I'm baaaaaaack....

...by popular demand, so to speak.
I had chosen to take a break some time ago to focus on other endeavors.  However, the call of some of you who take the time to read what I have to say each week proved to be loud enough to the point where I could ignore it no more.
And I thank you all for it.  You're the reason I've chosen to press on.
I don't know why what I have to say matters to some people.  I don't hold public office, nor am I man of wealth, prestige, or large economic means.  I'm just a guy with opinions.  And we all know what is said of opinions.
I've written about family life, finances, the broadcasting industry that I've been a part of for more than two and a half decades (though no longer at the mic), politics, the economy, and even theology.  You can read this drivel just about anywhere online by people of far greater stature than mine.
Though I believe in freedom of speech, I also believe that that same freedom carries with it some degree of responsibility. It should always be tempered with the accountability of the person or persons saying it.  Unfortunately, that's not always the case, and that's what keeps our courtrooms full and our judges busy.
That said, I will do my best to promote that example of responsibility that so-called 'free speech' seems to lack these days.  The kind that doesn't pander to fear-mongers, radicals, or even the establishment.
Journalism can be a powerful tool if used in a responsible manner.  I have long felt this way, and sadly, it's falling by the wayside, even at the network level.
Pressure by management to 'get it first' rather than 'get it right' often breeds distrust through error. Dan Rather learned this the hard way.  However, he's not the only guilty party.
Someone once pointed out to me that so-called 'world' news on America's networks is more 'national' than anything else. You get about 20 minutes of all-internal national news, maybe five minutes of world news, if you're lucky, with the remaining five minutes left to sell for commercial ad time.
I didn't discover the truth in this until one day when I watched a BBC newscast.  For me, it was a real eye-opener.
We pay little attention to anything outside our borders and even less to what's happening in our borders at the top levels of government.  It's personally distressing to me when younger people choose to get their 'news' from sources like "The Daily Show" or "Weekend Update".
Some say "I don't watch the news because it's too depressing."  Hey, reality is a buzzkill.  I'm not going to dispute that.
We have a broken Social Security system that's constantly in danger of running out of money.  We work for companies more interested in cash now than compassion for its retirees.  We've elected government leaders who have ideas but no clues as to how to effectively move forward and actually get things done.  We complain about the country's state of affairs yet we choose not to vote and don't support the men and women who fight for our right to do just that.
So I say this...time to wake up, America.


NEXT WEEK:  Did You Know Jack?

The Secret Of Moving On

I borrow the title of David Pack's album, where he performs jazz-themed covers of hits with his former soft rock band of the 70s, "Ambrosia".
Check it out for yourself.  If you like Smooth Jazz, that is.
Change is rampant in our society.  As I've grown older, the more difficult I find it to accept change.
Yet it happens.  There's nothing I can do to stop it.
Some I welcome with open arms.  Others, I prefer to leave it if given the option to take it or leave it.
Notwithstanding, I have made a change of my own.
Today is the last Ken's Korner you will be reading.
I will not be moving my column to another social media site, nor to a newspaper syndicate or other medium.
My sister column, Old School Dad, will also be ending likewise.
For close to seven years now, I've aired my viewpoints weekly on both MySpace and Facebook.
Some of you have emailed me to tell me how much you enjoy reading about what I have to say.  Some of you have also emailed me to inform me that you don't like what I have to say and challenge my views.
And I welcome both praise and pontification.  As a journalist, it takes courage to speak up, even when my take might not be the popular view.
I'm not afraid to generate controversy.  I like to push people's buttons and find out what makes them tick.
Al Julius, a well-known KDKA-TV commentator during the 70s and 80s, did just that.  While I'll never receive the accolades that Al received in his lifetime, I'm proud of what I've committed to what I've put to cyber-paper for the better part of a decade now.
And the time has come for me to move on.
It's time to do something else.
I believe I've said everything that needs to be said in my weekly warblings, as I've come to call them.
I don't say anything I don't believe in.  And I do my best to get all of my facts straight before I put them 'out there'.
Some will tell you that I'm stubborn as a Texas jackass stuck in the LaBrea tar pits on a chilly day.  Some of them might also tell you that I'll give you the shirt off my back or the last few bills in my wallet if you needed them.  I'm many things to many people.  This is one of my favorite quotes:

"I've been in the public eye for more than fifty years as Merv Griffin, not as somebody else's creation. I've never pretended to be someone I wasn't. If there was anything really important that people didn't know about me by now, then I would have to be world's greatest actor. Forget Brando, forget Hoffman, forget DeNiro...I would have to be the best."

Well put, sir.
I've reinvented myself over the years.  From my career to my personal life.  As part of the reinvention process, you tend to rearrange your priorities over the years.  I've seen myself transcend from hardcore career man to family man who sees the highlight of his day when he leaves the office...as he sits down to dinner with his family who willingly waits for him to come home.
I will be devoting more of my time to improving and developing my journalistic tasks, but you won't hear the last of me, I promise.
In my spare time, I'm also working on a novel.  Hopefully it'll be published in my lifetime.
And if not, that's OK.
I'm sure it won't be the first thing I haven't finished.  I've got a laundry list of those items.
To those of you who have supported my efforts all these years, I offer my most heartfelt thanks and deep appreciation.  The fact that you took time out of your Sunday to read this speaks volumes.
Radio and TV broadcasting has always been a low-level form of show business.  In show business, we don't say good-bye.
It's more like "see ya".
And we'll leave it at that.

School's in Session

DISCLAIMER:  The views expressed in the following are strictly that of the author.


Last week, I footnoted my column by promising you a free history lesson this week.
Every once in a while, I will see a vehicle with a Confederate Battle Flag sticker (the one you see atop the General Lee in "The Dukes of Hazzard") on their vehicle, with the caption beneath it stating "If this offends you, you need a history lesson."
That's highly open to argument, since we all have different lessons to teach behind it, I'm sure.
In recent years, I've grown closer to our neighbors south of the Mason-Dixon line.  The main reason is because I get more and more tired of cold weather each passing year, but also because I've learned about a culture much more unique and diverse than my own.
As we celebrate the upcoming observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, we can never lose sight of the Confederate Flag and just what it means.
By the majority, it still remains a dark reminder of a country so divided by racial philosophy that it split in two halves.
There I digress.  Here's my history lesson.
An editorial cartoon in 1864 depicted U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and Confederacy President Jefferson Davis each pulling at an end of a map of the United States.  Standing between them with a handful of each man's collar was General George B. McClellan, the Democratic Presidential candidate that year running against Lincoln, yelling at both men "The Union must be preserved at all hazards!"
As they're tugging on the map, Lincoln is saying "No peace without emancipation!"
Davis says "No peace without separation!"
Nonetheless, McClellan lost the election.  The Confederacy lost the war.  Slavery was finally abolished.
Lincoln was assassinated by a Southern sympathizer.
But the war was far from over.  Though the blood was no longer shed on the battlefields, all the fighting was relegated to the Rebel states, now determined more than ever to keep the newly-freed Negroes to a status beneath that of the now-angry poor Whites, steadfastly refusing to accept a people once sold as common possessions as equals.
And I'm sure the general consensus of the newly-freed slaves at first was joyous, but may have dwindled to  one of indifference after awhile.
Because slaves were considered property, and not the people they rightfully were, laws were quickly enacted in many former Confederate states prohibiting Negroes to own land to try and eke out a living to support themselves.
In Southern folklore, you may have read at one point or another about a white family with a domestic help that kept house and did other such chores in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It wasn't because the family was wealthy.  The sudden abundance of low cost labor made domestic help affordable for many southern families.  It also gave former slaves their freedom while also protecting the security (but hopefully with the absence of the cruelty this time) they had while still a slave.
It would take years to craft laws that recognized African-Americans in their rightful place in American society as human beings with the same rights as Whites.
Unfortunately, among those laws were those that created the practice of segregation that would dominate the deep South for almost a century.
Many political figures in the early 1800s, who supported the slavery movement, tried to justify its necessity in America.  Most infamous was John C. Calhoun, who served as U.S. Vice President under John Quincy Adams, calling it "a positive good":

" in every civilized society one portion of the community must live on the labor of another; learning, science, and the arts are built upon leisure; the African slave, kindly treated by his master and mistress and looked after in his old age, is better off than the free laborers of Europe; and under the slave system conflicts between capital and labor are avoided. The advantages of slavery in this respect, will become more and more manifest, if left undisturbed by interference from without, as the country advances in wealth and numbers."

All I can say to Mr. Calhoun is this:
"REALLY???"
While I agree with Mr. Calhoun that one portion of the community must live on the labor of another, especially in a free enterprise system, it does not, at any time, justify involuntary unpaid servitude to a single human being by another.
I always found ironic the fact that most who saw African-Americans beneath them and treated them to extremes as such, still went to church on Sunday and could recite much of the Bible verbatim.
The job is still not done.  I believe that for the most part, Dr. King's dream was fulfilled.  The biggest proof of that is in the White House, and now into his second term.
Nonetheless, hate crimes continue in this country that target African-Americans, homosexuals, Hispanics, the homeless, and countless others.  Will it ever end in our lifetimes?  Probably not.
What we can look forward to is the fact that we as a society have advanced by leaps and bounds since 1865.  I can see distinct differences in just the past 25 years.
We can't eliminate hate in our culture, but we can reduce the numbers of those who do hate.
The lesson is this:
The Confederate Battle Flag is a symbol of a country divided, but managed to overcome the darkness of the past and successfully chart a course for its future.  It should not be regarded as a symbol of hate or dread, but one of change.  A culture that would make peace with its past and evolved over time, becoming more recognized for its food, music, architecture, faith base, and even fine arts.
At least that's the way this Southern Yankee sees it.
Class dismissed.


NEXT WEEK:  Moving On

Turning Away From Facebook

I have to admire my wife.
She is by far, one of the most strong-willed people I know.
Of the two of us, I was the first to jump on the social media bandwagon.  First it was MySpace.com, and then I migrated to Facebook, after finding that MySpace turned out to be a little too juvenile for my tastes.
I do enjoy Facebook.  In my line of work, constantly being in the public eye, it not only gives listeners insight into the 'face behind the voice', it also allows me to stay in touch with my radio colleagues and know how they're doing.
Because you never know that one day, you might find yourself 'on the beach'.
That means 'blown out'.  Or fired.  Or otherwise involuntarily outplaced.
I'm used to being in the public eye.  I have been for the past 25 years, give or take a couple.  As such, I have to be mindful of my conduct.  What I say or do is always under scrutiny, and in these days of readily available digital media and the internet, one outlandish act on my part could be broadcast over the internet that could potential ruin a career.
Thus, I know what's safe to put on Facebook, and what isn't.
About the most controversial thing you'll ever read on my site is what you're reading now.
I don't post 'adult' pictures or sayings on my page, nor do I use obscene language in my Facebook posts nor in this column.
I have however, taken stands on certain matters that have not been popular, and that has cost me a few so-called 'friends'.  And when doing so, I often precede it with a disclaimer that limits my views to myself and doesn't cast an unfavorable light on those I work for or others close to me.
Unfortunately, not all of my 'friends' on Facebook feel this way.
They rant and rave about anything and everyone, using four-letter words that would make a sailor blush with shame.  Or they choose to 'share' some banal or obscene photo with you by posting it to your wall.
Yeah, that would upset me too.
While Margie isn't in the public eye, she does work for the federal government, and she's very mindful of what she puts out there.
But even she has had enough of it.
I noticed it this past week when I noticed that my relationship status went from 'married to Marjorie Ola Hoculock' to just 'married'.
Did she 'defriend' me, I wondered.
So I asked.  That's when she communicated her feelings to me.
I can't say I blame her one bit.
And those who do want to get in touch with her badly enough, know how to go about doing so.
Maybe some day, I too will be that strong.
I can quit anytime.
But 'can' and 'will' are two different animals.


NEXT WEEK:  A Free History Lesson

A Few Friendly Words

I have to admit, I've jumped on the bandwagon.
I used to play Scrabble on my smartphone.  However, I've deferred to my wife, who has chosen to play words with Friends.
I'm still trying to decipher the difference between the two.
I can get multiple games going with several people.
I'm still trying to get the hang of it all.  It's addictive.
Plus the strategy of creating words in the right places to get the most points possible.  This is where I need work.
I've also learned that some people I do play with are in real life, notoriously poor spellers.  Yet, somehow, their misspellings (at least that's how I see them) turn out to be real words.
And yet the best I can do sometimes turns out to be one to maybe three letters at best.  Plus there's all those rules about putting words against each other.
But every once in a while, I surprise even myself with a humdinger that made a then-girlfriend ten years ago stalk off in a huff after a word I used garnered about 50 points.
The word...P-I-X-Y.
Oh, and this was the old-school board version of Scrabble.  Didn't have them newfangled smartyphones in them days, Sonny.
We agreed at the beginning of the game that a Webster's Elementary Edition Dictionary would be the official source for determining whether or not a word could be used.
I spelled the word and saw her jaw drop and her eyebrows rise.
"What?  NO!" was her response.
I quickly looked up the word and presented the open page to her.
She scowled and quickly left the room.  She didn't come back.
Yep, I can sure pick 'em, can't I?
Not the words, the women in my life prior to meeting the woman who would become my wife.
And yes, I've played my wife too.
She's managed to beat me all but one time, but I don't mind at all.
And she lost well on that one occasion.
Probably because my victory was a skin-of-my-teeth margin.
All the more reason to do better.


"Ken's Korner" will go on hiatus until Sunday, January 6th.

"The Buzz" in Pottstown

DISCLAIMER:  The views and opinions in the following are strictly that of the author.

There's been a lot of 'buzz' over the past couple years in a small community nestled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, about half the distance between Reading and Philadelphia.
It actually has a little claim of fame to it...Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates was born and raised there.
Notwithstanding, Pottstown is a community of about 22,000.  Slightly larger than the city of Butler, Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh suburb out of which I'm based.
Like Butler, it has seen better days.  A struggling Main Street that is starting to show signs of recovery and even gentrification.  A tax base that has dwindled with the demise of smokestack industry.
But still strong, nonetheless.
But this isn't Daryl Hall's life story.  Nor the tale of two cities.  It's the tale of two radio stations.
Despite the size of Butler, we still have a retail base strong enough to support two AM stations and an FM station, due to the diligence of our dedicated and experienced sales staff.
And so does Pottstown.
Both towns are unique in the sense that they are sandwiched between two larger radio markets that also happen to have television stations.  Butler is smack dab between Youngstown, Ohio and Pittsburgh.
In Butler, our radio stations are still strong.  We have to do a lot of high-visibility off-air functions to remind people we're their local radio station, but those functions still contribute to our bottom line.
Three years ago this month, WPAZ AM 1370 in Pottstown, the flagship station of Great Scott Broadcasting,  went dark.  That is, off the air indefinitely.
Company president Mitchell Scott, whose parents founded the station in 1951, said the station was starting to lose money and immediately put it up for sale.
The reaction from the local community was overwhelming.  A group of people came together and raised money through a series of local concerts to try and purchase the station.
They managed to scrape enough together to provide a down payment.  Another company, Four Rivers Broadcasting, agreed to carry the paper for the balance.  These efforts managed to purchase WPAZ from GSB for $50,000.
Not a bad price for an AM station.
It went back on the air a year later.
As time passed, it became evident what was happening here.
The "WPAZ Preservation Society" became intent on operating it as a non-profit, non-commercial entity, and opening it to the community.
Or simply put, public access.
Ever watch a public access channel on cable?  Better still, ever watch a show on public access and wonder how some people get their faces on TV?
Now think of this in a radio forum.
Yeah.
Uh-oh, I said to myself.  This might not last long.
Most of the airstaff was made of volunteers, who were more or less allowed to play what they themselves wanted to hear, rather than respond to the majority of the community.
And those in charge were surprised that they couldn't get anyone to advertise on their station, even going so far as to accuse Main Street of turning its back on the station.
I'll also point out that this little station used to be heard in just about every Main Street business.  Because they played what advertisers were willing to support.
A call letter change earlier this year to WBZH "1370 the Buzz" did practically nothing to reverse the station's fortunes, despite a shift to more Adult Contemporary music during the daytime, though with still a volunteer airstaff.
The damage had been done.  Off the air for a year by its previous owner, a lack of practical radio business experience at the helm under the new owners, and no programming direction all but guaranteed this little station's demise.
A great many factors went into play that reduced this little powerhouse to as much significance as a birthday candle.
WBZH went dark again last month, after being $35,000 in payment arrears to its noteholder.
Fortunately, the WPAZ call letters are parked in a safe place, and can be reassigned.
Even members of the Scott family have expressed interest in getting this little station back.
To whomever winds up with WPAZ, be ready to roll up your sleeves and do some recovery work yourself, because it will take a hands-on manager to get it done.
And for Heaven's sake, listen to your community.  Not the vocal minority, but those very active in the community.  You know who I mean.



NEXT WEEK:  Friendly words

Christmas Cheer...?

NOTE:  The views and opinions in the following column are strictly that of the author.


This time of year, we hear of radio stations programming all-Christmas music, most often concurrent with the start of the holiday shopping season, best known as Black Friday.
Our three-station group is no exception.  We've started the process of integrating holiday music into our own playlists.
However, it never ceases to amaze me how many songs still find their way onto playlists that just make me wonder if these songs were intentionally written to kill the Christmas spirit?
If you ever want to know how to torture me, lock me in a room, tie me to a chair and put a said of headphones on my head.  Play non-stop Muppets Christmas music in one ear, and non-stop Chipmunks Christmas music in the other.
I will likely be dead in minutes.
Cause of death:  liquified brain.
But these are tracks aren't the only ones that are enough to make me cringe.
"The Christmas Shoes" is one.  ANY Christmas song by Red Sovine is another.
And...some of you will likely hate me for this one.
"Happy Christmas (War is Over)" by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band.
I don't really hate it...I personally have mixed feelings over it.  It was one of my paternal grandfather's favorites, and it's a favorite of my wife as well.
While John and his completely talentless wife do wish the listener a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, they kind of lay a guilt trip on you for being happy.
"What have you done,"  "I hope you had fun", "the world is so wrong."
Hey, I know it's John and Yoko's thing.  They've been recording protest songs from before the official Beatles' dissolution until John's 1980 assassination.
They're reminding us of those not as fortunate as we.  There are many.  We get it.
Hey John...we're willing to give peace a chance.  But you're not leaving our consciences at peace.  Kind of a Catch 22, wouldn't you agree?
But I digress.  Only because I have to.
My mother reminded me why on Thanksgiving.
I had brought up my wife's 40th birthday that weekend, and my mom had said her own 40th didn't bother her any.  Not even 50.
60 did.  I was not prepared for the answer I received when I asked why.
"Because the people you love start dying," she said.
Friends.  Extended family members.  You name it.
Sadly, my mother has experienced this beginning at the age of 28, starting with the death of my maternal grandmother at 54 of cancer in 1977.  My maternal grandfather died of a stroke a few months shy of a decade later.  Then there were others.
At 43, many of those close to me have passed on.
The point of all this is, some day, we will be alone too.
Not a fun way to be at Christmastime.
As we grow older, our friends and family will die.  Even our friends that we may make in the assisted living facility will someday pass on.
And it makes me think that someday, I too will leave this world and leave my wife and daughter behind.
All the more reason to cherish them and make the most of the time I have with them.
Pause to think about those you know who are without family this time of year.
And reach out to them if you can.
Don't put off what you can do today.


NEXT WEEK:  Shop till ya Drop