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(October 26, 2001) Some months ago, we installed a separate comment line for listeners who chose to ventilate concerns or offer kudos regarding programming. On September the 11th, that fateful day when the unthinkable happened, our country lost its innocence when it was brutally attacked and thousands of innocent and brave people perished.

Their family’s lives have changed forever. We have all changed forever.

Now we face a war, possibly a very long and costly war, to find and punish the cowardly monsters of this dastardly act to make certain that what they did to our country will never happen again.

President Bush and his advisors carefully and thoughtfully took three weeks to prepare what needed to be done and to identify the culprits.

Most Americans and most countries of the world are in support of his actions. However, there are some people who vigorously disagree. As pacifists, they want us to think about this issue very carefully, assume the dead roach position, study and understand why part of the world hates us - these pacifists believe that love and patient understanding will get us through this.

I see it as a recipe for annihilation. If, in our efforts to be humanitarian and help other nations, we may have harmed them —well, let’s deal with that and fix it later, after we destroy the animals who are committed to destroying us. Now back to the station’s comment line…Until about a year ago, we had Jim Hightower, a reasonable Democrat, on KOMY. Suddenly, Hightower was replaced by Peter Werbe, probably by the syndicator of both.

We had no contract with Werbe. But we kept him on for a year, and businesses did NOT want to sponsor him. Werbe is an extreme leftist whose mission is to tear down the opposition, and President Bush has been his favorite target for ridicule. In fact, many regular listeners complained about him and stopped tuning in to our station.

Well, Werbe’s comments may have played well with some and may have been fair game in normal times, but these are NOT normal times. We’re now engaged in a war.

So as of several weeks ago, Werbe is no longer on KOMY. Now he goes on the internet, states his case, in third person — is that cowardly or what? — spins it and screams foul and claims that his free speech rights are violated! Is this nuts? Now a number of angry listeners are using the station comment line to say some very ugly and menacing things. Others are sending angry e-mails and few have signed their names.

Please understand that we, the owners, have been the sponsors for Werbe’s show for a year, and we no longer choose to subsidize him. Bottom line: Werbe has a right to his free speech and we have the right not to have him on our station.

Maybe these listeners could find a place for Werbe on public-supported radio. His kind of rhetoric is welcomed by some in peacetime, but now we are in a battle for the very survival of our way of life. And we do not wish to be an active party for political divisiveness which will give aid to the enemy and weaken our country’s resolve! Our men and women in the armed forces, who are fighting this war for us and may be dying for us, must know that we are with them. We cannot withstand another Vietnam War fiasco, when the country was bitterly divided and torn apart.

The chilling truth is, this may be our only chance to get it right — we destroy the enemy or they destroy us. And make no mistake —this is their agenda! I believe our mission is clear. We must, as a country, come together.

To paraphrase the words of Benjamin Franklin, spoken at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We had better all hang together or we will surely hang separately.”

Dear God, please bless America!