Does our obese governor hate underfed kids?

The Port Authority is raising tolls on the George Washington Bridge and other Hudson River crossings by an additional 75 cents in December. Now, the peak toll for cars and SUVs is $12 or $9.50 for drivers with E-ZPass. 

Readers have to work hard today to find out why New Jersey is in a shameful 48th place in the national school breakfast program for poor children.

Governor Christie, who looks like he eats several breakfasts every day, doesn't appear in the story that dominates Page 1.

Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf is said to have encouraged schools to try "breakfast after the bell," but it's advocates for children who are driving any gains (A-6).

The story hints that Christie's well-known disdain for federal funds may be the root cause:

"If New Jersey -- which has long had one of the lowest participation rates in the country -- reached just 60 percent of eligible children, it would reap $22.6 million in additional federal funding, according to the Food Research and Action Center" (A-1).

Recall how Christie blamed his last education czar for blowing $400 million in federal Race to The Top money or how he spurned billions more in federal transportation funds when he killed the Hudson River rail tunnels.

Breakfast whipped cream

Of course, today's long story doesn't mention that Christie eliminated all $3 million in state funding for the subsidized school breakfast program, according to The Star-Ledger (April 21, 2010).

The newspaper reported on Sept. 27, 2012, that Christie isn't denying himself: whipped cream is served in the breakfast buffet at Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion.

Obscure Kelly

Did anyone bother reading Columnist Mike Kelly's long-winded recounting of a political scandal that has faded into obscurity, which is where many of us wish he would go (A-1)?

For yet another day, Editor Marty Gottlieb squanders precious front-page space on an inane column about the Yankees.

No trace of Cichowski

On A-12 today, The Associated Press reports no trace of Jimmy Hoffa was found in soil samples from a back yard in suburban Detroit.

In a related matter, no traces of Road Warrior John Cichowski were found at his home or office, suggesting his column is being ghost-written by drivers who send him one complaining e-mail after another (Local front).

Law & Order news

Three of the five elements on L-1 today are court or police stories in another great local-news effort from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza.

In the L-1 courtroom photo, why does it look like defense attorney Robert Galantucci is taking a nap during another lawyer's opening statement in the trial of two Hackensack cops?  

Blast from the past

Sforza's byline appears on A-3 today on a story about "challenges and goals" at the beleaguered Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

But the clueless Sforza, a former failed transportation reporter for the paper, doesn't mention a word about the agency's poor mass-transit record.

Sforza is the second editor who has covered a story recently. Tim Nostrand was the first. But when the stories are full of holes, why bother?

Dissing Hackensack

In other Hackensack "news," optometrist Paul Berman, who works in the city, was honored at the White House for a program that has helped 100,000 athletes see better (L-1).

On L-2, the Woodland Park daily catches up to the weekly Hackensack Chronicle on a proposal to hire a police director instead of a police chief to replace the disgraced Ken Zisa.

Heart problems

In Better Living, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill's cookbook recipe of the week is for Cornish pasties -- bar food (BL-1).

The recipe calls for 12 ounces of antibiotic-filled beef and a full stick of butter, which you might as well freeze and ram into your heart like a stake. 

Also on the Better Living cover, "Jersey Shore" may be ending, but that's no guarantee the editors will stop publishing drivel about the bimbos and bimbas who give New Jersey a bad name.