Where life and death are highly profitable

A congressional proposal to end door-to-door mail delivery -- reported on Page 1 of The Record today -- would intensify the war over the four metered parking spaces in front of the Hackensack Post Office on State Street, above.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The owners of the for-profit Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center laughed all the way to the bank while stiffing nurses and the IRS, The Record reports today (A-1).

In less than three years, the 230-bed Secaucus hospital paid its owners $14.4 million, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn says.

Her shocking report identifies principals of investment syndicate MHA LLC as Woodcliff Lake anesthesiologist Richard Lipsky, Tamara Dunaev, Pavel Pogodin and Anastasia Burlyuk.

From the sound of their names, people entering the country illegally to compete for low-wage jobs that Americans refuse to do aren't the country's real immigration problem, as the media would have us think.

I'd also like to see Washburn report on salaries and profits at another hospital, Hackensack University Medical Center, whose tax-exempt status is a crushing burden for city homeowners and other property tax payers.

More partisanship

What is achieved by The Record and other media reporting every speech by President Obama as if he is still campaigning for a second term, as the Woodland Park daily does in today's A-1 photo caption?

By continuing to report on the partisan pissing matches paralyzing government, The Record cheats readers and neglects its responsibility to report on the issues they are most interested in.

Local schmooze

Another correction from the disoriented Local news editors appears on A-2 today. They can't get names right and don't know what town they're in.

Today's Local front is strong, for a change, but why focus on speeders on one Teaneck street when they are everywhere and enforcement is at an historic low (L-1)?

And why allow Road Warrior John Cichowski to encourage speeders, as he did in recent, negative columns about red-light cameras and so-called road hogs, who obey the speed limit?

Another copy desk screw-up appears in the photo caption with the East Cedar Lane speeding story. The caption calls speeding "reckless driving" (L-1).
 
Doing their jobs

Pages L-2 and L-3 resemble a Law & Order insert today, complete with a filler photo of a minor accident in place of legitimate news (L-3).

The copy desk came up with another stunning over line:

RESCUE WORKERS AID ACCIDENT VICTIM

It could just as well say:

RESCUE WORKERS DO THEIR JOBS

Why is this photo in the paper? 

Thanks, Bon Jovi

The Better Living cover story on the massive Buick Electra being used on Bon Jovi's concert stage only reminds some older readers of the unsafe cars produced by the Big Three in the 1950s, despite their size and weight (BL-1).