Rubbing salt in drivers' wounds

Image by chadedwardus via Flickr

The eternal debate: With a soft fish taco, are two tortillas better than one?

Why did Editor Francis Scandale put a large photo of a laughing hyena on the front page today under this headline:

Oil CEOs

flogged over

gas prices

Doesn't look like much of a flogging. In fact, ExxonMobil's chairman and CEO seems to be laughing at the Democratic senators who called him to testify on a bill to repeal billions of dollars in tax breaks.

You can't touch me, he's saying. He's also laughing all the way to the bank with the billions gouged from drivers who are paying around $4 for a gallon of regular.

Third-class journalism

The rest of A-1 in The Record of Woodland Park is filled with stories that just a few years ago would have struggled to make the front of the Local news section:

You have to be desperate to lead the paper with alleged exam rule violations in only eight of the many hundreds of schools in New Jersey.

Horse racetracks taken over by private interests? Who cares?

A dated account of flooding in Alabama by a volunteer from Ridgefield Park? Pretty pathetic for the front page.

No end in sight

Is there no limit to the number of Road Warrior columns on long lines at the Motor Vehicle Commission (L-1)? John Cichowski's work is being compared to journalism in underdeveloped countries.

The lead paragraph of a story on the first Business page reports Governor Christie "regaled" 300 Chinese-Americans "with tales of how he tackled New Jersey's fiscal crisis" -- code for cutting programs that helped middle- and working-class residents while pandering to his millionaire supporters (L-7).

El Caney lives

My report that a small Cuban takeout joint in Bergenfield has gone out of business is incorrect.

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung reports in the Second Helpings blog that El Caney moved across the street, something not evident when I drove past the old place recently.

Still, when I want Cuban food, I'll be heading for Casual Habana Cafe on Main Street in Hackensack.

In today's review of Red Hen Bistro in Wood-Ridge, Ung gives me no credit for improving the soft fish tacos by complaining to the chef when they were served to me last June in brittle, fried taco shells that fell apart (Better Living centerfold).

Now, all Chef Carlos Valdez has to do to make them even more authentic is wrap each taco in two soft tortillas -- not just one.