll see Rev. Wright hourly throughout the fall making Willie Horton look like a choir boy. I'm also sure that similar ads will be running hanging the "Keating 5" around John McCain's neck. In the scheme of things, the weight of Rev. Wright will weigh heavier on Obama. Despite his statements to the contrary, Obama runs a major risk of being "swiftboated". In the eyes of many Americans, Rev. Wright is a racist, and Obama's guilt by association will be a major influence on how the majority of the electorate will vote.

Is this unfair? No, and I didn't think that the Genesis of "swiftboating" four years ago was unfair either. Enough facts were out there to make a case that a candidate for commander in chief was unfit for duty. The public has a right to know. The former gatekeepers of information, such as the TV network news broadcasters, weren't going to break the story. Therefore, I'm glad that other individuals stepped up to the plate and presented the information to the public.

Does this mean that I like the increasingly shrill tone of our political campaigns? No, but I'm not going to hold my breath and wait for a campaign where candidates debate how far they intend to stray from, or return to, the vision of our Republic outlined on the Federalist Papers. What we have now is imperfect, but certainly better than returning control of information to the mainstream media gatekeepers.

At the local level, things are different and the old information gatekeepers still hold sway. Because of the expense, no one is going to advertise in the Salisbury media market to win a Ridgely election. What is now starting to happen, however, is that free blogs and podcasts are providing local candidates the opportunity to make their case. The "everyman" running for office now has the means to an end run around expensive media markets and other information gatekeepers.

Some of this might be termed "negative" campaigning. However, candidates for local office are just as likely to be flawed and the public has the right to know the whole story about those seeking our votes. Because there is no media access, local politicians can often rest "on their laurels" earned from years in the community performing some service well with a local institution. Unfortunately, good service in one area of endeavor doesn't guarantee competence in the civic/political arena. For instance, if a local candidate or office holder states that "if we take out a loan, we won't be in debt anymore", they need to be held accountable. Candidates also need to have a means to get their message out and counter the all to common whispering campaigns that plague local politics. In all of this, blogs mean access and information for voters.

Technology in the service of democracy is never a bad thing.

Sour Grapes Vs. The Whole Truth!

It was heated at the Commissioner's meeting tonight and events pertaining to the recent election are still being discussed. At issue was the recent Town Manager "press release".

Some simple facts will set the story straight about the proposed '09 Budget "press release" from the Ridgely Town Manager the weekend before the election.

It all started when an email was sent out to all three Commissioners, 9:08 AM, April 24th, from the Town Manager, stating that "the attached has been forwarded to the media". Commissioner Gearhart emailed back that this was wrong and premature since the Commissioners hadn't even seen a draft of the budget, and asked him to retract the "press release". As the Town Manager was unavailable, Gearhart notified the press to clarify that the Commissioners hadn't yet seen this so called draft budget. Then, at 12:02 came another email from the Town Manager saying that "Chuck and Linda OKd". HOWEVER, you can't call such an email "vote" OFFICIAL, since such an action would VIOLATE the Maryland Open Meetings Act. The press did not print the Town Manager's "press release", writing that "to cover it would be imprudent".

The bottom line: WHY THE RUSH? If this "press release" was truly what it pretended to be, why would it matter if it was released the 24th or TODAY? Speaking of today, why wasn't the budget proposal in evidence at tonight's town meeting? The town meeting IS the time and place to consider this issue. The absence of any proposal tonight speaks volumes about the politics of the "press release".

Progressive Politics

I'll use this May Day to reclaim the the term Progressive. All too often, it is a word that is used by the left and has collectivist connotations for many of us.

The Progressive movement at its height at the beginning of the 20th century included many Republicans and conservatives. Teddy Roosevelt, for example, was a leader of the Progressive movement. The focus on promoting the people's interests over large monopolistic corporations led to much legislation that we take for granted today.

Today, at the international, national and local levels, we find an array of forces and trends which are compromising the voice and interests of the average middle class American. For example, our jobs are being out sourced because of "free trade", while both legal and illegal immigrants come and take the remaining jobs. My own brother-in-law, a computer programmer, must watch as his American co-workers are forced to train "H-1B" visa immigrants to do their jobs. He is the last one left in his department, and has every reason to believe he'll be next.

We always need to look at who benefits from such phenomenon, and in all the above, it's the multi-national corporations and their insatiable need for cheap labor. The situation today is similar to the one a hundred years ago when corporate driven changes were threatening the social good.

Only a few lonely voices such as Ralph Nader on the left, or Pat Buchanan on the right, have consistently criticized the growing dispossession of Middle America. (Their common ground is intriguing, and despite their differences on social issues, could contain the seeds of a wide ranging progressive renewal.)However, few will now take on sacred corporate cows such as "free trade". And, when a mainstream figure like Lou Dobbs begins to raise his voice, look at how he's tarred and feathered as an extremist, isolationist, or even a racist. It's a hard road ahead for those fighting to regain control over our fate.

At the local level, I am gratified to see a functioning coalition composed of both conservatives and liberals, which I call progressive. It puts the people's interests ahead of the interests of corporations, developers and their administration allies.

Of course, many people voted in the recent election for a candidate that they simply liked or found personable and competent. However, many of us were aware of the stakes involved here. Many of us voted not only because we like Kathy Smith, but to keep an open, citizen oriented government, to serve the interests of the residents of Ridgely.