Exposing Christie's union busting

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The Little White Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisc., claims to be the birthplace of the Republican Party at a meeting in 1854. Some Democrats want to rename the town Rip-off.

It's not on the front page, as it should be, but Columnist Charles Stile today exposes Governor Christie's anti-union agenda for what it is -- an end run around collective bargaining -- not much different than what is going on in Wisconsin, where another rabidly conservative Republican governor rules.

But Stile argues New Jersey's bully is just following the union's lead on bypassing the bargaining table to thwart past efforts at squeezing savings out of public employees. Still, the columnist doesn't make much of a fuss over Christie unfairly seeking a 30% worker contribution to health benefits -- compared to 1.5% now.

Stile's column couldn't appear on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park because it was frozen out by two stories on mass transit -- a subject the paper routinely ignores so as not to inflame car dealers, who continue to buy page after page of advertising to move their tin.

In a rare foray out of the office, Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski reported one of those stories: Rail, bus and private minibus operators face new penalties for talking on cell phones while driving. 

No beef with steaks

In her review of The Capitol Grille, a chain steakhouse that opened at Garden State Plaza, Staff Writer Elisa Ung gushes over dry-aged beef that apparently includes harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts.

I say apparently, because Ung tells you absolutely nothing about whether the $41 and $43 steaks she sampled are from domestic or foreign cattle, or how they were raised. She also overlooks the misspelling of "grill."

Read it in a weekly

It's Black History Month, but the former Hackensack daily hasn't published any black history news since Feb. 20.

However, the Hackensack Chronicle's Feb. 25 edition has a fascinating story about John Lathen, the first African-American intern at what was then called Hackensack Hospital. This was in 1950, more than a decade before major civil rights law were enacted.

To overcome expectant white mothers' possible objections to a black doctor delivering their babies, they were given anesthesia right before childbirth. "When the woman was unconscious, my father would come out and deliver the baby," Lathen's daughter told the paper.

See previous post, 'Bergen Beat' or beating Bergen?