Someone should detain, starve Christie

This is how thick The Record was when I pulled it out of the plastic bag today.

This is what is left after I recycled Sports, advertising sections and sales fliers.

The worsening obesity epidemic in New Jersey and the poor role model we're stuck with in Governor Christie have never made Page 1 news in The Record,  a daily that employs a couple of obese local-news editors who bury their heads in their ample behinds.

But a few days ago, Editor Marty Gottlieb put the theft of an English bulldog puppy on the front page, and today, he gave the same treatment to the arrest of a couple who are charged with stealing the overpriced dog and neglecting it so much, it lost 1.5 pounds of its original 5 pounds.

Imagine if Christie lost 150 pounds of his, what, 350 or 400 pounds?

Is he healthy?

In view of Christie's increasing weight, is he really healthy enough for a second term or, God forbid, the presidency? 

Christie figures in another story today, an A-3 explanation of why he vetoed the state's health insurance exchange bill and rejected federal money to set up the marketplace.

The GOP bully is quoted as saying he was not "willing to buy a pig in poke."

Given his size, the image of a hog is a poor one, especially in view of how voters bought "a pig in a poke" in the form of all the campaign promises he made and broke, especially his pledge to lower local property taxes.

Pizza obsession

In The Record on Friday, a story reported Christie ended his appearance on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" by agreeing with the host to meet "over pizza," one of the foods that is making the state's chief executive even fatter (A-3).

In a letter to the editor about obesity, Jenna Shotmeyer of Franklin Lakes argues it is "the responsibility of the individual to eat what he or she wants, not the government" (A-22 on Friday).

She doesn't mention Christie, who put New Jersey in a shameful 48th place in the national school breakfast program for poor children and made the state ineligible for $22.6 million in addtional federal funding.

Remember the billions in federal transportation aid Christie lost when he killed the Hudson River rail tunnels, throwing mass transit into a crisis?  

Fender benders

There is so little municipal news today, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, had to fill out their section with two photos -- a non-fatal accident in Paterson (L-1) and the latest chapter in utility pole news (L-6).

Readers who are trying to figure out just when a fatal head-on collision occurred on the New Jersey Turnpike got no help from Production Editor Liz Houlton and her blind copy editors (L-1).

The lead paragraph reports two people were killed "early Friday," but the third paragraph says troopers "came upon the crash while responding to a report made near 12:30 p.m."

Should that be 12:30 a.m.?

Pal Park and Leonia

On Friday's front page, a silly sports column on the unified Palisades Park and Leonia high school football teams only reminds readers the editors still haven't explained why Palisades Park police had to help Leonia chase and kill a robbery suspect on Nov. 25?

Maybe the two police departments should be merged to get rid of one of the $200,000-plus police chiefs. 

My pick is Leonia's chief, Jay Ziegler, who repeately refused to release the name of the Leonia cop involved in the death of the mentally ill suspect, Rickey McFadden. 

3rd cop identified 

Gottlieb put the high school football story outside, but relegated to L-1 a story that finally identifies the Leonia cop as Sgt. Scott Tamagny, who filed a report purportedly explaining his use of deadly force against a suspect armed only with a knife.

The story also reports that Rosemary Arnold, the McFadden family attorney, lashed out "following a critical Facebook post" on the Leonia Police Department's official page, and criticized Ziegler for portraying cops -- not the dead man and his survivors -- as the victims.

More minor crashes

Sykes and Sforza also used photos of two minor accidents as filler in Friday's Local news section (L-1 and L-3).

For some inexplicable reason, a big part of L-3 on Friday was devoted to a 1987 march pleading "for the freedom of Soviet Jewry," written by Tenafly reporter Deena Yellin.

Breaking readers

Equally puzzling is a Road Warrior column on the obscure Breakneck Road in Bergen County, rehashing a 2006 accident (L-1 on Friday).

Meanwhile, a concerned reader sent another e-mail to management, complaining about significant errors in the previous Road Warrior column about E-ZPass discounts for drivers of hybrid cars.

That column, on Wednesday, provided incomplete and inaccurate information about the Green Pass program, including which cars qualify for the discounts, according to the reader.

Staff Writer John Cichowski's column also erred in discussing why some stations charge higher gasoline prices for credit-card customers.

Cichowski wrote:

"Retailers say profit margins on gas are very low and credit-card companies charge 5 percent or more in interest and fees."

The concerned reader wrote:

"CORRECT FACTS -- Credit card companies do NOT charge interest to gas stations.  The increased cost for credit prices for gas stations is because credit card companies charge gas stations relatively high fees for swiping credit cards to pay for gas. 

"Credit card industry fees are based on fixed fees, plus percentages, which are normally somewhere between 2-3%. depending on the credit card company, of the total purchase price." 

Feeding her boredom

In Friday's Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung shows how bored she is with eating out on the newspaper's dime (actually a few hundred dollars a week, I would guess).

Speaking of "service" at the Ho-Ho-Kus Inn and Tavern, she sniffs, "Servers vary when it comes to authority."

What does that mean?

Under "value," she lists the prices of appetizers and entrees, but doesn't say whether they are justified. 

The restaurant isn't "appropriate for ... anyone looking for groundbreaking cuisine,"  she notes, but fails to give points to the chef for being one of the few who serves a "grass-fed" steak, and for non-meat eaters, two great seafood dishes.

The food looks and sounds terrific, but she was disappointed with the desserts and gave the chef less than 3 stars.

What about salads and vegetables? Why no mention of those?

Can Ung be more out of touch with readers?   
 

17 reasons prosecutor is clamming up

The family of Rickey McFadden, a suspect who was shot dead by police, is planning to sue, alleging racial indifference, police brutality and multiple civil rights violations.

As he did with the fatal police shooting of Malik Williams of Garfield in December 2011, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli is releasing few details on the death of Rickey Mcfadden, a mentally ill Leonia man who allegedly robbed a CVS where he had been a frequent customer.

Today, The Record leads Page 1 with the family's claim police officers fired at McFadden, who was black,  a total of 17 times on Nov. 25.

The police officers haven't been identified, and one reason may be because the editors are too lazy or too intimidated to request a meeting with Molinelli and the police chiefs of Leonia and Palisades Park.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes or her deputy, Dan Sforza, have trained their reporters to communicate with police on stories such as this via e-mail or telephone, and to print the most ridiculous statements from the overpaid chiefs. 

"Releasing the name now would only subject the officers to unnecessary attention during what is a very difficult and stressful time for them," Leonia Police Chief Jay Ziegler said in an e-mail on Wednesday, according to The Record.

If it's stressful for the officers, imagine what McFadden's family is going through.

Today's story is based completely on allegations in a notice of the family's intent to sue filed by attorney Rosemary Arnold, who says she based her claims on statements from three witnesses.

Of course, it's clear The Record made no attempt to find any of those witnesses, but was content to wait for official press releases.

Belated toll news

The Johnny-come-lately who writes the Road Warrior column is finally telling readers who own hybrid cars, including the Chevy Volt, they can get a Green E-ZPass -- which has been available for years --  that gives them big discounts at the Hudson River crossings (L-1).

But Staff Writer John Cichowski remains mum on the car-pool discount, which is available to all drivers at any time of the day or night as long as they register their E-ZPass and use a Cash/E-Z Pass lane so the toll attendant can check to see if there are 3 people in the vehicle.

As with so many columns in the past, today's piece is based solely on e-mails from readers.

Despite all the questions Cichowski gets about the pricing of gasoline and cash/credit card policies, the reporter has yet to tell his readers about credit cards that give drivers 1 to 4 cents back on every dollar they spend on gasoline.  

I use an American Express card that gives me 14 cents back on a $3.50 gallon of regular. 

Clarification

In a post on Tuesday, I cited comments from Anonymous readers, including this one:

"I guess math isn't the reporters/editors strong suit and the reason they decided to become journalists instead of mathematicians."

Then, I got this:

"I made the comment about math not being a journalist's strong suit which was meant to be facetious. Any newspaper of record should employ one knowledgeable in different disciplines to get the facts correct in the editing process, or at least in the Internet age to look it up."  

Amen. 

A front page with the blahs

Image by Getty Images via @daylife








Today's front page is about as soft as you can get, except for the photos at the bottom of the page on cleanup of the magnificent Great Falls in Paterson, one of the most neglected natural attractions in the Northeast. As far as The Record of Woodland Park is concerned, life stood still. 

Maybe the recent lack of sunshine has affected the editors, including Frank "Castrato" Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes.

Do the editors talk with one another? Is Page 1 play planned or just done haphazardly by Scandale while he sits on a toilet in the men's room? The main element on A-1 today and a column on the OpEd page both go over essentially the same ground on the controversial medical marijuana law.

In the Page 1 story, the reporter seems bored with her subject, quoting one bureaucratic delay after another. Couldn't she find anyone to express outrage over the denial of relief to the terminally ill, including the poor man with the face tumors in the big photo? "We're working diligently," a state Health Department spokeswoman is quoted as saying. Give me a break.

Former Managing Editor Jim Ahearn's column (A-9) is more focused, pinning some of the delay on Governor Christie, who did a major about-face on medical marijuana.

The lead story on A-1 finally gets around to reporting new regulations to keep emergency responders safe on state highways that went into effect in June. I guess the staff was on vacation then.

In Local, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado covers a school board meeting for the first time in more than a year (L-1), and it is cut short by a disruptive former employee.

There is no other Hackensack news, or anything from Englewood or Teaneck, but there is a follow-up story on partisan politics in Englewood Cliffs, where one council Democrat resigned abruptly and another said he wouldn't run for election. The second Democrat has changed his mind.

The original Cliffs story -- in which one council member stormed out during an argument with another -- and today's lead L-1 story on voters backing Ridgefield's indicted mayor belong on the front page, in place of some of the nonsense Scandale loves. The Cliffs story reflects so well what is happening nationally, and deserves better play.

The process stories, such as the one on medical marijuana, don't really grab readers. Ahearn's column would have been enough.

I wonder why The Record didn't report an Appellate Division ruling in a dispute between two lawyers over hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees in a case that was covered extensively by the paper? One of  the lawyers is a good source for Kibret Markos, the Bergen County Courthouse reporter.

According to Cliffview Pilot.com, which reported last week's ruling on Monday, lawyer Rosemary Arnold of Fort Lee has been fighting with fellow attorney David Mazie, who took over a DWI case, brought it to trial, and won what originally was a $105 million verdict that later was pared to $25 million for young Antonia Verni’s Cliffside Park family. 

For his trouble, Mazie got more than $4.6 million, while Arnold collected only $227,500 -- even though Mazie argued that she should have gotten nothing. Arnold went in demanding half. In a published interview, Mazie said Arnold did little on the case when he was finally brought in.

But the appeals court said the lower court  judge erred in 2008 by not explaining why he cut Arnold's request so drastically, and sent back the legal-fees dispute to be heard by another judge.

Cliffview Pilot.com reported that when Arnold realized the drunk driver, Daniel Lanzaro, had only $100,000 in insurance, she brought in other defendants, including the New York Giants, National Football League, New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority and Giants Stadium, where Lanzaro had a staggering amount of beer during a game, as well as Aramark Corp., the stadium vendor that served him before he smashed head-on into the Vernis' vehicle in Hasbrouck Heights in 1999.

Have you noticed subtle typographical changes that allow more vertical room on some pages? The change is most noticeable on the editorial page, where the names of managers and editors now appear below the editorials. On the fronts, the changes seem to accommodate ads that run along the bottom of the pages.