Editors promote Kelly book, gas guzzlers, unhealthy food

An office building on Union Street in Hackensack, opposite John A. Earl Inc., has been torn down, and some residents believe apartments will be built there.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You'll have to read and read and read today's Page 1 column to find out what The Record's Mike Kelly means by "a new reality" in Israel, where four Jews were killed while praying in a synagogue.
In fact, the column is so poorly written and edited you'll have to turn to the continuation page and chose between two new realities he mentions:

The broken "trust" between Jews and Palestinians or "murders [that] seemed all too close and personal" (A-6).

The entire, murkily written column seems designed to promote a book Kelly wrote about a 1996 suicide bus bombing, which he mentions at the end of his overlong piece.

The book has been promoted by both (201) magazine and NorthJersey.com.

More Christie P.R.

Governor Christie's chances of getting the Republican presidential nomination get better play today (A-1) than the resignation of one of his closest advisers from a council that invests the state's $80 billion public employee pension fund (A-3).

An ethics complaint alleges Robert Grady allowed political contributions to Republican groups to influence investments.

Press hysteria

Instead of encouraging readers to take mass transit, The Record continues to scandalize the $1 lease between the Port Authority and NJ Transit, two public transportation agencies, for a commuter parking lot (A-1).

If NJ Transit had to pay $1.2 million a year for the land, the agency might have to raise fares.

Similarly, the business editors run a wire-service report noting "green cars" are the focus at the L.A, Auto Show, but no photos of Toyota's and Honda's emission-free cars are used on L-8.

Instead, an Audi with a 605-horsepower V-8 engine is featured.

Unhealthy recipes

Better Living editors continue to run the recipes of freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson, who specializes in turning healthy food like carrots and butternut squash into unhealthy dishes (BL-1).

All of her Thanksgiving recipes contain artery clogging butter or bacon (BL-3).

Second look

On Sunday, Road Warrior John Cichowski's column on a future form of mass transit was filled with errors, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior provides a very dim-witted and mistake-filled report about the first ever, potential use by JPod Inc. of its privately funded, personal rapid-transit system with small overhead passenger pods in Secaucus.

"Road Warrior tried to convince readers that a JPod system designed to handle up to 1,000 passengers, at best, could have easily handled the crowds leaving MetLife stadium from the last Super Bowl.

"It would not have handled the large crowds since he forgot that he previously reported that there were 33,000 passengers that were trying to utilize the train system that day.

"Road Warrior claimed that construction for a JPod system would start no later than early next year since it would be easily approved by the Secaucus City Council.

"Secaucus administrators dispute his wild guess since no formal plans -- which are subject to reviews, delays and rejection by local, Meadowlands and state officials -- have been submitted.

Cichowski also described the system inaccurately as a "monorail." 

See: Road Warrior buries accuracy in Meadowlands

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Stupid front page gets even more stupid below the fold

The lower level of an NJ Transit double-decker rail car. To avoid writing about mass transit and other commuting issues, Road Warrior John Cichowski often goes far afield. Today's Page 1 column is a new low in irrelevance.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Just when I thought a professional baseball player at his last All-Star Game is the silliest Page 1 photo I have ever seen in The Record, I looked below the fold, only to find the so-called commuting columnist writing about historic New Bridge Landing.

Staff Writer John Cichowksi may be old enough to have fought in the Revolutionary War, but even he seems ashamed of this new, irrelevant tack for the commuting column he has been writing for more than a decade (A-1).

So, in his fourth paragraph, he throws in a familiar locator for commuters, "Only seven miles from the George Washington Bridge ...."

Instead of writing about the sad state of the Steuben House, which was built in 1752, Cichowski should be writing about the sad state of public transit and the resulting nightmarish traffic jams in North Jersey. 

Confusing editing

On the Local front, the lead paragraph of the main story refers to "warring gang sets" in Paterson (L-1).

Is "set" a police term? Does the reporter mean "gang members"?

Where was Production Editor Liz Houlton, asleep at her computer?

Is 'Mr. Green' here?

The reporter notes Jeffrey Ellerbee, one of the three suspects in the July 5 fatal shooting of Genesis Rincon, 12, "may be represented by one of North Jersey's most prominent attorneys, Miles Feinstein" (L-1).

Feinstein won't be representing Ellerbee unless the suspect's family comes up with a hefty retainer, as the attorney makes clear on L-6, where he is quoted as saying he had been approached, but "no arrangements" have been made.

Criminal defense attorneys like Feinstein have been known to ask judges for postponements, explaining in open court, "Your honor, Mr. Green [money] isn't here." 

Hole in head

A photo caption on L-3 shows a flooded street in Cliffside Park and "water gushing out of a drainage hole ...."

Did the copy editor mean to write "sewer grate"?

Maybe Houlton was stuck in traffic and couldn't get to work.

A story on the first Business page expects readers to believe luxury condo buyers are willing to pay $1.1 million to $2 million to live next to a construction site on the Hudson River in Weehawken (L-7).

More about chefs

Better Living is top heavy with stories about chefs, and issues faced by restaurant goers are almost completely ignored, even in the weekly fine-dining restaurant review.

Today, the Better Living cover carries a profile of Kevin Kohler, the chef who opened Cafe Panache in Ramsey 30 years ago this month. (BL-1).

He deserves respect, of course, but why run the piece on the same day as the weekly COFFEE WITH THE CHEF feature on L-2?

Money talks

Of course, restaurants are big advertisers in The Record, but in general, North Jersey Media Group has a hard time keeping journalism and promotion apart.

Tuesday's Better Living section carried a full-page ad for an Englewood event produced by Exposure, a marketing arm of NJMG (L-12).

The event also was promoted in stories.

Let's hope it doesn't turn into the traffic nightmare of Exposure's food-truck event at the new Overpeck Park last summer, when thousands were turned away.

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North Jerseyans are beached by all that shore news

A homeless woman stopping to do a little housekeeping on West 34th Street, near Sixth Avenue, in Manhattan on Friday night.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Page 1 of The Record's Sunday edition delivers a shore outlook story like every one I've read or edited in the past 30 years.

Even Staff Writer Christopher Maag was pulled off his Hackensack beat to write a sidebar on how beach communities hit hard by Superstorm Sandy in late 2012 seem different now.

"Drive nearly any street from Sea Bright to Beach Haven," Maag reports, "and you're likely to see streets still ripped apart, houses jacked into the sky, and contractors' dented and oversized pickups that seem to occupy every bare piece of ground." 

Those sound like some jacks. And hundreds of pickups.

More on the shore

There is more shore news in Travel today (T-1).

Feature writer John Petrick recently returned from several years of exile covering trials and suits at the Passaic County Courthouse in Paterson -- and he's rusty, as you can see by the wordy, poorly edited lead paragraph of his piece on working at the shore as a teen.

That one paragraph has a "speeding car," "Garden State Parkway," "steamy Friday afternoon," "every Memorial Day weekend" and "another subsequent summer in my now grown-up life."

I stuck with it, and enjoyed his insider's look at "the endless bore" of a low-paying job running a wheel of chance during the day, which he refers to as "dayside," a newspaper term.

Payback for advertisers

Today's Local news section is from hunger.

In return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue, The Record continues its intense coverage of malls and its neglect of Main Street (B-1).

At Westfield Garden State Plaza, Staff Writer Joan Verdon reports, a new wing has "double-height store facades" to resemble "a downtown street."

Isn't that rich?

And God forbid the editors suggest owners of the Paramus mall spend more money on security after crowds were panicked by gunshots and the fear of gunshots in the past six months.

Boring Kelly is back

A desperate Mike Kelly tries to wring meaning from the dinky Anderson Street Bridge, which was reduced to one lane in each direction from two a couple of years ago because of structural problems (O-1).

The biggest disruption has been experienced by low-wage workers and others who use hundreds of buses that were rerouted, but The Record has never interviewed any of those riders.

I drive over the bridge linking Hackensack and Teaneck a few times a week, and one lane in each direction is enough -- I've never seen a traffic jam there. 

But the stupid headline tries to give readers the impression this is big local news: "Hackensack's bridge going nowhere."

Is it really "Hackensack's bridge"? And it wasn't "going" anywhere before the lane closures.

Look at the shit-eating grin in Kelly's photo. He's pulled another fast one on his editors and readers.

Calling all fat readers

The Better Living cover promises "foodie news" on BL-2.

OK. But with three of the five items devoted to artery clogging ice cream, gelato, chocolate-covered frozen bananas and frozen shakes, this feature should be labeled "fattie news."

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Reporting that doesn't speak to most readers

The NY Waterway Ferry Terminal on the West Side of Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Why does The Record run a Page 1 column today on what causes a tiny fraction of every 100 motor vehicle accidents?

Road Warrior John Cichowski notes the number of crashes tied to "automobile mechanical failure" declined slightly through 2012, but nearly five months into 2014, he doesn't provide any numbers for last year (A-1).

And even though he is rested from a vacation, he ignores a higher percentage of crashes tied to mechanical problems in 2012, compared to 2008.

Most accidents are caused by speeding and aggressive driving, and their number likely has risen as state police enforcement has declined.

Isn't that front-page news?

Missing information

The A-6 story on "New Jersey pilgrims" focuses on a Catholic man who lives in Bucks County, Pa.  

The reporter should have found a North Jersey resident for her lead anecdote.

Why didn't Record sports Columnist Tara Sullivan tell us something about the bimbo who is dating racist Donald Sterling, the geezer owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team (A-6)?

The young woman, identified in a photo caption as "V. Stiviano," must throw up every time Sterling touches her.

Taxing chief

Why are the Local editors so upbeat about the retirement at 45 of Fairview Police Chief Frank Del Vecchio, who was paid more than Governor Christie and who -- in an affront to taxpayers -- is cashing out $50,931 in unused sick and vacation days (L-1)? 

The Record's Better Living cover today continues the lopsided coverage of restaurants from inside the kitchen, instead of focusing on issues customers face inside the dining room, such as high prices for wine and low-quality food (BL-1).

What's the point of interviewing chefs about morels, an ingredient that is so expensive few North Jersey restaurants actually serve it?

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Suckers! You voted for an absentee governor

This eyesore at 177 Euclid Ave. in Hackensack looks much the same as it did when I moved into the neighborhood in August 2007, except the furniture piled on the front porch was removed a few years ago. Ignoring complaints to the city's Building Department and visits by city inspectors, this homeowner doesn't appear interested in finishing the renovation project.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

On Tuesday, The Record named seven states Governor Christie plans to visit in the coming year as chairman of the Republican Goobers Association (Tuesday's A-2).

Today, in a Page 1 story, the Woodland Park daily expanded Christie's campaign itinerary to 36 states where fellow Republicans will be involved in gubernatorial races (A-1).

The Record sent Staff Writer Melissa Hayes to Scottsdale, Ariz., to continue her work of building Christie's image into a viable presidential candidate in 2016 -- despite his abysmal record in New Jersey on the economy (L-7), mass transit, tolls, property taxes and other issues.

Guadano to rule

When our absentee governor is on the road, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadano, a non-entity who gives a bad name to women, will be the acting governor, Hayes reports today.

As head of the goobers group, Christie will command an enormous slush fund of campaign money from corporations and other anonymous donors -- all of it intended to do the evil work of the 1% against the rest of us.

Today, The Record said the association raised nearly $24 million in the first six months of the year, nearly $1.6 million from New Jersey.

Racist blacklash

On Monday, Christie attacked President Obama and claimed the Affordable Care Act is "a failure," The Record reported on Tuesday's A-2.

But the GOP bully forgot to mention that he and fellow conservatives in more than 30 other states are doing their best to subvert the enrollment effort -- as part of the racist backlash by congressional Republicans.

Second best for N.J.

Christie gladly accepted millions of federal dollars to expand health care to the poor in New Jersey.

At the same time, he refused to set up a state health-care exchange, forcing residents to use the problem-plagued federal Web site, reducing choice and limiting competition among insurers.

So North Jersey residents get to see glowing TV ads about New York State's health-care exchange and affordable policies, but remain in the dark about buying insurance in the Garden State.

Baseball prick

Christie's ascendancy to head of the GOP goobers is the lead story on Page 1 today, where Editor Marty Gottlieb wastes a great deal of space on Alex Rodriguez, the drugged baseball player who does a good imitation of a walking erection.

'Pedal error'?

In the seven days since Ruta Fiorino, 49, an employee of Trader Joe's, was hit by a car outside the Westwood store on Nov. 13, The Record appears unable to find out how the accident happened (L-1).

Today's story on fundraising for the severely injured woman reports the car driven by Maryann Lewis, 75, of New Milford "apparently accelerated and lurched forward." 

A common problem among older drivers is "pedal error," mistaking the gas pedal for the brake pedal.

What about programs to help seniors improve their driving skills and cut down on similar accidents? 

The Record apparently doesn't know or doesn't care.

Dissing seniors

Even Staff Writer John Cichowski hasn't tackled the question for the Road Warrior column, which  has spent the last decade examining driving, drivers and the MVC is such minute detail.

Typical of The Record's coverage of the elderly, who aren't confined to nursing homes or mental institutions, is the rare mention of Alzheimer's disease in a photo caption on L-1 today.

When food is garbage

The Better Living cover today confirms that 50 years of cooking shows and other nonsense about food on television have been little more than fluff (BL-1).

Not a single Food Network show has focused attention on factory farms and the unnatural lengths processors, restaurant owners and chefs go to fatten their profits at the expense of the consumer.

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NJ Transit rail officials stop blaming the victim

The Midtown Bridge between Hackensack and Bogota, above, has been closed indefinitely for emergency repairs, borough police said today. The bridge was closed on Thursday, though I don't recall seeing anything in The Record.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

NJ Transit has stopped blaming the people who commit suicide by train.

On Page 1 of The Record today, Staff Writer Jim Norman reports rail suicides are on the upswing, prompting the public transit agency to work with the state Department of Human Services on new programs "aimed at stemming the tragic trend."

Nowhere in Norman's story does "trespasser" appear -- the word that NJ Transit repeatedly used to describe suicide victims in earlier stories by transportation reporter Karen Rouse.

Rouse completely and enthusiastically swallowed the agency line in every story she wrote about a rail suicide, and the paper often didn't even bother to identify the victim.

But The Record still shies away from asking NJ Transit why it doesn't build more fences or deploy more transit police to prevent people from using trains to kill themselves.

Bad headline

The Woodland Park daily managed to get midnight gay marriage ceremonies on today's front page, but chose an idiotic headline: "History struck at midnight."

What didn't strike was inspiration.

Editor Marty Gottlieb wasted more front page space on a professional football game and another look ahead at the Super Toilet Bowl in February (A-1).

Two more corrections from the newsroom that can't write straight or fact check appear on A-2.

Local yokels

Gottlieb wasn't the only editor scrambling for legitimate news: 

Deputy Assignment Flunky Dan Sforza put a story and huge photo of a "passive house" on the Local front today.

The L-1 story about a Teaneck couple and their energy efficient house has Sunday Real Estate section written all over it. 

Today's local-news section also carries an astounding four stories on walks, runs or ceremonies for various charities (L-1 and L-3).

Today's Better Living cover story on three career waiters is a refreshing break from the paper's mindless promotion of celebrity chefs, restaurants and their wealthy owners (BL-1).

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Editors scramble to catch up to big local story

These rules of conduct displayed on an NJ Transit local train to Suffern, N.Y., above and below, help explain why Governor Christie has such disdain for mass transit. The GOP bully surely would be thrown off the train if he tried his in-your-face, insulting behavior with other commuters.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The Record of Woodland Park continues to play catch up today on a big Hackensack story -- the untimely death of prominent businessman Jerome S. Some, who was killed crossing the street in front of his Prospect Avenue high-rise on Tuesday night.

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza has struggled to keep up with the story since then, even following the lead of this blogger in reporting charges against the driver and interviewing the 87-year-old's survivors.

It doesn't seem possible for a daily newspaper, but here it is the fourth day after Some's death and Sforza is only now naming the poor man's widow, Diane Some, who is shown in a photo on the Local front (L-1).

The photo runs with a story on Friday's humor- and tear-filled funeral in Hackensack.

Local editor wilts

Running the local-news operation in the absence of his boss has exhausted Sforza, but the former reporter is doing a good job padding his report with Law & Order news, photos of minor fires and accidents (L-3 and L-4) and wire service obits of obscure people (L-5 and L-6).

Food crystal ball

What's the point of the Better Living cover story today on "the next big trends in cuisine" (BL-1)?

It's pretty clear the North Jersey chefs interviewed have at least one eye on the bottom line: 

Not one predicted that restaurants will be serving more organic and naturally raised or grown food, knowing that would cut into their profits.

Second look

It's hard to believe that Friday's front-page story on so-called apartheid schools in New Jersey completely omitted mention of Englewood's long-segregated public schools.

The elementary and middle schools in the white-ruled city certainly fit the profile: "1 percent or fewer of the students are white."

Maybe someone can explain to me how North Jersey Media Group Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, former publisher of The Record, could have lived on Englewood's East Hill for decades and allowed his newspaper to be so derelict in its duty to the city's minorities.

Of course, his children, Stephen and Jennifer, were considered too special to attend public schools. And now that they are running The Record, they have as much disdain for Englewood's public schools as their father.

Cashing in on 9/11

The Borgs refused to spend a few thousand dollars to remake the front page on Sept. 11, 2001, and relegated to a back page the iconic photo of firemen raising the American flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center.

But in recent years, Jennifer A. Borg, Esq., the paper's hotshot lawyer, has milked the photo for all of the damages she can win from people who violate NJMG's copyright.

On Thursday, an L-3 story in The Record reported NJMG is seeking as much as $150,000 in damages from Jeanine Pirro, a Fox TV personality, for such a violation.

A few years ago, a glossy 8-by-10-inch copy of Tom Franklin's famous photo was inserted into copies of The Record.

On the other side was an advertisement for a Ford dealer in Hackensack.

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Editors try to paper over uncomfortable truths

Musicians scrambling to protect themselves and their equipment from a sudden, heavy downpour on Tuesday night during a concert on the green in downtown Tenafly.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Will wonders never cease, as reported by The Record?

A Superior Court judge was called for jury duty in Passaic County, then excused at the request of the defendant's lawyer in a civil suit (Page 1).

Gee whiz. 

When is The Record ever going to report on the outrageous hourly rates charged by attorneys, and how they restrict access to the courts?

Hourly charges of $400, $500 and more prevent many people from ever bringing their grievances to court or force them to cut their losses and settle frivolous suits filed against them by such litigious companies as North Jersey Media Group.

In the fact-based HBO drama "The Newsroom," a lawyer for the cable-news network tells a producer she charges $1,500 an hour. 

Let's hope that's a piece of fiction.

Ay, caramba!

There are at least 5 stories about state campaigns, politics and, yes, the 2016 presidential contest in today's paper (A-1, A-3, A-4 and A-11).

During a campaign swing through Newark's Ironbound, Christie boasted of "his bipartisan record," Staff Writer Melissa Hayes reports with a straight face (A-4).

Of course, the reporter or her editors didn't dare mention all of the times he used vetoes to get his way on everything from an increase in the minimum wage to a tax surcharge on millionaires.

White noise

Readers might notice no African-Americans appeared with Christie in the conservative Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian neighborhood.

That's because Ironbound residents are likely to run for the phone to call police when they see a black person on their block.

Clinton v. Christie?

The story on the 2016 presidential race also is kind to Christie, who doesn't have a ghost of a chance to defeat Hillary Clinton, even if he is chosen as the nominee over Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and those other GOP morons (A-11).

Buckle up

The Road Warrior column often takes a back seat to accuracy.

Today, Staff Writer John Cichowski bores readers with a column on seat-belt use by passengers in the back seat, and fields questions from readers who seem as befuddled as he is (L-1).

So far, Cichowski has a perfect, nearly 10-year-long record of avoiding real commuting issues, such as massive traffic congestion and inadequate mass transit.

From hunger

Readers turning to Better Living for intelligent food coverage only get crumbs and crummy ones at that:

Two artery clogging recipes, one from Kate Morgan Jackson, a clueless food blogger in Upper Saddle River. 

One of the recipes has cream cheese, sour cream and heavy cream in it (BL-1 and BL-2).

And the cover story is on a celebrity chef taking part in one of those silly TV cooking contests (BL-1).

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Why are we letting drivers get away with murder?

The new Hackensack City Council is meeting tonight at 7 on the 3rd Floor of City Hall at Central Avenue and State Street.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The centerpiece on the front page of The Record today is a familiar story -- one I've probably read 100 times in newspapers or seen on TV news:

A car runs down and kills a pedestrian, but the driver tells police he "didn't see" the victim.

He wasn't speeding and didn't break any other traffic laws.

And the police say he didn't appear to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, so no charges are filed.

Life is worth little 

Look how cheap life is in North Jersey.

Emil Sous -- a North Haledon man whose 17-year-old daughter Michelle was killed in just this way -- is seeking mandatory drug and alcohol tests for all pedestrians and drivers involved in fatal accidents (A-1).

But why stop there?

Why haven't police and prosecutors long ago called on lawmakers to pass a law that would criminalize the actions of a driver who was so negligent that he took a human life?

The Sous family undoubtedly will file a lawsuit against Steven Timpone, 24, the driver of the pickup that killed Michelle in front of their home.

But the damages they win won't bring Timpone and drivers like him to justice. He probably won't even lose his license.

Paper is at fault

I have never seen an editorial in The Record calling for stiffer laws that would, in effect, charge a driver who killed a pedestrian with criminal negligence.

In fact, Staff Writer John Cichowski's Road Warrior column has criticized red-light cameras and other measures intended to catch and penalize speeding drivers.

Through laziness or sheer incompetence, the Road Warrior has championed readers who treat driving like a blood sport. 

Speeding kills

In two recent columns, Cichowski allowed lead-footed drivers to attack and denigrate so-called road hogs, who obey the speed limit.

I guess Cichowski doesn't know or doesn't care that speeding is the cause of most accidents and red-light violations.

Doesn't compute

In today's Local news section, a police brief raised a question that it never answered:

What were two 18-year-olds doing driving a Range Rover, and why did one of them have a $10,000 Rolex watch (L-8)?

Heart healthy

Readers of Better Living are accustomed to reading recipes oozing with butter and heavy cream or sizzling with bacon.

So today's feature story on Gary Oppenheimer of West Milford -- "Hunger Fighter" -- is a welcome relief (BL-1).

Oppenheimer actually served Staff Writer Sachi Fujimori a salad from his own garden. 

What a concept: Healthy food.

 

 

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Football star Victor Cruz ditches Paterson

The Hackensack City Council meeting scheduled for Tuesday has been moved to July 22 at 7 p.m., according to the city's Web site. But the Committee of the Whole is still meeting this coming Monday night at 7. The meetings are held on the 3rd Floor of City Hall, above. 

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Just like the vast majority of readers, I am not one of those sports fanatics who follow every move by that other Victor.

But here is the lead Page 1 story in The Record today telling one and all that pro football player Victor Cruz is just a regular Joe.

Apparently, Cruz has signed a $43 million deal, but still eats mystery meat at the diner, drops off his own clothes at the cleaner and, get this, shows respect to the immigrant Korean owner.

What a guy.

But, hey, when did Cruz move out of Paterson and into a condo in Lyndhurst? The story raises other questions, but doesn't answer them. 

Indigestible

Editor Marty Gottlieb should know that if you are going to use the hackneyed device of a sports star's friendship with a diner waitress, you should say whether that star is a good tipper, too.

Cruz spoke out against gun violence after the elementary school slaughter in Connecticut late last year.

So, will he use a hundred thousand dollars or so of his $43 million to sponsor a gun buy-back program in Paterson, which is known for drive-by shootings and other gun violence?

The city's do-nothing Police Department and its overpaid chief certainly could use his help.

The rest of today's front page is forgettable. 

Column hog

Lane Laggard John Cichowski is back with another silly Road Warrior column, just a day after his wildly hyped Page 1 "expose" of lower-level GWB toll lanes that have been unstaffed for nearly 10 years (L-1).

Today, he blames 265 fatal crashes from 2007 to 2011 on "left-lane hogs" instead of slamming the real culprits -- the drivers who speed 20 mph or 30 mph over the limit in gas-guzzling SUVs and luxury cars, terrorizing and cutting off slower drivers.

Cichowski is so deperate for copy he bases today's inaccurate column on e-mailed complaints from some of those dangerously impatient drivers, including the improbably named Carlo Disney of Woodcliff Lake.

Healthy tweaks?

In Better Living, Upper Saddle River food blogger Kate Morgan Jackson is back with another unhealthy recipe, this time a pasta-chicken dish made with butter and with poultry raised on harmful animal antibiotics (BL-1).

A couple of tweaks -- extra-virgin olive oil instead of butter and the use of organic chicken -- would make the recipe a winner.

She also recommends cooking the pasta in "heavily salted water" when the legions watching their sodium intake have long ago stopped using any salt to cook pasta. 

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Developers still have their hooks into Hackensack

NJ Transit's Jersey Avenue local left New York's Penn Station a few minutes after its scheduled 2:29 p.m. departure on Friday. Seats on this older rail car freed up only after the train stopped at Secaucus Junction and Newark Penn Station. The discomfort of many rail and bus rider is of little concern to The Record.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Even after a reform City Council slate is sworn in on Monday -- as reported today by The Record --Hackensack will be burdened for years to come by insider deals with developers.

A 226-unit development on Hackensack Avenue is now renting, a 222-unit building on State Street has broken ground and other developers have announced plans to replace The Record's old headquarters with hundreds of new high-rise and mid-rise apartments.

None of these developers have been asked to help ease the expected impact on Hackensack's badly crowded schools.

Ruling by veto

A heading on Page 1 today reports Governor Christie signed a "bipartisan" budget, but the full story on A-3 contradicts that with news of several vetoes the GOP bully used to get his way.

One of the vetoes killed $7 million in funding to Planned Parenthood and other women's health organizations. 

That's very "bipartisan" of Christie, just like his earlier vetoes of a hike in the minimum wage or a tax surcharge on millionaires.

Eat this

On Friday, in Eating Out on $50, freelancer Jeffrey Page managed to review a rare restaurant that uses antibiotic-free chickens, Flames Rotisseria in Ridgefield Park (Better Living, BL-24).

But when The Record reduced the number of people fed for $50 to 2 from 4, the review lost all value to readers.

If Page's cheap editor allowed him to spend $70 -- a little under $18 per person -- he could tell readers about plenty of places where they can get a decent meal for 4.

And even with only $50, he could make the money go further if he stopped wasting money on fattening, artery clogging desserts (BL-25).

Worshiping animals

Sunday's Travel section, delivered with today's paper, reflects Editor Jill Schensul's worship of animals over humans.

In her cover story, Schensul, a vegetarian and animal lover, reports on trips of a lifetime, complete with photos of some of  the four-legged and slithering creatures travelers can commune with.

I guess her way of dealing with all of the human misery in Africa is simply to ignore it.

Even though Schensul's section is down to only 4 pages on most Sundays, she continues to run vacation photos of readers in The Record on The Road feature -- a huge waste of space.

'Dangerous' Road Warrior

The Road Warrior column finally is starting to report that a lack of enforcement has resulted in growing abuse of cellphone use while driving -- not to mention speeding and numerous other traffic violations (Friday's L-1).

Red-light and speeding cameras may be the ultimate solution for the police.

The column, written by Staff Writer John Cichowski, no longer pretends to deal with commuting issue. 

It should be renamed to reflect an almost total focus on driving and reliance on reader e-mails.

In his Wednesday column, Cichowski didn't let a reader's question stump him; he simply  made up the answer, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his June 26 column, the Road Warrior continues to endanger his readers with his contradictory, confusing, incomplete and inaccurate accounting of crosswalk laws.

"Readers are frightened and confused by his clear lack of knowledge about the confusing and poorly written, revised crosswalk statutes, which he has championed.

"He inferred that drivers would rarely be held accountable under the revised crosswalk laws for hitting pedestrians outside of crosswalks. 

"Unfortunately, the laws clearly state that it will be assumed the driver did not exercise due care for the safety of the pedestrian in the event of a collision between a vehicle and a pedestrian within or outside of crosswalks.

"In his responses to readers' questions about the requirements of the crosswalk laws, the Road Warrior simply made up answers, which are in contradiction to the crosswalk laws, or failed to provide key relevant information about the laws."

See the full e-mail a concerned reader sent to management:

'Our Dangerous Road Warrior'


A short break

Eye on The Record will return at the end of next week. 

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Editors wary of covering transportation on the ground

In a photo taken appropriately on April Fool's Day this year, the new World Trade Center taunts commuters who pay exorbitant Hudson River tolls to help  cover its huge cost overruns. Of course, if they try to switch to buses or trains, they won't find any rush-hour seats, thanks to the Port Authority's and Governor Christie's regressive mass-transit policies.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Is it really front-page news that Port Authority Commissioner Anthony Sartor owns and runs a large New Jersey-based engineering firm that has worked alongside some of the biggest contractors on the new World Trade Center project?

Or that as head of the bistate agency's WTC Redevelopment Subcommittee, he's bowed out of voting more than 100 times to avoid possible conflicts of interest?

Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record thinks so, but readers are all too familiar with an agency that is packed with Governor Christie's cronies and powerful commissioners whose outside interests pose ethical dilemmas.

The coverage they haven't seen from Gottlieb and Staff Writer Shawn Boburg or any of the paper's transportation writers relates to on-the-ground commuting issues -- exorbitant and still rising tolls, and packed buses and trains.

That's all set against a background of Christie killing new rail tunnels into Manhattan, and the Port Authority refusing to expand bus or PATH service.

Page A-2 today carries the fourth correction in 2 days from The Record's hard-working editors and reporters.

Elderly drivers

Road Warrior John Cichowski and the editors continue to ignore the challenges faced by older drivers.

On head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local front today, a 71-year-old Korean-American woman tries to explain why she drove the wrong way on a one-way street, leading to a collision that killed her 84-year-old husband, who wasn't wearing a seat belt.

But the editors and their reporter didn't go far enough and explain how a 32-year-old woman in a 2012 BMW X5 couldn't avoid the head-on collision (L-1).

Was the much younger woman texting on her cellphone or speeding? Readers have no clue.

Today's column from Cichowski is yet another discussion of the 2010 law that requires drivers to stop for pedestrians in marked crosswalks (L-1).

But his time would be better spent helping older drivers find refresher courses or places where they can go to learn more about defensive driving.

Got carcinogens?

On the Better Living front, doesn't that plate of burnt grilled chicken look yummy?

It's just what the doctor ordered for readers in search of more carcinogens -- harmful chemicals that form when meat and poultry are cooked over high heat.

In recent months, The Record has been publishing recipes from a bumbling food blogger, Kate Morgan Jackson of Upper Saddle River.

Here, Jackson combines chicken and buttermilk for a double dose of harmful, artery clogging animal fats, and doesn't even recommend readers use organic or antibiotic-free poultry (BL-2).

For tips on preparing healthy meals, see:

Do You Really Know What You're Eating?

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