Looking for something relevant to read

A packed NJ Transit Waiting Room at Penn Station in New York on Nov. 16 suggests service was disrupted after Sandy damaged more than 300 rail cars and locomotives.

It's Sunday again and here's another ho-hum front page from Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record of Woodland Park.

The recovery from Superstorm Sandy. Check. More financial problems at Atlantic City casinos. Check. Analyzing Governor Christie's B.S. on halfway house escapes. Check.

But at the bottom of Page 1 today, I started reading a story on a rock band made up of surgeons who treat gynecologic disorders, and thought, Gee whiz.

Women rock

The headline from Editor Liz Houlton's tongue-tied copy desk is such a stretch: "The healing power of rock."

The reporter, Mary Jo Layton, makes no such claim in the third paragraph on A-1:

"They're on mission to make searing music and raise awareness about some of the deadliest diseases that strike women."

That's certainly notable in New Jersey, where Christie loves to cut health programs for women so he can propose big tax cuts for his wealthy, overwhelmingly male supporters.  

I kept on reading to the continuation page and then lost interest in what essentially is a story about a bunch of rich doctors trying to relieve stress. 

Sandy is no lady

The paper seems to have finally abandoned the illogical "Digging Out from Sandy" and introduced "Rebuilding Lives" in the main element on A-1 today.

Another Sandy story appears on the Local front, but the rest of the section is a local-news disaster.

Drought on local news 

Readers won't find any news of Hackensack or many other communities, and Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to ignore the twin crises of rush-hour traffic and mass transit (L-1).

Today, he revisits issues he's written about many times before, including Richard Kreimer, the home-hating man who has appeared under Cichowski's byline so many times they might be related.

The Local front also carries a fractured photo caption from Houlton's desk:

"Mommad Atyat, 11, with juggler Fred Collins on Main Street in Paterson, who was promoting shopping downtown [italics added]."

And I wondered if the name "Mommad" is correct.

Mass abandonment

In Opinion, an editorial on Sandy ravaged rail cars and locomotives continues the paper's most intensive coverage of mass transit in the last decade (O-2).

Unfortunately, commuters who use NJ Transit's trains and buses were virtually ignored by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, Cichowski and other transportation writers before Superstorm Sandy.  

And even the recent attention to the damaged NJ Transit rolling stock hasn't included any attempt to measure the impact on already strained services.