Next challenge for obese teen swimmer is to lose weight

From lead foot to foot falling asleep. Seen on Monday in the A&P shopping center on Lemoine Avenue in Fort Lee.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Charlotte Samuels of Ridgewood is a fine role model for long-distance swimmers, but her obesity is sending the wrong message to millions of teenagers.

Today's Page 1 story in The Record continues the paper's adoring coverage of the 16-year-old girl, who became the youngest person to complete the Triple Crown of swimming (A-1).

Big deal. Does this story really belong on the front page?

The Record's stories have avoided her obesity like the plague.

Good or bad?

Does her weight help or hurt her? Today's story by Staff Writer Christopher Maag, the transportation reporter, doesn't provide a clue.

Readers who manage to get to the continuation page on A-7 are told that after she swam across the English Channel, she was "in a contemplative mood, thinking about the power of girls and women, and the larger meaning of her accomplishment."

"I've heard so many stories about girls who had someone say something to them, and then they get eating disorders," Charlotte says, but Maag doesn't say whether she is referring to herself.

"But being a girl is awesome," she continues. "If you believe in yourself, then you can accomplish anything."

Like losing weight and, hopefully, influencing other teens during the obesity epidemic, Charlotte.

Christie idolatry

Governor Christie's plan to revive Atlantic City failed, as have so many of his other initiatives, but Columnist Charles Stile still won't declare the GOP bully the worst leader New Jersey has ever had (A-1).

Christie had something to say about the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal for the first time since March, and his comments are buried (A-4).

Meanwhile, New Jersey is warning investors its revenue shortfall could get worse before it gets better (A-3).

Crown Vic destroyed

Another Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor bit the dust in Hackensack on Tuesday, and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes was so glad she had a filler photo for the Local news front (L-1).

Police agencies continued to buy the Crown Victoria despite well-known defects, which were blamed for the deaths of state troopers and a Paramus officer, and suspected in the death of a Teaneck officer.

The Record never bothered to explore the reasons towns continued to buy the defective Crown Victoria-based Police Interceptor before production ended in 2011.

Also on the Local front, Joe Talamo is called a "Pascack Valley legend," but my reaction is, Joe Who?

Losing weight and gaining credibility

This fading sign in the bathroom of an old NJ Transit rail car in New York's Penn Station -- part of the 4:31 express to Trenton on Friday afternoon -- includes an object below the lit cigarette that I can't identify. 

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

A Page 1 story in The Record today suggests Governor Christie is gaining credibility as a presidential contender now that he has had successful weight-loss surgery.

The story appears to be part of the Woodland Park daily's campaign to groom Christie for a White House run while ignoring what a terrible job he has done as governor.

The breathless report by Staff Writers Scott Fallon and Melissa Hayes says "photos show a slimmer governor whose appearance is commented on by New Jerseyans almost everywhere he goes."

What is left unsaid is that before he lost weight, Christie's obesity repelled New Jerseyans almost everywhere he went, especially as his war on the middle class and minorities gained steam.

Unfortunately, Christie's battle of the bulge is one of the few readable stories in the Sunday edition, which is weighed down by Road Warrior and Mike Kelly columns.

Staff Writer John Cichowski, aka The Addled Commuter, seems to equate glare off the glass facade of a 47-story high-rise in Fort Lee with a nationwide death toll from sun glare he puts at 200 people a year, although his columns have been so inaccurate, I'm skeptical about that figure (L-1).

The Kelly column on the Opinion front rambles so much readers can't help noticing the shit-eating grin in his dated thumbnail photo. Neither columnist appears to get any sorely needed editing.

A letter to the editor about the accomplishments of Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli seems to be saying that The Record's Sept. 13 story, "Molinelli leaves a mixed record," was poorly researched and hastily written (O-3).

"FIRST COURSE," a new food feature in Better Living, appears to be a warmed over version of Marketplace, a round-up that ran in The Record's Food section when Pat Mack was editor (BL-2).

On the Better Living front, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung rhapsodizes about two huge hunks of meat -- one a burned pork chop and the other a filet mignon bathed in an artery clogging bearnaise sauce that is guaranteed to send patients to North Jersey cardiac units (BL-1).

Talking about obesity, why would The Record assign Jerry Luciani, the grossly overweight graphics director, to cover a food and wine festival in the Caribbean (T-1)?

The absence of any prices in his Travel story suggests Luciani was comped, leaving readers to wonder how much of the glowing report is accurate and how much is payback to Turks and Caicos tourism officials.

All of a sudden, Christie is sensitive about his weight

Hackensack's new City Council at a meeting in July. Did The Record cover the council meeting on Tuesday night, and, if so, when will it tell readers what happened?

By Victor E. Sasson

Editor

In his first three years in office, Governor Christie's waistline ballooned, he was hospitalized on a hot summer day in 2011 after an asthma attack and he refused to tell the national media how much he weighed.

The Record and other state media never asked how much Christie weighed nor have they bothered reporting what, if anything, his administration has done to fight the childhood obesity epidemic.

Meanwhile, he was the butt of jokes by late-night TV comedians, and even pulled out a donut and crammed it into his mouth during an appearance on David Letterman's show.

400-pound bully?

Letterman guessed Christie weighed 400 pounds. Finally, early this year, Christie gave up pretending to control his eating, and had weight-loss surgery.

Now, the GOP bully is objecting to a seemingly innocent comment by state Sen. Barbara Buono, D-Middlesex, about his appearance in TV ads promoting the Jersey shore after Superstorm Sandy (A-1 and A-3).

"I'm very disappointed that she has decided to go down that road for me and other folks across New Jersey, many folks who are challenged by their weight," the governor told Staff Writer Melissa Hayes (A-3).

Easy choice

What a joke. Christie has been in denial for decades, as are the grossly overweight local editors at The Record who have refused to launch a series on obesity.

In the November gubernatorial election, voters have a simple choice between a fit woman who cares about the middle class and an overweight governor who does the bidding of the wealthy and other fat cats.

Going national

Editor Marty Gottlieb has fashioned another front page -- for The Times or another national newspaper -- with local stories playing second fiddle.

What are readers supposed to make of the boring ANALYSIS about Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., supposedly "on [the] world stage" during the debate over attacking Syria (A-1)?

Is The Record grooming him for an invasion of communist Cuba and the presidency of the Caribbean's biggest island?

Below the fold, a story about saving a plot of land in the Meadowlands falls into the "that's nice" category, but can readers visit and see for themselves (A-1)?

On A-2 today, 3 of the many errors that have appeared in recent days are corrected.

Go home, LG

When is The Record going to stop pretending that a new LG Electronics' corporate headquarters -- which would be an indelible scar on the Palisades north of the bridge -- will by itself lift the economy of Bergen County (A-1 and A-4)?

This is nothing more than an irresponsibly selfish grab by ratable-hungry officials in Englewood Cliffs, and a South Korean conglomerate eager to put the company logo in view of millions of New York consumers.

More local slop

Readers of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section have become accustomed to accident-photo captions supplying no information on the possible cause or other important information.

But today's sensational coverage of a Route 17 crash that killed a 31-year-old mother and seriously injured a father -- while their baby was left home alone -- is a new low for the copy desk and Production Editor Liz Houlton (L-1).

The L-1 photo caption says "a car broke into three pieces after hitting a thick metal pole on Route 17 in Lodi," but that's contradicted by the story:

"The impact of the accident and the rescue attempt [italics added] left the car mangled and broken into three pieces" (L-2).

Putting aside the awkward phrase "impact of the accident," readers are left with questions about what caused the car to break up.

Was speed a factor? Why doesn't the story address that?

Are Houlton and her copy editors doing anything more than spell-checking stories and slapping headlines and captions on them?

Back to school

Also on L-1, Road Warrior John Cichowski is so desperate to get readers interested in another column that has nothing to do with commuting (school-bus inspections), he begins with a total non-sequitur about car owners too busy for emissions testing (L-1).

Of course, readers in Hackensack and other towns without school busing just turned the page. 

Two local obituaries appear today, apparently marking the end of a vacation for Staff Writer Jay Levin (L-6).

One reader I heard from on Monday thought The Record had missed the death of former Freeholder and Midland Park Mayor William Van Dyke, but the obit appears today, albeit 8 days after the fact.

Christie chose life over uncontrolled gorging

An example of how a band is used to restrict the intake of food. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Don't you love how The Record virtually ignored an obese Governor Christie's out-of-control eating since he took office in January 2010, and now is asking him to "defend" and "explain" his weight-loss surgery?

What does it take for morons like political columnist Charles Stile to understand Christie chose life over a certain early death, if he kept up his uncontrolled gorging (A-1).

It's telling that the New York Post, not any New Jersey media, broke the story about Christie's "secret" lap-band surgery.

Diet and disease 

Stile and a couple of the editors at the Woodland Park daily, Deirdre Sykes and Tim Nostrand, should spend some time on a hospital cardiac ward and ask doctors about the relationship between diet and disease.

The Record's last food editor, Susan Leigh Sherrill, promoted recipes using butter, cream, bacon and other unhealthy food every chance she got.

Just look at the Mother's Day recipe on the Better Living cover today (BL-1 and BL-2), calling for 2 cups of heavy cream, 1 cup of sweetened whipped cream
and 10 tablespoons plus a half-cup of butter.

Talk about killing your mother with kindness.

Oppose his policies

The GOP bully's conservative policies are still deplorable, but the media, including The Record's Sykes, Nostrand and Editor Marty Gottlieb, should cheer Christie's decision, not ask him to defend it.

And Christie isn't out of danger, if he continues eating a diet heavy in red meat and pizza, even though he'll be consuming smaller quantities.

Coverage of black community ends today

An abandoned home is framed by Overlook Avenue high-rises in Hackensack. Residents have a bird's-eye view of noisy business jets that skim rooftops on the way to Teterboro Airport. Is there any reason they can't approach at a much higher altitude? 

With the end of Black History Month today, head Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, breathe a sigh of relief, knowing they can turn their backs on North Jersey's African-American community for another year.

Now, they'll only have to run stories about black people who get in trouble with the law, sue or get sued, or die in one of those drive-by shootings in Paterson.

Sykes has consumed enormous quantities of Jamaican black-rum cake in recent years, but has completely ignored the hard-working, God-fearing Jamaican-American enclaves in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood.

If I didn't know better, I'd guess Sykes and Sforza had something to do with assigning black history to the shortest month of the year.

Even the Woodland Park newsroom mirrors the lack of coverage. There are no black editors with any authority and only a couple of black reporters.

More bad writing 

More bad news writing appears on the front page today, this time in the photo caption for Pope Benedict XVI (A-1).

We know the pope has great spiritual powers, but the caption informs readers he can travel "through" 150,000 people without harming them.

Is it too much to ask six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton to read every headline and caption that appears on the paper's premier page or at least to have them read to her?

With her proofers' eyes riveted on the TV screen during the David Letterman show, how else is she going to prevent such embarrassing errors from appearing on Page 1?

After Mike Kelly's latest flop appeared on Wednesday's A-1, the long-winded columnist was taken to the hospital with a case of bad writing.

Bad reporting 

The Record and other media continue to cover the battle to avoid the sequester as if President Obama and his policies didn't win a decisive victory over the Republicans in November (A-1, A-10, A-20). 

The big Hackensack news today appears on L-3 -- a non-fatal, two-vehicle accident near ShopRite, in another brilliant photo from chief ambulance chaser Tariq Zehawi.

The is clearly filler. As usual, no attempt is made to report the possible cause of the accident or whether any of the drivers received a summons.

And God forbid the paper actually identifies the drivers.  

Obesity is ugly

Look at the two beautiful, "plus-size" women on the Better Living cover today -- the latest attempt by The Record's editors to hide the ugly obesity epidemic in New Jersey, as epitomized by Governor Christie. 


 

My gun is bigger than your gun

The Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas serves Flatliner Fries, and a Quadruple Bypass Burger that contains 9,982 calories. A promoter of the restaurant died of a heart attack at 52, The Record reported today.  (Wikipedia)

Gun owners are feeling inadequate under an assault of gun-control bills in New Jersey, the latest wave of new proposals and laws after the massacre of innocent children in Newtown, Conn.

A Page 1 story in The Record today declares:

Crowd

jeers call 

for gun 

control  

These putzes somehow have duped the media and the courts into believing the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the individual right to bear arms, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

They defend the personal ownership of assault rifles, shotguns and other obvious phallic symbols out of some feeling of male inadequacy, and in the process indict the police for not being able to protect us from violence.

'Pay to play'

In other news, The Record today continues to add up all the "pay to play" contributions by New Jersey companies to the Republican Governors Association, a big booster of Governor Christie (A-1).

Christie was jeered by relatives of the developmentally disabled who oppose the closing of two state institutions in North Jersey -- in another sign of the GOP bully's commitment to the common man (A-1).

Queen of Errors

Two more long corrections appear on A-2 today -- the tip of the iceberg under the six-figure Queen of Errors, Liz Houlton, the paper's so-called production editor.

On A-6, the latest story in unprecedented coverage of mass transit reports Sandy damage to rail cars and locomotives (A-6) was underestimated, but readers have seen little about crowding and the overall quality of bus and train service.

Seizure Shake

A 52-year-old man who dressed as a hospital patient to promote the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas died of -- you guessed it -- a heart attack (A-15).

"It's a dark, cautionary tale," the American Heart Association says. "Heart disease is still the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. Nutrition and what we put into our bodies [play a] significant role in the heart health of an individual."

When was the last time you read anything resembling that message in The Record's food pages?

Seat belts, naps

On A-18, an editorial takes Sen. Barbara Buono -- the Democratic gubernatorial candidate -- to task for not using a seat belt without mentioning that Christie doesn't need one: 

He's wedged into the back seat of his massive state police SUV, and his body fat serves as a natural air bag in the event of an accident.

I had a hard time following the message from Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., but I'm sure Christie's morbid obesity says nothing about me or the tens of millions of fit people who go to the gym regularly and watch what they eat (A-19).

From the looks of today's Local section, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, never awoke from their afternoon naps.

Setting Record straight

A concerned reader found errors in the Pulaski Skyway press release that formed the basis of a Road Warrior column on Jan. 13.

The reader got the state Department of Transporation to correct the mistakes, and then made sure Wikipedia's entry on the skyway was linked to the corrected release, not the Road Warrior column.

He alerted The Record as well:

"The enormous NJDOT organization had enough decency and integrity to listen to me and correct 2 mistakes it made in a Jan. 10 press release about the Pulaski Skyway.

"I updated the Wikipedia page for the Pulaski Skyway that, unfortunately, had one of these mistakes referenced by the Road Warrior Jan. 13 article.  I removed all Road Warrior article references and changed it to the Jan. 10 NJDOT press release.

"Road Warrior mistakes are confusing Record readers.  Wikipedia readers should not be confused by the same unsubstantiated or senseless mistakes.

"It would be helpful if The Record and Road Warrior had enough decency and integrity to start correcting and preventing Road Warrior mistakes that I bring to your attention.

"It could start with 6 mistakes I mentioned with his Jan. 13 column about Pulaski Skyway."

Read the full e-mail on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Another Polish joke from John Cichowski 

Is Christie heading for the grave?

Friday's nor'easter didn't live up to the media hype, allowing Hackensack residents to notice how poorly some streets were plowed and to contemplate a post light, above.

A morbidly obese Governor Christie appears to be following in the footsteps of Robert "Bear" Bottigliero, a 61-year-old, 600-pound Lodi man who died of a heart attack on Feb. 2 (The Record's Local front today).

As usual, the obituary ignores the medical story, so readers don't know if a dangerous buildup in his coronary arteries or valve disease or something else killed him.

Chrsitie, 50, responding to a renewed debate over his weight, claims he is "the healthiest fat guy" in the world, and that his cholesterol and blood sugar are fine (A-4).

The GOP bully thinks he is going to live forever, judging from his personal attack on a former White House doctor who expressed concern Christie might die in office.

Christie lashed out, saying his 12-year-old son asked, "Dad, are you going to die?"

Gee. Doesn't his family know he is mortal or do they believe all the walk-on-water hype about the governor that appears in The Record and other media?

Yes. Christie is going to die, and depending on what he does about his weight and what he eats, that might be sooner rather than later.

More than three years after he took office, The Record and other New Jersey media continue to give Christie a pass on his obesity and what his administration has or hasn't done about the obesity epidemic.

They react to outlets like "60 Minutes," among the first to raise the issue of Christie's weight in 2010. 

David Letterman guesses Christie weighs 400 pounds, but the governor refuses to say whether that is accurate or to release his medical records.

Saturday's paper

Two more corrections appeared on A-2 of Saturday's paper, which whipped up hysteria among readers that Friday's storm could be another Sandy, even though it was clear that wasn't the case.

"We love you, Sandy" are the words most frequently spoken by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions, who have scrambled for years to gather enough local news.

Now, all they do is fill news columns with endless stories on Sandy cleanup and relief aid, compare any other storm to the devastating superstorm and promote Christie as a Sandy saviour who is worthy of a second term.  

Today's paper

Today's A-1 and L-1 reports on the nor'easter don't contain a word about how well North Jersey towns did in plowing streets and clearing bus stops and crosswalks, except for tiny Moonachie.

At 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, an entire block of Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, between the railroad tracks and Main Street, hadn't been plowed, and the intersection of Main and Euclid was full of snow.

I'm sure other neighborhoods showed similar neglect.

This is what Hackensack residents have come to expect as property taxes rise and the quality of municipal services declines, but it's a story you'll never see in The Record, which fled the city in 2009.

No budget stories

In 2011 and 2012, Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, couldn't even find time to report on the city's budget and tax rate.

Councilman John Labrosse is the only incumbent running for a new term on May 14, claiming credit for ousting former Assemblyman Ken Zisa as police chief and installing Michael Mordaga as police director.

Those claims are laughable, seeing how, despite higher property taxes, Labrosse and his fellow council members can't even get the streets plowed properly. 

Poor and rich

Another A-1 story today suggests Christie is hoarding roughly $115 million "in appropriated spending" that may eventually lead to cuts in programs for poor and low-income residents.

That's no surprise from a governor who has protected the wealthy from a tax surcharge at the expense of the middle and working classes.

Annoying columns

Did anybody read more than a few words from Road Warrior John Cichowski, who today rehashes past roof-snow columns and events dating to the 1990s and the 1980s (L-1)?

Or get past the first few lines of Columnist Mike Kelly's rewrite of recent news stories he calls "warning signs about children" (O-1)?

Millionaire's diet

Guy Fieri, a restaurant owner and celebrity chef, probably eats more unhealthy, low-quality food than any other multimillionaire in the country, judging from "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on the Food Network or Fools Network, as I like to call it.

So why does Staff Writer Elisa Ung waste her Sunday column, The Corner Table, promoting Fieri's crappy food at Montclair State University (BL-1)?   

Screw-up of the day

The clueless copy desk came up with a doozie today, and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton failed miserably in catching it.

On the Real Estate cover story (R-1), a subheadline claims: 

"Strident rules

restrict loan

modifications"

"Strident" means "loud and harsh, grating," so I'm sure the proper word the headline writer was looking for is "stringent."

LOL.