Here's another snow job from the imperious editors

Courthouse Cafe & Diner opened recently near the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, but the owner set his closing time for 4 p.m., when the city's quiet Main Street goes into hibernation.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Year after year, property taxes rise and the quality of snowplowing drops as municipal crews in Hackensack and other towns seem unwilling or unable to properly clear streets, crosswalks and bus stops.

In decades of covering winter storms, The Record has never sent out reporters to review how well or how poorly towns do on providing safe streets after a storm.

But today, a huge patch of the front page is devoted to a monster snow-melting machine and other measures in anticipation of bad weather for the Super Bowl in February.

That's next year -- in case you missed the whopper of an error in the first paragraph of today's story, which calls it "this year's Super Bowl."

The clueless John Brennan, a reporter who once covered sports, or one of his editors created the error, and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton missed it.

As always, the joke is on the reader for thinking The Record is a serious local newspaper.

Christie follies 

Governor Christie's fiscal mismanagement and impractically strict no-tax policy on millionaires becomes clearer every day, as readers can see from today's A-1 story on Moody's Investors Services downgrading the state's $32 billion debt.

But the GOP bully, who is superb at managing the news, told reporters he had no comment and to get lost.

Native American news

The Local front carries a follow-up to Wednesday's Page 1 story on a new Hollywood film that smears the reputation of the Ramapough Mountain Indians  (L-1).

I cringed at Wednesday's story, which seemed to delight in repeating all of the racial slurs and insults hurled at the Ramapoughs in the past 200 years.

Given all the crap churned out by Hollywood, readers have to question why The Record and other newspapers devote so much space to movies and pretend to look at them critically.

The Record's Better Living entertainment tabloid on Fridays is top heavy with news of the movies, always devoting the cover to the latest trash from a director whose only goal appears to be outdoing other directors.

And what's with this kick for recreating and distorting the past, such as the Quentin Tarantino bloodbath called "Django Unchained"?

Hackensack news

Kathleen Gehm, 63, of River Vale has been cleared of a driving while intoxicated charge in the death of prominent Hackensack businessman Jerome S. Some, 87 (L-1).

As with so many pedestrian deaths, Gehm is apparently saying she didn't see Some before she ran him down on Prospect Avenue as he crossed the street to attend a meeting  at Bel Posto, a restaurant opposite his high-rise.

Building renovations forced relocation of the meeting to the restaurant.

Jerome Some's family members quoted in today's story weren't asked if they are going to file a negligence and wrongful death suit against Gehm. 

In a second Hackensack story today, officials say they are shutting down the city's Human Services Department for an anticipated annual savings of $400,000 a year (L-1).

Don't hold your breath, if you live in Hackensack and expect a property tax cut as a result.

Mentally defective

You have to wonder about the intelligence of some gun-rights advocates, such as Scott Bach of Newfoundland, a member of the National Rifle Association and head of a group of New Jersey rifle and pistol clubs (L-3).

Bach is criticizing Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop for suggesting gun manufacturers who want to do business with the city's Police Department commit themselves to gun-safety measures.

Bach -- who I doubt is related to the classical composer -- said the mayor joined the Marines after 9/11 and is the grandson of Holocaust survivors, then added this total non-sequitur:

"So you've got to wonder why he is not getting it."

Getting what? 

That we should all buy guns because another Hitler is set on exterminating 12 million more people or Muslim terrorists are going to fly planes into The Modern, the 47-story residential tower going up in Fort Lee?

Maybe Bach just doesn't have any confidence in the police to protect him from criminals and other trigger-happy elements in society.