Are the obese letting paper, state go to hell?

Rush hour. Drivers won't see any relief until the rail and bus systems are expanded, but that is far from a priority with Governor Christie or The Record's editors.

Is there any connection between being obese and the quality of the job you do -- whether running the local-news operation at The Record or the state of New Jersey?

Those questions are raised by today's confessional from feature writer Erin Connor -- about her self-loathing and how she set out to lose 60 pounds and 12 dress sizes (Better Living cover).

Unlike Connors, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes nor Governor Christie haven't come to grips with huge waistlines and unhealthy eating habits.

Does their more-for-me, less-for-you approach to life translate into doing a poor job of providing local news to readers of The Record, as well as economic prosperity for all residents of the state, not just the wealthy?

Ignoring obesity

As obesity worsened in New Jersey in recent years, Sykes virtually ignored the epidemic or the opportunity to launch a newspaper series with herself and other fat, unhealthy editors as examples.

What was Christie's response to childhood obesity in New Jersey?

He continued to gorge on pizza, beer and who knows what else; refused to disclose his weight or health problems, and cut the state's $3 million contribution to the school-breakfast program for poor kids. 

Two dysfunctional slobs, and look at what has happened: declining municipal-news coverage and a state economy that gets worse every day (A-1 and A-3 on Saturday).

Sykes and Christie have more than that in common. 

The editor's friends are among the least-productive members of the news staff, and Christie's friends and former associates are eating high on the hog with money from their cushy, high-paying jobs in his administration or at the Port Authority. 

What a sport 

After too many front pages with a sports focus, Editor Marty Gottlieb finally turns his attention to other matters, but the two major stories on A-1 today are poorly reported.

Nowhere in the lead piece on the emergence of Korean-Americans as a political force does The Record deal with whether North Jersey's long-established Japanese-American community has been eclipsed.

There is no love lost between Koreans and their former occupiers, but Sykes and her minions have totally ignored tensions in Fort Lee and other communities.

In the main element -- a heart-breaking account of the destruction of the Passaic River -- the editors shy away from placing the blame squarely on greedy corporations and lawyers, who are doing their best to blunt efforts to clean up the once majestic river.

Is this what Republicans, who take millions from lobbyists, mean by less regulation of business?

More love for Christie 

On Sykes' Local front today, a second Road Warrior column praises Christie for cutting out free rides for NJ Transit workers as the governor continues to ignore the state's mass-transit woes.

Today's column piles on a Page 1 story and an editorial that praised the governor, who only rides in a huge SUV or state helicopter.

Of course, Christie should be condemned for putting the kibosh on the biggest expansion of the NJ Transit rail system in decades and aggravating North Jersey's traffic woes, but Sykes and her puppet, Staff Writer John Cichowski, don't have the balls for that. 

Treating locals as yokels 

Don't look for Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood news in Local today or anything from several other large North Jersey communities. 

'A new her' 

The Better Living cover story by Connor -- "A new her" -- informs readers the section is launching an occasional series, "Your loss, your gain," on losing weight.

Conspicuous by its absence today is The Corner Table column by the dessert-obsessed Elisa Ung, the paper's full-time restaurant reviewer.

A new Geist 

Two days after a glowing Page 1 profile of Willie Geist of Ridgewood -- the new co-host at NBC's "Today" --  Ung  sent out a Second Helpings blog post revealing the idealized North Jersey family man has a filthy mouth.

Geist spoke at a celebrity chef-packed roast of chef and world traveler Anthony Bourdain, as reported by New York Grub Street.com:

"Mario Batali is a brilliant chef, we can’t deny that. In fact, Babbo is so hard to get into that Mario has to blow himself to get a table. Sometimes, he even does it on slow nights, just for fun." — Willie Geist

"The great Eric Ripert is here tonight. Eric sure knows how to cook meat, but the only thing he knows how to butcher is the English language. Eric, you’ve been here for 25 years, buy a fucking Rosetta Stone."  — Willie Geist

"Anthony Bourdain, of course, has huge talent, and he’s the first to tell you that. If his ego got any bigger, it would look like Paula Deen’s thighs." — Willie Geist

I guess Geist hasn't seen Sykes' thighs.

In the e-mail to readers who subscribe to Second Helpings, Ung called Bourdain "our favorite Leonia native" and Geist "our favorite Ridgewood native." 

So what are the thousand of other accomplished Leonia and Ridgewood natives, chopped liver? What a moron.

Second look

On top of that, Ung's Friday review of a Korean place said Gilmok in Closter "would be a tough restaurant for anyone without some knowledge of the cuisine." 

Let's see, Gilmok serves beef, seafood, vegetables, noodles and tofu in both spicy and non-spicy dishes, and customers use metal chopsticks or forks and spoons to lift the food into their mouths.

In fact, all of the vegetables and tofu make Korean food one of the healthiest around, though a sugar-addict like Ung doesn't appreciate or bother to promote that. 

A fun time for all

Why couldn't Ung explain that Korean barbecue is a fun meal, if you don't care about consuming low-quality beef, and that shrimp can be substituted for non-meat eaters?

Korean beef or shrimp are grilled on the table and wrapped in red-leaf lettuce, along with red-pepper paste, garlic, hot pepper, rice, kimchi and anything else you can fit into the package.

Then, you amaze your friends or family with the size of  the lettuce-wrapped package you can fit into your mouth, chew and swallow, washed down by beer or soju.

What's so "tough" about that?

Traveling music

For the second week in a row, Travel Editor Jill Schensul has a consumer-oriented piece, this one for readers who use travel companies (T-1). Bravo.

Off his rocker

At the bottom of the Opinion front, readers are told Columnist Mike Kelly is off. 

What's new? He's been "way off" for years.