More on WDEL’s switch up. Sorry to elaborate but you see, they are the reason I decided to settle in Delaware. I have never been opposed to anyone expressing their views.. I have always been opposed to being forced to listen to ONLY one view.
And the former is what WDEL used to offer… Daily I got two viewpoints, morning and afternoon… Sometimes they merged. Sometimes they didn’t. Ironically they merged on local issues for the most part; on national issues, … umm. not so much.
And the latter is what they offer now.
Now those of us who live in the real world (conservatives by their creed, don’t) know that the only thing consistent is change… So though it is with heavy heart that probably the only person in this nation who could get ahead of me and tell me stuff I didn’t already know, is no longer at WDEL, the pragmatic acceptance says that a new reality is upon us.
We can use it; or be ignored by it.
I listened to Susan Monday for a while this morning. Even though she tried to get calls from upstate, they didn’t come… Her topic was Trump… and whether we thought he was “presidential enough”, basically she was playing right out of the Rubio playbook which would immediately disinterest the entire New Castle County.
Calls came in from Lewes, Milford, Milton, Frankford, Salisbury all sticking to the topic. There was no Liz.
And that’s when it hit. As a state we are very different top to bottom. We always joke about it. We’ve been doing it for generations.. and with this listener trying to sit through this morning’s program like one would a corporate dog and pony show meeting, it became apparent real quick, just how different we are…
It was made stark reality by the station’s insistence of calling the station, ALL-STATE radio to advertise it was statewide, and not local. Today’s show may have been carried statewide, but it certainly wasn’t listened to… state wide….
Then I remembered something. During the golden years of blogging which I would rank between 2006 to 2010, one of the greatest things about it was that we had an all-state community. We all commented on each others blogs, north and south. And we were loose cannons,… pretty much calling each other stupid for not agreeing with us, and it was lots of fun.
But what emerged from all that was an understanding of why they thought the way they did… If it wasn’t logical, we saw it was emotional. It it wasn’t practical, we saw it was deeply embedded in how they were raised… Did I say it was fun?
But, over time in the back and forth and back and forth, if an idea was lacking in currency it quietly disappeared. For example, global warming which caused some of the most heated conversations, over time won convert after convert over to the side that humans need to do something. It wasn’t a miracle of persuasion. It was the preponderance of the evidence.
The current went the other way with guns. Those originally wanting to ban ALL guns are nowhere to be found today. Again due to the preponderance of evidence.
It is with sadness that the civility found in the printed words flying back and forth, cannot be found in spoken words replacing them. There is probably a reason for that; one primarily being that the world of written word allows us to take words back from between uttering them and them being communicated. Not so with speech.
But the thought did occur to me today that these people below the canal live in their own little world where their own little world view makes sense. The only way they will grow and expand their knowledge is for them to hear from different perspectives; perspectives which make them realize that they are living on a island and the appearance of water rising higher every year around them is no illusion. There are things out there they need to know.
So it does make sense then for Al Mascitti’s supporters to call the station and explain things as they are, to engage Susan in conversation. It does not make sense for them to boycott the show in deference to Al. Especially when it comes to communicating that the entire problem we have with America today is not because we have a black president who most of America elected because they thought he was pretty awesome….. it is because most of those in Congress refused to do their Constitutionally mandated job because doing so, would make that black president look even more awesome. We have broken national government; it is entirely the Republican’s fault.
Constantly bringing up this fact repeatedly would make those who have only heard one line across the last eight years, that line that Obama has been an ineffective president, actually have to confront the fact that THEY were the ones who throttled government down to a standstill by voting Republican, and therefore THEY are the ones responsible for all our recent tribulations.. one being Donald Trump.
Reminders that facts make a difference.
So to keep Al’s legacy alive, perhaps it is fitting to call Susan Monday to say you represent the top half of the state, and then ask her your question…. politely.
Hello! We, up north, were wondering why you purposefully are avoiding the REAL issues?
- Issues like allowing the wealthy to make up new rules that steal all the middle classes’ money.
- Issues like crippling unions so none of us get paid anything close to what we are worth.
- Issues like underfunding government so much it hurts all of us.
- Issues like allowing hidden money into elections, forcing politicians to be bought so they then pay their purchasers back with our tax money.
- Issues like saddling our children with huge levels of college debt we didn’t have when we bought our first house.
- Issues like not doing anything to stop carbon pollution.
It would be in WDEL’s interest to allow as many as possible of those liberal calls from the North to go through… So it would indeed be ALL STATE radio. For across the last two days, I have yet to see any reason why anyone north of the canal would listen at that frequency between 9 and 12 weekday mornings.
Sooner or later Northern big money cows are going to realize all those advertising dollars spent across that time frame are wasted. I don’t think any of the current WDEL 101.7 advertisers get even one dollar of return on their investment from listeners living south of Dagsboro…
kavips 
2 comments
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March 14, 2016 at 10:07 pm
Kurt J
I was sorry but not surprised to see WDEL defacto end it’s comment section. I have never come across any news venue which uses the Facebook login which had any intelligent responses. I don’t think Alan Loudell censored any comments and I respect him for that, on the other hand commenters seemed to be fairly respectful of him and others.
Sad because there really isn’t a venue for debate of issues within Delaware and I had hoped a least his blog could stay alive.
WDEL is not a downstate-upstate issue, Downstate is much more a New Jersey/NY/Connecticut/ PA conglomeration than New Castle County wants to admit – and those people could care less about Greenville and Brandywine Hundred which hurts some.
Delaware Liberal is a profanity laced,sophomoric waste of time. I don’t care about Trump, Chik-Fil-A or Sarah Palin all of which seem to obsess it’s readers.
I can’t find any Right or Libertarian Blog in Delaware which can present local politics or address Delawares Legislature in meaningful terms.
I think Ms. Willing is presumptuous to declare her way the Delaware Way. There is no debate, you either agree or don’t exist in her eye, though the format and work on her blog is among the very best I have ever seen.
Take a look a Baltimore Brew, topical, fun, humorous, witty, open and very well self controlled. I can only think of two occasions where the moderators had to step in. Knowledgeable commenters who do get their opinions through to the Politicians.
Mr. Spivak I will keep an eye on your blog.
March 16, 2016 at 1:07 am
kavips
The WDEL blog was nice because it was a close knit group who argued in public, allowing the outside looking in to see all sides of an issue. The jocular back and forth was respectful as almost being between friends… as would be conversation between two longterm buddies who supported different teams for the Super Bowl. It was adult with no bad language.
Delaware Liberal does allow bad language. That is because their entire blog operation is built around fun. Sometimes for fun, one wants to use a bad word over there, simply because you can; it’s fun. It may be sophomoric too, but it is still fun.
Since there are many contributors over there who switch days of watching the blog, i don’t think they yet know how stale that becomes. But they are a specialized blog, particularly on feeding information to progressives. If you are a conservative and try to communicate there, you do get jumped rather quickly. But, there is something I mentioned earlier that I noticed. Though both right and left are at war with each other on national politics, on local politics there is much consensus. A new bill in the Delaware legislature is either a good or bad bill, and whether upstate or downstate, the arguments are always over the merits of the bill. One rarely hears entreaties to support a certain bill solely because of our partisan affiliation.
In that regard, Delaware Liberal does repeatedly comb the legislative logs and keep us up to date on what is transpiring in Dover. We also hear what is happening in the City of Wilmington’ government as well. On those two fronts that blog is an asset, since the News Journal only publishes presser reports giving only the “official” side.
Down south there is DelawareRight and DelawarePolitics.Net. They provide the Southern perspective and from the north we check them out and they check us out as well. What I like is that one can challenge their view and they are good at explaining why they see things as they do. Agreement is rarely forthcoming but at least one can see they aren’t stupid, and do have meaningful reasons behind the positions they stake.
Nancy’s Delaware Way rounds out the political blockbusters but hers is more of a community bulletin board… Culled from her daily feed she posts stories often with little comment which cannot be found elsewhere. She is very useful in that regard…The name “Delaware Way” refers to an anachronism very much in effect today where the powerful of both parties collude to get business done for Delaware’s rich and powerful moving on the fast track, regardless of how it affects the state’s constituents. (At one time 1992-2012 that was considered good by all of us. Since 2012, it has taken a negative connotation, primarily from the fact it pursues corporate’s interests over those of the people 100% of the time) There isn’t any presumption on Nancy’s part in picking that title.
But I do miss the WDEL format. A large number of times together as a group, we did solve the world’s problems even if no one on the outside ever noticed.. .