I just came from Kensington and had a chat with a member of the town council. An American Jewish woman, a resident of the town, whose husband is a civil rights lawyer around DC complained at the recent board meeting that having Sthe annual tree lighting ceremony where Santa lit th tree was in some way a negative experience for her children. The council, unprepared for such a challenge had a knee jerk reaction. They decided to not have Santa light the lights and change the Christmas tree to a Liberty Tree that celebrated the first reponders, the firemen and policeman of NYC, as is being done elsewhere. It was picked up by the media. Well, as you may know Santa will not be lighting the tree, and it may not be called a Christmas tree, but there will be lots of Santas there. Santaa are coming from all over. We're nice people here in Maryland, we don't want to traumatize any children with jolly old elfs. We do make mistakes when we bend over backwards to accomodate a point of view, as in this case. Tune in next year. Regards, Fortunato.