Piling on decades-long tradition of demonizing mass transit

On Boulevard East in West New York, passengers boarding a local NJ Transit bus to Manhattan on a weekday morning in late March found standing room only.

An NJ Transit train pulling into the Anderson Street station, one of two rail stations in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

At least The Record has been consistent in decades of negative reporting about bus and train service to Manhattan from northern New Jersey.

It began more than 20 years ago with two front-page stories on "highways of the future" by a transportation reporter who ignored screeching brakes and noisy engines on NJ Transit commuter buses.

Then, the editors went on the warpath against extension of NJ Transit's pollution-free light-rail service to Englewood and Tenafly.

And in the last year or so, the paper's transportation reporters don't seem to be reporting anything but how many "billions of dollars" will have to be spent to replace the antiquated mid-Manhattan bus station and expand rail service to the city.

Page 1 stories today and Saturday also emphasize how transportation spending is mired in politics.

Sadly, readers haven't seen anything about the tremendous societal benefits of taking commuters out of their cars -- from less traffic congestion to fewer deaths from auto emissions to greater worker productivity.

Today's so-called analysis of NJ Transit's "problems" is especially bad, because Staff Writer Christopher Maag again ignores Governor Christie's war on commuters, and his deep cuts in state operating subsidies -- cuts that forced the agency to raise fares (A-1). 

The headline uses "NJT" for NJ Transit, eve though that has never been recognized as an acronym for the state mass-transit agency.

Bridgegate probe

Staff Writer Jeff Pillets was once of the first reporters to understand that the George Washington Bridge scandal would be as damaging to Christie's reputation as Watergate was to President Richard Nixon, who was hounded out of office (A-1 and O-1).

But no reporter has been able to show that Christie at least knew about the Bridgegate conspiracy during his successful 2013 campaign for a second term.

Deep in today's front-page story, Pillets and reporter Dustin Racioppi report that Christie aide Regina Egea and the governor are "believed" to have deleted text messages they exchanged as Port Authority officials testified to a legislative committee looking into the lane closings (A-4).

Local news?

The Local section delivered to Bergen County readers today includes stories from West Milford, Wanaque, Woodland Park, Pequannock and Ringwood (L-1 to L-7).

The Borgs and North Jersey Media Group save money on newsprint by printing only one section, but cheat Bergen readers out of the local news they deserve.

Meanwhile, The Record continues to chronicle the violent death of every animal in North Jersey. 

Today, eight paragraphs are devoted to a Morris County golfer who killed a goose (L-3).

Road Warrior John Cichowski today reports on "better training" for motorcyclists, not a ticket blitz to penalize them for disturbing the peace (L-1).

What about better training for elderly drivers like Cichowski who too often mistake the gas pedal for the brake pedal? 

Split personality

On Fridays, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's reviews are supposed to take a critical look at new restaurants.

But on Sundays, her uncritical Corner Table column does little more than promote chefs and restaurants, as in her glowing profile of Fortunato Nicotra of Paramus (BL-1).

Those Sunday columns are a disservice to reader who want more -- not less -- information about how the food they eat was raised or grown.

On BL-2 today, the First Course feature pushes za'atar, a Middle Eastern spice blend, that costs the equivalent of $80 a pound when purchased online.

That same mixture is available at Fattal's and other stores in the bustling South Paterson neighborhood of Paterson for about $8 a pound. 

More Gov. Christie myth making has no basis in reality

With no turn lanes at Summit Avenue, above, two-lane Passaic Street in Hackensack is one of the many traffic bottlenecks drivers encounter when traveling over Bergen County's antiquated street and road system.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front page today continues to portray Governor Christie's first term as "bipartisan," when the reality is far more sobering.

Columnist Charles Stile has written a variation of this argument so many times he actually believes it, as does Editor Martin Gottlieb, who leads the Sunday edition with the Christie myth they won't allow to die (A-1).

There is nothing "bipartisan" about the more than 350 vetoes the GOP bully has used to keep the state Legislature's majority Democrats in line -- everything from killing stricter gun control to a millionaires tax surcharge to a hike in the minimum wage.

"Listen," Christie says in his quixotic quest for the White House, "I've dealt with a Democratic Legislature in New Jersey for every minute of my six years as governor, and I've never used it as an excuse not to get things done."

"Get things done" is code for his hundreds of vetoes.

Is there anything else worthy of reader attention today?

Jo Ann Hans

The only story that can be considered local is an update on the condition of Jo Ann Hans, the Bergenfield crossing guard who got mowed down and nearly killed by a driver on Sept. 15, the first day of the Jewish new year (A-1).

Readers who plow through the entire story won't find the name of the driver or whether he was charged for failing "to heed her hand-held stop sign" outside an Orthodox synagogue (A-12).

Nor does Staff Writer Nicholas Pugliese explain why the Bergen County sheriff launched a ticket blitz against pedestrians as part of a "safety program" instead of tackling a far more menacing problem, drivers who speed and blow through stop signs and red lights.

School news

Today's Local section includes two more stories about Englewood schools (L-2 and L-6).

In contrast, the Woodland Park daily has completely ignored education issues in Hackensack, the biggest school district in Bergen County.

That's been the case even though the school budget exceeds the municipal budget there, and board members have spent an inordinate amount of time launching partisan attacks against City Council members and other city officials.

High salaries

Karen Lewis, superintendent of Hackensack schools, is being paid $167,500, but other payments to her means she is getting more than Christie's $175,000 a year. 

Assistant Superintendent Rosemary Martin Marks is being paid $167,280 a year, and Assistant Superintendent Joseph V. Cicchelli gets $161,515.

High school Principal James Montesano receives $172,868 -- a higher annual salary than the superintendent -- and five other high school administrators get paid more than $157,000 each.

Other salaries include Hillers School Principal Joy Dorsey-Whiting, $165,455; Jackson Avenue School Principal Andrea Oates-Parchment, $165,455; Parker School Principal Lillian Whitaker, $162,319; Middle School Principal Corey Jones, $162,398; and Fairmount School Principal Rhonda Ashton-Loeb, $159,370.

High school Director David A. Petrella receives $157,770 a year, as do each of the four high school vice principals -- Anibal Galiana, Mark Johnson, Celso King and Patricia Lozano.

High school Supervisor Talin Young is paid $150,860. 

A dozen lunchroom aides at Fairmount and Hillers schools are paid $22 an hour.

Restaurant help

Readers hoping for help with all of the issues they face when dining out -- from tipping to exorbitant mark-ups on wine to meat and poultry from factory farms -- strike out again today.

Staff Writer Elisa Ung, the paper's chief critic, devotes The Corner Table column to the problems of a local restaurant owner who is struggling to reopen after a car destroyed the place (BL-4).

Saturday's paper

The Record's front page on Saturday was dominated by ISIS, and the end of a U.S. program to train moderate rebels in Syria.

The program spent $500 million before it was abandoned, but the sub-headline on Saturday referred to it incorrectly as a "plan."

Local editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza commissioned stories on schools in Paterson and Englewood, but not Hackensack.

A racehorse chases all local human news off of Page 1

The Forest Avenue ramp in Paramus has no lane allowing drivers to merge onto Route 4 west, above, making it one of  Bergen County's biggest bottlenecks, with cars often backed up onto Forest. Drivers pass the old Forum Diner, below, an eyesore that has been closed for years, and wonder why a merging lane couldn't be carved out of the vacant parking lot.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After hours of TV coverage on Saturday and the millions of words that preceded it, readers of The Record likely won't bother doing more than glancing at the photo of a racehorse on Page 1 today.

More animal news appears in Local today -- rotting deer carcasses on road shoulders near and far, and coyotes that are frightening Saddle Brook residents (L-1 and L-7).

Local human news is scarce, however.

TV coverage of the Belmont Stakes, the last leg of the Triple Crown, began at 2:30 Saturday afternoon and ran past 7 p.m. -- this for a race that lasted less than 3 minutes.

To fill all that time, commentators ranged far and wide, even telling viewers American Pharoah's jockey grew up on a goat farm outside Mexico City.

Not long after that, a commercial for a cable-TV service showed a beach with a woman whose enormous breasts were spilling out of her bikini, a goat and a horse.

Was that just a coincidence?

Local news?

You know local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza are desperate when they lead their section with a routine post-trial motion to set aside the racketeering conviction of Joseph A. Ferriero, onetime Democratic boss in Bergen County (L-1).

Road Warrior John Cichowski, the so-called commuting columnist, goes on and on today about deer carcasses seen among roadside litter near and far, including Pennsylvania and Minnesota (L-1).

The confused columnist is now referring to every driver, including state troopers, as "road warriors."

Also, does the headline make any sense?

What's "fragile" in the conflict between drivers and deer? "Bloody coexistence," maybe. But "fragile"?

Better Living

One look at The Corner Table column today, and you can tell restaurant critic Elisa Ung ran out of anything meaningful say about readers' restaurant experiences (BL-1).

On Friday, Ung praised the "high-quality" ingredients in a couple of dishes she liked at Sorrento Ristorante in East Rutherford.

But in the lukewarm, 2-star review, she didn't back that up with any information on whether they were naturally raised or grown.

And the Sicilian-born chef lost points because she hated one of his desserts.

Kelly loses it

On the Opinion front, Columnist Mike Kelly compares airport security to "a near theatrical experience that is unlike anything else in life -- except perhaps a mosh pit at a rock concert" (O-1).

No one edits Kelly, so he often sounds like a moron, even though he's been writing a column for, what, 20 or 25 years?

And in recent years, he's been avoiding his own near-death experience -- emergency open heart, coronary bypass surgery -- one that could make compelling reading and perhaps help others struggling with heart disease.

When The Record was in Hackensack, Kelly was among dayside newsroom staffers who were allowed to take a break and go outside and jog, and he appeared to be one of the fittest.

If you have any column ideas for Kelly, his contact information appears here:

Contact Mike Kelly 

Editors' one-two punch: Sports and two long corrections

Two-lane Passaic Street is a major thoroughfare through Hackensack, Maywood and Rochelle Park, but it hasn't changed much since the 1950s. On Saturday, the street was packed with a long line of cars heading toward Rochelle Park, above. 

With no turn lane on Passaic Street at Summit Avenue, a turning car, left, will bring trailing vehicles to a dead stop. The SUV, right, is too big to squeeze through.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One glance at Page 1 of The Record's Sunday edition shows a strong focus on sports above the fold.

The editors consider victims of sexual assault important enough to put on the front page (A-1).

But not more important than a football team at a Catholic high school or the prospects of sports betting in New Jersey -- a subject even more boring than the story on Governor Christie's chief financial booster (A-1).

On A-2, two long corrections are like a slap in the face to readers.

This is what we have been getting for years after Liz Houlton, who earned the sobriquet of "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk, was promoted to the six-figure job of production editor, whose job it is to keep such embarrassing screw-ups out of the paper.

Local news?

The Local-news section carries stories on Teaneck, Fort Lee and Englewood (two), but nothing about Hackensack, the most populous community in Bergen.

The Road Warrior column claims this week's holiday will have everybody focusing on how to "drive on North Jersey's angst-ridden roads without killing or maiming themselves" (L-1).

Speak for yourself, John.

Isn't that what we do all year around after a dramatic decline in the enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving -- a story you have ignored for more than a decade?

Uncharitable chef

Some chefs give away leftovers to charities that help feed the hungry and homeless, but Staff Writer Elisa Ung is celebrating one who turns them into "popular dishes" (BL-1).

Or, as the chief restaurant reviewer puts it in The Corner Table column, "turning trash into cash."

How appetizing. 

Frugal Chef Al Scazafave's restaurant is called The Twisted Elm. That's not the only thing that's "twisted."

Child abuse?

Given the low quality of the food served to students in public schools, are Garfield school employees committing child abuse when they falsify their income to qualify their kids for free lunches (O-1)?

The great Mike Kelly might want to investigate the crap served at Hackensack High and other schools instead of rewriting news stories and asking a million rhetorical questions.

In my rush to recycle Sports, Real Estate, Travel and other useless sections today, did I also discard Business?

I can't find it. 

Scouring Page 1 for scraps of local news

Euclid Avenue, near Grand Avenue, in Hackensack's Fairmount section, above and below, is another street officials have neglected for decades. Residents say it hasn't been paved since 1979, yet taxes and city employees' salaries continue to rise. 

As if a week or more of stories on the so-called sequester crisis wasn't enough, Editor Marty Gottlieb unleashes two more on Page 1 today that are guaranteed to put readers to sleep.

A third A-1 story is a trend piece on free online classes that seems to suggest Gottlieb is flunking his assignment of putting out a hometown newspaper filled with local news.

Shoot em' up

But the front-page is dominated today by a wildly exaggerated column on the AR-15 assault rifle by the tired Mike Kelly.

The main headline -- "Meet America's weapon of choice" -- is hype, and isn't supported by the text or the numbers in a graphic on A-6.

The graphic says 1.626 million were produced in a 21-year period -- this in a nation of 300 million people.

Maybe, the AR-15 is the "weapon of choice" for men who wish their cocks were that big.

More sloppy work

And typical of the work of Production Liz Houlton's copy desk, the A-6 graphic drops the word "million" in two places under a heading: "Number of firearms in U.S."

More errors

On the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski publishes an elaborate justification for all of the rollover-accident photos Sykes uses as filler in place of news she and her minions are too lazy to gather (L-1).

This column follows Cichowski's major boner on Friday, when he told readers toll agencies don't cross-honor E-ZPass discounts, when, in fact, they do. 

A reader concerned about Cichowski's accelerating inaccuracies sent this e-mail to management:

"Like death, taxes and rising tolls, there is another sure thing Record readers can count on: Endless mistaken reporting and misinformed responses by the Road Warrior to readers' questions without any corrections, even when notified about these gross mistakes.

"Road Warrior's glaring mistakes and made-up, uneducated answers were in evidence in the March 1 column responding to to readers' questions about E-ZPass and tolls.

"The Record should STOP the Road Warrior from misinforming its readers and publishing nonsense in response to readers' questions.

"The Road Warrior indicated that the New Jersey Turnpike Authority E-ZPass system won't accept discounts from other E-ZPass systems, including the Port Authority.

"In reality, the N.J. Turnpike E-ZPass Web page specifically states that its EZ-Pass users are eligible for discounts from various E-ZPass systems, such as the Port Authority's.

"The Road Warrior seems to be more interested in filling up column space rather than actually providing accurate answers to his adoring readers."

For the full e-mail, click on this link to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Answers pulled out of thin air 


Local snooze

Hackensack readers are accustomed to a Sunday paper without news of their city, but what about other towns?

The big news in Teaneck is a family and dog escaping a fire (L-3).

Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood are conspicuously absent in the L-1 story on towns launching health and fitness "wellness" programs.

Empty plate

In Better Living, there is no explanation to readers for why The Corner Table column is missing today.

The column -- which often promotes chefs and restaurant owners -- is written by Staff Writer Elisa Ung, who is taking a break from weekly restaurant reviewing.

Columnist bashes Hackensack, gays

The Record of Woodland Park continues to dump on Hackensack, its former home.

Here comes Chicken Kelly to tell us on Page 1 of The Record that the sky is falling in Hackensack after its once-powerful police chief was convicted of official misconduct and insurance fraud in Superior Court.

In keeping with the local-news policy under head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Mike "Chicken" Kelly doesn't lower himself and actually interview any ordinary residents of the most populous community in Bergen County.

In fact, much of Kelly's front-page column today describes the Police Department as it was years ago, when Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa -- a member of the family that ruled the city for decades -- was at the height of his power as police chief. 

Fie on Hackensack

Since The Record and North Jersey Media Group moved out of Hackensack in 2009, Sykes and the other editors have covered the county seat as if it were a foreign country.

Why is Kelly's column the first in decades to  describe the Zisas' political power and the retribution visited on disloyal employees in Zisaville? 

Can he be trusted? This is a journalist whose work cries out for editing. See how he pushes around words without any regard for facts (A-1 and A-8):

" ... the crooks that plague the City of Hackensack."

" ... a roller-coaster trial that lasted six weeks."

" ... the verdict seemed to unlock an emotional Pandora's box of accusations."

The trial was a "roller-coaster" for whom? Those "emotional" Pandora's boxes are the worst, as we all know.

More errors

Kelly says the next City Council meeting is Monday night, but my city-supplied calendar lists it on Tuesday night.

I moved to Hackensack in August 2007, and the city appears to be as safe and well-run now as it was before and after Zisa's arrest in 2010 and his conviction on Wednesday.

On two occasions, I went to police headquarters as a complainant, and have nothing but compliments for the police officers and detectives I dealt with. 

I have noticed changes on Main Street since The Record abandoned its nearby headquarters and pulled out hundreds of employees, but the Woodland Park daily has never reported them. 

Suicide linked to Zisa case

The A-1 story below Kelly's column links the suicide of a suspect in a holding cell at Hackensack police headquarters to the "tumultuous" aftermath of the Zisa conviction, but incorrectly reports the suspended chief was convicted on "criminal misconduct charges." 

Editor Marty Gottlieb publishes three more articles in a long series about Democratic opponents in the 9th Congressional District primary (A-1, A-3 and O-2). 

But readers in Fair Lawn, Hackensack, Teaneck and many other towns continue to be in the dark about the contests in the 5th Congressional District.

Gay bashing

Kelly returns with a second column on today's Opinion front, this time weighing in on the upcoming sentencing of Dharun Ravi, who was found guilty of bullying Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.

Does anyone but Kelly doubt that's why Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge?

Why did Editor Marty Gottlieb and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin publish homophobe Kelly's  appeal for a non-custodial sentence in the bias intimidation of Clementi, who was gay?

On Thursday, Doblin's editorial said Ravi is no scapegoat -- he's a convicted felon who deserves prison and deportation to India.

Kelly so abhors homosexuals his three-page Sunday Record story in 2000 completely ignored their role in the revival of Asbury Park.

On the same exact day Kelly's story appeared, an upbeat cover story in The New York Times' New Jersey section reported that urban homosexual men and women were leading the way in reviving the run-down resort, drawn by affordable, stylish homes and gay clubs. One photo showed two women on the beach with their arms around each other.

Seeing red

Road Warrior John Cichowski -- another columnist whose replacement is long overdue -- again gives voice today to speeders and other bad drivers upset by the number of red-light and other cameras (L-1).

Gottlieb found room for Kelly's semi-fictional account of Hackensack on A-1, but banished a story on "unprecedented" poverty in New Jersey to the front of Local (L-1). 

Money to burn

The Better Living cover story today is about building an outdoor earth oven for cooking food -- an article aimed at the half-dozen readers crazy enough to try such a thing (BL-1).

In another highly relevant food piece, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's The Corner Table column promotes two caterers instead of exploring restaurant issues facing readers (BL-1). 

In Friday's Better Living section, Ung gave a lukewarm 2 stars to a Greek restaurant, Opa in Wayne.

That amounts to the kiss of death from the restaurant reviewer, who also bestowed 2 stars on a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant on Route 23 in the sprawling township.

 

Round-ups are replacing local news

Image by roboppy via Flickr
A column by the restaurant critic listed only two restaurants that serve local, naturally raised food.

Although The Record's editors are ignoring local news from Hackensack and many other communities, they continue to assign round-ups and trend stories, with several appearing in the past two days.


But casting a wide net doesn't always catch all the news, and if readers don't see their towns mentioned in the regional stories, they're invariably disappointed and left in the dark.


And recently, the editors have been unable to resist linking local events to those that have roiled the nation, as they do today, comparing sex-abuse cases in North Jersey schools to the far-larger scandals in the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America.


That's a real stretch, as was Sunday's comparison of the Bergen County synagogue firebombing suspect to the Unabomber.


Editor is Queen Bee


Two more trend stories appear on the front of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section today -- one on falling property values in Bergen County and another on towns merging planning and zoning boards.


Sykes' assignment desk is responsible for generating local news, but also turns out all the regional and trend stories, and edits stories from staffers in Trenton and Washington, D.C.


She and her assistant assignment editors also are responsible for much of the atrocious writing and flawed reporting that have appeared in the Woodland Park daily in the past decade, including all the sub-par columns by John Cichowski and Mike Kelly. 


When Francis "Frank" Scandale was the editor, Sykes' minions turned out numerous regional stories. At one point, Scandale even banned stories about a single town from the front page.


Last week, a story on towns moving their school elections to November didn't mention Hackesack, so residents don't know if that's the final word or whether the city is planning such a change.


In today's Local section, there is so little municipal news from reporters at The Record, the layout editors ran a Demarest story by Amanda Baskind, a reporter at one of its affiliated weekly papers.


Second look


On Sunday, a strong consumer-oriented column from Travel Editor Jill Schensul was far more welcome than her silly musings on global homogenization or her cover story on a lavish cruise vacation she apparently took for free.


Also on Sunday, I enjoyed Better Living's upbeat "12 reasons to love New Jersey" by Staff Writer Virginia Rohan.


Below that on the Better Living front, The Corner Table column by Staff Writer Elisa Ung listed only two restaurants that serve local, naturally raised food.


Ung is the main restaurant reviewer, so is she saying there are so few restaurants that serve quality food, she had to fill the rest of the column with Whole Foods Market and similar stores, as well as winter farmers' markets?


Maybe her column should be renamed The Kitchen Table.


However, she does rhapsodize about the "beautiful dark-yellow/orange yolks" of fresh eggs from local free-roaming hens, so maybe the dessert obsession she displays in every review is easing just a bit.


Related articles

• Royal screwing of Hackensack is complete (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Weekly beats crap out of daily (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

'Look at how fat our governor is'

Image via Wikipedia

Michael Drewniak and Governor Christie after lying to the media again.

At breakfast this morning, I was looking at a small photo of Governor Christie at the bottom of The Record's front page and said out loud to my wife and son, "Look at how fat our governor is."

"The [horizontal] creases in his pants look like they were pressed in," I went on, drawing a good deal of laughter from both. My wife, who was standing, fell to the floor.

I've been fat all my life, and have gone from defending fat people against media onslaughts to wondering why The Record and other media continue to give Christie a pass during the obesity epidemic, especially in view of his cuts to school nutrition programs.

Laurel and Hardy

The photo of Christie shows him walking next to a much thinner man, who might be Michael Drewniak, the governor's combative spin doctor, trotted out when the GOP bully is tired of lying and refuses to speak with reporters.

The accompanying story by Staff Writer John Reitmeyer of the Trenton Bureau (A-1) is a so-called analysis that clearly shows how he and other reporters refuse to confront Christie on most serious issues -- including taxing the wealthy, obesity, the war on unions and unconscionable cuts in programs for poor women and children.

Hey, Editor Francis Scandale, where's the analysis in what essentially is a rehash? 

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

Christie caricature.

Media delusions

What a hoot. Reitmeyer refers to the media as "restless." Antsy, perhaps. Sheepish, cowardly and afraid to challenge authority -- for sure. 

Most of the stories and editorials in The Record could have been written by the Christie administration.

All Record editors -- fat and thin alike -- have avoided any critical reporting or comment about Christie's apparent inaction on the deadly obesity epidemic, or even questioned why first lady Mary Pat Christie made hunger -- not overeating -- a priority.

Most of A-1 today is taken up by a photo and story on the move of the "Miracle on the Hudson" fuselage to a museum, the second such photo in the paper recently. Is this really front-page news?

Bad hair day

The lead story in Local is on "flood mitigation," a real room-clearer. The terrific standalone photo of a state hairdressers exam on L-1 should have been on A-1, in place of that duplicate "Miracle" photo.

But it's clear the lazy, clueless assignment editors working under Editor Deirdre Sykes didn't have any municipal news for her section, so she had to fill the front with that photo and another of a minor truck-auto collision.

More breaks for wealthy

In Business, a story on Christie's funding  cuts to Urban Enterprise Zones doesn't mention the governor is giving tax breaks to wealthy small-business people instead, without any evidence they will create jobs (B-1). 

In Better Living, The Corner Table restaurant column goes far afield to report on challenges facing country club chefs, but Staff Writer Elisa Ung doesn't  say whether any of those clubs bar blacks, Jews and other undesirables (F-5). 

As a restaurant reviewer and food writer during the obesity epidemic, Ung is a model of irresponsibility -- using her limited expense account to stuff her face with dessert, while avoiding salad, vegetables and fruit.

On the front of Opinion, a note tells readers Columnist Mike Kelly is on assignment -- likely to the nearest toilet seat to come up with fresh ideas.

Klutz on vacation

Travel Editor Jill Schensul's cover story -- "Colombia casting off the shadow of fear" -- won't come as news to the thousands of North Jersey Colombians. The South American country has been a safe destination for at least five years (T-1).

Anyway, who would kidnap that kvetching vegetarian? Barbara Jaeger, her cheap editor, would refuse to pay even $1 in ransom. 

Bottom of the news barrel

Image via Wikipedia

Mass-transit advocates are hoping the No. 7 subway is extended to Secaucus, above.

Most of the front page and almost an entire inside page are taken up today with Staff Writer Andrew Tangel's tangled tale about states putting their public employee pension funds at risk. The main headline -- "Public pensions at risk" -- is one of those the news copy desk keeps on a save/get key and uses every six months or so.

At the bottom of A-1 in The Record of Woodland Park today is a story that shows the paper's public relations machine hard at work, this time praising Governor Christie for slowing the increase in state debt -- without mentioning how he has blown billions in federal education and transportation aid.

Doesn't know ass from elbow

That's supplemented by an editorial (Page O-2) that once again hails Christie's decision to kill the Hudson River rail tunnels and urges extension of the No. 7 subway line to Secaucus. This sounds like it was written by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, who doesn't seems to know the meaning of a "one-seat ride" (in mass-transit lingo).

The editorial errs in saying the No. 7 would be a "one-seat ride" to the city "for New Jersey commuters." Only a handful of commuters who walk to the Secaucus station would get a one-seat ride. If you drive or take a bus there, it's two seats; if you take the train to Secaucus, it's also two seats. See, each time your ass is in a sitting position, that's one seat.

The rail tunnels Christie killed would have doubled the number of NJ Transit trains and given many thousands of commuters a one-seat ride into Manhattan from rail stations in North Jersey. The chief benefit of extending the No. 7 line would be a direct link to the East Side of Manhattan for the first time.

The paper seems thin today, as if Editor Frank Scandale and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes have been scraping the bottom of the news barrel. 

Misnamed column

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung writes a Sunday column in Better Living called "The Corner Table," which sounds like it's supposed to represent the views of customers. But so many of her columns are like today's -- quoting restaurant owners, chefs and others in the food business.

Couldn't she find any restaurant patrons who had wish lists for the holidays or was she just too lazy to look? I guess she thinks her constant belly aching about the quality of desserts she samples for her restaurant reviews is voice enough for consumers.

If she doesn't change the name of her Sunday column,  she risks being known as Ugh, not Ung. 

Selling out the Travel section

Of all the cruise lines, why is Royal Caribbean's seven-night Mediterranean trip featured in the Travel section's Cover Story? Did the cruise line comp Staff Writer Jerry Luciani, who is head of the graphics department? Or are we to believe the newspaper spent nearly $6,000 to send him and his wife on the trip?

Luciani and another male staffer were seen this year on an all-expenses-paid press junket to Mexico City.

Black, Hispanic, and Asian Indian travelers make a rare appearance today on the usually all-white Page T-3, The Record on the Road photo feature.