Editors see U.S.-Cuba 'division' despite their shared history

In the 100-block of Euclid Avenue in Hackensack's Fairmount section, this homeowner has defied attempts by city officials to have him repair his front steps and clean up his eyesore property since at least August 2007, when I moved into the neighborhood.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Over today's Page 1 photo of President Obama listening to the U.S. national anthem in Havana, an unnamed editor wrote:

"DIPLOMACY AND DIVISION IN CUBA"

Even after reading the caption, The Record's readers will continue to guess at why the word "division" was used over the photo until they see the full story on A-7.

That's where an Associated Press report leads with the divide over "human rights" and the U.S. economic embargo.

The U.S. and Cuba have more in common than the media usually report, including a history of slavery, violent revolutions and the execution of people who were loyal to the losing side.

Until the 1959 revolution, Cuba was virtually a colony of the United States, and racial discrimination was strictly enforced in both countries.

It's appropriate that Barack Obama, our first black president, broke with the past, visited the island and met with Cuban leader Raul Castro.

The media also play up "political prisoners" while ignoring the many positives on the Caribbean's biggest island:

Free education and medical care, and an absence of school shootings and other gun violence.

Local news?

What are the editors of Local saying when they lead their section with another sensational crime story, the same one that ran on Page 1 both Sunday and Monday (L-1)?

And if the story of a Bergenfield couple whose 11-year-old son found the bodies after a murder-suicide is not sensational enough, turn the page.

Why is the story of a Wayne man who killed his girlfriend's dog in their house trailer given so much space (L-2)?

Those stories are a sure sign the local-news report is as weak as it was before Deirdre Sykes was made editor in January.

Cutting remarks

Food Editor Esther Davidowitz really disappointed readers on Monday when she didn't call out millionaire celebrity Chef Marc Forgione.

Still, it's not surprising that the chef at an expensive steakhouse is a male chauvinist pig who treats women as if they are just another cut of meat.

Davidowitz notes his new Englewood Cliffs restaurant has more fish and more salads on the menu than at his Manhattan location -- "'for the ladies,' Forgione said, who he believes are more health conscious" (Monday's BL-2).

What an antiquated notion (not to mention awful editing).

As in The Record's earlier promotions of Forgione's American Cut Bar & Grill, Davidowitz doesn't say whether the steaks served there for up to $126 are naturally raised.

Second look

Sykes, the editor, led Saturday's paper with a deal on the expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood.

"It marks the third time the issue, which has dominated village politics for a decade and consumed countless hours of public meetings, will come before the Planning Board," Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton reported.

Still, there is no explanation why Layton doesn't tell readers the hospital would expand within its own campus, and wouldn't be clearing homes and other property, as in the expansion of Hackensack University Medical Center.

Behold Editor Martin Gottlieb's three-ring circus on Page 1

On Monday afternoon, road work on Main Street in Hackensack, above, and traffic restrictions on nearby River Street, had this Elmwood Park police officer looking for directions on how to get around the mess.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

An unflattering photo of Governor Christie on Page 1 of The Record today shows he is doing a good imitation of a circus fat man.

Flanking that is the Vanity Fair cover of Olympian Bruce Jenner, 60, who has been transformed by surgery, makeup and airbrushing, but apparently still has his male sex organs (A-1 and A-5).

Truly grotesque.

The third ring of Editor Martin Gottlieb's A-1 news circus is the spectacle of greedy hospitals, doctors and insurance companies trying to stop reform of surprise medical bills.

The story with Christie's photo is even more disturbing than the notion he's been able to defeat the weight-loss surgery he had in February 2013:

The 30 state troopers assigned to his Executive Protection Unit have rung up $975,000 in American Express credit card charges for food, lodging and travel since 2010 (A-6).

That was revealed not by The Record or another major newspaper, but by the New Jersey Watchdog Web site and its reporter, Mark Lagerkvist.

In fact, the story The Record carries on the front page today appears to be a rewrite of what was posted on that Web site on May 28.

Lagerkvist puts the credit card charges at "nearly $1 billion."

Crash story

The glowing tribute to Clifton newlyweds Jose Calderon and Ana Maria Perez makes no attempt to explain how they were killed in Sunday night's Route 3 crash (A-1).

Six reporters worked on the story, but apparently none asked investigators if Calderon was speeding or if his car aquaplaned in heavy rain before leaving the road and hitting a tree (A-6).

Were the newlyweds wearing seat belts? Your guess is as good as mine.

Local news?

Local editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza forgot to tell a layout editor that the obituary of Rochelle Shoretz, 42, of Teaneck, founder of a cancer support group (L-6), should have appeared on L-1 -- or even on A-1 in place of the "Caitlyn Jenner" farce.

Instead, on the Local front, readers got a gee-whiz, drive-by photo of a pickup truck and moving van collision in Rutherford, but absolutely no information on the possible cause or whether any summonses were issued.

I guess the editors wanted to make sure readers saw the sparkling photo over line:

"TRUCK CRASH TRAPS DRIVER"

The real news is that the unnamed driver was freed and apparently survived, not that he was trapped.

On L-3, some idiot wrote a caption for a photo of a goose walking in a parking lot, telling readers that it was "making the best" of the flood.

A human might make the best of a flooded lot, but a goose can fly over it or even float on the water, so what's the sense of that description?

Real gamble

Given New Jersey's disastrous experience with casinos in Atlantic City, why would anyone in their right mind approve a ballot question to build three more in North Jersey (L-1)?

Although Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton has covered the controversial expansion of The Valley Hospital for many years, she omits a crucial fact in today's story on a lawsuit filed against the village of Ridgewood, as she has in past stories (L-1).

The hospital's plan to "double in size" would be contained within the borders of its existing campus.

Menendez front page is a wink and nod at insider deals

The 7:40 a.m. NY Waterway Ferry took about 10 minutes to reach midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, but driving to the Weehawken terminal from Hackensack during rush hour ate up 45 minutes.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The defendant is supposed to come out swinging, not the editors of The Record.

But today's front page -- nearly all of which is devoted to Bob Menendez's legal problems -- calls into question The Record's objectivity in reporting a 14-count federal bribery indictment against the state's senior U.S. senator (A-1).

In a sidebar, Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton, quoting "several white-collar defense experts," claims "federal prosecutors face many hurdles in making their corruption case" against the Democrat (A-1).

This is a virtual rewrite of Herb Jackson's front-page story a few weeks ago, after CNN reported top Justice Department lawyers had "signed off on the charges" (A-8).

What else would defense lawyers say? 

They have to justify the huge retainer they demand from defendants like Menendez, and the hundreds of thousands in legal fees that follow when the cases go to trial.

A bad taste

A U.S. senator enjoying a lavish, jet-setting lifestyle courtesy of a friend -- allegedly for promoting the friend's "business and personal interests" -- leaves a bad taste in the mouth of taxpayers and certainly appears to be improper, if not illegal (A-1).

The Borg family, which owns North Jersey Media Group, publisher of the Woodland Park daily, also treats their business associates and friends favorably.

In recent years, The Record has run at least two stories promoting business associates of the Borgs without disclosing those ties.

And in January, Publisher Stephen A. Borg announced a sale-leaseback deal with a close family friend involving the company's printing plant on 16.67 acres in Rockaway Township.

Borg said the agreement was with a fund sponsored by the Hampshire Cos. of Morristown, but didn't mention that Jon F. Hanson is its chairman and founder or that his father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, and Hanson had jointly purchased a private jet in 2011.

Hanson is a major fund-raiser for Governor Christie, and advises him on sports and entertainment policy.

The Rockaway Township deal is worth about $30 million.

Branching out?

The byline of Jay Levin, The Record's local obituary writer, appears today on a front-page story about bunnies that just about the only relief  from the Menendez saga.

Levin's second byline is on the Better Living front feature called "The Name-Dropper" (BL-1).

Family dynasties

The upbeat story on the nearly 40-year reign of the Parisi family in Englewood Cliffs makes such dynasties sound like a good thing instead of one of the worst aspects of home rule (L-1).

Staff Writer Kim Lueddeke even mentions how the Zisa family "once dominated Hackensack so thoroughly that some called the city 'Zisaville'" (L-5).

But Lueddeke shouldn't have stopped there, because Hackensack still is haunted by Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa, its corrupt police chief, and the millions of dollars it took to fight all the lawsuits filed against him.

Today, Staff Writer Todd South reports on a lawsuit filed against Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga by Capt. Thomas Salcedo (L-3).

Wednesday's paper

On Wednesday, South reported the Union County Prosecutor's Office is handling the investigation of a March 9 pedestrian fatality in Hackensack that involved a detective from the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

South's story on Wednesday's L-2 quotes Mordaga as saying "that it's quite common practice to have outside agencies review such incidents."

Avoiding any conflict of interest also is cited in the story.

Blogger's role

Of course, The Record doesn't acknowledge that Eye on The Record looked into the death of Hue D. Dang, 64, of Hackensack, and questioned the decision not to charge Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero, whose unmarked car knocked down and fatally injured the woman.

Eye on The Record also questioned Hackensack police saying they didn't know where the woman was standing, even though their own report and other evidence strongly indicated she was in or near the Jackson Avenue crosswalk when she was hit -- a crosswalk they never mentioned to The Record.

I called the state police and emailed the state Attorney General's Office about those concerns, leading to the case being given to the Union County Prosecutor's Office on Monday.

Wedesday's L-1 carries another story about a pedestrian in North Bergen who was fatally injured by the car of a West New York police officer.

This story, like the March 11 account about Dang's death, doesn't mention whether any charges will be filed. 

More Christie B.S.

Wednesday's front page gives Christie a soap box to justify his withholding $1.8 billion from state pension funds.

But the editors shoved back to A-3 complaints from Democrats that Christie is being far from honest about the fiscal health of the Transportation Trust Fund.

Wednesday's A-2 carried an embarrassing correction of a front-page story on the effort to recall Mahwah's mayor.  

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.

   

The newsroom's big-butt sisterhood

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You don't have to be a woman or have a big butt to be part of the sisterhood nurtured by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, but it helps.

Staff Writer Jean Rimbach of The Record is an original member, getting away with as little work as possible year after year in a newsroom with many productive staffers. 

Today, her rare byline appears on Page 1 -- in a preview of an eBook on the murders of two women committed by Tenafly contractor Robert Reldan in 1975. Why is this on A-1?

Projects Editor Tim Nostrand is another charter member of the sisterhood. Having failed miserably in Sykes' job of bringing in local news, he somehow survived firing, and went on to smaller and worse things.

Four other members of the sisterhood, reporters Lindy Washburn, Pat Alex, Mary Jo Layton and Leslie Brody, are far more productive than Rimbach. 

Of course, a big butt doesn't guarantee admission into the society run by the fickle Sykes -- to the chagrin of many marginalized workers in the Woodland Park newsroom.

Hospital trauma

The big business of hospitals dominates the front-page today -- as interim Editor Doug Clancy continues a tradition of reporting every hiccup, burp and fart in the battles over the reopening of Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood and the expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood.

The hospitals fighting Hackensack University Medical Center claim that in the first year Pascack Valley is reopened, there will be layoffs and $15 million in losses at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and $24 million in losses at The Valley Hospital.

Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg was a member of the board at HUMC while The Record and NorthJersey.com reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue from the growing hospital campus.

Coverage of The Valley Hospital controversy has far exceeded any of the stories about HUMC's expansion over the years, even though homes were demolished in Hackensack and no demolitions were proposed in Ridgewood.

In fact, Layton, one of the medical reporters, has been careful in several recent stories about The Valley Hospital proposal -- including today's piece -- to omit or obscure the nature of the expansion: It would stay within the borders of the existing hospital campus. 

Port Atrocity

Clancy gives Page 1 play to what amounts to the Port Authority's legal arguments in an AAA lawsuit against the outrageous toll and fare hikes. 

How can The Record pass this off as agency policy, when it's merely a legal gambit to deflect criticism over the improper use of toll money to pay for the new World Trade Center?

Then, Clancy relegates to A-3 a story on the agency hiring outside auditors for $2.2 million.

Doesn't New Jersey and New York have auditors who could perform the agency-wide review of spending ordered by Governors Christie and Cuomo? 

Sykes' assignment desk appears to have asked Staff Writer Shawn Boburg to rewrite the agency's press release, so there's nothing in the story on whether the two firms -- Navigant Consulting Inc. and Rothschild Inc. -- are politically connected.

Has the paper become a mouthpiece for the powerful bi-state agency?

Chewing the fat

With Christie seeming to gain weight every day -- and Sykes and other editors trying to keep up with him -- who knew the state has an "Eat Right, Move More" contest sponsored in part by the Department of Agriculture (L-1).

Winner of the sixth-annual contest and $5,000 is Bogota's Lillian M. Steen School. 

Sykes and Nostrand have conspired with other editors against launching a newsroom project on the obesity epidemic -- to the detriment of readers.

Drives, but can't write

And Road Warrior John Cichowski has conspired with his assignment editor to avoid writing any columns about commuting in a region that cries out for better mass transit to ease traffic congestion.

In his lead paragraph on the Local front today, he writes: "Parents will have to work a little harder" under a legislative proposal on teen drivers. But his third paragraph says, "Too bad committee members chickened out by failing to make parents work a bit harder."

A story at the bottom of L-1 alerts new arrivals to "immigration services fraud" against those who come to the U.S. legally. 

The story is a testament to how little the paper has written about the legal immigration system in the past 15 years -- preferring hot-button stories on illegal aliens.

Scales of journalism

Sykes leads her section today with a $10 million jury award that apparently was missed on Monday by Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who is assigned full time to the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.

Markos was reporting and writing a story on $2.1 million in damages awarded in the shooting death of a Ramapough Mountain Indian for Tuesday's front page when the bigger verdict was returned.

Today's L-1 story says the $10 million verdict came in "Monday evening" and "late Monday." Without knowing the time, it's difficult to say with certainty that Markos' assignment editor should have gotten this jury award in Tuesday's paper, too.

But it's clear the assignment desk has no intention of asking Markos to tell readers that attorneys for the plaintiffs may receive up to one-third of the damages. 

Or, explain why the life of a visiting 13-year-old Korean boy is worth nearly five times more than a Ramapough Mountain Indian.  

With Hackensack reporter Stephanie Akin assigned to Tuesday's unexpected power outages in Bergen and Passaic counties (L-3), there is no municipal news from The Record's former home in Local today.

Related article

• Christie is the butt of jokes -- not N.J. (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

More stale news on the front page

Image via Wikipedia

The Record finds a treasure trove of ready made stories in census data.

The Record of Woodland Park continues to mine Census 2010 data for Page 1 stories that confirm what readers have known for months, if not years.

Incomes fall for N.J. families

Today's lead headline comes from the flagship publication of North Jersey Media Group, which went on a firing spree, consolidated its two daily newspapers and totally abandoned Hackensack.

The most important local news is pushed down below the fold. Readers learn Republicans in Congress are playing politics with disaster relief for storm- and flood-ravaged New Jersey (A-1).

Below that, a refer to an A-17 story reports young American soldiers in Afghanistan ask doctors not to save them if their sexual organs get blown off.

That's curious, because Editor Francis Scandale seems to be doing just fine years after he was castrated by the real power in the newsroom, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes.

On A-2 today, a correction notes the Hackensack police union president was misidentified in an L-3 story on Wednesday, but a second error on the location of the Social Security office in Hackensack wasn't corrected.

Rich list

Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg apparently is no longer on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans (A-8). How could he be -- with a spoiled son who sucked out $3.65 million of the company's money to buy a bigger house?

Today's Local news section is a yawner, what we've come to expect from Sykes' desk.

Last Friday's paper

Why is it lead-the-paper news that a Garfield neighborhood contaminated for nearly 30 years is now on the Superfund list -- when that might mean another 20 to 30 years will pass before it's cleaned up?

Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton refers to "Hackensack officlals" and "Hackensack" several times in her A-1 scoop about doctors lured to Englewood Hospital and Medical Center.


But she's not referring to the city; she's talking about Hackensack University Medical Center. She loads her poorly written lead paragraph with so much information,  "Hackensack" appears in it three times.


Readers would be stunned if Liz Houlton's news copy desk actually did some editing.

On the Local front, why is the Road Warrior writing about the sale of flood-damaged cars, in place of the consumer columnist, Kevin DeMarrais?

By limiting the back story, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung is able to report Khole Bistrot in Fort Lee serves only organic meat, but she runs into trouble describing the whole fish she sampled, using "bronzini," the plural (Better Living centerfold).

In the data box, she tells readers "prices are quite high for many items," so the restaurant isn't appropriate for "those on a budget." Duh.

Copy desk saves another reporter's ass

Image via Wikipedia

Lawyers for long-suffering Upper Ringwood residents settled a huge negligence lawsuit, fearing Ford Motor Co. would declare bankruptcy. Why didn't The Record ever report this legal and financial miscalculation? Above, Henry Ford in 1919.

Just when you thought the marginalized copy editors were asleep at their computers, they saved the ass of a veteran reporter who thought she could peddle the same old news in a Page 1 story today.


Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton covered a meeting of Upper Ringwood residents and EPA officials, but buried the lead -- just like the Ford Motor Co. buried toxic sludge in their neighborhood four decades ago and made everybody sick.


It almost sounds as if Layton pre-wrote the story to beat The Record's ridiculously early deadlines, then was forced to leave the real news to the continuation page. 


Did her assignment editor go home early? Where was Editor Francis Scandale?


But in a rare save, the news copy editors told the story in the headlines:

TOXIC LANDSCAPE: UPPER RINGWOOD

'We're the living dead'

EPA urges testing, but residents want buyouts

The copy editors not only saved Layton's ass, they saved the larger posterior of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes.

I read to the continuation page, A-6, and found something new in this long-running saga of government incompetence, corporate irresponsibility and media indifference:


Residents want Ford to use some of its huge profits to buy their homes so they can relocate away from the pollution.


One of the newsroom prima donnas, Staff Writer Jean Rimbach, has a rare byline today, but why is her story on a lawsuit judgment on the front page?

Clear age bias

What was the wire editor thinking? 

Why run a Washington Post story on President Obama's 50th birthday (A-5) that is full of "old" references, and reports "he still gets up and down a basketball court without reaching for an oxygen tank"?

A letter to the editor on A-8 describes the Tea Party as no editor has the guts to:

"The Tea Party is a joke," says Francis A. Tutelo of Teaneck. "... They are Republicans who don't care about the elderly and poor. They keep voting again taxing millionaires .... But the truth is: Would Republicans really tax themselves and their friends?"

Tutelo could extend his description to Governor Christie.

What's my line?

On the front of Sykes' Local section, Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column on long lines at the MVC. It's time for him to join a line -- the one at the unemployment office.

Readers won't find any Hackesnack, Teaneck or Englewood news today.

Look at all those morons from "Jersey Shore" on the front of Better Living today. Why does the worst of New Jersey gets such prominent play in the paper?

Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill recommends another charred hunk of beef, even though meat grilled at high temperatures has been linked to cancer (F-1, F-2).

How chief asthmatic manages the news

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Thanks to a compliant media in the state, Governor Christie never has to answer any embarrassing questions about his excessive weight or his diet.

Asthma? Inhalers? Where have I been?

The Record's front page today reports Governor Christie has "always spoken freely about his asthma and weight," but why haven't we seen that in the paper before now?

At the gym this morning, most of the people I asked didn't know the unpopular Christie had asthma until the media reported he was taken to the hospital on Thursday after suffering an asthma attack.

"They shouldn't have revived him," one personal trainer cracked. "No inhaler for you, Mr. Governor," another said.

Today, readers are bombarded with four stories starting on Page 1, a really unflattering A-1 photo of Christie after he spoke to reporters outside the hospital and upbeat, time-bending headlines that deliver far more than any of the text.

Christie back to work

Health

scare puts 

spotlight

on weight

Back to work? How could the copy editor writing this Thursday night possibly know he'd be back at work this morning? 

And would you look at the ridiculous caption under the photo of a flummoxed Christie: "Governor Christie leaving to go home and rest Thursday before returning to the State House today."

Huh? You mean he says he'll return to the State House today or he hopes to return to the State House, right?

And if the health scare "puts [a] spotlight on [his] weight," why do the thousands of words in the paper today omit the governor's weight, how much he may have lost and how much he wants to lose? 

What's up doc?

Why didn't the media question any of his doctors?

This is Christie continuing to manage the news -- just as he and his spin doctors have managed it since he took office in January 2010.

They do this knowing The Record employs pussies, including Editor Francis Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and reporters John Reitmeyer, Charles Stile, Mary Jo Layton and others.

Did anyone, God forbid, ask Christie how much he weighs or whether he still enjoys a steady diet of beer and pizza?

As if today's front page isn't embarrassing enough -- with everyone from Scandale on down trying to gloss over the governor's serious health problems -- two embarrassing corrections and a clarification appear on A-2 today.

Earth shaking

The big news on the front of Sykes' Local section is another detailed story on the 14 eighth-graders visiting Glen Rock -- Scandale's hometown -- from Japan (L-1). Two days in the country, two major stories.

The story about the sister-town exchange takes up so much space, there wasn't room for any Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck municipal news. 

Just desserts

In Better Living, only three of the 11 paragraphs in Staff Writer Elisa Ung's three-star review of Velo in Nyack, N.Y., discuss the food.

If it weren't for all the space the restaurant reviewer gives to a travelogue and the owner's resume -- and a wasted paragraph on the four desserts she made room for -- she could have told readers if the pork tenderloin was raised naturally or whether the restaurant serves fish.