Christie's mean GOP spirit is looming over the front page

Governor Christie at the Republican National Convention, where he said he has been wacko racist Donald J. Trump's friend for 14 years.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Page 1 today, The Record's chief medical writer again lets Governor Christie off the hook for trying to sabotage President Obama's health-care law in New Jersey.

And today's centerpiece on a young woman -- the first in her family to attend college -- is another in an occasional series, Muslims are Just Like You and Me, the paper has been running since Christie sought to bar all Syrian refugees from New Jersey (A-1).

I can't recall the last time Staff Writer Lindy Washburn included background information on how Christie refused to set up a health-care exchange in New Jersey when the federal Affordable Care Act took effect a few years ago (A-1).

That meant tens of thousands of residents, along with consumers in more than 30 other states with Republican governors, were thrown onto the overburdened federal exchange.

Next year, the number of New Jersey insurers will dwindle to two from five in 2016, Washburn reports, further limiting choice and raising premiums.

Local news?

A radical proposal to move the start time to "as late as 8:30" at Tenafly High School merits a front-page brief and a full story on the Local front today (L-1).

A story about Tenafly's school board appears on L-5.

Hackensack readers are racking their brains for the last time they saw a story about their schools or school board.

Apparently, Staff Writer John Seasly, who covers the city, is stretched thin just attending City Council meetings.

Today, Seasly reports the council hired Ted Ehrenburg as city manager to replace David Troast at the end of the month (L-5).

Ehrenburg, 59, of Hackettstown, a former police chief and business administrator, will be paid $170,000 a year.

Obits, crash photos

Eight days of coverage marking the 15th anniversary of 9/11 -- ending on Monday -- sucked the energy out of the Woodland Park newsroom, judging from all the filler in the local-news section today.

A pair of rollover crash photos on L-3 from ambulance-chasing Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi have readers saying gee whiz.

A third crash photo from the talented photographer plugs a hole on L-6.

Half of L-5 is taken up by obituaries of Sam Iacobellis, an obscure aerospace engineer, and Stanley Sheinbaum, the "liberal lion of Los Angeles." 

Today's focus on local news is welcome, but may not last

Atlantic and Main streets in Hackensack once was the site of the Washington Institute, founded in 1769 and considered to be "one of the finest educational institutions in the state, according to this marker, and "it brought recognition to the Village of Hackensack."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Three of the four major elements on Page 1 of The Record today focus on local issues, and the local-news section actually has reports from towns on almost every page.

Although local news bores most of the editors and reporters, this is the stuff homeowners and others need to know to judge how well their tax dollars are being spent.

On Page 1 today, Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi turned in a great enterprise shot from Hackensack's Junior Police Academy, showing he has a lot more talent than readers see in his ambulance-chasing accident photos, which are often used as filler in Local.

But Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado did a poor job of researching her story on Palisades Park's Korean residents asking for an interpreter at Borough Council meetings (A-1).

Her first paragraph mentions interpreters in municipal courts and hospitals, but that ignores the interpreting staff attached to every state Superior Court.

Trump, Clinton

The Record and other media largely continue to ignore the issues in the presidential campaign, but at least the stories about GOP nominee Donald J. Trump's racism and Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails are played on A-7 today.

The lead story -- "Chilling posts by Trump staffers" -- is from The Associated Press:

"Donald Trump's paid campaign staffers have declared on their social media accounts that Muslims are unfit to be American citizens, ridiculed Mexican accents, called for Secretary of State John Kerry's death by hanging and stated their readiness for a possible civil war" (A-7).

Catholic sex abuse

In contrast to all of the Page 1 stories about the pope and the Newark archbishop, settlement of a child sex-abuse lawsuit against Bergen Catholic High School was pushed back to the Local front today.

Still, there is no explanation why the $1.9 million settlement from last November is just being reported, nor any mention that lawyers for the victims will likely take about a third of the money (L-1).

Traffic tickets

Monday's Page 1 story on the drop in the number of tickets issued to drivers on Bergen County roads and highways is missing so much information you have to wonder why The Record published it.

Staff Writer Jean Rimbach begins by reporting that "most drivers" will welcome the decline in enforcement by the Bergen County Bureau of Police Services, but that would mean the majority break traffic laws.

That's preposterous.

In fact, a minority of drivers speed and drive recklessly, and endanger others who have enough to worry about on Bergen County's antiquated road network.

There is one reference to "a reduction in moving and non-moving violations," but nowhere does Rimbach discuss such specifics as speeding tickets.

Least productive

Typically, Rimbach spends weeks or months on such projects, under the protection of Editor Deirdre Sykes, the newsroom's mother hen, and Sykes publishes the results no matter how flawed.

The Record already missed a bigger story -- a dramatic drop in the number of speeding summonses issued by state police on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway in the past five years. 

See: 

Speeders are having a field day

Editors clash on Orlando killings: Hate crime or terrorism?

New York Post front pages from last Tuesday, above, and last Monday, below, contained clashing portraits of Omar Mateen, who used a military style assault weapon and a handgun to kill 49 people in an Orlando, Fla., gay dance club last Sunday.

A week after the slaughter inside Pulse nightclub, The Record of Woodland Park and other news media continue to struggle with whether the U.S.-born ISIS sympathizer was committing a hate crime against the LGBT community or was a terrorist.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers of The Record are pulled this way and that by today's front-page package on the slaughter inside a gay dance club in Orlando, Fla.

A week after Omar Mateen gunned down 49 people, readers aren't sure whether he was a Muslim terrorist or a Muslim who hated homosexuals or a little bit of both (A-1).

A news story from Asbury Park reports the advocacy group Garden State Equality used its annual fundraising walk to honor the victims of the Pulse dance club attack.

Below the fold, Staff Writer Mike Kelly continues to portray Mateen as an extremist in a column that recalls the 9/11 hearings in 2004, and then launches into a tedious exploration of a so-called debate on what words to use to describe a Muslim terrorist.

The Record's editing and production staff missed a major error in Staff Writer Matthew McGrath's story on the Garden State Equality walk -- the attack in Orlando was a week ago, not the "six days" ago that begin the second paragraph on Page 1.

Local news?

On the Local front, Staff Writer John Cichowski jumps through hoops to try to interest readers in a story on pedestrian safety at NJ Transit rail stations (L-1).

The veteran columnist actually left the office to cover a dog-and-pony show the state's mass-transit agency staged in Secaucus to dramatize the danger of walking and burying your head in a smartphone.

NJ Transit has come a long way, and no longer labels people who are killed by trains, including suicides, as "trespassers."

Cichowski pats the state agency on the back for being "proactive" by building fences in two communities.

But he doesn't mention a long stretch of track in the middle of Railroad Avenue in Hackensack that remains unfenced even though a middle school student was killed by a train there in 2010. 

LOL moment

On the Business front today, a large photo of apartment construction on Main Street in Hackensack provides a laughing-out-loud moment for residents (B-1).

In the foreground, Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi captured one of the many homeless men who roam around the city not far from the Bergen County shelter, where they are served three meals a day.

The story doesn't mention the Borgs are planning to unload 19.7 acres in Hackensack on an apartment developer in return for $20 million or more -- a deal that presumably will go forward even if they sell North Jersey Media Group and The Record to the Gannett company, as reported last week.

It's no secret

On the Better Living front today, Staff Writer Elisa Ung divulges two North Jersey chefs' "secrets" for losing weight, and provides four of their recipes (BL-1 and BL-2).

Except readers don't learn any "secrets," only stories of self-control and choosing lots of vegetables, fruit and naturally raised meat over all of the artery clogging dishes and sugary desserts the paper's chief reviewer promotes in her weekly restaurant appraisals.

Still, one element of Ung's column deserves praise, and that's the clever headline:

"WAIST NOT"

Me, me, me

A second column from Kelly labels as "nonsense, pathetic nonsense" the notion that if more law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry guns, "murderers like Omar Mateen could be stopped before they fired off too many shots" (O-1 and O-2).

But before readers see that rare opinion, they have to plow through Kelly's describing his journalism experience over a four-decade career:

"I was 23 years old when I covered my first mass murder," Kelly says in his first sentence.

Later, he reports, "This columnist has been caught in street gun fights in the Middle East."

Give me a break.

Editors gaze into crystal balls, ignore our messy present

This morning, Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, between Main Street and the railroad tracks, remained a one-lane street -- just one of the many spots city plows missed after the snow stopped falling on Saturday night.

On Main Street in Hackensack, between Berry and Passaic streets, parking was banned this morning, above and below, until the city could clear all of the snow in front of parking meters.

Lavash City, an Armenian restaurant, and other businesses on this block of Main are lucky to have a rear parking lot for customers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's editors are so bored with our dysfunctional state government and the blizzard of 2016 they are already looking into the future.

On Page 1 today, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson and Staff Writer James O'Neill are gazing into crystal balls on November ballot questions and the weather for the rest of the winter.

On the Local front, the moronic Road Warrior, John Cichowski, continues to ignore blizzard dangers -- even as the death toll mounts -- and referees a pissing match over whether residents are obligated to clear fire hydrants of snow (L-1).

On the first Business page, Staff Writer Joan Verdon delivers a breathless report on a German discount supermarket chain that isn't expected to open stores in the U.S. before 2018 (L-8).

Snow clearing

The snow stopped falling Saturday night, but pedestrians continue to encounter third-world snow clearing in Hackensack and many other towns, where bus stops, corners, turn lanes, parking meters and crosswalks remain covered or barricaded today.

On the Local front, the editors published an image rarely seen in the Woodland Park daily -- a Hackensack bus stop blocked by a snowbank (L-1).

On Sunday and Monday, reporters visited a couple dozen towns, but pretty much ignored the amateurish job turned in by municipal crews -- as The Record has done for decades. 

Snow job

One example was reporting from the front lines in Teaneck by resident and Columnist Mike Kelly, the veteran reporter whose work appears regularly on the front page. 

Here is an excerpt from his hard-hitting report in Monday's Local section:

"By noon Sunday, Teaneck's main business district along Cedar Lane was buzzing with traffic and pedestrians."

Kelly probably could have described Cedar Lane the same way on any Sunday, given the large number of Orthodox Jews in town who are forbidden from shopping on Saturday.

He also noted "mounds of snow" were "left at the end of [residents'] driveways by snowplows that worked through the night to clear town streets."

Apparently, Kelly didn't venture very far, because he missed the poor job the snowplows did on Cedar Lane, where only one of two travel lanes was clear between the Hackensack line and River Road on Monday morning.

Wrong headline

Even though a number of people died from shoveling snow, carbon-monoxide poisoning and hypothermia over the weekend, Monday's local front carried an upbeat headline and sub-headline:

Postcards from a wintry land

North Jersey
worked hard
in storm, but 
played, too

This is what a block on Main Street in Hackensack looks like after the snow was cleared from in front of parking meters.

The bus stop at Euclid Avenue and Main Street, where you can board NJ Transit buses to the city, remained buried under snow this morning, including the city provided bench.

Ditto for the bus stop across the street from Sears on Main Street.

Governor Christie

Wow, would you look at all of the ink on Page 1 today criticizing Governor Christie for leaving New Jersey on Sunday and returning to New Hampshire in his futile campaign for the GOP presidential nomination (A-1).

I can't recall headlines this big or similar criticism when he did a number of things as governor -- from cancelling new Hudson River rail tunnels in 2010, waging war on teachers and other members of the middle class, and executing more than 500 vetoes so far to stop bills on gun control and a host of other issues.

Burger King

An editorial today on the response to the blizzard doesn't question why employees of Burger King in Hackensack didn't call police when an elderly New York woman told them she was afraid to drive home in the storm on Saturday afternoon, and planned to park in their Hackensack Avenue lot (A-8).

Police Director Mike Mordaga says in a news story on A-6 today the body of the unidentified woman, 78, was found in her gold Cadillac on Monday morning.

The Burger King had closed at 5 p.m. on Saturday, and didn't reopen until Monday morning.

On Spring Valley Avenue in Maywood, near the Hackensack border, a woman was forced to walk on the pavement this morning, only inches from passing cars on a street that is too narrow for all the traffic it carries in even the best of weather.

The corner of Main Street and Johnson Avenue in Hackensack.

Editors' big buildup of Hurricane Joaquin, Christie fizzles

Judging from the wait for PSE&G's boiler turn-on service ($25), the suddenly cooler weather took hundreds of North Jersey homeowners by surprise. As of Friday, the earliest appointment I could get is this coming Wednesday morning. My boiler may have been affected by a burst pipe and flood last winter.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record today doesn't mention that almost half of Friday's front page was devoted to hyping Hurricane Joaquin and praising Governor Christie for leaving the presidential campaign trail and riding to the rescue of shore residents.

Now, Joaquin, Christie and his transportation chief have fizzled, but lots of space today is devoted to officials who "saw value in preparing for the worst" (A-1).

Gee. Where were they before Irene and Sandy savaged New Jersey?

Christie and Fox

The governor's pick for state transportation chief was James P. Fox, a former United Airlines lobbyist who may have had a role in arranging a flight to near the vacation home of a close friend, Christie mentor and then-Port Authority Chairman David Samson.

But since Fox took over in September 2014, he has done little to resolve the crisis with the state Transportation Trust Fund, reduce traffic congestion or improve mass transit.

Now, he has resigned amid questions about his agency forgiving a $104,000 potential penalty against United (A-1).

'Outrageous'

The only difference between Republican Anthony Coppola, Christie and Tea Party members of Congress is that the onetime councilman wrote a self-published book expressing his racist, homophobic and anti-senior citizen views.

First, Coppola withdrew as a state Assembly candidate, and now, he has resigned from the River Edge Borough Council (A-1).

The title of his 2003 book is "Outrageous."

On Friday's L-1, The Record reported:

"Cappola, in 223 pages [of his book], offers a near constant stream of racial slurs and offensive sexual slang, detailing stereotypes of minorities, men, women, gays and lesbians."

Among his targets, the story reported, was Pope John Paul II.

Warning signs

The Record and other media still haven't explained why anyone is surprised that a 26-year-old who owned at least 13 guns and "studied mass shooters" finally snapped and killed nine of his fellow college students (A-1 and A-9).

We may see the end of mass shootings when anyone who owns more than one gun raises alarms from neighbors, the police and the media. 

Local news?

Three large photos of non-fatal accidents -- all by Staff Photographer Tariq "Crash" Zehawi -- appear in Local today (L-1, L-2 and L-3).

Zehawi specializes in drive-by photos, and the desperate editors who run them are so lazy the captions tell readers nothing about the possible cause or answer other questions.

What do you expect? The photos are meant only as filler, not news. 

Was the Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid Zehawi saw in a ditch run off Route 3 in East Rutherford by the resentful driver of one of those enormous, gas-guzzling SUVs (L-1)?

Was the Teaneck police officer on the way to a nearby Dunkin' Donuts when his cruiser was involved in a collision with a big pickup truck at Cedar Lane and Palisade Avenue (L-3).

Did the pickup driver receive a summons? Was the police cruiser responding to an emergency with lights flashing and siren operating?

Why does the marked cruiser appear not to have emergency lights on the roof?

Lazy editing

The over lines used on two L-1 photos show a complete lack of imagination, and amount to little more than labels from a bored editor:

"CAR IN DITCH IN EAST RUTHERFORD"

"NOT THE BEST WALKING WEATHER"

Both are obvious to the reader. 

Is that the best this once great local newspaper and its overpaid editors can do?

Brain food

The feature on North Jersey seafood restaurants is a welcome antidote to the relentless consumption and promotion of unhealthy food by The Record's Elisa Ung, and other reporters and editors (BL-1).

But why does the paper's chief restaurant critic devote most of the space and all but one of the photos to the most expensive places? 

Maybe, it's because those places advertise in The Record or Ung is so spoiled by the paper paying for meals costing hundreds of dollars that she no longer knows the value of money.

Varka, which gets top billing today, charges an outrageous $49 a pound for Dover Sole, $50 a pound for Tiger Shrimp from the Atlantic Ocean and $59 a pound for Langoustines from the Mediterranean.

More reporting of news, views from everywhere but here

The Fort Lee street they never finished. That's the impression residents and visitors get from all of the digging, jack-hammering, patching and tearing up of Main Street in the past couple of years. On Monday, the block of Main Street with the post office, restaurants and a bakery was completely closed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I get it. Even a minor victory over Governor Christie's regressive policies is front-page news.

That's why a deal with Senate leaders to scrap the controversial Return Home New Jersey program is on Page 1 of The Record today.

But this A-1 story involves only a few hundred developmentally disabled adults living in other states, and leading the paper with it is inappropriate.

Meanwhile, with so many better food-shopping options available in North Jersey, the bankruptcy of A&P means little to anyone who doesn't work at the 25 stores that may close (A-1).

So, why is this story on A-1?

Two corrections

A correction on A-2 today notes The Record, in a story on Sunday's Local front, "misidentified the location of a birthday celebration for 90-year-old veteran Vito Trause."

The story also misidentified one of Trause's longtime friends, Bobby Keane.

On Sunday's L-1, Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, a newsroom veteran, reported the party was at the "local Knights of Columbus Hall," a reference to Washington Township.

But on L-6, Diskin reported "the parade was followed by a party on the back lawn of the American Legion Hall."

The correction says Knights of Columbus Hall is correct, and longtime friend Bobby Keane -- who arranged "a siren-blasting escort" by police and firefighters -- was referred to incorrectly as "Danny Keane."

Just goes to show that even when Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza focus on local news, six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton's lax standards and lack of oversight can really screw things up.

Trump editorial

The story on Vito Trause, a prisoner of war, appeared on the same day the media went bananas over Donald Trump's derogatory comments about another POW, U.S. Sen. John McCain (Sunday's A-1).

Today, an editorial slams Trump's inane comments as an "insult to all POWs" (A-8).

And what about two big factual errors in the 90th birthday story about Vito Trause? Aren't they insulting, too?

Local crash news

If you're looking for local news today, check out the L-1 photo of a two-car accident in Fair Lawn and the photo by Tariq Zehawi, the staffer who has been ordered to chase ambulances for more years than I care to remember.

Zehawi got everything in the photo -- it almost looks posed -- but overworked police reporter Stefanie Dazio couldn't find out any details on the collision involving an Elmwood Park police cruiser.

On L-3 today, the local editors, Sykes and Sforza, show readers that orange is the new black and white -- three color photos of defendants in orange jail jumpsuits against an ocean of back headlines and type.

I see nothing in today's Local section on Monday night's scheduled meeting of the Hackensack City Council.

Greece again

Why are the media so fascinated with Greece?

Two more stories appear on the first Business page today (L-8), one bemoaning the 22 cents extra Greeks now have to pay to get onions on their souvlaki.

New Jersey's economy is just limping along, and Puerto Rico is facing bankruptcy, yet all we see in The Record is an endless stream of stories about Greece.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that at the end of 2014, "Greeks owed their government about $86 billion in unpaid taxes accrued over decades, but mostly since 2009."

"Billions more in taxes are owed on never-reported revenue from Greece's vast underground economy," the paper reported.

If that holds lessons for New Jersey, where Christie has repeatedly vetoed a tax surcharge on millionaires, The Record has yet to draw any parallels.

And readers don't even know whether the many wealthy Greek restaurant owners in North Jersey, many of whom own homes and other property in their native country, are among those who have traditionally refused to pay taxes there, precipitating the crisis.

Here's breathtaking 'local' news you might have missed

News Corp. headquarters on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, newspapers like the New York Post and other media properties here and around the world deliver slanted news every day, not just for the holidays.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front pages of The Record in the past few days seem to shout: "No news today."

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads today's paper with a political column that poses an unasked question, Which GOP moron do you prefer in the presidential election in 2016?

"Bush" is a four-letter word that only reminds New Jerseyans of the 9/11 attack, the worst recession in memory, and two ruinous wars that killed thousands of Americans, wasted billions of dollars and lined the pockets of the military-industrial complex. (A-1).

Car news?  

How many owners of Mercedes-Benzes know or care where the German automaker's U.S. headquarters are located (A-1)?

Why is this story on Page 1 -- unless it's just another piece of the paper's strategy to cover the biggest advertisers to the exclusion of comprehensive local news?

At the bottom of today's front page, United Airlines and the Port Authority continue their pissing match over what makes flying out of Newark International Airport so expensive (A-1).

Nowhere have I seen any explanation of why my United flight to Jamaica in August didn't even have free music channels.

Brick latkes

If you've been complaining that your mother-in-law's latkes taste like bricks, she might have used a recipe the Better Living section published on Tuesday (BL-1 photo and BL-2 recipe).

An A-2 correction today notes "six eggs" were omitted from the ingredients list by Nina Rizzo, presumably a freelancer. LOL.

That's just another example of careful editing by Food Editor Esther Davidowitz, who betrayed her Jewish heritage by missing this error in a recipe for potato pancakes.

Puff pieces

Also today and every Wednesday, Davidowitz runs press releases from North Jersey restaurants that advertise heavily in the Woodland Park daily (BL-2).

The feature is called "FYI: What's new, what's happening and what's trending in the North Jersey dining scene."

What's trending is that Elisa Ung is rewriting promotional press releases from many of the same restaurants she should be evaluating critically as the paper's chief restaurant reviewer.

Davidowitz's contribution to the Better Living section, Coffee with the Chef, doesn't say which Hackensack Thai restaurant Koson Sillpsitte once worked at (BL-2).

What is the point of this feature, except to further glorify chefs and restaurants? 

In one recent column, a chef recommended salting pasta water "like the ocean," advice that was of little use to anyone, especially people trying to avoid excessive sodium.

Breaking local news

The Local news section today leads with the rescue of a dog from a Fort Lee house fire (L-1).

An accident photo on L-3 shows first responders standing around with their hands in their pockets, and the caption tells you little about the cause or whether a summons was issued.

Tuesday's Local front was dominated by a photo showing the wreckage of a FedEx tractor-trailer on Route 287 in Mahwah, but the story didn't say whether any packages destined for North Jersey residents were damaged or destroyed.

Below that, Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi came up with yet another filler photo of a non-fatal collision of two vehicles in Emerson (Tuesday's L-1).

Wow! Look at how the hood and bumper of that new SUV came off in the crash! Wow! Look at that fireman with his hands in his pockets!

Another great job by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza and their minions.

Elderly drivers

Road Warrior John Cichowski has spent so much time campaigning against life-saving red-light cameras, he has completely ignored the challenges faced by older drivers.

Did he or his lazy, clueless assignment editors see the story on L-2 of Sunday's Local section, reporting that two elderly pedestrians were struck by cars driven by older drivers in separate Fair Lawn incidents on Saturday?

An 82-year-old woman was "severely injured" by a driver "in his 80s" behind the wheel of an enormous Mercury Grand Marquis.

"Ten hours later and a mile away," a 64-year-old man was hit by a car driven by a 71-year-old male.

All four were residents of Fair Lawn, but I haven't seen a follow up on whether the drivers were issued summonses.

Noe does Cichowski seem to care whether retraining or other help is available for older drivers.

Leave it to Christie to slow mass transit, not expand it

Q

NJ Transit adds cars to its trains to handle increased ridership, but many platforms are too short to accommodate them, such as this one in New Brunswick.

If police are going to search commuters' bags, that would worsen an already agonizingly slow commute on weekday afternoons for North Jersey residents who catch buses at the Port Authority's antiquated midtown Manhattan bus terminal, above.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When it comes to the overburdened mass-transit system, Governor Christie has been consistent, doing everything in his power to kill any attempt to expand it and speed the commute for hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents.

At the same time, he's refused to raise the state gasoline tax (10.5 cents per gallon) -- the second lowest in the nation -- to revitalize the trust fund that pays for road and mass-transit improvements.

Today, The Record reports Christie joined New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in announcing plans for heightened anti-terrorism measures, including more police at mass-transit hubs (A-6).

On Page 1, Columnist Charles Stile again sounds like he is in Christie's pocket, peddling the ficiton our GOP bully has "bipartisan credentials" to burnish (A-1).

Legislative ignorance

Meanwhile, even the majority Democrats in the New Jersey Legislature are afraid of proposing a higher gasoline tax as the price dips below $3 a gallon.

Staff Writer Christopher Maag should have led his story on a Trenton hearing with the ridiculous remarks of Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, D-Essex, a woman I have previously admired (A-3).

"...I'm worried about the average family with four kids and two SUVs that spends $140 a week filling up their tanks," Oliver is quoted as saying. "If the gas tax is increased, what's the impact on them?"

Oliver apparently knows nothing about cars, especially how SUVs use more gas and are not considered as safe as smaller vehicles, as well as how they contribute to climate change.

Any family concerned about high fuel costs certainly wouldn't own two of them, and would trade in at least one SUV on a far more fuel-efficient vehicle.

SUV owners also drive more aggressively and speed more than owners of smaller vehicles -- on the parkway and turnpike, they menace slower drivers -- and get away with it because of lax enforcement.

Page 1 today

The Times-like front page today holds little interest for residents of Hackensack and many other towns.

There is municipal news in the paper today as the Local section's assignment editors and reporters finally got to work on Wednesday.

But it's unclear what Staff Writer Todd South does between the Hackensack City Council meetings he has covered.

Just puzzling

The big photo on L-1 today shows a woman staring into her phone as two police officers survey the damage to a demolished Chevrolet Traverse in Ridgewood.

Staffer Tariq Zehawi didn't bother finding out whether the woman was given a summons or what caused the crash, and the Woodland Park newsroom apparently didn't care either.

The drive-by photo is another example of the trivial filler that has been used by the desperate Local editors for years.

Readers would prefer to see the talented photo staffs' enterprise work, even weather photos, than an endless procession of non-fatal crashes and rollovers and photo captions with no information.

Too little, too late

Many weeks after the start of utility work and other construction work on Route 46 in Little Ferry and local streets, what's the point of today's Road Warrior column (L-1)?

The only bit of useful advice from Staff Writer John Cichowski is buried: 

Check the Web sites of PSE&G and municipalities for road and street closures.

A couple of paragraphs would have sufficed.

Second look

The Wednesday food page in Better Living is a far cry from the Wednesday food section Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded not long after he took over.

Now, Wednesday's BL-2 is largely devoted to promoting restaurants and local chefs, such as Adam Weiss of Due, a Ridgewood restaurant that received 3.5 out of 4 stars and a rare Page 1 promo from The Record last week.

In COFFEE WITH THE CHEF, Weiss, who is 37, talks about his love for Twix bars, salting pasta water "like the ocean" and molten chocolate cake.

If the paper's older readers followed his example, they would end up in the hospital.

The Record always provides a pronunciation guide to the name of the pricey restaurant, Due ("do-ay") lest some might think it rhymes with "doo" as in doo doo.

The pasta recipe from clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson on Wednesday's BL-2 includes a half-cup of artery clogging heavy cream and 4 ounces-plus of full-fat blue cheese.

Where do I throw up?