Questions swirling around police-involved fatal accident

On Euclid Avenue in Hackensack on Thursday afternoon, some of the drivers detoured by a fatal-accident investigation on Summit Avenue frantically sought an escape route, even though none existed, above and below.

A few desperate drivers ignored the Do Not Enter sign on one-way Euclid Avenue South to reach Summit Avenue, and retrace their route.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Who was the poor guy -- a senior citizen from Hackensack -- who died after his old Mazda sedan was "struck" on Summit Avenue by a police cruiser responding to an emergency on Thursday afternoon?

If another accident involving a motorcyclist on the Maywood-Hacensack border had ended, should the responding Hackensack officer have been driving at a high rate of speed to get there?

You won't find the answers -- or even the questions --in a Page 1 story on the front page of The Record or on NorthJersey.com this morning (A-1).

In fact, the 67-year-old driver who died hasn't been identified, and the reports don't say whether he stopped at a stop sign on Ross Avenue, which meets Summit at an angle that forces drivers to look over their left shoulder to see oncoming traffic.

The officer involved also hasn't been identified.

Details missing

The Record had three reporters working on the story, but so many details are missing, as is typical of a newsroom run by Editor Deirdre Sykes and Production Editor Liz Houlton, two lifers known for their laziness and incompetence.

Among details not reported in The Record are that:

The driver suffered cardiac arrest after the police cruiser T-boned a "silver sedan that suddenly pulled into its path in the 500 block of Summit Avenue near Ross Avenue, responders told Daily Voice" (Hackensack.DailyVoice.com).

See: Did driver pull in front of speeding cruiser?

Another view

A reader of NJ.com commented:

"I guess another cover-up is in the works for that fatal police accident up the block. [Driver] probably didn't see -- that's a bad spot -- but the cop was over-driving -- he did not have visual on suspect -- and the accident he was heading toward had already occurred in Maywood."

Driver retraining?

Treating an older driver as so much road kill is typical of The Record, as readers can see in today's reporting on Thursday's fatal involving a Hackensack police cruiser.

The Woodland Park daily generally ignores the challenges facing older drivers, and in fact, rarely reports on any senior who isn't institutionalized.

Road Warrior John Cichowski, himself a senior, has spent no time in the past decade telling readers whether re-training is available for drivers in their 60s, 70s and 80s.

Today, Cichowski devotes an entire column to whether there are enough parking spaces at NJ Transit rail stations (L-1).

If there aren't enough rush-hour seats on the trains and buses, commuters need more parking spaces like a hole in the head.

Dementia up?

Today, the front page reports the autism rate is up 12% in New Jersey, a story of no interest to the vast majority of readers, who are older (A-1).

When is the last time you saw a story on Page 1 about the increasing rate of dementia or Alzheimer's disease?

Good luck, Wilsons

I hope a chef and his father succeed with their gastropub in North Haledon, called Prohibition at the Rathskeller.

Most readers are watching their cholesterol, and will totally avoid a menu filled with cheese curds, fried food, short ribs-laced macaroni and cheese, and a three-dessert sampler (BL-14).

The place gets 2.5 stars out of 4 (Good to Excellent) from Elisa Ung, the restaurant reviewer who can't hide her unhealthy obsession with meat and artery clogging desserts.

The five dishes shown in photos on the Better Living cover and inside are so many heart attacks on a plate.

Editors slowly return focus to voting, other state issues

On Saturday, the Bergen County Utilities Authority stationed a truck in the parking lot of Sears in Hackensack to shred residents' unwanted documents. The so-called Shred Event is held in each municipality.

It was as easy as driving up and dumping the papers into one of these two containers before they were transferred to the truck for shredding.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A small part of The Record's front page today is devoted to Governor Christie's veto of expanded voting, and a bill he signed to regulate group homes for people with dementia.

But Editor Martin Gottlieb continues to give most of Page 1 and two inside pages to the Friday night terrorist attacks in Paris (A-1, A-10 and A-11).

On voter reform, two Record reporters do their best to cast the issue as a strictly Democratic one, in keeping with the paper's editorial endorsement of Christie's mean-spirited veto (A-1).

The story on group homes for people with dementia conforms to the Woodland Park daily's policy of reporting only on institutionalized seniors (A-1).

Local news

In Local, there are three stories on schools, but nothing about Hackensack (L-1 and L-6).

Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes ad Dan Sfroza appear to have ordered an embargo on any news about the Hackensack Board of Education.

What to do when not just coverage, but paper is all wet

Two police officers and a metal detector await visitors to Municipal Court in Hackensack, above. On Monday afternoon, I pleaded not guilty and asked the judge to dismiss a $37 ticket my son received for violating alternate-side parking on Euclid Avenue, the first we've received in eight years of living there. He denied my request, and hit me with an additional $39 in court costs and related fees.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I just spent 8 minutes and 44 seconds on hold and then speaking with a woman about a replacement for my copy of The Record, which was delivered soaking wet this morning.

The paper was in its usual place on the driveway, but folded inside a single plastic bag that was open.

I'd publish a photo of what the wet paper looked like when I unfolded it, but the litigious Jennifer A. Borg, vice president and general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, would likely file a copyright infringement suit against me.

On my second call for a dry paper, the woman I spoke with had a very pleasant voice. 

She explained The Record starts delivering replacement copies at 10 a.m., so they hadn't reached me by 10:30, when I called.

She said my earlier request for a replacement was noted in "the system," and I would be getting a dry copy.

While I was on hold, I heard repeated promotional messages for The Record, including a claim the Woodland Park daily has the "best" local-news coverage around.

I also heard part or all of three recorded pieces from the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra.

Today's paper

The word "Alzheimer's" makes a rare appearance on the front page of The Record today, but this story is about whether the state or municipalities should have the power to oversee group homes for those suffering from the disease or dementia (A-1).

The Record has largely ignored Alzheimer's disease and the obesity epidemic in favor of covering autism.

Commuting

The editors also largely ignored the nightmarish commute to New York City in the past decade, but now you see a story about train and bus delays on Page 1 every couple of days.

Yet, most of A-1 today is devoted inexplicably to Governor Christie's "drug stance," and how it will affect a presidential candidacy experts say is doomed to failure.

Meanwhile, the editors can't bring themselves to declare that a governor who has made such a mess of his home state isn't fit to run the country, and certainly doesn't deserve front-page coverage of his campaign.

Corrections

Two more embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today.

Instead of local news, the editors of Local bring us lots of Law & Order news today (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Hard to believe local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza couldn't find any municipal news from Bergen County's biggest towns -- Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood. 

Coincidentally, the local obituary reports the death of Amos C. Saunders, 81, a retired Superior Court judge in Paterson (L-1).

Postscript

My replacement copy of The Record was never delivered today, and I worked from the soaking copy I had dried in the sun.

In July, when I returned from a 10-day vacation, I received papers from only three or four days of the time I was away, even though I requested that all of them be delivered.

It's no surprise The Record's delivery apparatus is so pathetic.

As the old saying goes, the fish stinks from the head (publisher's office) down.

Schoolchildren, teen drivers again dominate news, views

Residents fear that when completed, the Hudson Lights residential-retail project near the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee will make the borough's heavy traffic even worse. This photo might remind some old timers of "Heavy Equipment," a 1940s film starring John Derrick and Jean Crain.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

As a senior citizen, I still can't figure out why "new standardized tests tied to Common Core" are so controversial that just the mention of them by Governor Christie lands him on Page 1 of The Record (A-1).

In fact, I have no idea what Common Core is, thanks to reporters who wait until deep into the continuation page today to explain it and quote New Jersey education officials defending it (A-7). 

Then, on the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski has another boring column on teen drivers (L-1).

News bias

North Jersey Media Group has always steadfastly denied discriminating against older workers.

But the editorial policy of The Record, the company's flagship paper, has long discriminated against older readers, the majority.

Autism, not Alzheimer's disease, often dominates Page 1 and the Better Living front.

The challenges facing older drivers are routinely ignored by Cichowski.

And his editors lampoon those drivers when they confuse the accelerator for the brake pedal by running numerous filler photos of the mayhem that causes.

Correction

A Thursday story on high school journalism and censorship has been corrected (A-2).

Why is L-9, a Business page, dominated by rising rents in New York and other cities?

What about rents in Hackensack and the rest of North Jersey?

$92 entree

Orama in Edgewater is really making customers pay for the restaurant's spectacular location on the Hudson River, with entrees up to $92.

I loved what Executive Chef John Piliouras did with fresh fish at Nisi Estiatorio in Englewood -- now replaced by a car showroom.

But I doubt I'll ever eat at Orama. 

There are plenty of great seafood restaurants in Bergen County with down-to-earth prices, and Fort Lee and Edgewater boast at least three Japanese restaurants with great sushi menus.

And the far more affordable food court at Mitsuwa Marketplace has the same great view.

Restaurant critic Elisa Ung's 3-star review today shows a photo of Niman Ranch loin lamb chops, but doesn't tell readers all Niman Ranch meat is naturally raised or give the price (BL-16).

In her text, she confuses readers by describing what apparently is a second dish, "Colorado prime porterhouse-cut [lamb] chops ($21 and $32)." 

"Prime" and "porterhouse" usually describe beef. Maybe these Colorado sheep were raised on steroids.

Christie's 'reform' of entitlements is bad news for you, me

Hackensack police are citing an exemption in the Open Public Records Act in denying Eye on The Record a video statement from Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office on March 10, the day after his unmarked car struck and fatally injured Hue D. Dang, 64, of Hackensack. He was not charged. The exemption cites an active investigation of the fatality by the Union County Prosecutor's Office.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Even a story reporting Governor Christie plans "to reform Social Security, Medicare and other benefits" sends shivers down the spines of anyone approaching retirement age.

Christie and other conservative Republicans love to throw around the word "reform" to mask their mean-spirited raid of public benefit programs and entitlements, as shown by today's Page 1 story in The Record (A-1).

And gullible reporters like Herb Jackson, the paper's so-called Washington correspondent, have swallowed whole all the broken promises that word represents.

Rare story

Today's front page also carries a rare story on seniors suffering from Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia -- a follow-up to a murder-suicide in which a 100-year-old Elmwood Park man killed his 88-year-old wife before committing suicide (A-1).

"The risk of dementia increases dramatically with age -- more than 5 million Americans age 65 and older have Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia among older people," Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton says.

Of course, the Woodland Park daily has long ignored the problem, and I can't recall a single story on day care for seniors with dementia, even though some of the programs started more than a decade ago.

A perfect candidate for such a day care program is Staff Writer John Cichowski, also known as the Road Warrior, whose chronic errors can only be explained by some form of dementia coupled with a total breakdown in traditional fact checking.

Bottom feeding

A story on the first Business page reports a Walmart with a 24-hour supermarket is opening in two weeks in a new shopping center in Teterboro (L-8).

Consumer Report's May 2015 cover article, "The Best Supermarkets in America," ranks Walmart next to last on its list of 68 chains.

The magazine rated markets nationwide based on 62,197 responses to a survey on the quality of produce, meats and poultry, and bakery goods, as well as store-prepared food, staff courtesy and store cleanliness.

"And what of Walmart, consistently one of our lowest-ranking grocers dating back to 2005? This year, the nation's largest grocer ... earned low marks in every category other than price," according to Consumer Reports.

But you can be sure The Record will publish one glowing story after another about Walmart in return for tens of thousands of dollars in sorely needed advertising revenue.

Ignored by the editors, enraged 100-year-old kills his wife

Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street in Hackensack at 4:44 p.m. on Monday, one month after Hue D. Dang, 64, was fatally injured in or near the crosswalk by an unmarked car driven by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. After Hackensack police declined to file any charges, the investigation was taken over by the Union County Prosecutor's Office.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Can you "accuse" a dead man of homicide?

The brain-dead editors at The Record of Woodland Park say you can in the very first paragraph of today's report on a centenarian who killed his 88-year-old wife with an ax before committing suicide (A-1).

Even the headline on the Page 1 story is vague, referring to the killer, Michael Juskin of Elmwood Park, as being "at the center" of the case:

"100-year-old at the center of murder-suicide"

The headline should have said he killed his wife, Rosalia, with an ax, and then the sub-head could have mentioned he suffered from dementia.

A sidebar reviews similar cases in recent years, and concludes "the elderly population is often underserved by services for battered woman and overlooked by research on domestic violence" (A-6).

Gee. Shouldn't the editors of the Woodland Park daily admit how they also have ignored seniors with dementia and Alzheimer's disease for years, preferring to publish overwrought stories on children with autism?

Why 9 months?

At the center of today's rare all-New Jersey front page is a court photo of the sister and mother of Genesis Rincon, the 12-year-old who was slain in Paterson last July (A-1).

But the story on L-1 doesn't explain why the two defendants are being arraigned nine months after the fatal shooting.

Maybe it took that long for the accused killers' families to come up with the hefty retainer needed to land representation by attorneys Harvey Briete and Matthew Cavalier.

Judging from the photo on L-1, Briete's hourly rate apparently has to pay for suits that cost a couple of thousands of dollars each as well as hand-tied bow ties.

Briete also is given to hyperbole -- dismissing a plea bargain with a 40-year prison sentence for his 20-year-old client as a "life sentence," according to the paraphrase on L-1.

Another look

On Monday, I re-visited the T-intersection of Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street in Hackensack, where Hue D. Dang, 64, a Vietnamese-American woman who lived a few blocks away, was struck and fatally injured by a car one month before.

I took a photo at 4:44 p.m., the time police said Dang was hit by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero's unmarked car, which was turning right toward the Route 80 west ramp.

Hackensack police said they didn't know where Dang was standing when she was struck, and didn't mention the Jackson Avenue crosswalk to the reporter who wrote The Record's only story on the case, on March 11.

No charges filed

Police didn't file any charges against Straniero, 49, who lives in Wayne and works for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

They did note "a large amount of sun glare from the west," but that shouldn't have obscured the view of Dang, who appeared to be in or near the Jackson Avenue crosswalk when she was hit.

Dang's feet landed in the crosswalk when she fell parallel to the passenger side of the car.

And, according to a neighborhood woman I spoke to on Monday, a plastic grocery bag she had been carrying landed near a wheel on the detective's silver Ford Crown Victoria.

The victim was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

The Union County Prosecutor's Office took over the investigation, and on March 31, a spokesman said I should check back in "several weeks."

Why do the editors think all of us live in nursing homes?

The Record continues to ignore the lack of seats for North Jersey commuters at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan, above, but runs another photo of missing ceiling panels on A-3 today.

Meanwhile, the Woodland Park daily hasn't reported such improvements as the addition of touch-screen terminals to help commuters locate the platforms where they can catch their buses, and the renovation of second-floor restrooms with automated Toto urinals and new tiles.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Nursing home reporter Colleen Diskin is back on the front page of The Record today.

Is this the fate awaiting the baby boomers and seniors who make up the majority of the readership?

What about dementia, Alzheimer's and heart disease -- issues you rarely see explored in the Woodland Park daily, even though its editor is in his late 60s.

To get into The Record, you have to be dying or dead, as suggested by the three local obituaries on L-5 today.

Age spots

A look at the mix of soft and hard news on Page 1 today and Thursday suggests Editor Martin Gottlieb is suffering from a mental infirmity that blinds him to the concerns of a majority of North Jersey seniors.

Gottlieb and his minions, local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, should have assigned a medical reporter to the story of Brian Beutel, a father of five daughters and a lieutenant in the Bergen County Sheriff's Office (A-1).

Beutel, who was only 47, collapsed and died during a fund-raising basketball game, yet today's story is silent on whether he had any medical conditions or problems that contributed to his death.

That's what readers get when an overworked police reporter, Stefanie Dazio, is assigned to the Beutel story.

Photo puzzle

A front-page caption with a photo of Rutger's women's basketball team in a bus doesn't explain the presence of two men, but includes a meaningless over line:

"N.J. Battle on Connecticut Turf"

Hiding heroin

The Record continues to explore where alleged drug dealers and others hide heroin -- to the exclusion of more legitimate local news.

Today, Dazio, the police reporter, says Fair Lawn police "seized 43 bags of heroin found in a woman's underwear" (L-3).

The Record has reported a male suspect hid heroin in his sock, and Cliffview Pilot.com broke the story of a pregnant woman who used her vagina as a stash.

Sykes and Sforza, the supremely lazy local editors in Woodland Park, relied on an unusual amount of police and court news to fill their Local news section today and Thursday.

In fact, Dazio had six other bylines in Local today (L-2 and L-3), in addition to the front-page story on the sheriff's officer.

Have a heart

Readers who are watching their cholesterol and sugar intake won't be able to enjoy three of the four recommendations of Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung today (BL-14).

At the 2-star Delvina in Cresskill, only the Dover Sole, for an outrageous $39, would be suitable for a heart-healthy diet.

Readers know they are in trouble when Ung says nothing about the food in the entire first half of her tepid appraisal. 

Buyers of Tesla Motors' all-electric Model S pay no sales tax in New Jersey, a savings of $5,000 or more, and qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit. Now, staff at this Tesla gallery in Garden State Plaza and at a showroom and service facility on Route 17 north, both in Paramus, can resume selling the zero-emission luxury cars directly to the public.

Second look

On Thursday, The Record reported Governor Christie took a baby step to help the environment by signing legislation to allow the direct sale of zero-emission Tesla automobiles.

New Jersey automobile dealers opposed Tesla's direct sales and last April, the state Motor Vehicle Commission required new-car dealers to have a franchise agreement.

The new law rolls back those regulations.

Dealers representing domestic and foreign automakers in New Jersey feared Tesla's no-pressure showrooms would expose their greedy, high-pressure sales and service practices.

Another Marty Gottlieb front page that doesn't affect us

In Manhattan, workers are trimming the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, above. The tree-lighting ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 3.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A sensational child-abuse trial in federal court involving an Army couple from Mount Holly. 

Rewrites of two other newspapers -- on sports wagering in America, and the resignation of Governor Christie's chief of staff, who lost hope of ever becoming New Jersey's attorney general.

And a real fluke: A Morris County homeowner who was awarded his house after the creditors missed a legal deadline.

This last story carries an inaccurate headline: The house isn't "free" since Gordon A. Washington paid $131,000 of the mortgage before defaulting, as noted in the A-1 data box.

This is another front page that is irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of North Jersey readers -- straight from the mind of Marty Gottlieb, the sophisticated New Yorker who is editor of The Record.

Where is the tree?

I guess the staff photographer sent to cover a "living memorial" to Waldwick Police Officer Christopher Goodell was in a rush to get to his next assignment.

The photo appears on Page 1 and the Local front, but doesn't show the copper beech tree planted to honor the cop who died when a truck driver plowed into his radar patrol car in July (A-1 and L-1).

HUMC profits

An L-1 story says nearly 200 Hackensack University Medical Center employees have accepted early retirement packages, but adds the non-profit "will hire far more people in the next 90 days than the number who are leaving."

The story also notes "two credit reporting agencies said that Hackensack -- a 775-bed medical center with $1.4 billion in annual revenue -- was doing very well financially."

As written, this story belongs on the Business page, not the Local news front, filled as it is with financial jargon.

The story also is missing any explanation of why anyone but the affected employees should care.

Nature center

The Record has done a terrible job of explaining the opposition to expansion of the Tenafly Nature Center (L-1).

Residents voted against the proposal in a Nov. 4 referendum, but today's story notes local officials had called a larger center "a boon to Tenafly."

The story also says "both sides traded accusations of misinformation," but I cannot recall the paper making any attempt to separate fact from fiction before the election.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in Tenafly.

The Woodland Park daily also didn't do much to separate fact from fiction when hysterical Tenafly officials turned thumbs down on extension of NJ Transit's electrified light-rail line to the wealthy borough.  

Second looks

November is Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, but the first story that mentioned the disease likely was the obituary of former Rep. Marge Roukema on Thursday's front page.

Roukema, who was elected to the House of Representatives 11 time, was one of those "socially moderate, fiscally conservative Northeastern Republicans [who] became increasingly rare in the years after she cast her last House vote in 2002."

The obituary by Staff Writer Herb Jackson includes praise from Democrats and Republicans alike, but Christie's name is conspicuously absent.

Roukema retired in November 2001 after narrow victories in primaries "in which challenger Scott Garrett of Sussex County said she was too liberal."

Hollywood reporters

Did you see Thursday's Better Living cover story on "a new spate of movies on journalists"?

Do any of the new or old movies from La La Land even acknowledge the mediocrity of so many local daily newspapers like The Record that are struggling to stay relevant in our digital age?

And where is the analysis of unchallenged "sound bites" that have now migrated to print journalism?

In a brief on Thursday's front page, The Record quoted House Speaker John Boehner, who called the climate deal between the U.S. and China "the latest example of the president's crusade against affordable, reliable energy," an apparent reference to coal.

A longer Boehner quote appeared in The Washington Post story on Thursday's A-10, but that paper never reported whether the ultraconservative Republican is referring to coal generating plants, which are the direct cause of mercury in fish and air pollution.

The latter probably has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. 

More errors

As he has shown so many times before, Road Warrior John Cichowski is unable to accurately report data from the annual state police report on road deaths (Friday's L-1).

Here is a summary from the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Friday column, the Road Warrior goes down his mistake-filled wormhole of reporting about another New Jersey State Police annual report (this time for 2013) on roadway fatalities.

"The Road Warrior indicated that the increase in fatalities for Bergen County pedestrians and truck drivers was part of a 'trend.'

"They are not part of any trend.

"Bergen pedestrian deaths have gone down in 3 of the last 6 years. Tractor-trailer deaths have gone down in 2 of the last 4 years and are on pace to go down this year.

"Road Warrior indicated that the 2010 law requiring drivers to stop for to pedestrians in marked crosswalks has 'driven down' fatalities.

"Unfortunately, pedestrian deaths have gone up every year since 2010, except for last year, and are on pace to greatly exceed last year’s record low number of fatalities."

See: Road Warrior reporting mistakes climb

Seniors see sunlight, crime as local news and more

Gen. Enoch Poor, a Revolutionary War hero, died in Hackensack on Sept. 8, 1780, and was buried two days later at the First Reformed Church on Court Street, above, with full military honors and with Gen. George Washington, Lafayette and other senior military leaders in attendance. Today, his spirit lives on a couple of blocks away in General Poor's Tavern on Main Street, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record today publishes a rare photo of Senior Bergenitis, a species that inhabits every corner of Bergen County, but is rarely shown in public.

A Page 1 photo captures sun-splashed "dancers enjoying the song 'Shout' at the Bergen County Senior Citizen Picnic" on Tuesday in a Paramus park (A-1 and L-3).

The Woodland Park daily often portrays seniors as little more than inhabitants of nursing homes and critical-care facilities, and generally turns a blind eye to age discrimination in the workplace and in the media.

You have read far more about autism than Alzheimer's disease in The Record.

The paper's chief restaurant reviewer has eaten tons of butter and sugar, and its freelancers have published numerous artery clogging recipes of no interest to many seniors.

It's hard to understand how The Record generally ignores seniors when this is the group with all the money.

People over 55 buy the most cars, and travel lavishly. Yet, coverage is aimed at the young, who don't even read the paper.

Local crime news

Peter J. Sampson, the hard-working Bergen County Courthouse reporter, has three bylines on the Local front today, part of an onslaught of Law & Order news throughout the section.

With 70 towns in Bergen County alone, you'd think the lazy local assignment editors could come up with more municipal news, such as the impact on residents and businesses of all the tax-exempt property in Hackensack.

Evidently, Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza are bored with their jobs. 

The same could be said for Liz Houlton, the six-figure production editor who allows numerous errors, bad captions and clunky headlines to get into the paper.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg could cut those three, and save a ton of money.

Suckers! You voted for an absentee governor

This eyesore at 177 Euclid Ave. in Hackensack looks much the same as it did when I moved into the neighborhood in August 2007, except the furniture piled on the front porch was removed a few years ago. Ignoring complaints to the city's Building Department and visits by city inspectors, this homeowner doesn't appear interested in finishing the renovation project.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

On Tuesday, The Record named seven states Governor Christie plans to visit in the coming year as chairman of the Republican Goobers Association (Tuesday's A-2).

Today, in a Page 1 story, the Woodland Park daily expanded Christie's campaign itinerary to 36 states where fellow Republicans will be involved in gubernatorial races (A-1).

The Record sent Staff Writer Melissa Hayes to Scottsdale, Ariz., to continue her work of building Christie's image into a viable presidential candidate in 2016 -- despite his abysmal record in New Jersey on the economy (L-7), mass transit, tolls, property taxes and other issues.

Guadano to rule

When our absentee governor is on the road, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadano, a non-entity who gives a bad name to women, will be the acting governor, Hayes reports today.

As head of the goobers group, Christie will command an enormous slush fund of campaign money from corporations and other anonymous donors -- all of it intended to do the evil work of the 1% against the rest of us.

Today, The Record said the association raised nearly $24 million in the first six months of the year, nearly $1.6 million from New Jersey.

Racist blacklash

On Monday, Christie attacked President Obama and claimed the Affordable Care Act is "a failure," The Record reported on Tuesday's A-2.

But the GOP bully forgot to mention that he and fellow conservatives in more than 30 other states are doing their best to subvert the enrollment effort -- as part of the racist backlash by congressional Republicans.

Second best for N.J.

Christie gladly accepted millions of federal dollars to expand health care to the poor in New Jersey.

At the same time, he refused to set up a state health-care exchange, forcing residents to use the problem-plagued federal Web site, reducing choice and limiting competition among insurers.

So North Jersey residents get to see glowing TV ads about New York State's health-care exchange and affordable policies, but remain in the dark about buying insurance in the Garden State.

Baseball prick

Christie's ascendancy to head of the GOP goobers is the lead story on Page 1 today, where Editor Marty Gottlieb wastes a great deal of space on Alex Rodriguez, the drugged baseball player who does a good imitation of a walking erection.

'Pedal error'?

In the seven days since Ruta Fiorino, 49, an employee of Trader Joe's, was hit by a car outside the Westwood store on Nov. 13, The Record appears unable to find out how the accident happened (L-1).

Today's story on fundraising for the severely injured woman reports the car driven by Maryann Lewis, 75, of New Milford "apparently accelerated and lurched forward." 

A common problem among older drivers is "pedal error," mistaking the gas pedal for the brake pedal.

What about programs to help seniors improve their driving skills and cut down on similar accidents? 

The Record apparently doesn't know or doesn't care.

Dissing seniors

Even Staff Writer John Cichowski hasn't tackled the question for the Road Warrior column, which  has spent the last decade examining driving, drivers and the MVC is such minute detail.

Typical of The Record's coverage of the elderly, who aren't confined to nursing homes or mental institutions, is the rare mention of Alzheimer's disease in a photo caption on L-1 today.

When food is garbage

The Better Living cover today confirms that 50 years of cooking shows and other nonsense about food on television have been little more than fluff (BL-1).

Not a single Food Network show has focused attention on factory farms and the unnatural lengths processors, restaurant owners and chefs go to fatten their profits at the expense of the consumer.

Who got fired, Governor Christie?

Many students walk to the Dunkin' Donuts on Passaic Street or to the Starbucks on Essex Street rather than eat what passes for lunch at Hackensack High School. Was there any discussion of food quality at this week's public forum for Board of Education candidates?

A big, black banner headline in The Record, multiple stories and columns, and a swarm of reporters and editors usually mean earth-shattering news.

Was Governor Christie fired by tax payers fed up with his mismanagement of state finances, mass transit and road repairs (A-3 and A-4)? Did he lose weight?

No. All of this overblown coverage piles on what readers already knew from the electronic media on Wednesday: 

Rutgers fired the sorry ass of basketball coach Mike Rice "for physically and verbally abusing players and making homophobic comments and anti-gay slurs during practices" (A-1).

Only one other story appears on Page 1, along with four briefs.

Men need sports

In the 14 months Editor Marty Gottlieb has been running the Woodland Park newsroom, he's played sports on the front page even more than his ass-slapping, jock-itching predecessor.

The sad fact is that men like Gottlieb and many of his male reporters and editors can't relate to other men without sports as the medium.

But why he is making light of so many other issues by constantly running crappy, poorly written sports columns and other nonsense on Page 1? 

Dissing the elderly

For example, one of today's A-1 briefs reports Alzheimer's "is the most expensive malady in the U.S.," so why is the full story buried on A-11 and why does autism get so much more attention in The Record? 

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' boycott of Hackensack news continues today, but readers will find two Englewood stories and a Teaneck story on the Local front, and another Englewood story on L-3.

Still, Sykes needs another photo of a non-fatal accident to fill her section (L-3). 

Where was her deputy, Dan Sforza? Did he spend the day in the crapper, reading the sports pages?