In Christie's New Jersey, even a racehorse restores pride

For drivers, it's a rough ride on River Street in Hackensack and scores of other streets in North Jersey that have been patched after extensive utility work or simply neglected, sometimes for a decade or more. Still, we pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front page of The Record today gives you some idea of how depressed New Jerseyans are in the fifth year of Governor Christie's reign.

When a woman gushes over winning $16 and a racehorse is said to restore pride in the Garden State, you definitely know we are mired in deep doo-doo (A-1).

Staff Writer Christopher Maag reinforces the point in his sixth paragraph, noting "the sitting governor" was "booed loudly" by his constituents "as he stood in the winner's circle."

So, the record crowd at Monmouth Park in Oceanport booed Christie, the horse's ass, and cheered the racehorse, Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

Climate change

Another story on Page 1 today describe how Christie sides with industry, not the environment, when it comes to making public information on potentially dangerous oil trains passing through Bergen County (A-1).

And thanks to Christie, New Jersey likely will be one of the Republican-led states that oppose President Obama's initiative to cut greenhouse gases and fight climate change (A-1).

As the media have done with every issue since the president took office, climate change is politicized and presented in terms of Democrats v. Republicans, and not what's good for the country and the environment.

However, the sub-headline on the Obama story goes too far:

Power plants
and states to
fight Obama

Of course, as the first paragraph of The Associated Press story clearly states, opposition is expected from "Republican-led states," not all states (A-1).

Muslim pride

Also today, The Record continues its campaign to humanize Muslim-Americans with a story on Abrar Shahin, "the fashionable hijab-wearing Muslim teenager" from Clifton "who has become a global sensation" (A-1).

Local news?

On the Local front, a story on a final link in the Secaucus Greenway includes a Meadowlands map with few labels, so readers have to scour the story for clues on where they can find the start of the public footpath (L-1).

The story leading the Local section never explains why the four Di Cosmo brothers are selling "their local watering hole," The Front Porch, after 34 years (L-1).

On Teaneck horse owner, editor is upstaged by ex-paper

Chubby's on Queen Anne Road in Teaneck, one of the oldest barbershops in Bergen County, is offering a free mane trim to any resident who owns a racehorse.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front pages of The Record and The New York Times today report extensively on the Teaneck millionaire whose racehorse has a shot at the Triple Crown on Saturday.

But The Times does a far better job exploring the human-interest angle, especially how Ahmed Zayat has managed to remain an observant Jew during his rise to the top of the murky horse racing industry.

In doing so, the Manhattan-based national and international newspaper tells a story that Teaneck residents, especially the township's Muslims and Orthodox Jews, will find much more engaging than The Record's report (A-1).

Isn't it rich? 

Martin Gottlieb is upstaged and outflanked by the paper where he had a stellar career as a reporter and editor before he took over as editor of The Record, where he started his journalism career in the early 1970s.

Muslim or Jew?

One startling revelation in The Times story:

"Publicly, Mr. Zayat alternately identifies as Muslim and Jewish."

Before he moved to the U.S., Zayat privatized the former state-held beer company in his native Egypt, and "pioneered a line of nonalcoholic beers that appealed to the conservative Muslim country," The Times reports.

But in 2006, he bought a $4.6 million colt and named it Maimonides after one of the greatest Jewish philosophers.

"As a Muslim, he said at the time: 'I wanted to say something with a tool I had, which was a horse. I wanted to be pro-peace, and about loving your neighbor.'"

In Teaneck

"He lives with his wife and four children in a largely modern Orthodox neighborhood of Tudor and Victorian houses known as West Englewood in Teaneck ...," according to The Times.

"They keep kosher, arranging menus in advance at racetracks and, if they cannot locate a hotel close by, they stay in an R.V. and walk to the track, as they did at the Preakness Stakes, to avoid driving on the Sabbath."

The Times story continued:

"When asked for clarification about his religion, Mr. Zayat said, 'Why is it relevant, and why does it matter? It's personal.'"

The Times story was the talk of Teaneck's Orthodox Jewish community today.

Two men discussing Zayat and the race wondered how many synagogues will leave on a TV so that congregants can watch his stallion, American Pharoah (a misspelling of "pharaoh"), in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.

Also on Page 1

Don't miss the scintillating story on the rising number of bank branches in Bergen County (A-1).

Gottlieb leads the front page with a Washington Post story on Chinese hackers hitting the Office of Personnel Management as a warning to the four federal employees who call North Jersey home (A-1).

Another Page 1 story on "more than $1 billion in ... fees paid to Wall Street money managers in the last five years" doesn't tell readers whether Governor Christie has anything to do with the giveaway.