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.

Winter's walking and driving challenges bore editors

It's snowing again on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

An elderly or overweight pedestrian trying to climb over a slippery snow bank blocking a crosswalk isn't very dramatic.

And no one at The Record seems to have noticed how many drivers are challenging each other for the right of way on streets narrowed by uncleared snow.

Walking and driving have been a challenge since Thursday's nor'easter dumped 12 inches to 16 inches of snow and rain on the region.

Newsroom napping

But in the Woodland Park newsroom, drowsy editors order photographers to wow them with images of collapsed buildings and a smash-and-grab jewelry heist in Paramus, splashing them all over Page 1 and the Local front today.

In Teaneck and Englewood today, Orthodox Jews were forced to walk in the street to and from services or carry their small children over snow blocking crosswalks.

On Dean Street through downtown Englewood, congested with traffic in the best of times, snow narrowed the normal two lanes, prompting drivers to fight for the right of way.

Non-profit burden

Another front-page story today quotes Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn expressing concern The Valley Hospital, a non-profit, might try to have off-site properties it is buying declared tax exempt (A-1 and A-7).

Hackensack residents aren't holding their breath for their mayor, John Labrosse, to express concern over the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-exempt property owned by the non-profit Hackensack University Medical Center, which also happens to be his employer.

The significant shift in the tax burden to residents and businesses stung again on Feb. 10, when 1st-quarter property taxes were due in Hackensack.

But residents who wrote big property tax checks don't get much in return when it comes to snow removal, and many find city plows undoing all the work of clearing driveways.

Hackensack news

Today's Page 1 photo of a roof collapse in Hackensack shows three city firefighters standing 40 feet or 50 feet away from the building and looking at it, yet the caption says they are "checking a vacant Passaic Street building."

On the Local front today, the big Hackensack news isn't the poor job of snow removal or property owners who never cleared their sidewalks.

Instead, we get another story about honest James Brady, the formerly homeless man who is still waiting for the welfare bureaucracy to restore his monthly cash benefit (L-1).

Don't forget to recycle your newspaper right away

I voted at the Fairmount Elementary School in Hackensack last November and again in April, May and this month. If Governor Christie gets his way, I'll be returning to the school to vote in August, October and November.




Once you've read the funeral tributes to U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg on Page 1 of The Record today, you might as well put the paper in the recycling bin.

Don't look for any important state or local news on the front page.

Another follow-up to Governor Christie's decision to squander $24 million on an August primary and October election to pick Lautenberg's successor ends up on A-3.

Editor Marty Gottlieb wastes A-1 space on yet another story and yet another vagina-monologue  column on Julie Hermann, Rutgers' incoming athletic director.

Christie's agenda

Christie attended services for Lautenberg, and was probably wondering whether he'll be remembered for perverting public service into a conservative, anti-social agenda. 

The Record's editorial on the special primary and election for U.S. senator ran on Wednesday, carefully justifying Christie's decision on partisan political grounds rather than discussing whether it is good for taxpayers and voters.

Hospital expansions

On head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local front, what is probably the 100th story about expansion of The Valley Hospital reports continuing opposition from neighbors (L-1).

Hackensack readers can only recall what poor coverage The Record gave to complaints from neighbors about repeated expansions of Hackensack University Medical Center.

Two possible reasons are North Jersey Media Group Vice President and General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg, who once served on the hospital board, and all of the advertising the hospital bought in the paper and on the North Jersey.com Web site.

Hospital coverage sickens readers

Image via Wikipedia
The Record ran an OpEd column by former Gov. Christie Whitman, but editors don't think much of her idea for a bipartisan presidential ticket. The story is on A-3 today. 

Starting on Page 1 of The Record today, more than 80 inches of text, headlines and a photo are devoted to a subject few readers care about: the future of The Valley Hospital.


Did Publisher Stephen A. Borg -- a member of the President's Council at the Ridgewood hospital -- have anything to do with this extensive "analysis" -- just the latest in a seemingly endless stream of stories in recent years?


The President's Council is a group of community and business leaders who "learn about the work" of the hospital and serve "as liaisons to The Valley Hospital community," according to the hospital Web site. 


Of course, Borg's affiliation is not mentioned in today's extensive coverage nor has it ever been mentioned in previous stories.


Cain wasn't able


Another non-story dominates Interim Editor Doug Clancy's front page today: Herman Cain suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.


Did the media or anybody else really believe that after demonizing Barack Obama, Republicans and their rabid Tea Party faction were going to elect a black man as their president, even if his last name didn't recall Cain and Abel?


A more significant political story is on A-3, and it should have been played out front, in place of the anticlimactic Cain story: former Republican Gov. Christie Whitman's effort to put together a "bipartisan" presidential ticket.


More jock-strap news


A photo at the bottom of A-1 shows a group of stoned Wayne Hills High School students -- referred to in the photo caption as part of "a thinned but enthusiastic cadre of fans" -- at the football game missing the nine thuggish jerk-offs who were suspended after being charged with aggravated assault.


Despite extensive Page 1 coverage in recent weeks, The Record hasn't provided any real details of the assault allegations or explained whether the rivalry between Wayne Hills and Wayne Valley High School goes beyond football.


Any reader who can fathom the front-page story on police consolidation should get a year's subscription free (A-1).


Same old, same old


On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, readers find another deeply flawed Road Warrior column, this one based on a 42-year-old accident (L-1).


John Cichowski is relying more and more on e-mail from readers to determine what he writes about. 


Does the reporter have any original ideas left? Isn't commuting supposed to be his beat? Will he ever leave the office to report a story? Do readers get off seeing their names in print among all of Cichowski's drivel and misinformation?


The section contains no Hackensack or Teaneck news or anything from many other communities.


Industry oriented


In Business, Staff Writer Hugh R. Morley does a good job of reporting the controversy over low-priced Chinese solar panels flooding the market and the drastically lower value of credits solar panel owners sell to utilities (B-1).


But the story could have been more consumer friendly, if he included information on loans that allow homeowners to install solar panels with little out-of-pocket expense, and the Dec. 31 deadline for such a program at Public Service Electric and Gas Co.


Stomach turning


In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's Sunday column promotes new owners of the once-bankrupt Charley Brown's chain (B-1). 


They've expanded their mystery meat menu to overcooked farmed salmon; a bizarre fish taco, made with melted cheese, iceberg lettuce and a hard taco shell inside a soft tortilla; and an antibiotic-packed pork loin. Yuck.


In Opinion, I guess Columnist Mike Kelley is telling readers he doesn't eat meat or wouldn't his column condemning the bear hunt be hypocritical (O-1)?


Related posts

• Mac Borg settles porn-suit allegations (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Columnist trashes 'drunken Indian' (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Stephen Borg fingered as 'the real problem' (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Insulting readers' intelligence

Image by antonellomusina via Flickr
This turkey and all the trimmings were safely transported in a car
by following advice in today's Road Warrior column in The Record.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg appears to have seized upon "news you can use" in a bid to keep readers, but three pieces in the The Record today go a long way toward insulting their intelligence.


The story on A-6 and the Road Warrior column are especially bad, because they merely pass along a lot of common sense, such as getting enough sleep and eating before a car trip. 


You almost get the feeling the assignment desk believes most readers are completely out of it or have just been released from decades-long prison sentences.


The first supposedly reader-friendly story appears on Page 1 under a really stupid headline, "Think before going to the airport," thanks to Editor Liz Houlton's clueless news copy desk.


The routine photo with the story is by Staff Photographer Kevin Wexler, but interim Editor Doug Clancy continues a tradition of the editors turning their backs on their talented photographers by running an AP photo from Egypt as the central element on A-1.


Hospital follies


At the top of A-1, the headline "Big win for hospital plan" is not about the proposed expansion of The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood -- previewed in a story Tuesday -- but about the reopening of Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood.


The off-lead on the front page -- a story about businesses chasing public contracts at the League of Municipalities Convention -- is eye-glazingly dull and goes on forever.


Look at the silly lead paragraph of the A-6 story on holiday driving: "If you're traveling by car for the Thanksgiving holiday, expect lots of company on the road."


Tie down that pot


In his statistics-packed column on the front of Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski's advice on holiday driving seems superfluous. (I just managed to skim it before throwing up.)


Do the editors really think the commuting columnist should spend time telling readers to tie down pots, trays and plates to keep them from shifting in the car and to bring towels in case of spills?


Instead of doing three pieces on holiday travel, why not wrap it all up in a single story, and eliminate the idiocy?


The only Hackensack news in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section today concerns the homeless (L-2).

Stories you didn't see in The Record

Image via Wikipedia















The County Seat, a weekly newspaper published by the Zisa family, has a front-page story in the issue dated Dec. 1 on a plan to remake Main Street in Hackensack, including a return to two-way traffic.

The proposal was put forward at a meeting two weeks ago in the Johnson Public Library, and hasn't been reported in The Record of Woodland Park. Head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Syskes and Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado likely were catching up on their beauty sleep.

The plan was put forward by the Upper Main Alliance, a non-profit group of business owners and city officials.

Meanwhile, The Ridgewood Blog reports today that a lawsuit challenging the validity of the H-Hospital Zone Amendment to the Village Master Plan was filed Monday in Superior Court in Hackensack.

This is related to expansion of The Valley Hospital, a controversy to which The Record has devoted a huge amount of staff time in the past two years, but the former Hackensack daily didn't have anything on the suit today. 


Instead, the legal action was reported in The Ridgewood News, a weekly owned by The Record's parent, North Jersey Media Group.

Asleep at the editing switch

Image via Wikipedia
















For the third time in less than a week, a front-page story in The Record of Woodland Park today has a confusing first paragraph that leaves readers wondering if it's them or just incredibly sloppy editing. 

And the biggest element on the page -- mosque opponents and proponents rallying near Ground Zero (photo) -- carries a headline that merely restates what has been obvious for weeks: "Mosque emotions high." Maybe the headline writer was high.

Transportation reporter Tom Davis and his clueless assignment editor abhor straight writing. Their lead paragraphs often contain a play on words or a distorted angle or some gimmick to snare readers, and so it is today with the A-1 story on the possible privatization of NJ Transit parking lots. (Why is this leading the paper; isn't it just a study now?)

"North Jersey commuters may soon have to pay more to park near trains and buses so that they can pay less to ride them."

Huh? "Pay less to ride them." What does that mean? Will the fares be cut? They just went up. Does the reporter mean pay less than driving? Commuters who use trains and buses are doing that now, have been for years. He couldn't resist the "pay more-pay less" tension, but he loses readers in the process.

Davis is like the other transportation reporters at The Record. He prefers writing about proposals, studies and reports rather than riding and rating mass transit on behalf of long-suffering commuters, who have to ride standing up on many lines.

And when writing about NJ Transit's deficit, as he does today, he never reminds readers that Governor Christie cut state aid to mass transit, forcing the recent fare hikes. 

A-1 coverage of the mosque controversy merely duplicates what other media have been doing for a few weeks now. Where are the North Jersey voices? Where are quotes from Muslims who opened mosques in Teaneck, Hackensack and Paterson?


The Local section today is consumed with non-profit and charity news. I wish the desperate editors would ban stories about bikers who roar around North Jersey on charity runs until the motorcycle owners stop making their machines as loud as possible and destroying the quality of life of every block they blast down, usually at some ungodly hour.


The lead story is about Bergenfield joining other towns in putting solar panels on public buildings, and last week a story reported how much Waldwick is saving from doing the same thing. Hackensack officials also have plans to install solar panels on their buildings, but I guess Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes still have their beauty-sleep masks on.


At least two people wrote letters to the editors recently, saying they couldn't find the entrance to the new Overpeck Park, but the letters were printed without comment by Editor Charles Saydah, who was out for his midday jog. Now, Mike Kelly devotes an L-1 column to the question, in a lame  attempt to ridicule county officials. 


For those who don't want to slog through Kelly's drivel, the entrance's address is shown in the photo with the column: 199 Challenger Blvd., Ridgefield Park.

Susan Leigh Sherill, the new food editor hand-picked by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, hasn't joined the staff yet, according to Page F-2 of Better Living today. Her previous journalism jobs are as food and entertainment editor of (201) magazine and editor of The Ridgewood News, a weekly owned by the Borgs' North Jersey Media Group.


She proved controversial in the Ridgewood editor's job, as a review of The Ridgewood Blog for 2007-08 shows. Although she had supporters, many faulted her for favorable coverage of the school board, and a multitude of other so-called sins.

You have to take these comments with a grain of salt, especially if you are familiar with the hysterical residents opposed to the expansion of The Valley Hospital. They are so desperate, they've resorted to saying construction will endanger the health of children at a nearby middle school, without providing any evidence to support that contention. (Of course, that didn't stop The Record's Mary Jo Layton and other reporters from printing and reprinting the allegation without ever asking for that evidence.)


If you read The Ridgewood Blog comments about Sherill, you'll probably agree with me the village should be renamed  "Richwood" or "Bitchwood."

Here's a link to some of the comments: "What's wrong with The Ridgewood News?"

I want to thank Editor Francis "Castrato" Scandale for the great job he is doing with the front page, appealing to readers' base instincts with fear-mongering, as today's mosque story is designed to do.

One town gets special treatment

Image by birdphone via Flickr

With the seeming regularity of the seasons, The Record of Woodland Park takes the pulse of Ridgewood's bustling downtown (photo), while virtually ignoring the increasing number of empty storefronts on Hackensack's Main Street after the newspaper moved out of the city where it prospered for more than 110 years.


A new rewards card designed to lure shoppers to Ridgewood is explored in a long story with photos on the front of the Local news section today -- at least the fourth major story about the village's downtown in the last two years. Meanwhile, the decline of news from Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood is apparent again today, and those struggling downtowns haven't been featured in the paper in many years.


Ridgewood has gotten even more special attention, because of a well-organized group of wealthy residents opposed to expansion of The Valley Hospital. In the past two years, those stories have been numerous and repetitive. The paper never made as much fuss over several expansions of Hackensack University Medical Center, some of which required the demolition of homes. In Ridgewood, the hospital is expanding on its own land.


Hackensack's downtown is beginning to slide back to what it was like in 2005, with many empty storefronts and the homeless roaming Main Street. A new county shelter seems to have removed the homeless, but in the last six months, at least three food businesses have closed, and other storefronts remain vacant.

The Ridgewood coverage often took its cue from protesters, although the paper, eager for increased hospital ad revenue, endorsed the expansion plan. But when former Managing Editor Jim Ahearn erred in his column on the proposed height of the new hospital buildings, the corrections ran on A-2 as well as on the opinion pages -- the first time I have ever seen that.


The Record has never reported how its move out of Hackensack, along with parent company North Jersey Media Group, has changed River City, where it was founded in 1895. Hundreds of printers and other employees were scattered to the winds by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, and others were downsized -- apparently motivated by Borg's desire to make a killing on the sale of 150 River Street and nearly 20 acres of surrounding land, a windfall he has been denied so far, leaving his father Mac as a ghostly presence in the building.

Why does Ridgewood get so much attention? Is it the enterprise of Staff Writer Evonne Coutros, who is assigned to the village, compared with other local reporters, who seem to wait for direction from their clueless assignment editors? Or is it the desperate need for local news copy as the staff's overall productivity has plummeted under the coddling of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who clucks over her reporters like a Mother Hen?

Or is it a conscious decision by the editors and their absentee bosses -- the Borgs -- to cover people like themselves -- a mostly white, upscale audience found in the Ridgewoods of North Jersey and not in the Bergen towns with significant minority populations?

Also in Local, a rare story on people with Alzheimer's disease who wander away appears on L-3. For every Alzheimer's story the youth-oriented editors run, it seems, there are 10 stories on autism. Just another example of what a great job Sykes and Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale are doing. 


Today's front page is solidly New Jersey, and includes a patch story on a poor schmuck from Saddle Brook whose health insurance is so hellish, he has been trapped in a hospital for three years. But the editors must have really been desperate if they led the paper with possible privatization of roadside-service patrols on non-toll highways.

Hey, Monsy, what about the new signs?

Image via Wikipedia

Hey, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado, aren't you going to be writing anything about Hackensack in The Record of Woodland Park outside of the case of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa? What about all the new signs the city has put up in the past couple of months, directing visitors to the Bergen County Courthouse, the Academies, the shopping district, parking, the medical center, and so forth? Isn't that a legitimate story? Maybe even a photo or two? They're gold and blue, and dress up the city.


What about the proposed city budget and tax hike, reportedly more than 7%? Isn't that worthy of coverage? Are you that busy with the Zisa coverage -- and so under the thumb of clueless head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes -- that you have failed so miserably in your assignment: Hackensack.


What about the Police Department's continuing use of gas-guzzling cruisers? Don't you have time to ask the city manager about whether he plans to replace them with more efficient, six-cylinder cars, like the ones being used for parking enforcement? What about solar power for city buildings and schools? In fact, a couple of years ago, in a roundup, you quoted the official as saying Hackensack had taken only "baby steps" on alternative energy. Did you ever follow that up?


Do you still call yourself a reporter, Monsy? How much time do you actually spend in Hackensack? How many residents do you talk to? We know you don't cover City Council or school board meetings, so what do you do to justify your existence? Why is there no Hackensack news in the former Hackensack daily today? Why are you and Sykes giving the royal F.U. to Hackensack residents?

I know you're afraid of Mother Hen Deirdre, Monsy (so is everyone else, including Editor Frank Scandale). And I don't expect you to sacrifice yourself to expose how bad Sykes and her minions are for local news coverage. Where are the Borgs? Counting their money?


The lead story today on A-1 is about the proposed dissolving of Teterboro, which has 38 residents and 23 city workers. I doubt it will come to pass, but if it did, businesses would have to pay higher taxes, and that presumably includes the incredibly annoying airport and jet charter companies.


The Record continues to ignore all the noise Teterboro Airport visits on residents in Hackensack, Maywood and other towns, but can't help promoting business jet sales and travel at the airport, as Staff Writer Richard Newman does today on L-7. Thousands of readers groaned to read about an increase in flights, but Newman did his best imitation of a public relations man on the airport's trade show.


How can The Record be objective about Teterboro? Do you recall how the aviation museum there once was a pet project of then-Publisher Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg. Before the museum was established, Mac couldn't stop promoting it, even when he invited to lunch in his private dining room a new executive director of the Port Authority, which owns the airport. It was the first thing out of Mac's mouth -- expletive deleted.

An alleged sexual assault after a prom? Is that A-1 news? A barn fire in Pequannock (might as well be Wyoming). Is that A-1 news? 


On the front of Local, the road-building lobby continues to call the shots for Road Warrior John Cichowski. Hey, John, ever hear about mass transit?

Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin is the latest staffer to accept protesters' claims that expanding The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood may endanger the health of students in a nearby school (A-22). Did The Record express similar concerns when the FiveSix School was built next to Hackensack Middle School?

The Record supports the hospital expansion -- without acknowledging the potential gain in advertising revenue from a bigger medical center. (I just threw away some copies of the paper, including Food and Go! sections, from 2005 and 2006. They were incredibly fat with advertising when compared with today's pathetically thin papers.)

I'm glad Food Editor Bill Pitcher -- who is obsessed with eating meat -- finally has reviewed a  seafood restaurant in Better Living (a few weeks ago, he sampled only meat dishes at a Turkish place). But he pans McCormick & Schmick's, a chain restaurant. Why one star? It sounds awful. Are you protecting an advertiser, Bill? Copy editors left a problem in the second paragraph, and the ending makes no sense.

Next time, Bill, try Sea Shack in Hackensack or a more casual choice, Seafood Gourmet in Maywood.


Pitcher still has not explained to readers why restaurant sanitary inspections from Wyckoff never appear in Friday's column. Are you protecting someone, Bill?

(Photo: Church on The Green, Hackensack)

Why is this on the front page?

Image by birdphone via Flickr

Aren't we all sick and tired of the belly aching by Ridgewood residents opposed to the expansion of The Valley Hospital (photo)? This controversy is more than two years old, and there have been numerous stories about it, yet here it is again today on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park.


Were the editors desperate to put something -- anything -- on the front page? Did they ever play similar protests over the expansion of Hackensack Medical Center on A-1? What's so special about the Ridgewood protest? Is this journalism by demographics?


The news copy editor probably thought the headline was really clever: "Hospital expansion called a health hazard." And the reporter actually quotes residents alleging years of construction will expose children to "potential hazards." One hallucinating protester refers to Ridgewood as "our little village." Can't you hear the violins?


I can think of several construction projects in Hackensack on school routes (there is no busing in the city). What about the hazards Hackensack kids walking to school are exposed to? Don't black and Hispanic kids count in the eyes of the editors?


Another headline on Page 1 appears to suggest teachers are stalking the state education czar. Was this head intended to be ominous?

Teachers track their target

Some observers would suggest it's the teachers who are the targets of state aid cuts and pension reform.

In Local, there are detailed stories on two trials in Superior Court, Paterson, but none on cases in state court in Hackensack. For another day, news of Hackensack , Teaneck or Englewood is missing, likely due to the incompetence of the assignment desk under Deirdre Sykes. But there is a long story on a murder in Butler -- outside the paper's circulation area.

For at least the fourth year, Food Editor Bill Pitcher has prepared his annual guide to grilling -- which appears today in Better Living -- and for at least the fourth time, he omitted any mention of how processed meats, such as hot dogs, and charring food have been linked to cancer. Good appetite.