Should fat people be making these decisions?

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Forget the mildly interesting front page. Forget the overwrought patriotism of Tara Sullivan's column on the U.S. team's World Cup victory. The story in The Record of Woodland Park that resonated with me the most today was buried on Page L-2 -- anti-hunger advocates trying to save school meals from Governor Christie's chopping block.

Chopping block is the right image. You can just imagine our huge governor tucking into thick slabs of meat dripping with butter and all the other high-cholesterol and high-calorie stuff that has made him obese (fat literally hangs from his face) -- absolutely the wrong image during an obesity epidemic whose eradication has become a national priority.

Is it a state priority? Do state programs target the problem? Do we really know anything about Christie's eating habits or health, or whether he also is concerned about the obesity epidemic? Does he have a metabolism disorder? 

Why has The Record and all of the other media remained silent on Christie's weight and its possible influence on state policies? Why is dysfunctional eating a taboo subject in the former Hackensack daily?



By the same token, why has Publisher Stephen A. Borg ignored the weight of three key editors he inherited as a possible influence in the past several years on the decision to report as little as possible about the obesity epidemic in New Jersey? Is this a conspiracy of editors in total denial about their health?


Can you imagine these three binge eaters at a projects meeting endorsing a concerted staff effort to tackle the obesity epidemic as a public service to readers? Projects Editor Tim Nostrand, Food Editor Bill Pitcher and head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes would do nothing of the kind -- even though they likely could benefit from such a long-term examination.

Editor Frank Scandale is one of the most athletic people in the newsroom -- and might see the relevance and prize-winning potential of an obesity project -- but the real power there is Sykes, who castrated him a long time ago.

How else to explain why Sykes was allowed to squander nearly three years of staff time and hundreds of thousands  of dollars in salaries on what can only be called a vendetta against Michael Mordaga, former chief of detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office?

Now, Christie targets the vulnerable, cutting state funding for free and reduced-price school breakfasts and lunches. Advocates for these lower-income children say the meals might be the only ones they get. (The story has only a partial listing of children who participate in Bergen and Passaic counties.) Maybe the state Health Department should be making these kind of decisions, not the governor.


A second story in Local -- on library cuts in Englewood -- notes in the last paragraph that the city is almost seven months overdue on approving a budget. Is this the first time Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano has reported that? Where are the stories on Hackensack's proposed budget and tax hike?


Another story that doesn't get much play is one on the Business front quoting marketing experts as saying BP has little chance of saving its brand after the fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico, especially in view of statements by bumbling CEO Tony Hayward. Business prints so many promotional, rah-rah  stories about companies and their products that this one is a refreshing change.
 
In Better Living, it's no-food-coverage Thursday.


A-2 today carries one of the most embarrassing corrections I've seen recently. In a chart on Page 1 on Wednesday, the Armenian population in New Jersey was off by 10,000. The actual population is 15,736, but the "1" was dropped and no one, least of all the copy editors, caught the error.

That's especially embarrassing because the wrong number appeared in a story about Turks' new-found political power, which they are using to whitewash the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians in the early 1900s.