Christie's version challenged again

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The Record has virtually ignored the planned hike in PATH fares.

How many times have observers soundly rejected Governor Christie's version of events -- as in today's Page 1 story in The Record on the free-spending Port Authority and so-called public support for a near tripling of Hudson River tolls?


Christie actually had the balls to say: "If you look at the public hearings yesterday [Tuesday], there were more people who spoke in favor of the toll hike than against it" (A-6).


"The governor failed to mention all the people in favor had a vested interest, or they get funding from the Port Authority for their livelihood," said Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey Sierra Club (A-6).


"I don't remember one person from the public condoning it [the proposed hikes]," said commuter Christine Dominguez of Hackensack (A-6).


At least an editorial on A-20 today exposes Christie's hypocrisy in refusing to raise the low gasoline tax to fund New Jersey road and mass transit improvements, then grabbing $1.8 billion in Port Authority funds to repair infrastructure in the state.


No heavy lifting


Editor Francis Scandale took the easy way out by running a Star-Ledger story on the sensational street slaying of a 27-year-old mother in quiet Boonton, but I didn't know from The Record's coverage of the Morris County community that Muslims have lived there for more than 50 years.


An OpEd piece notes Neanderthal Gov. Rick Perry of Texas cut $4 billion from K-12 schools rather than raise taxes to help balance his state budget (A-21). 


Sounds like Perry and Christie are reading the same Republican play book.


You won't find much municipal news in Local today, but that's what readers have come to expect from Editor Deirdre Sykes and the laziest assignment desk south of the Canadian border.


Drink up


Before Liz Houlton ran the news copy desk, she was chief of the features copy desk for many years and allowed thousands of errors and typos to get past her cursor. 


There was little improvement after her husband, George Cubanski, took over from her, but he left the paper.


Today, on the front of Better Living, this sentence appears in a wine column on gewurztraminer: "Meh, I can take it or leave it." Is that supposed to be "Me, I can take it or leave it"?

Jock editor finds his soul mates

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Editor Francis Scandale leads The Record today with Rutgers University officials he can call soul mates: Blinded by their obsession with team sports, they threw money at athletics while cutting academics (A-1).


Scandale hypes sports on Page 1 to fill local news columns head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions can't.


Or he grabs desperately at Law and Order news as a substitute for local news, as he does today with the A-1 story on an 84-year-old psychiatrist charged with illegally issuing pain-killer prescriptions.


Hyping the case


It's readers who need pain killers -- to deal with the clunky main headline from Liz Houlton's news copy desk, which suggests the Wayne suspect is a drug "dealer."


And what purpose does the map of Wayne and Lincoln Park serve except to fill space? Why did three reporters work on this exaggerated story? Why is this on Page 1, except as another example of the editors' shoddy treatment of seniors?


How did one of the insensitive reporters get away with saying the woman -- handcuffed and in leg irons as she stood before a federal judge -- answered with "a meek 'yes'"?


The Record and other media have succeeded in making "unions" a bad word, but why do commuters have to subsidize workers' jobs by paying higher tolls (A-1)?


Are the media suggesting voters choose their president on the basis of how quotable he or she is (A-1 and A-5)? They seem enthralled with that Texas bigot, Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who loves to talk about guns and shooting.


Absentee reporter


There's no substitute for on-the-spot reporting, as readers can see from the sixth or seventh Road Warrior piece in recent weeks on long MVC lines, this one an interview with the head of the state Motor Vehicle Commission (L-1).


On Tuesday, I spent nearly two and a half hours renewing my license in Lodi, and noticed a few things I haven't seen in John Cichowski's many columns:


The building has a capacity of only 80, so people have to line up outside. Two of the eight cameras weren't staffed, and you have to wait even longer, if you don't re-use the photo on your old digital license and want a new one.


It's not clear why your I.D. documents are checked three separate times, but this is the drill: 


You wait outside until you and about 20 to 25 others are told to go inside and get on another line, where your credentials are checked two separate times.


Then, you're given a number and told to sit down and wait some more -- until three to six of you are called up to get on a third line to have documents checked a third time, get your photo and pay.


If you want a new photo, you have to sit down and wait some more, up to 30 minutes, before your license is ready.


New Jersey residents have to endure this every four years, but in New York, license renewals are good for eight years. How backward can we be?


More Law and Order news


Besides the same-old Road Warrior column, every other story on the front of Sykes' Local section is a police or court story -- cementing the assignment desk's reputation as the laziest east of the California coast.


More police and court stories appear on L-2 and L-3, including major Fair Lawn news: a car crashed, causing minor injuries. 


Two stories from Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado riff on the same subject, the Police Department.


Alvarado covered the City Council meeting Tuesday night, but only reported comments about the police (L-6).


On L-7, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais recommends drivers use off-brand gasoline to save money. But has he researched whether cheaper gas is harmful to car engines?


Bring home the bacon


In Better Living, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill promotes a shrimp recipe that calls for 10 strips of artery clogging , preservative-laden bacon and 10 ounces of beef broth filled with antibiotics and growth hormones.


So, the recipe she ran a week earlier for a healthy cold vegetable soup
was a fluke.


On F-1, a story reports food at a Demarest wine festival costs extra -- something omitted from an ad that ran last Friday in Better Living.