In our unusually diverse state, Christie demonizes Syrians

Guajillo Mexican Restaurant at 10 Sussex St. in Hackensack has served its last taco.

Guajillo is another business on or near Main Street that couldn't wait for the renaissance officials are predicting after tenants move into new downtown apartments.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I've met a lot of nice Syrians in Paterson in the past 30 years, but judging from the front page of The Record, today would not be a good day to be one.

Governor Christie -- whom the editors have elevated to world leader from his usual role as incompetent state executive -- is going after Syrians in the wake of the Paris massacre (A-1).

Many readers are getting sick and tired of the expected also-ran in the GOP presidential nominating contest taking pot shots at President Obama that seem racially inspired.

Silk City

And Paterson seems to be on Christie's shit list, if you include all the work he has done to fight crime in Camden instead of Silk City, and his comments on barring Syrian refugees from entering the United States.

Even though reporter Hannan Adely has written extensively about Muslims in North Jersey, she makes no attempt today to explain to readers that most of the Syrians in Paterson are Christian, not Muslim, and many have lived there for generations.

They work in county government and in just about every other job, including lawyers, teachers, police officers and firefighters, and in South Paterson, Syrian immigrants, both Christian and Muslim, run bakeries, restaurants and other food businesses.

Syrians have helped make New Jersey one of the most diverse states in the nation, despite the GOP moron who is running roughshod over more progressive leaders in Trenton.

Local news

The editors of Local ignore Hackensack for yet another day, and the thin section contains two major elements from Passaic County, and stories about bears and oysters (L-1 and L-3). 

A story on the Local front speaks volumes about home-rule governments, which seem to foster no-show jobs and outrageous salaries for police chiefs, high school principals and others.

Palisades Park Mayor James Rotundo has resigned as the $35,000-a-year "supervisor of school custodians," a position he has held for more than two years (L-1).

The story identifies Rotundo as "full-time ... assistant  executive director of the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority," but his name is not included in the agency's 2015 budget.