Is Christie's chief booster finally having a change of heart?

Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon, above and below, lampooned the first presidential debate when "Saturday Night Live" kicked off its 42nd season this weekend. The New York Times calls the show "the NBC sketch-comedy institution."

Baldwin's Donald J. Trump pronounced "China" as "Gina," "Big Gina," and said "all the blacks live on one street in Chicago." McKinnon's Hillary Clinton looks as if she can see the White House from Rockefeller Center.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The biggest laugh line in the Sunday edition of The Record comes from Columnist Charles Stile, who has been polishing Governor Christie's image for nearly 6 years.

After a tedious Page 1 refresher course on the George Washington Bridge lane closures in September 2013, Stile says with a straight face, referring to the Christie administration:

"In the first two weeks of the [Bridgegate] trial, there was little testimony or evidence presented of decisions driven by a commitment to public service" (A-8).

"The trial so far has produced a counter-narrative to the meticulously managed image of Christie as a bold, bipartisan leader determined to restore New Jersey's reputation and finances."

Stile has got to be kidding. When has anyone ever said "Christie" and "public service" in the same breath?

In fact, he is one of those journalists who turned his back on readers, and used his column, often played on A-1, to do his own meticulous managing of the GOP thug's image.

The veteran Trenton reporter has consistently ignored Christie's more than 500 vetoes, his unilateral cancellation of the first large-scale expansion of rail transit in decades; and his cuts in state aid to NJ Transit that may have led to Thursday morning's fatal crash in Hoboken.

Need I mention Christie's battle against affordable housing, his repeated veto of a hike in the minimum wage or his looting of state public employees' pension system?

Baldwin's Trump referred to moderator Lester Holt, portrayed by Michael Che, as "Jazzman" and "Coltrane."

Bergen light rail

Also on Page 1 today is a report on elected leaders cheering news that the long-delayed extension of NJ Transit's light-rail service to Ridgefield, Palisades Park and Englewood may finally happen (A-1).

Light rail will offer commuters a direct ride to PATH service into Manhattan.

Today's story mentions many more hurdles, including the need to complete an environmental study and the cost, around $1 billion.

But Staff Writer Christopher Maag doesn't even mention the air-quality benefits of an electrified train line that promises to take cars off of the road and reduce the need for more diesel transit buses. 

The big losers will be commuters who live in Tenafly, where residents voted against the plan.

It isn't known whether they were influenced by The Record, which ran two long stories that demonized the extension of light-rail service.

Those articles were edited by Dan Sforza, now the managing editor.

Paterson history

A Page 1 story about Paterson's once-vibrant Jewish community of 30,000 and a dozen synagogues is one of two in today's paper describing happier times.

The Business front waxes nostalgic over the Paterson Men's Shop, which will close Oct. 15 after an 81-year run on Main Street (B-1).

But the Local front carries a report on Silk City's 8th gunshot death in two months (L-1).

The Record's editorial board hasn't bothered asking why Christie has failed to bring to Paterson the same changes in policing he put into effect to fight violent crime in less-populous Camden.

Local news?

Staff Writer Deena Yellin has a glowing report on new businesses and restaurants opening in downtown Tenafly (L-3).

This while The Record's local editors continue to ignore the causes for all of the empty storefronts in neighboring Englewood.

But there is a follow-up to large-scale fraud in Englewood school cafeterias.

"Privacy concerns" are being cited over the district's decision to install finger scanners to prevent students from swiping for others, who then received a free lunch even though their parents haven't paid for the meal (L-1).

This contrasts to The Record's Hackensack reporter completely ignoring the city's Board of Education, its schools and the poor quality of food served at the high school, where hundreds of students rely on a nearby pizzeria and fast-food options for lunch.

Opinion

Page O-2 in Opinion  is worth looking at for Brigid Harrison's column, "All woman were onstage with Clinton," in which she discusses how men treat women in power.

During the debate, Harrison reports, an unnamed Republican member of the House of Representatives tweeted, "She [Hillary Clinton] just comes across as my bitchy/wife mother."

GOP strategist Frank Luntz replied, "I'm sorry, congressman, but tonight Hillary is coming across as presidential."

Says Harrison: "Whether that guy likes it or not."

Food addictions

If I didn't know better, I'd think today's Better Living cover -- "Addicted to food" -- was a report on chief Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung.

That piece of chocolate layer cake in the illustration is just the kind of dessert Ung obsesses over in nearly ever one of the appraisals she has written in the past decade.

And she's an unapologetic carnivore, swooning over the "funk" of aged beef and ignoring how the animal might have been raised on harmful antibiotics to speed it to market.

Readers' eyes rolling at the me generation of columnists

Although The Record and North Jersey Media Group left 150 River St. in Hackensack in 2009, the Borg family have made the property pay by charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for parking spaces leased to Bergen County during the construction of a new courthouse and to Hackensack University Medical Center.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers of The Record's Sunday edition are puzzling over the restaurant reviewer's rant about customers who wear too much cologne or perfume.

And those in search of local news can only wonder whether Road Warrior John Cichowski's column about drivers in European cities is his clever way of trying to write off his vacation on his income taxes.

I promise. 

I tried to get into the Page 1 feature story about the Paramus woman who spent 25 years searching for her Canadian birth mother, but it is just too long (A-1).

The top of the front page carries yet another story about the kindness of Gander, Newfoundland, to airline passengers diverted on 9/11 (A-1).

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn, who wrote today's story, actually was sent to Gander only days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America to pretty much write the same account that appears today.

So, that makes two stories with Canadian ties on today's front page.

Is anybody reading the other Page 1 stories -- another Charles Stile column on politics and the 2017 election for governor, or the annual end-of-season assessment of the health of the Jersey shore economy (A-1)?

Ung's rant

Few people live as high on the hog as Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, who has been eating out morning, noon and night on a Record expense account for more than a decade.

So, excuse me if I don't get the point of her Sunday column, The Corner Table, or the problem of servers and customers wearing too much perfume or cologne (Better Living front).

She claims those scents prevent her from tasting the food she is evaluating, but readers can only hope she focuses more on the basics.

On Friday, she awarded 3 stars (Excellent) to From Scratch, a small cafe and market in Ridgewood, despite shockingly high prices, unprofessional service and cramped seating.

For example, she loved a bronzino fillet served with an eggplant-tomato gratin, even though at $30, you'd pay more than at restaurants serving the whole fish.

Mind on vacation

Staff Writer John Cichowski is back from a vacation with the breathless news that drivers in small European cities are more polite and don't lean on their horns, as we do in New Jersey (Road Warrior on L-1).

Of course, he could make the same observation in downtown San Francisco during the rush hour.

But as an opinion columnist, Cichowski fails to provide any leadership in the impasse over funding the Transportation Trust Fund, and for that reason, he is of absolutely no use to North Jersey commuters.

Road Warrior's credibility gap widens, yet editors shrug

This afternoon, bus riders had to climb over uncleared snow at the busy stop on Anderson Street, between Main and River streets, in Hackensack. In Teaneck, bus stops on Cedar Lane had been cleared.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers have exposed Staff Writer John Cichowski as a sloppy journalist who has no business writing the Road Warrior column for The Record.

When Cichowski misrepresents a study or errs in citing state police fatal accident statistics, readers usually have no way of knowing unless they do independent research.

But on Jan. 25, The Record's print edition and North Jersey.com published a photo of a Route 4 bridge in Teaneck readers could compare to the reporter's claim:

The photo by Bob Leafe of Hackensack, Cichowski wrote, "depicts what appears to be a vertical gash that extends along one of the giant pillars holding up part of the span that carries more than 100,000 vehicles each day."

Here is a link to the photo on North Jersey.com, which shows more of the pillar than the one in the print edition. Clearly, there is no "gash" in the supporting column or even any blemish:

Columnist panics, tries to scare readers

On the Sunday morning Cichowski's column went online, reader John Wood of Rutgers University commented:

The only vertical "gash" I can see in the photo actually appears to be a joint between two adjacent girders which are supported on the same foundation pier.


Thomas B. Olsen, a union electrician, also called out Cichowski:


Exactly! John, you should be a little more responsible before you publish a picture of an expansion joint as a "gash."


Reader Michael Keen was more expansive:


Here, a reader photo is presented as "evidence" of a safety hazard which, in fact, doesn't exist. The "gash" is the space between two separate girders. It's part of the design and has been there since the bridge was built in 1934. The reader [photographer Bob Leafe] is quoted as saying, "I'm no engineer..." Perhaps the writer should have consulted one before publishing the story and the photo. Journalists may be an observant bunch, but that doesn't make them experts in what they're looking at.


Stephen Tripptree of New Milford, in an apparent reference to six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, said:

And who proofreads this stuff before publishing, Ray Charles?


Bloopers editor


Referring to the column, the anonymous editor of the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers calls Cichowski "incompetent" and "unprofessional."

See the full post by clicking on the following link:

Road Warrior can't build bridge to the truth

The Jan. 25 column appeared after state officials closed or restricted traffic on other bridges. The Record's headline:

"Bridge gets no respect

Fixing Route 4 span isn't on to-do list"

But no state official moved to close the Route 4 bridge shown in the Jan. 25 photo nor have the editors bothered to set the record straight on A-2, where corrections and clarifications appear.

Nor has the veteran reporter, who is in his 12th year pretending to be a commuting columnist, written a corrective article as a follow-up.

Today's paper

Israeli Chef Elie Kahlon of Novo in Ridgewood gets a rave review from Staff Writer Elisa Ung, but you have to wonder whether the reporter's obsession with dessert affects her judgement (BL-12):

"The biggest food disappointment I had at the restaurant: an oddly sticky and dense chocolate cake made with almonds ($13)."

She calls the restaurant "expensive, though worth it for the quality of the food."

Still, she never tells you anything about how the food was raised or grown, so what is the "quality" she is referring to?

Then, she warns anyone who doesn't like flavors she describes variously as "bright, tangy" and "tart" to stay away.

I would think that is the restaurant's big draw.

Columnists endorse dangerous, unhealthy practices

Saturday's steady rain couldn't dampen the Christmas spirit on Main Street in Hackensack, near the Bergen County Courthouse.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Did you see the Road Warrior column on The Record's Local front today and Saturday, effectively Staff Writer John Cichowski's obituary for the state's red-light camera program?

Cichowski has hated these cameras for years.

In fact, he hates them so much he never mentions they are designed to catch speeders who think nothing of killing or maiming pedestrians and other motorists in their haste to get wherever they are going.

You see this same selfish behavior in drivers who blow through stop signs, because they are late for work or for some other ridiculous excuse. 

You can tell a lot about an irresponsible journalist by the "experts" he quotes.

Although red-light cameras have been proven to cut down on intersection crashes, deaths and injuries in New Jersey and other states, he manages to find mostly critics.

New York City is lowering speed limits and installing more cameras to catch drivers who speed or run red lights. 

Why is New Jersey ending its red-light program, especially in view of a drastic reduction in police enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving?

Of course, those are questions Cichowski should be asking.

Taste v. health

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung examines beef and lamb from many angles in her Sunday column today except health (BL-1).

She could have sought out an expert from Consumer Reports, which is campaigning against the use of harmful animal antibiotics to raise poultry, cattle and sheep.

The magazine notes humans who consume a lot of meat or poultry containing those antibiotics are becoming resistant to drugs prescribed by their doctors.

Instead, Ung sought out Ray Venezia, the former "vice president of meat" at Fairway Market, the New York City-based chain that sells tons of beef raised on harmful additives.

Venezia evaluates beef on how it tastes, and declares the fattiest prime cuts are the tastiest.

Of course, Ung doesn't mention the fattiest beef also clogs arteries, and is a leading cause of heart disease.

Pension disaster

Governor Christie's heavily promoted pension reform is a disaster, according to the lead Page 1 story today (A-1).

The fund covering retirement benefits for most of New Jersey's public employees "is projected to go broke in a decade, not the 30 years [state] officials had estimated just months ago."

Only The Record seems surprised.

Readers know the Christie administration has declared war on the middle class and has lied or fudged the truth on the state economy, environment, roads and mass transit, among others.

Yes, Virginia. The GOP bully is the worst governor we've ever had.

Why are these columnists wasting their time and ours?

On the upper level of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan, you can get your shoes shined for $5 while waiting for your overdue NJ Transit bus.

A week ago, I gave the man who shined my shoes a $2 tip, and he seemed miffed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Road Warrior column is supposed to focus on commuting issues.

But that would take real legwork, including riding trains and buses, and reporting on the quality of service.

Or, challenging the Port Authority on why it doesn't add a second bus lane to the Lincoln Tunnel, and run the two lanes mornings and afternoons.

Instead, Staff Writer John Cichowski has ranged far afield in the more than 11 years he's written the column, often taking the lead from readers who pepper him with emails in hopes of seeing their names in print.

Transit's present

On Sunday, the veteran reporter devoted an entire column to a solar-powered monorail system in the Meadowlands that may not be built for another five, 10 or 15 years -- or ever (L-1 on Sunday).

I guess it's OK to write about "transit's future," as the headline put it, but what are commuters supposed to do now when they can't find a seat on a train or bus or they get home an hour or two late because of Manhattan gridlock?

Cichowski's Sunday column reminded me of the stories on "highways of the future" that Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza wrote when he covered transportation for The Record.

Sforza could have looked into why new NJ Transit cruiser buses, the ones that ply routes to Manhattan, had defective rear brakes and were much noisier than their predecessors -- to the consternation of people who live on such bus routes as Grand Avenue in Englewood. 

But that would have taken a lot more work than writing about highways that would never get built.

Out of touch

If Sforza and Cichowski are out of touch with the needs of their readers, what can you say about Staff Writer Mike Kelly, whose Sunday column sounded like he had assumed the mantle of Road Warrior (O-1 on Sunday)?

Kelly filled his column with potholes and ruts in the road, dented and bent guard rails, and aging bridges.

Sounds like he ran out of ideas again, and found himself in another writing rut. 

Overfed and boring

Meanwhile, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's The Corner Table column took on an issue that really put me to sleep on Sunday.

The headline says it all: "Why do waiters automatically give the check to the man?"

As the paper's chief restaurant reviewer, Ung routinely ignores the universally hated tipping system, slave wages paid to servers, how those aged steaks she loves are raised on harmful antibiotics and growth hormones, the outrageous restaurant markup on wine and other far more compelling issues. 

Today's paper

One of the stories on today's front page takes on the "financial and political drawbacks" of raising the gasoline tax to revive the bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund -- the same subject Kelly tackled on Sunday.

The Sunday column and today's takeout by Staff Writer Christopher Maag never ask this question:

If drivers don't pay for road and bridge repairs and mass-transit improvements through higher gasoline taxes, who should pay for them?

Gagging on Gaga

What was Staff Writer Jim Norman going for with the bewildering first paragraph of his story on the settlement of a lawsuit filed by the woman who discovered Lady Gaga (A-1)? 

And with all such stories that dazzle readers with multimillion dollar legal settlements, why not put the windfall into perspective and report that up to a third or more will be going to the lawyer?

Violence against women

The main story on Page 1 today is about an Englewood high school football coach who encourages male athletes "to become advocates in the fight against violence toward women" (A-1).

With women facing brutality, lower wages than men and other forms of discrimination and inequality, is who gets the restaurant check really that big of a deal?

Those cheeks are getting pudgier

Image via Wikipedia

Some serious food coverage is in store for readers of The Record of Woodland Park, according to the tweets of Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, who spills the beans on Twitter:

elisaung Elisa Ung

Tip: you can cut brownies much more neatly with a plastic knife. Which gives away the next Record taste test! Look for the story on 3/10.

3 Mar Favorite Retweet Reply

elisaung Elisa Ung

I nearly screwed up our latest Record taste test. The issue: chocolate chips. Anyone want to guess what we're taste-testing?

2 Mar Favorite Retweet Reply

See earlier post: Did they really mean to say that?

Not much to read today

Image via Wikipedia

There's certainly nothing special about The Record of Woodland Park on this Sunday, especially how North Jersey gets short shrift in coverage of the snowstorm provided by the Star-Ledger. This saves the paper money, but cheats readers.

The "highlight" of the Local section is a pissing match between outgoing Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes and the city attorney on the legality of a Wildes-appointed commission. The real story is that many city residents regret voting for this relentless self-promoter -- whose middle name is "Pay to Play" -- and can't wait for him to leave office at the end of the year. Is reporter Giovanna Fabiano working on that?

Road Warrior John Cichowski has yet another column on the condition of North Jersey roads, while stubbornly refusing to get off his duff and ride one of the contraptions that NJ Transit is passing off as a local bus. His many columns about drivers and his repeated refusal in the last six years to give a voice to bus riders -- largely blacks and Hispanics who can't afford cars -- is tantamount to racism.

You won't find any Hackensack news in the former Hackensack daily today.

But you shouldn't miss the column on this year's hits and misses by Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung. In the second paragraph, this naive reporter repeats El Sol de Cuba's ridiculous assertion that its founding owner conceived many of the original recipes "in a Cuban prison and labor camp" during the Revolution. How likely is it that anything resembling food was served to prisoners, many of whom were excecuted?

Reporters play the popularity contest

Image via Wikipedia

Let's get to the lack of local news coverage today in The Record of Woodland Park right away, so I can focus on two reporters who seem to think their job is to be popular, not to ask hard questions and serve readers.

You won't find any news of Englewood or Hackensack in the Local section today, but you will find stories from Paterson, Clifton, Pequannock and Ringwood.

A byline in Local identifies Mark J. Bonamo as "Staff Writer," but in today's Hackensack Chronicle, which is delivered with The Record, Bonamo's byline on the front page says he is the weekly's "Managing Editor." OK. The two papers are both owned by North Jersey Media Group, but are the editors fudging the truth here? I guess they are trying to hide what many readers have known for many months: The daily not only has abandoned Hackensack-- where it was founded in 1895 -- but has declared the city dead.

A photo and short story in Local about a GWB jumper doesn't tell you he was a New York State corrections officer. To learn that, you have to read cliffviewpilot.com.

The Page 1 article leading the paper today is another largely sympathetic treatment of the Jayson Williams case by Staff Writer John Brennan, an empty headed former sports reporter. Williams is an ex-basketball player who killed his limo driver in 2002 after a night of drinking and was expected to plead guilty and serve a prison sentence as a pin cushion. He didn't show in court today.

What excuse does Brennan have for leaving out of his story today that the shooting occurred after a night of drinking? The reporter refers only to a "late-night meal." I guess Brennan doesn't want to upset Williams or his defense attorneys.

Another reporter who is an inconsistent voice for readers is Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, who again enters into an unwitting conspiracy with a restaurant owner to conceal the origin of food he is serving to customers. In her review today of a Korean barbecue restaurant called Zen Zen in Fairview, she praises "the quality of the beautifully marbled beef."

I've eaten in many Korean barbecue restaurants, including this one, and most try to mask their conventional beef by slicing it very thin or marinating it to improve both taste and texture.

Korean restaurant owners rarely tell you anything about the beef, such as the grade, but might tell you, as Zen Zen's owner does, that it's "always fresh and butchered in-house." Who cares? That tells me nothing about how the beef was raised and whether it was pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones and fed animal by-products (bits of dead animals). "Beautifully marbled" means the meat has a lot of fat, but is it USDA Prime or a lower grade; is it grass-fed or grain-fed? Her 3-star rating is meaningless, only another sign of how she wants to stay popular with some restaurant owners.

The low quality of  the mystery meat served in many places is well-known. The Korean butcher who owns Prime & Beyond in Fort Lee took it upon himself when he opened in 2004 to try and educate his Korean customers about high-quality beef, unlike the stuff they were being served.

As for the show put on by Zen Zen waitresses, Ung is merely describing the scene inside most Korean restaurants, where service still is an art.

This is the same so-called reporter who, after a couple of meals in a Turkish restaurant, gave the name "Little Istanbul" to the Middle Eastern food bazaar of South Paterson, where Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese merchants preceded the Turks by many years, in some cases decades.

Although I have reported this huge editorial screw-up before, I just realized the words "Little Istanbul" must have sent a chill through the Syrians and others in the neighborhood when they recalled how their countires suffered under the Ottoman Empire's iron rule.

My Sephardic Jewish mother used to tell me about the afternoon in the early 1900s, when her teacher in Aleppo, Syria, kept her after class, "because the Turks were rounding up the Armenians," and she feared my mom would be snatched off the street.

Reviewer is obsessed with dessert

Image via Wikipedia

The front page of  The Record today actually contains news -- a story that required some digging on 34 state employees who are collecting gobs of overtime and a rare local story on Page 1 about four Bergen County towns in the same high school district.

The Local section has a story from Englewood on teacher contract talks, the fifth or sixth story from that city this month, depending on whether you include mention of sidewalk repairs on Oct. 15. The paper is continuing its seeming boycott of news from Hackensack, the county seat that was the paper's home for more than 110 years. The last mention: street repairs at mid-month.

In Better Living's centerfold, an Italian restaurant in Fair Lawn gets two and a half stars from reviewer Elisa Ung. That's only a half star more than she awarded a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant in Wayne several weeks ago.

In the review of Davia, Ung reports on a potato-crusted salmon entree and a strip steak, failing to mention whether the former was wild or artificially-colored farmed fish or whether the latter was grass-fed or at least raised without anitbiotics and growth hormones.

Ung spends too much time writing about desserts. Recently, she related she had a "nightmare" about dessert. I guess she doesn't realize that many people are watching their weight or cholesterol and forgo dessert, especially at a restaurant with big portions, like the one she is reviewing today. In fact, she says fewer than half of its customers order dessert, but that doesn't stop her from sampling four of them.

I found the following hilarious. She reports the restaurant is named after the owner's daughter. "Their son, John, wanted no part of the name." That's a good thing, isn't it, but with a name like John, why does that have to be mentioned? Would anyone name an Italian restaurant just John? Wouldn't  people think it's an elaborate bathroom? Maybe John's Trattoria.

On Page 20  of Better Living, the restaurant health inspections appear, but many towns' restaurants are excluded today and, in fact, never appear in the paper. Thirteen towns are listed today out of the more than 90 in The Record's circulation area.

(This post was revised on Saturday, 10/31/09.)