Where is the local news in our local paper?

There are no stories from Bergen County's biggest towns in The Record today.

The 8-page Local section in The Record today dramatizes how little local news is being generated by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her clueless minions.

I couldn't find any stories from big Bergen County communities -- Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood, Ridgewood et al. -- but Sykes needed minor accident and brush-fire photos to fill the section (L-2 and L-3).

And too many of the stories in the section are follow-ups to previous reports:

Another hearing on the proposed 47-story residential towers in Fort Lee, a project that is being treated like North Jersey's Pyramids (L-2) ; another protest march in the fatal police shooting of Malik Williams, 19, of Garfield (L-3); another hazardous-waste collection (L-3), another boring Road Warrior column (L-1), and yet another story on a study of Bergen County  law-enforcement consolidation (L-1).

Columnist crashes

The main element on the Local front today is a round-up of soil contamination in parks and fields that has been the subject of numerous individual stories.

A "road warrior" is someone who travels frequently, especially on business, so who came up with that title for a commuting column that has deteriorated into a column for drivers since John Cichowski took it over?

His column today -- how to operate a car for dummies -- is one of the worst in recent memory, because Cichowski himself is clueless on how cars work, as is evident from all the inaccuracies in his work. 

Why not rename the column, "Car Warrior, "Fender Worshiper" or "Dummy Behind the Wheel"?

Budget muddle

On Page 1, I had trouble following the "analysis" on spending in Governor Christie's budget, and wonder why it took almost three weeks to pull it together.

The main element on the front page is an appalling story by Staff Writer Barbara Williams on how a national medication shortage is affecting a 58-year-old cancer patient from Saddle River, with a sidebar on a 5-year-old girl with leukemia (A-1 and A-6).

But the stories don't say whether the national health care law addresses those shortages.

Busted

On A-5, a photo taken a year after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan shows a bus being lifted off a rooftop. 

It appears to be in better condition than the buses used on NJ Transit's No. 780 route between Englewood and the city of Passaic.

Just desserts

In Better Living, The Corner Table column explores traditional Irish fare -- heavy with meat, meat and more meat, plus fried food -- one of the worst diets on the planet (F-1).

North Jersey is full of Irish pubs that serve food, so why did staff Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung choose only two, both in far-off Ramsey?

On Friday, Ung gave us another lukewarm review of a restaurant, Rosario's Trattoria in Midland Park, where she liked the desserts better than anything else on the huge menu.

Travel weary

With rising air fares and a rising number of fees, more consumer-oriented reporting would be welcome in the Travel section, where such stories are few and far between.

Today, I was bored to tears by the cover story on a staffer attending a wedding in India, as well as Travel Editor Jill Schensul's column on one foreign airline's "social media project."