Outside Philly

Currently in PA the only folks allowed to vote in primaries are those who are registered to either the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party. Eugene DePasquale a Representative from York County wants to change that. Last year he presented House Bill 1672 for approval. So far nothing has happened, so for this primary season nothing is going to happen to change how things have been running since at least 1937.

Why do independents want to vote in the primaries? Well, I can’t tell you that but I can tell you what DePasquale and friends want the new law to say:

“A registered independent or non party voter may vote for candidates of the party of the voter’s choice, the choice to be made at the polling place on the day of the primary election. The voter’s choice of parties at one primary election shall not preclude the voter from choosing a different party at a subsequent primary election.”

I would like to mention that according to a PA Independent voter site they said that the Democratic candidate in the past Presidential election would have been Hillary Clinton who won amongst Democratic voters by about 300,000 votes over Barack Obama. Independent voters in 33 states changed the course of the Democratic parties candidates in the General election.

Do you think voters should have ” skin in the game” and should they be allowed to use their votes to sway candidates chosen for the two major parties in the US? Or do you think that they have the right to make their voices heard and that their votes are important in the early stage of the game?

This “tweak” in HB 1672 won’t help elect Independents into office. It’s still a numbers game. Opening up the election code might be a good idea, but I don’t think that this adjustment serves PA voters in the long run. If we are going to fix the election code then perhaps we should really look at what we want to accomplish and not just handle it by letting independents help choose party leaders for the two major parties.

What do you think?

mo

This Question and Answer was in the Reading Eagle by Darrin Youker. It’s an interesting bit of local history.

How did the Seventh-day Adventist Church come to build the Pine Forge Academy?

Cynthia Poole-Gibson firmly believes in God’s infinite wisdom.

Reading Eagle: Lauren A. Little Students walk to lunch from a classroom building at Pine Forge Academy in Douglass Township. The Seventh-day Adventist Church acquired land for the school in 1946.

So, philosophically speaking, it was God’s plan to ensure that the Seventh-day Adventist Church would one day open a predominantly black boarding school in Douglass Township.

Practically speaking, the church bought the land near Amityville for a song in 1946 and has cherished it ever since.

But it’s hard to argue against Poole-Gibson’s take on the matter. As the headmaster of the 150-student boarding school, she is intimately familiar with its history.

The Pine Forge Academy sits on land once owned by Thomas Rutter, who operated an iron forge on the property. Rutter was an ardent abolitionist, and his home and land were used as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Escaped slaves, heading through Pennsylvania to seek their freedom, had no way of knowing they were passing over land that would one day educate a new generation of blacks, Poole-Gibson said.

But God had a plan.

“I am a firm believer that things do not just happen,” she said. “God, in his wisdom, preserved this land.”

The Rev. Ken Dewalt, a pastor at Hope Church in Amity Township, suggested that the Reading Eagle look into the history of Pine Forge Academy, which he believes is a gem of Berks County.

Pine Forge, when it was founded, was one of nearly 100 religious secondary schools in the nation designed to educate black children, said Poole-Gibson, a 1963 graduate of the school. Today, there are just four, she said.

At the time, there was a greater need for schools geared toward black children because of segregation in public and private schools, Poole-Gibson said.

Members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has strong roots in Christian education, were looking for a site for a private school when a church member from Philadelphia learned that the Rutter farm was for sale.

The church bought the 575-acre farm, including Rutter’s original manor house, for $40,000.

“That was a deal – and a steal,” she said.

Now, the school draws students from 20 different states and two Caribbean countries.

There’s a strong focus on developing leadership skills, Poole-Gibson said, and while the student body is predominantly black, the school is open to all races and religious backgrounds.

One can only imagine that Thomas Rutter would be proud to know how his property is being used today.

WFMZ has an article about the Biker Church and I just wanted to give you a little more information about it.

love,

mo

I noticed in the Business section of the Mercury that there was advice on how to be a great radio guest when you are promoting your business. The advice was pretty basic- know your product, sound natural and enthused, don’t make a pitch anything like an infomercial.

But I have to tell you that there is a lot more to being a guest on a radio program than most people realize. Everyone thinks that you can simply do what you’d do person to person on air. That isn’t quite true. In conversations there is a give and take. Listeners interact with you directly by nodding, or by asking questions while you speak. On radio each sentence has a sense of solidity. Listeners don’t understand that the presenters feel excited, or anxious and yet listeners can tell when someone is stumbling or choking out a sentence. The recommendation said ask for a list of questions you’ll be asked in the interview so that you can prepare.

Simple advice from a former radio host- Never answer in one word sentences unless you want to drive the host crazy. Don’t nod. Keep eye contact with the host- sometimes guests will search their heads for what they want to say and they will look away to compose their thoughts. In a timed program this can be a problem. The host is your director. Never read prepared statements unless you are speaking for someone else. Also use lead in phrases like ” That is a good question” ” I see where you are going” “Thanks for asking me” ” Yes, that is true, but…” This helps listeners to feel connected with you, they are nodding along with you. If you just launch into your answer immediately without that cushion you might feel nimble for being quick to answer, but your listeners won’t necessarily get that same good feeling.

Now let’s talk about preparing. You can’t prepare! If you don’t know something then you need to confidently say that you don’t know something. People have used more time explaining why they didn’t know something than they have in talking about what they do know about. It is human nature to try to explain to listeners why you are really much smarter than you sound especially when you feel you are coming across as a little silly. Simple advice is allow the interview to move on by politely saying ” Oh,that is a good question, I haven’t thought about it”, or” I don’t know”, or “I’ll have to talk about that next time we get together”.

The only way you could prepare for an interview is if you forced the interviewer to say exactly what he told you he or she would say prior to beginning the interview. And I have to tell you that is hard! If you are being interviewed by someone who has the skill to just say exactly what they told you they’d say, then you are being interviewed by a pretty uptight person and the interview isn’t going to be well received anyhow! There has to be a comfortable back and forth. The best you can do prior to an interview is to try to feel comfortable with the interviewer. If they trick you by being friendly prior and then harass you during the interview- you are dealing with a clever person and if you want to sound good you need to answer every single question they ask using your own ” spin”.

If you aren’t a good communicator don’t do interviews! Hire someone else to do them. If you think you are boring and you aren’t good at sitting down for a chat then by all means don’t force an audience to listen to you failing! If you are great at talking about your thing when you are with someone else who knows your product or your business then bring a person like that with you to the interview!

Some studies done by the folks in the radio industry have shown that people remember what they hear more than they remember what they see. Sometimes they don’t remember exactly what was said, but they remember the ” tone of the conversation”. Radio is an effective means of communication.

(If you read that sentence you can still wonder whether or not it is true. If on the other hand you hear me say it out loud, then you’d have a much harder time denying it.)

Pottstown lost their local radio station late last year, but there are still opportunities to do interviews with WEEU in Reading. If you have something you want to say you can contact them to ask about doing some local advertising. You can also find online radio stations. I’ll collect some and provide them for local businesses in a future post.

love,

mo

If you are ever in the precarious position of sitting in front of an engine that sounds like a really loud lawnmower and you are strapped to a a 12 foot kite and the motor starts and you soar into the air- then please avoid trees. Yesterday an amateur pilot took his Ultralight vehicle into Valley Forge Park. He probably entertained a lot of onlookers with his feat of daring, that is until he got caught in the tree. Then I imagine a lot of people nodded and went from ultralight enthusiasts to people who were glad they were out just jogging, or hiking, or walking their nice earth bound dogs.

It seems our pilot wasn’t hurt. He was just tree bound till someone arrived to help him extricate himself from the tree. You can tug a frisbee out of a tree and you can pull a kite down out of a tree, but it is really scary to think about how to pull an ultralight out of a tree. I’m glad to hear that no one was injured in the situation.

Investigators are said to be looking into what caused the accident. I can tell them! It’s the fault of the trees

love,

mo