TV'sTwo Sides

There are two sides to television.  The inner and the outer.

The outer side is entertainment and information. It's what you see every day.

The inner side of television is education and the non-didactic sharing of truths.  Truths are of more value to the human existence that facts.   Facts increase knowledge.  Truths increase understanding.

What kind of truths am I talking about?  The kinds that are usually profound and slam into your consciousness like a revelation and a revelation can't be explained; it can only be experienced with a sense of awe.

Joseph Campbell would say it's when your mind says " Ah Ha."

It could come from an experience discovered in a work of literature ( choose one that was profound for you), a piece of music ( Packabel’s Cannon in D), a work of art, ( The Pieta) a sunset, a honeysuckle scented breeze, a pine forest after a summer shower, anything that increases understanding via feeling and  appreciation automatically enlightens for it is the nature of the soul.

Presently in our media there are selective stories of good, some news of encouragement and documentaries that educate. But I want more.

Wangari Maathai

I knew her. I loved her. She hugged me and I knew I was held in the heart of the earth. Her smile still radiates in my mind and her compassion dwarfs my own.

Good Morning All,

Just for fun. Let me make this a class. The assignment is to send me an email on who is Wangari Maathai. She passed to the other side last Sunday, but I know that only her body died. I'd like to know what part of her life each reader of this blog, who chooses to do some research, will carry for awhile for she was a woman of great accomplishments and inspiration. 

Thank you for your indulgence in my request.

Lee Rolland Smith

This post is only important to me and to my wife Ann on this date each year.

It is the memory of an extraordinary person.

I'm going to get personal and if you have a problem relating to death and dying you might not want to embrace the rest of this post.

I am going to talk about a personal sadness not because I choose to share personal grief, but because my son  who died twelve years ago today was a great teacher and some of the things he taught by being the evidence of them may be of value to you as it still is to us.

His name is Lee. He was diagnosed with brain cancer. He was 31 when he died. It was a five year struggle from diagnosis to his death.

Lee lived for the moment. To complain, he felt, wasted precious time and energy that he could use for healing. He chose to enjoy and embrace every minute of life and to gracefully enthuse everyone with whom he came in contact. His humor was infectious and he always chose to be positive even when another choice would be easier.

Lee knew he was on a short life line. Cancer tends to focus one's thinking on the finiteness of life, yet he never complained, despite three brain operations, chemotherapy and radiation and the debilitation that goes with those encounters.

When he was first diagnosed, I decided, as his Father, that I would try to accelerate conversations we might have over the course of a normal life time between a Father and Son.

Every few weeks, I sent him a letter in which he might respond by questions or dialogue or any discourse he would choose. Over the course of four years of letters we had many discussions. I once asked him if I might publicly share some letters with others if it seemed appropriate. He said yes and it does now.

Here is letter number one:

Dear Lee,

Since your cancer was diagnosed nothing has the importance it used to have. You are constantly in your Mother's and my thoughts. Wonderful memories compete for mind space and attention. If the spirit centers the thought then the memory looses the competition and we are comforted by a higher awareness. If the body needs to cry then the memory wins and we work through it; learning from the emotion, until the choice comes again.

It's something parents go through when their adult child is hurting and they can't make it go away. I imagine you are going through similar emotions in your private time with this experience and the choices it forces you to make.

I do know it's all right to do and to be both; to be spiritual at times, to be emotional at times. I also know to expect miracles, but remember that holding on to preconceived expectations can bring disappointments. Letting go, with love, will bring peace. Both are important in healing.

We are both physical and spiritual beings. When we perceive, through our physical bodies, via the intellect and instinct, each moment of being is mortally precious because we tie it to time.

Our spirit, however, the true essence of what we are, sees each moment as eternity and perfect, for linear time in spirit does not exist. If you accept that premise, the expression, "Live in the Moment," takes on a different meaning. You can live in the moment Lee, all it takes is the desire to do so and when you make that choice the result is love, for fear cannot exist in the moment.

The spirit is powerful. It controls the mind if we let it and empowers the mind by thought and visualization and then the mind controls the body. The meditation exercise I taught you using light will be very helpful if you practice it regularly. Remember that life is the illusion and the spirit is reality and we are co-creators of both.

Understanding the dichotomy of letting go, to always have, is the constant struggle of understanding the being of life. Implicit in this Truth is the understanding that we are not our bodies. Our bodies only house what we really are -- spirit!

The body is a beautiful mechanism brought into form that allows the spirit to exist in this environment. When the spirit is finished with what it came here to do, it discards the body and returns to the Source and the body returns to the earth.

The human heart embraces both the spirit and the body. It is, by design, the most important organ in the body, without it no other organ can exist. It's pith, however is more ethereal for it is attuned to the Divine and acknowledges that we participate in the Divine will.  It was a willing choice, prior to our birth, when omniscience was part of our being and we chose the experiences we call life with angelic guidance and without the ego's intervention.

When you go deep within your being Lee, you will remember this truth and much more. Awareness is an equal gift from God to all. It is the choice of remembering that is selective by each of us.

There are only two emotions available to humankind. Love and fear. All other emotions, are derivatives. You will remember more, love more, if you let go of fear. It may seem hard for you to comprehend this as you fight the cancer in your head, but it is very important.

I am going to end this for now. There are more letters to come as I share with you the beliefs of my soul as we both move toward Truth through the magnificent companionship of family.

I love you very much and send you healing light, use it as you will.

Dad

The Washington Monument Repair

The Washington Monument is in the news these days because of the earthquake a couple of months ago and the damage to the integrity of the structure. Starting today in Washington, D.C. an inspection of the oblisque will be done by workers repelling down the structure looking for cracks and fissures that could erode the monument in the future. In the meantime the monument is closed to the public.

It may seem surprising, but the memorial to the father of our country took 37-years to build.

The simple, but elegant monument we see today lacks many of the frills it was designed to have. Originally the architect wanted to surround the obilisque with a hundred foot tall Greek temple, with niches for the statues of thirty prominent Americans. Above the entrance was to be a massive statue of Washington, clad in a toga, driving a battle chariot, drawn by Arabian horses.

Maybe it was a good thing the economy of the day called for a more modest memorial.

Private citizens took up a collection and the cornerstone was laid on the 4th of July, 1848.  Building was slow. Six years later the monument was only 152 feet tall.

Many of the stones for the monument were donated. States, territories, even the Cherokee nation contributed stones to the project. Greece sent a white marble slab from the ruin of the Parthenon. Pope Pius the 9th, sent a marble slab from the temple of Concord in Rome.

Near Dawn, in early March of 1854, the pope's gift was stolen from the site. A band of masked men overpowered the guard and rolled the stone in a handcart to the Potomac River. It was never recovered. Later some of the thieves confessed. They were members of the an anti foreigner, anti-catholic political group called the "Know Nothings". No one was ever arrested for crime.

Work on the project practically stopped for 24 years. Finally, in 1878 the Federal Government stepped in and got the monument to George Washington finished.

Yankees Again and Again

Some thoughts on the Yankees winning the American League East.

From 1949 through the fifties the Yankees won seven world series titles. Those were formative years for me. I was a youngster and I was a ball player. Sand lot as well as organized play. I listened to the ball games on the radio and went to the games at Ebbetts Field and the Polo Ground, but never Yankee Stadium. 

My mother was a Brooklyn Dodger fan. My father was a New York baseball Giants fan and there was more than a little rivalry in my household. The Dodgers were my team too. I occasionally rooted for the Giants, but never, ever the Yankees. 

Needless to say in those formative years for me, when the Dodgers got into the series, it was usually against the Yankees and every year, save one it was, "wait till next year."

I’m sure all those losses affected me deeply. I must have deep adolescent scars from my Yankee Fan friends who won every bet, every year.

I am older and wiser now and I can be more magnanimous. My congratulations to the Yankees, however, includes a caveat…I do miss “D'm Bums.” in Brooklyn.

Is it Beast or Beauty?

I am often in a quandary these days as I try to decide the content of these posts.

Part of me want to reasonably rage against the political rhetoric coming from the republican candidates for the GOP nominations and their misuse and distortion of facts. President Obama too is not immune from using factual distortion. He has altered statistics in his favor in order to sell his current jobs/stimulus program.

The other part of me wants to write about the beauty of fall and life and how we can participate in it as it. I will do that, but not today.

What I want from ALL elected officials, local, state and national representatives is TRUTH.

Explain the value of your plan in the context of what you will do, or try to do, or hope to do, but not in the attacking denigration of a potential opponent.

We have become an angry, contentious society. The frustration of not having a job or losing one’s home or having to down size one’s wants and hopes all lead to anger and subsequently to blame. Blame is never smart.

Thoughtful strategic planning with disciplined and innovative input is the only way jobs will come. America can than compete with the rest of the world on an equal footing.

The mercantile world is now multinational. The days of Eurocentric and unilateral American domination of a high gross domestic product are over. China, India, Asia and elsewhere are now in the competitive mix and they want it more badly that we do.

   

But back to an angry America, all sides are to blame. All sides contribute to the anger. We are all part of the negative contributions. I am, you are, and so is the tea party, the mainstream republicans, the mainstream democrats and the excessive liberal democrats and even the independents that stand on the wayside waiting for a mystical sign of recovery. All sides need to cut the political rhetoric, the lies, and the innuendo and find a commonality of solution in civility and compromise.

Potential GOP candidate Rick Parry of Texas is a prime example. To come to New York City during the United Nations gathering of heads of state and call your president, “President Zero,” is wrong, demeaning and destructive to the ongoing foreign policy of the United States.

I would submit that Mr. Parry is not privy to the inner workings of behind the scenes diplomacy nor should he be until and if he becomes the GOP nominee for President.

Come on governor, that’s not presidential behavior, it’s disrespectful to the office of the President of United States and it takes away from the good ideas you do have.

NYC and UN week

I spent most of yesterday in New York City. It was not a good thing to do. It's UN week in Manhattan and it seemed like everything was closed off on the east side for the international dignitaries to get to and from their hotels. President Obama was in town too to address the UN gathering.

I went where they do not go, under ground into the subways. Most of the notable diplomats use limos. I could walk faster than traffic on the east side avenues.

At lunch I did sit next to two Russian gentlemen who split a bottle of vodka. They drank it like wine. I was impressed. They walked out of the restaurant in a straight line.

The avenues and cross streets were filled with pedestrian foreigners with cameras and chatter. I did stop into the Apple Store and it was filled with foreigners buying, buying and buying.

Down in the subways it was a different story, but a familiar one to New Yorkers. There were people in shorts and suits, with ear buds and ear phones, eating and sleeping, standing and sitting, talking and staring, old, young and everything in-between.

If you want to experience New York you must ride the subway.

If you want to experience New York as a global city come anytime, but especially during UN week.

Execution

Unless something happens between the posting of this blog and 7:00 PM tonight Troy Davis will be executed by lethal injection. I’m not going to go into the litany of legalities that have surrounded this case nor the hundreds of thousands of people who protest his execution.

It is said that Davis murdered and because of that heinous choice, he forfeits his life.

The families and friends of his victim must once again face their sorrow and see if Davis’ execution will ease their pain and perennial call for justice.

I suspect there will always be an emptiness, a piece of their hearts they cannot mend and they need compassion and comforting for this has been lingering for twenty two years.

It is unlikely there will ever be a consensus on the efficacy of the death penalty. There is no way to satisfactorily compile statistics as to whether or not death is a deterrent to murder. The destiny of agreement may forever be housed in debate.

Perhaps the question we should ask ourselves, after every execution, is not whether the person deserved to die, right or wrong the law decides that, but how do we individually react to it.

In the vastness of attempted understanding there are many valid emotion; tears, anger, fear, and even relief.

Vengeance, however, is one emotion to which we must give prayerful thought before we choose to embrace it, for it is constantly consuming and eternally unsatisfying.

Listen up Washington

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a mish-mash of political gobbledygook from seemingly intelligent and experienced people since politics became contention and compromise became a dirty word.

I’m not sure when the negativity of politics usurped the commonality of hope, the discourse of positive discussion and the courtesy of colleagues, but it has happened and I’m not happy.

The contention in Washington, the contagion of antagonism between republicans and democrats is as corrosive to our democracy as has been the relinquishment of our constitutional freedoms to assuage the fear of terrorism promoted by a central government for bellicose ends.

Contention and fear are detrimental to finding fair solutions to our mounting problems of debt reduction, balanced entitlements, fair taxation and economic stability through a sustainable economy.

These guys and gals in Washington are not listening. Both sides are myopic in a gang mentality just to beat the opposition. That is not governing. That is control for the sake of power and it will be the downfall of our nation if we the people let it continue.

We the people have more power than Washington ever imagined. Let us use it. Our constitution states that government derives its power from the consent of the governed. “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

Collectively congress has a 14% approval rating. If our elected representatives  can’t be civil, if they can’t be courteous, if they won’t compromise then we can put people in their place that will work for the good of the whole forsaking partisan preferences and find the tough solutions that work for the greater good.

It's started!

The leaves are starting to change and even though it is still September, the early morning temperatures have been in the forties in my area and that is the catylist for leaves to start their fall splendor.

A poetic tribute to the fall.

I now know why we call them leaves;
Too soon they fall when frosted thieves
Lure their green to red and golds
In colors soft and dazzling bolds.

Leaves drop from age and sometimes breeze
To land on lawns by shrubs and trees.
They drift in circles to the ground
In crinkling, cracking, scrunching sound.

O' leaves of branch and bush, behold!
Your service lasts despite the cold,
As quilts of warmth for creatures low
Beneath the ground, before the snow.

Some leaves will sail to lawns serene
Where children's smiles can then be seen
Waiting for the rake and pile
To leap upon and lie awhile.

But soon the crumpled stems and flake
Are raked in rows for match to make
A downey flame and spired smoke;
Incense of honor to the oak.

Then barren trees stand naked, strong,
To slice the wind of winters song.
They lean and bow from bending blow,
When snapping, cracking, to and fro.

I know there is a message here,
Where trees with leaves at end of year
Do molt their husks of leafy sheen
So other seasons can be seen.

Thus trees and man are oft' alike,
In time each shed their aging haik.
What's left in silhouette pristine,
Is life below in spirit green.

Political Distortions

To me there is a disturbing trend and trait in the current crop of GOP presidential hopefuls. It is a willingness to distort facts and spout hearsay and gibberish and subsequently mislead the electorate.

Representative Michele Bachmann, after the Florida debate, suggested to an interviewer that the vaccinations against the human palillomavirus (HPV) could cause mental retardation. Absolute poppycock. 

The medical establishment has jumped all over Bachmann for that very misleading remark. Bachmann was continuing her attempt to discredit her rival Governor Rick Perry of Texas for his 2007 executive order mandating all sixth-grade Texas girls be required to get the vaccination. Incidentally the legislature overrode the governor’s order and it never happened.

Perry has his share of misinformation, so does Romney and so does President Obama. In fact, they all use out of context statistical data gleaned, often times, from unreliable sources to back up their claims of successes or to refute the statements of their rivals.

In these trying times Americans need truth, not distortions. We need clarity, not obfuscation and we need honesty, not lies in claimed accomplishments so we can choose a leader who is inspirational, qualified and gifted in bringing us all together for the good of our country.

Ellis Island

I had an extraordinary experience a few years ago. I was on Ellis island in New York harbor. If you haven’t been there, you should. It is a place that is energized with the resonant memory of the past.

It’s an exhilarating experience standing in what is now the Ellis Island museum. I felt the courageous spirits of our immigrant ancestors and a profound respect for their courage to embrace change. So many moved step by step through the great hall on their way to freedom.

Amid the din of other people and soft conversation. I walked the path and steps that 18-million immigrants followed. I felt their hearts as I sensed their pride at what they personally accomplished, and at what this country has become because of them and what we still can be.

These ghosts of greatness linger there, not because they came through that portal of liberty so many years ago, but because they stay to stand watch.


Their presence is everywhere, in old photographs, in hundred year old scribbled messages to loved ones on a passage wall, and in the descendants, who visit here and keep it hallowed ground.


Ellis island reminds us that it does not matter how or where or when potential greatness comes to this land, it only matters what one does with the manifesting dreams of freedom, opportunity and responsibility.

Somalian Hunger

Here’s some general information from Somalia as of September 5^th, 2011

Hundreds of people die every day due to the famine in the southern regions of Somalia.

750 thousand people are famine affected an increase of 66% from July.

Totally four million people or 53% of the Somalia population are in crisis at the moment.

World wide the statistic are just as disturbing.

It is difficult for me to understand why we are not shocked, and shamed that more than 24-thousand people a day die from hunger and hunger related diseases.  

75 percent of those deaths are children under the age of five.

If somehow, all of us, were able to see the pictures of those starving currently in Kenya, in America and elsewhere I suspect there would first be a feeling of guilt, then commitment, for who can stand idly by and not cry from the societal shame of inaction.

The hungry are not strangers even though we don't know their names. They are a precious part of the human family.

When a person, adult or child starves, a gnawing knot painfully tightens in the belly as the body desperately tries not to feed upon itself. Nothing eases the pain and the body grows weaker and weaker.

I have read that one in ten people in New York State where I live and I suspect other states as well are what are called "food insecure" meaning they don't have enough to eat or are at risk of going hungry. We just got word yesterday that one in six Americans are now in the poverty bracket

Sure, we don't know them personally. They don't know us, but we are part of each other. Part of the problem is that we have dehumanized hunger to numbers, instead of names.

I would submit that if we go deeply within our being we must acknowledge that if one of us is hungry, all of us are in ways that nourishment can never cure.

America in the Future

What should the America of today and the future require from its current and future leaders. What are the non-partisan qualities of leadership we must demand and encourage in the actions and intellect of those we choose to lead?

To answer these questions we must each ask ourselves, what is in our own heart. Are we a nation of individuals where everyone is out for himself or herself, or do we still collectively embody the endemic truth and enthusiasm of democracy? 

What so many fail to acknowledge is that on a spiritual level we are all one, and if one succeeds then so do all way beyond materialistic gain or intellectual prowess. The question each of us must answer is, are we willing to be the evidence of it?

America began as a nation with a noble destiny to show a divergent and burgeoning world that freedom, coupled with democracy, is a noble path to greatness and from that greatness comes benevolent power and global success.

On a subliminal level America is also a profound alchemy to the chemistry of oneness, but the oneness is not the greatness of America. The diversity within the oneness is our greatness and the miracle of democracy.

Today, individual and collective fear abounds in our daily lives. Recent leadership and some still in positions of power see fear as a mechanism of partisan control. Plain and simple, it is the wrong way to govern.

America was not founded on fear. She was founded on inspiration, the desire for individual and collective freedom, neighbor helping neighbor and a belief that personal prayer and thankfulness is a daily practice and graceful right of liberty. Somehow we have misplaced that belief.

The foundation of America is layer after layer of noble ideals, sacrifice, hard work, and shared vision. Fear is something we embrace when we think we have something to lose, when in fact fear holds nothing but emptiness and want. Courage, the antithesis of fear, holds the abundance we seek and the future we hope for. 

America’s leadership for this millennium must make a commitment to be of service, not just to serve.

America has not yet finished her revolutionary pledge to the integrity of an ideal. She is not done being a positive example of responsible participatory government, nor is she finished being an inspiration to the oppressed of the world and imbuing perennial hope to all tyrannized citizenry. 

The inner covenant of Democracy has always been conveyed through equal opportunity, unalienable rights endowed by our Creator and these powerful words: “…to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

These words are still valid and universal right now.

Let us let go of fear and get back to being America and American.

Self Evaluations

Good Morning All,

Last night was the inaugural radio program of Smith/Sabatino on am970 the Apple out of New York. I thought the program had its positive and informative moments particularily with guest news analyst Alan Marcus, president an CEO of the Marcus Group. Alan is an astute observer of the political scene and was the prime analyst with me on WWOR-TV on 9/11 2001. Our discussion last night was primarily the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Grammy award winner Dr.Tony Camillo (PHD) was wonderful, insightful and interesting as was actor Don Silva on how to survive as an actor in New York. Actor and executive producer Jerry Parisi talked about his new fall offering about conflicting advertising agencies selling new products and they are real products. It' an interesting concept. Look for it. Product.com is a working title.

My partner Carl Sabatino is gifted with an eclectic mind and the ability to synthesize complex issues into a commonality of understanding. He is a long time New York Radio talent and producer. With his guidance I trust I will continue to learn the new ways of radio/internet programming and will become better aware of the technology and modern radio's interaction with social media.

For those of you who tuned in thank you for your tolerance and consideration.

I'm learning. I am trusting you can teach an old dog new tricks.

9/11 Memory

Today is an anniversary. Not a pleasant one. It is a tragic memory now known forever as NINE ELEVEN.

Ten years ago I was a practicing journalist in New York City in 2001. I had just rented a small pied-a-terre along the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. I was standing on a balcony overlooking the river and I watched the explosion as the first plane struck the World Trade Center tower.

I knew that day that this was a time of dying and time of heroes. It is the hero I want to acknowledge on this anniversary.

Heroes alive and heroes fallen. There are so many to count, so many noble deeds and selfless actions came from the World Trade Center tragedy.


There are men heroes and woman heroes. Plain people and professional people, many who gave their lives that others might live and still so many others who gave their time and sweat, all choosing service over self.


They were average people doing extraordinary things. These are the actions of greatness.


Over the past few years a few of the stories have come out of those men and women who were willing to give their lives in exchange for the simple, but profound gift of helping another.


That act is a choice of the heart and it inextricably binds the human spirit together.


We need heroes. Each generation needs them. Heroes help us tell our children and each other that we are good at heart and it is part of our nature to be Samaritans and to acknowledge we are all part of each other and all a part of All That Is.


Maybe if we tell it often enough, we’ll begin to think it and what people think, they become.

A new/old experience

Hi All,

Its happened! I'm going to try something old which is new again.

Radio.  It sure has changed since I started my broadcasting career in radio in the late 1950's. Working with partners Carl Sabatino and David Bernstein is a pleasure. Very professional, very accomplished and very smart. I'm trusting they will guide me through the rough spots and help eliminate my cobwebs of retirement.

If you have the chance tune in once in awhile. And send me a note ( a nice note ). OK, OK, any note will do. Remember I'm a sensitive older guy. If you don't like it write to Carl. I'll be mowing the meadow.

RGS

Press Release - immediate

“Smith/Sabatino

AM 970 The Apple, New York City

LIVE Broadcast

Sunday, 7:00 – 10:00 PM starting 9/11/11

New York. Emmy award winning news anchor and journalist Rolland G. Smith, and veteran broadcaster Carl J. Sabatino have teamed up for a new, Sunday night radio show called “Smith/Sabatino.”

Smith/Sabatino will be heard every Sunday evening, LIVE, from 7-10 pm on AM970 The Apple, and streaming on am970theapple.com.

Smith/Sabatino is offered in the talk and information format as a show that focuses on what we’re all exposed to in the news, and why it’s there. Smith and Sabatino face issues with a practical slant to events, and every day problems. Their message is one of a common approach, and an understanding of those issues and interests that address our lives in the most significant ways.

The program also presents a light and entertaining side, one that balances the hard issues with conversation and talk about the diversions and distractions of life.

In a three hour, LIVE over-the-air broadcast with Internet streaming, Rolland Smith and Carl Sabatino go to the issues in a dialogue with the audience. It is a realistic, pragmatic and centrist approach to the talk format.

Rolland G. Smith is a television news reporter and anchor known for his Emmy award winning work in New York for WCBS-TV, and super station WWOR-TV. In Washington, DC for Metromedia Television as White House and Capitol Hill correspondent, and as anchor, news reporter for NBC in California. He is an author of  three books of poetic commentary.

Carl J. Sabatino is an on-air talent, executive and Internet broadcast producer. Former CEO of World Televsion, Senior Consultant for CNN Radio, WTFM, and WNEW in New York and broadcast executive for Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal Television. He has been an on-air talent for “The Morning Show w Carl Sabatino” heard on WSIA in New York metro market, “New York Saturday Night” on the RadioASB.com Network, and the nationally syndicated yearly broadcast “The Christmas Eve Yule Log w Carl Sabatino.”

On The Mend and more

In addition to not feeling great because of Lyme disease I have been swamped in preparation for a new project. More on that later.

In the meantime the rains continue to devastate the northeast. These are not gentle rains. These are steady pours running off an already saturated ground. They are the last vestiges of tropical storm Lee. There is no more absorption possible.

I toured the region today and saw raging rivers when once passive water flowed; uncut corn fields flooded ear corn high; wide rivers with no discernible banks; new waterfalls cascading off mountain roads creating a postcard setting where none existed before.

All creatures great and small are hungry in times of abnormality you can sense it. The fluttering around the feeders indicates an awareness only they can sense at least I think so. There is unusual wild Turkey activity in the field; a six point buck and his harem bed down in an open meadow. All creatures know when earth vibrations are different. We haven’t learned it yet.

Two storms

Two storms: one outer one inner.

Irene gone, Lyme within. Damn debilitating. I'm on the mend. More blogs when I can.

Thanks for tuning in.

RGS