Have We Lost The Ability To Communicate?

out orders as opposed to explaining instructions to people passing through the security area of the Philadelphia Airport.

The tone of voice sets the tone of attitude and while airport security is a serious matter to be maintained, if you come off as a drill sergeant and call out people for moving too fast or slow or not completely understanding what was just barked out, you are causing more of a problem.

Likewise, when you are in an elected leadership role, you have the obligation to try and defuse a situation when dealing with residents or a township agency such as the police. If something is wrong, bring some calm and see how it can best be addressed as opposed to challenging someone’s work despite how right you feel you are. Look at the bigger picture. There are times when unexpected things happen and a worker, say a waitress, is told that the diner they are working at is closing early for whatever reason. The customers who came in at 3 p.m. - thinking the place advertised to be open until 8 p.m. - have no idea they need to provide their order in record time and finish up quickly.

A sign put up on the door window after they were seated isn’t going to help. Being pushy without a simple friendly conversation and explanation comes off as rude and awkward.

It also doesn’t help your chances of getting a nice tip. In that situation, a brief partial explanation could have turned things around so that the customer is more understanding instead of insulted.

A calmer tone would have allowed those at the airport to better understand the instructions and not felt like they were 5 year olds being scolded. No one likes being told what to do but by and large, most adults do understand the need for safety and will comply with calmly worded instructions.

That community leader knew there was a change needed to be made with regulations and could have brought that change for-

Letters To The Editor

of this bill represents a charge to deliver network stations (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.) even though they are commercial stations available for free with over-the-air reception. The remainder are mostly vintage, cartoons, Spanish, preachers, infomercials, and “home shopping” channels.

You may recall in 2012 the Obama administration unilaterally changed TV signals from analog to digital nationwide, leaving Ocean County in a dead zone. For the last several years, I have tried to

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It is reasonable to think that Rep. Smith, who has been in office for 41 years, could advocate with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to correct this problem. As residents of an underserved ex-urban county in New Jersey, we should attract the same attention as residents of Mississippi or Appalachia. Instead the issues of importance to Mr. Smith are so far above ground level that they are not visible to the naked eye, even with a telescope: whether the Chinese Olympic uniforms were made by Uyghurs; the Chinese government vs. the Uyghurs (and Tibet); human rights in China (how has that worked out?). Recently, he introduced legis- ward and not micro-managed the wrong people in his desire to be right. They were doing their job.

Each of those situations could have been handled better with a change of tone in expressing content.

I’ve often heard that it is more important to be kind than right. What are we really trying to accomplish by immediately verbally attacking the person we are serving or working with? Maybe our point is just but we’ve just trampled over someone and caused some damage that is not easily repaired.

These are just three examples but it seems to be happening all the time in all walks of life. We seem to be taking out our stresses quite easily. Road rage incidents are up and it seems easier to raise our voices instead of have a conversation.

We can state our point but do we need to yell it out and name call?

One place where we do seem to communicate well is at convenience stores where I see a lot of people holding doors for others, thanking them for doing so, reciprocating by holding a door for them and talking to people in line as we wait. If only we could communicate that way in other situations. Bottom line is, we can do better.

Bob Vosseller Assistant News Editor

lation to allow US citizens to sue the Chinese Communist Party for misrepresentation about Covid (how many lawyers would take that case on a contingency basis?). More recently, he called on the president to meet with the wives of two Chinese human rights activists. He is against human trafficking, but is remarkably silent about the “trafficking” coming across our southern border. He advertises his strict pro-life position, while at least 60% of this district is prochoice. Cong. Smith seems to think he is the UN Secretary General and the Papal Nuncio combined, pretending to represent us as he engages in his quixotic pursuits.

Not long ago, I contacted Rep. Andy Kim, who represented Toms River at that time, about a personal matter involving a federal agency. A staff member returned my call one evening, spoke with me for twenty minutes, and left his personal cell phone number in case the matter didn’t resolve, which it did a month later. The one conversation I had with someone in Rep. Smith’s D.C. office, after leaving messages for almost two months, revealed that he hadn’t read it. He then lectured me that Smith has many thousand constituents, even though the subject at hand affects us all.

Last year, two amateur underfunded challengers with no experience in elected governmental office took almost 40% of the vote in the primary versus Rep. Smith. They did not engage him on any of the issues above. We have a chance to retire this career politician next year either by replacing him as the candidate or removing him from office. I can live with a Democrat for two years if that’s what it takes.

C. Crowley Toms River

Newspaper Celebrates 28 Years

Congratulations on 28 years! I saw your editorial in a recent Manchester Times Thank you for really good online and paper publications.

We are happy new residents in Manchester, and are enjoying learning about our new county and especially our new township. This is to let you know that we greatly appreciate the Manchester, Toms River, and other Times newspapers. We have computer access, but love having a local paper. Yes, we’re seniors ;-).

The content of your publications is interesting, especially to newbies. We now know there is a Coordinating Council in Manchester, which organization is in charge of preserving land, and where the best events are. We find the papers very useful in learning about the different geographic areas. Having a paper newspaper allows us to snip out articles and also reminders of upcoming events.

We just wanted to say that we appreciate you!

Christina and Daniel Bilinski Renaissance