Editors: We eat crap and so should you

Who do you take seriously -- food critic Elisa Ung or the American Cancer Society? (Wikipedia)

I am still digesting the large photo of mystery hot dogs on Friday's Better Living cover, promoting a favorable review of Mack's American Bar & Grill in far-off Pompton Lakes.

I recall how the American Cancer Society made front-page news when it said a diet high in red meats and such processed meats as hot dogs "increase your colorectal cancer risk."

And nitrates or nitrites -- the preservatives used to cure hot dogs -- aren't good for you, either.

The casual restaurant also serves farmed tilapia, artificially colored salmon and conventionally raised hanger steak, presumably filled with antibiotics and growth hormones.

But the headline over the review declares, "And the quality is a step above, too" (BL-16-17)

Is she high?

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung provides absolutely nothing to back that up. Yet she relentlessly pimps this food:

"Higher quality ingredients" and "quality is proportionately higher" are two phrases that appear in the review.

They are an apparent reference to the jumbo lump crab meat used in two dishes; everything else but the Prince Edward Island mussels is pretty average:

Low-cost ingredients designed to squeeze as much profit out of the place as possible.

Why would any reader want to eat here? Is this the best Ung can do? Hot dogs for dinner out? Give me a break.

Average paper

The rest of Friday's paper was pretty average, too.

How many readers got through the dense legal analysis of the judge's ruling to throw out three of the five guilty verdicts against former Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa (A-1 on Friday)?

Superior Court Judge Joseph S. Conte in Hackensack read his decision from the bench on Wednesday, but the second paragraph of Friday's story inexplicably said "earlier this week."

What readers really want to know is whether Conte has been reversed by higher courts, and how many times, but they didn't find that out in this story. 

Resident speaks

Hackensack resident Rich Gelber put the ruling in perspective in a letter to the editor, calling it "a miscarriage of justice" (A-11 on Saturday).

"How can one dispel the rumors that Conte was 'rooting for Team Zisa?'" Gelber says, adding Zisa "remains a convicted felon and an embarrassment to Hackensack."  

Gelber could have added that the Local news section today and Friday also are an embarrassment, filled as they are with mostly Law & Order news and wildlife photos.

More A-1 sports

Much of Friday's front page is filled with a sports column on Don Bosco Prep's football game in Florida (A-1 on Friday).

Is that where the chocolate syrup was invented?

Why is the so-called commuting columnist, Road Warrior John Cichowski, wasting his time writing about Lukoil gas stations (L-1 on Friday)?

Christie screws up

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads today's front page with more evidence of how badly Governor Christie has mismanaged the state's finances (A-1).

Inside, one of Christie's cronies, former Toms River Schools Superintendent Michael Ritacco, is sent to prison for 11 years after extorting up to $2 million in kickbacks (A-3).

A photo on Friday's A-3 clearly shows Christie hasn't done anything about his own obesity, leaving readers to wonder whether his administration is doing anything about the state's child obesity problem.

Dillard Memorial Bridge

Page 1 of the Sept. 14 edition of Hackensack Chronicle reprints The Record's story on the reopening of the Court Street Bridge, now named for Harold J. "Duke" Dillard, a city resident killed in the Vietnam War. 

On Page 2, the photo caption says the bridge "dates ... to 1907," but the text right below that says the span was originally built in 1908."