Football brutality, boring Bergen politics, perverted priests

The Modern, the first of two 47-story residential towers approved by Fort Lee officials despite strong community opposition. The first tenants are expected to move in next month. A 2-bedroom apartment with indoor parking for two cars goes for about $5,000 a month.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

What a front page!

The ritualized brutality of two masturbatory Catholic high school football teams dominates Page 1 of The Record today -- for the third day in a row.

Bringing up the rear, below the fold, are perverted priests who make many readers glad they are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist -- anything but the Catholic parents of an abused boy (A-1).

The third major element is a boring Charles Stile column delving into Bergen County's politics and looking ahead to the next race for governor in 2016 (A-1).

Road kill

In Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski issues a rare report on Bergen County's antiquated road system that has absolutely nothing to do with commuting, traffic congestion and crowded mass transit.

His fist paragraph suggests the authorities should respond to complaints about drivers taking short cuts through quiet neighborhoods just like they do when a murder is reported (L-1).

Garrett must go

In Opinion, Columnist Brigid Harrison, who lost a house to Sandy, attacks Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, for sending out a campaign flier claiming he "worked to bring immediate relief to [Superstorm] Sandy victims" (O-2).

Of course, six days after the storm hit New Jersey on Oct. 28, 2012, Garret did no such thing, being the only member of the state's delegation who refused to sign a letter asking for federal disaster relief.

"You can't trust and respect someone who does one thing, and then claims to have done another because it is politically expedient," Harrison says.

Traveling music

Travel Editor Jill Schensul recently said she doesn't take free trips, but does negotiate a preferential "press rate."

"It's the way we have come up with to keep providing Record-generated stories, photos and insights rather than wire copy for our readers," Schensul told JimRomenesko.com, a prominent media blog.

But today and last Sunday, Schensul ran long wire-service travel stories in her 4-page section.

Today, the Los Angeles Times supplied nearly two full pages of text and photos about vacationing in Taos, New Mexico.

And on T-4, The Associated Press supplied a story on the Space Needle in Seattle.

Her sole contribution today is a long column on Paddington bears in London, whatever they are. (O-1).

Second look

On Saturday, a story on Thom Ammirato reported the former Hackensack city spokesman resigned as a communications consultant with the Bergen County Executive's Office (Saturday's Local front).

Hackensack reporter Todd South says Ammirato struck a deal with the Prosecutor's Office, which was investigating him.

Hackensack Scoop, a local blog, revealed the agreement on Friday.

Ammirato's $78,000-a-year contract with Hackensack was terminated on June 24. 

He had been a consultant and spokesman for Citizens for Change, which swept the May 2013 municipal election.

The cash-strapped city will not be hiring another spokesman anytime soon, a City Council member said recently. 

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More too-little, too-late coverage of GWB scandal, A.C.

A third story of residential units has been added to the State Street redevelopment project in Hackensack, a building that is expected to have 222 units above a parking garage when it is completed in 2015.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The major takeouts on The Record's front page today raise a lot of unanswered questions about the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal and Atlantic City (A-1).

The so-called Analysis by Staff Writer Shawn Boburg doesn't address the chief question on readers' minds -- why is the federal grand jury investigation of the politically inspired traffic jams in Fort Lee (Sept. 9-13, 2013) taking so long?

Professor Brigid Harrison is quoted as saying the GOP bully's administration no longer controls "the narrative" (A-7).

If that's so, why does The Record persist in flattering coverage, such as the gushing stories on Governor Christie's purely political visit to Mexico last week?

Reporters love quoting Harrison, but shouldn't The Record acknowledge when it does so that she is one of its Sunday columnists? 

Maybe, it's time for the lazy newsroom editors to cast a wider net for experts.

I'm not going to bother with the The GWB Files interactive presentation at NorthJersey.com, but wonder why the nefarious motives for the lane closures weren't discovered before the November election, when Christie won a second term.

Is the photo caption on A-7 correct in saying the lane closures lasted "five days," not four?

Behind 8 ball

Is 36 years after Atlantic City's first casino opened really the right time to report on what the shore resort can learn from Las Vegas (A-1)?

Staff Writer John Brennan, a brain-damaged former sports reporter, doesn't even mention Vegas' $3.99 buffets and all the ridiculously cheap hotel rooms that lure millions to the desert.

Revel, the $2.9-billion boondoggle that just bit the dust, opened with $400-a-night rooms and the smallest casino in Atlantic City, dooming it to failure.

Sending Brennan to Las Vegas is a huge waste of money, and a waste of readers' time.

If you think his report is laughable, check out Mike Kelly's silly, shit-eating-grin perspective on Atlantic City (O-1).

Rich districts

Do school districts in wealthy towns like Tenafly and Fort Lee get more coverage in The Record (L-1 and L-3)?

Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in Tenafly, but when is the last time the Woodland Park daily covered the Hackensack district, which spends more money per pupil than Ridgewood?

Editors get high

The Business editors couldn't find a North Jersey company that was as interesting as a Denver marijuana store (B-1).

The 4-page section supplied by The Wall Street Journal every Sunday is a testament to how hard the local business staff works to bring readers North Jersey news. 

Readers looking for a discussion of restaurant issues, such as tipping or high liquor prices, will be disappointed in The Corner Table column from Elisa Ung today (BL-1).

Traveling music

The Record's already thin Travel section is devoting less and less space to reporting on the high cost of vacations (T-1).

For years, Travel Editor Jill Schensul has reduced her workload by running a full page of readers' vacation photos on T-2.

Today, the Travel cover is filled with reader selfies (three of the five on T-1 are from Venice, Italy). More appear on T-4.

In the biggest selfie on T-1, Adam Nolte of Wyckoff doesn't look too happy. Did he pay the gondolier?

Didn't any of The Record's black and Hispanic readers send in selfies? 

Evonne Coutros

The byline of Evonne Coutros last appeared in The Record on March 3, 2014, over a story about Wyckoff, one of the towns she covered, according to NorthJersey.com.

Her byline also appeared in The Hellenic Times as far back as 1989, when she also was employed at The Record.

Coutros had a knack of landing interviews with the biggest celebrities, but The Record's editors usually assigned her to cover news from Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Ho-Ho-Kus, Franklin Lakes and other small towns.

A reader of Eye on The Record recently asked if Coutros died. I don't know.

She was 57 and lived in Closter, I believe.

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Look to readers for the unvarnished truth about Christie

On the Jersey shore, the Sandy Hook national park includes a nude beach, above, and one of the big guns that protected New York Harbor during World War II, with the Manhattan skyline in the distance, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you want the truth about New Jersey's worst governor ever, ignore the front page of The Record today and flip to letters from readers in the Opinion section.

"More important to him [Governor Christie] than a happy New Jersey is a happy moneyed elite who can fund his national run," Dave Palmer of River Edge says of the GOP bully's adamant stand against taxing the wealthy or reducing business tax cuts (O-3).

"New Jersey is dead last among the 50 states in recovery from the recession," reports Mary Ellen Marino of Princeton.

"He proposes to break his promise to fund the pensions of state employees," Marino continues, "as well as such local workers as teachers, social workers, police and firefighters."

Boosting image

Why isn't the mess Christie has made of the Garden State consistently reflected in the columns, news stories and editorials of the Woodland Park daily?

The Political Stile column on Page 1 today -- reporting Christie's renewed focus on the White House -- sounds just like all of the ones we read before the George Washington Bridge political-retribution scandal. 

Staff Writer Charles Stile notes that "on Jan. 8, The Record published emails directly linking two Christie confidants" to the lane closings (A-1).

But the editors have never explained why it took four months after the gridlock in Fort Lee and more than two months after the election to uncover the smoking gun.

And why doesn't Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin condemn Christie's extensive travel as head of a GOP fund-raising group only days before the June 30 deadline to balance the state budget (A-1 on Saturday)?

Do the arithmetic

Today's Local section leads with the dedication of a new riverfront park in Garfield (L-1), but Columnist Mike Kelly is still writing about a three-decade-old chromium spill in that working class city (O-1).

Staff Writer Kim Lueddeke still expects readers to do the arithmetic on the number of floors a new LG headquarters in Englewood Cliffs would have (L-1).

She continues to describe a "143-foot-high" or "143-foot-tall" building, but notes the borough changed the zoning code to allow "buildings up to 150 feet and eight stories."

Does that mean the controversial LG building on top of the Palisades would be eight stories?

Skeleton news staff

The weekend news staff must have been really thin this weekend, if reporters couldn't find out anything about a fatal cement-truck accident on Saturday in Edgewater (L-1 photo).

Sadly, too many of the paper's photographers think their job ends at capturing an image.

Who were Harold Olivares, 49, of the Bronx and Kevin Bonin, 59, of Teaneck?

Stories about their deaths appear on L-3, but this body count style of journalism ignores whether they were fathers or sons, what they did for a living or anything else.

Eat to the death

Why do the editors think older readers (the majority), who may be diabetic or watching their weight and cholesterol, have any interest in Staff Writer Elisa Ung's obsessions with chocolate and other artery clogging food (BL-1)?

The Corner Table column today is a thinly disguised advertisement for a chocolate bar at Westfield Garden State Plaza.

For the $31 price of the Copper River salmon entree at The Plum and the Pear in Wyckoff, you can buy more than 2 pounds of the Alaskan sockeye fillets at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack ($12.99 a pound) and feed a family of six with plenty of leftovers (BL-2).

Too academic

Kevin DeMarrais, the paper's retired consumer columnist, overlooks the most practical tip of all when you are planning to move (R-1).

Make sure you collect plenty of boxes, leave a few weeks to pack and check to see if the mover you hire has even more boxes, which you will need if your estimates of both are off.

A little balance

On the Opinion front today, Columnist Brigid Harrison's profile of Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto is a welcome break from the usual all-Christie, all-the-time coverage (O-1).

Now, for a good laugh, read the caption on the photo of Prieto and Christie on O-4. Does that look like "chatting" to you?

Readers are always scratching their heads, thanks to the lack of proofreading under six-figure production editor Liz Houlton, who likely was taking a nap when that page went to press.

More screw-ups

Want another good laugh? A Saturday correction (A-2) noted a story on Friday misstated the number of counties in New Jersey.

It wasn't even close, with the story mentioning "13 counties." There are 21.

Another correction, on Friday's A-2, said a Thursday headline misstated a significant problem in New Jersey nursing homes -- bedsores.

The headline noted a "significant bedbug problem."

Recommended 

If you missed it, Saturday's Local section carried a rare feature about a downtown merchant, as the editors continue to whip their reporters into promoting mall retailers almost exclusively.

Staff Writer Christopher Maag reports Kates Brothers Scientific Shoe Co. has been custom-fitting shoes at four different locations on Main Street in Hackensack for 73 years (L-3 on Saturday).

Why didn't this feature get better play?

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In 2013, we saw many lows at our local daily newspaper

A Bogota fire truck on a rainy day in Hackensack. These words appear on the back of the truck, under the painted American flag: "All Gave Some ... Some Gave All. 9-11-01." All gave some? Not sure what that means, but the tribute shows why the world needs more copy editors.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Echoing the theme of sections in today's Sunday edition, The Record of Woodland Park tried mightily under a former Times editor to hit highs in 2013.

But the sad reality is Editor Marty Gottlieb, who traded Paris for Paramus, continued to be weighed down by the dysfunctional local-news operation he inherited.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who is on a prolonged sick leave, and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza are two lifers who bungled just about every breaking news story that came their way, as well as routine local coverage.

Decline in quality

And the quality of reporting, writing and fact-checking -- in news stories and columns, headlines and photo captions -- declined drastically.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg's decision to downsize the staff and abandon Hackensack several years ago led to the merger of The Record and Herald News staffs in a smaller Woodland Park newsroom.

The Herald News contributed some accomplished reporters and writers, but the editors and copy editors from the smaller daily have been uniformly mediocre and they have dumbed down content.

Houlton factor

Borg's economy moves also led to the dismissal of four veteran copy editors and the departure of Nancy Cherry, who alone upheld standards of writing, grammar and fact-checking as co-chief of The Record's news copy desk.

With the elevation of Liz Houlton to production editor from head of the features copy desk, where she had earned the title of "Queen of Errors," the sad outcome was predictable -- an unprecedented decline in quality.

Hackensack news

As a resident of Hackensack and an independent City Council candidate in the May election, I welcomed a dramatic improvement in news coverage that began in June after a reform slate defeated allies of the ruling Zisa family.

But I still haven't seen any meaningful coverage of many other towns or their struggling downtowns, and The Record's transportation reporters continue to ignore increasing traffic congestion and officials' refusal to expand mass transit.

Today's paper

Today's front page is typical, with another couple of thousands of words about who knew what and when they knew it during the politically inspired closure of Fort Lee access lanes to the George Washington Bridge more than three months ago (A-1).

A Page 1 story on whether it will snow on Feb. 2, the date of the Super Bowl, includes a photo caption noting "cars" struggled with snow and ice in Englewood on Feb. 2, 2011.

They must have been some of those Google cars, which drive themselves (A-1).

The first paragraph of the lead Page 1 story on the Gallo family tragedy in Washington Township seems sloppily written, beginning with "soon."

The reporter also says Dr. James Gallo has "a eulogy to script." Does anyone "script" a eulogy? What is wrong with "write"?

Copping out

On the Local front, a photo of a police assault team at Westfield Garden State Plaza highlights the irresponsible lack of security at the Paramus mall -- a story the local staff refused to tackle (L-1).

Of course, the cops got there too late on Nov. 4 to prevent a troubled Richard Shoop, 20, of Teaneck from invading the mall with a rifle, firing random shots that panicked shoppers and store employees, and then committing suicide (L-3).

On L-2, more space is devoted to a homeless man who turned in $850 he found on Main Street than to the victory of Citizens for Change in the May Hackensack City Council election.

The dismissal of the city clerk and city manager, who were perceived as allies of the corrupt police chief, Ken Zisa, and former City Council, aren't even mentioned.

On the cheap

On the Business front, the Your Money's Worth column on food prices and the related North Jersey Marketbasket Survey on B-7 continue to ignore the organic revolution.

Similarly, Elisa Ung's The Corner Table column on "dining blessings of 2013," includes heart-stopping food photos and nary a reference to whether restaurants are serving more naturally raised or grown food (BL-1 and BL-11).

Forgotten Main Streets

On the Real Estate front, a story on "Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time," a book written by a city planner, could run in any newspaper across America.

There is not a single reference to North Jersey or to cities like Englewood and Hackensack that have encouraged the construction of hundreds of luxury apartments in or near their downtowns.

Judging by the number of empty storefronts on Englewood's Palisade Avenue and Dean and Engle streets, the influx of hundreds of new apartment dwellers in recent years have made little difference in that city's "walkable" downtown.

Uncomfortable truths

Of course, The Record has ignored that story, just as it has never reported the impact on Main Street of North Jersey Media's Group decision to pull out more than 1,000 employees from 150 River St. in Hackensack in 2009.

On the Opinion front, Columnist Brigid Harrison calls Governor Christie one of 2013's "political winners" and a potential candidate who can win the White House for Republicans in 2016.

But she and just about everyone else who writes about the results on Nov. 5 fail to say it also saw the lowest turnout of any gubernatorial election in the state's history -- a testament to voter apathy.

Voter apathy and campaign finance reform are two more stories The Record didn't cover in 2013.

Footnote

My paper was delivered in a plastic bag advertising ShopRite's Super Can-Can Sale and P&G products, including bathroom tissue.

On one side, a Charmin ad notes:

"We all have to go. Why not enjoy the go?"

Sounds like something written on The Record's copy desk and approved by Houlton.

Footnote No. 2

For the first time in decades, the masthead today reads:

The Sunday Record

The new style means the weather no longer appears below the masthead on Page 1.

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Bankrupt Christie turns to Obama -- again

The license plate and stickers on a Chrysler PT Cruiser, spotted Friday on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, speak for themselves.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Governor Christie has made such a wreck of state finances he's grabbing $15 million in federal Sandy relief funds to help the owners of shore businesses (The Record's front page today).

Wait a minute.

The fire that destroyed 50 businesses in Seaside Park and Seaside Heights last week had nothing to do with Superstorm Sandy, and may even have been set deliberately.

Since he took office in January 2010, Christie has used voodoo economics and cuts to middle- and working class programs to balance his budgets.

He's also grabbed federal money from NJ Transit and the Port Authority to fix state roads after he cancelled the Hudson River rail tunnels, dealing a blow to commuters and labor.

The GOP bully may be a hero to shore residents and business people, and the editors of The Record, but North Jersey voters will do their best on Nov. 5 to drum him out of office.

Bankrupt him

Another Page 1 story today discusses the risks in a second federal indictment of former Bergen County Democratic Party Chairman Joseph Ferriero (A-1 and A-10).

All the legal mumbo jumbo is fine, but the story ignores this:

Even if acquitted, Ferriero will be forced to spend a large part of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in allegedly ill-gotten gains to defend himself, and that's poetic justice.

Kelly is back

Readers can't tell if a related column on the Opinion front is more about Ferriero or Staff Writer Mike Kelly, who goes into great detail about what the so-called journalist said in his 2008 interview with the champion of pay to play (O-1).

The strongest word Kelly had for Ferriero was "boss."

"This is how politics works," is the last line from Kelly, who completely misses the bigger picture (O-4).

This is how democracy -- our corrupt system of government -- works. This is the wonderful system that we export to the rest of the world -- the system Kelly and other members of the media can't stop glorifying. 

And this is the system that has been poisoned by Christie and Tea Party crackpots.

More road lies

On the front of Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski again ignores the daily commuting nightmare for yet another column on MVC lines (L-1).

The Addled Commuter is fresh off two columns greatly hyping the diversion of some drivers who entered the upper-level toll plaza of the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee streets last week:

Here's what a reader concerned over all the errors and distortions in Cichowski's work had to say in an e-mail to management:

"In his Friday and Saturday columns, the Road Warrior relies on a series of false rumors and exaggerated false statements and assessments to over-hype and distort significantly more traffic congestion to the upper level of the GW Bridge. It was due to temporarily reducing number of tollbooths allotted to a local Fort Lee entrance for only 5 morning rush hours.

"His first column was falsely titled Closed tollbooths a commuting disaster, and the Road Warrior falsely reported in these two columns that two tollbooths were 'closed' and 'shut down.' All of this contradicted the facts and The Record's own photograph with the Friday column, which showed these tollbooths remained open, but were used for other highway traffic instead of cars from the Fort Lee entrance.

"Road Warrior had to sheepishly admit in his follow-up column that this traffic congestion was really a short-term situation based on a PA traffic pattern study in contradiction to denials by him in his Friday column, and was not a permanent change, as he and others repeatedly implied in that column.

"Yet, the Road Warrior could not resist republishing false rumors from his Friday column and making up new false rumors about the fictitious reasons for this temporary change."

To read the entire e-mail on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers, click on the following link:

Inscrutable Road Warrior screws readers


Man with tits

What do you make of the big photo of a bearded, pot-bellied Sussex County man with tits next to the Road Warrior column (L-1)?

It's hard to believe there wasn't someone more photogenic at a tattoo fest in Secaucus.

The drought on Hackensack news in Local continues today, although the byline of Hannan Adely, the reporter assigned to the city, has been appearing on 9/11-related and other stories.

Say it ain't so

Readers can't have much respect for another columnist, Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State (O-1).

Today, she describes the mean-spirited Christie as the "brash and beguiling soon-to-be-reelected governor."

Why does Harrison prostitute herself only months after she blasted Christie for putting "a great double-digit victory" on Nov. 5 "over the lives of women in New Jersey" who lost $7.5 million in preventive health funds (June 23 column).

Or her June 16 column that labeled Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, a Democrat, as "a sell-out" for endorsing the homely GOP slob.

She also called DiVincenzo "a politically expedient compromiser who doesn't give a rat's fanny about what's best for a political party he allegedly bosses."

Christie is "beguiling"? Give me a break, professor.

Frugality rules

On the Business front, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais can't stop boasting about what a smart money manager he is (B-1).

It's one thing for the frugal DeMarrais not to buy organic food, but it's irresponsible for him to publish a monthly Market Basket survey of supermarket prices without organic or naturally raised milk, poultry and other items.

In the same way, advising seniors to chase discounts at fast-food restaurants, as he does today, ignores the many dietary restrictions they are under and the crappy beef and other low-quality items served.

Also, where did The Record get the ridiculous  illustration at the bottom of his column on the Business front -- an elderly woman in curlers with a bullhorn?

Another suit

A story on A-3 today reports that North Jersey Media Group has filed another copyright-infringement lawsuit over use of "an iconic 9/11 photograph," this time by Sarah Palin and her political action committee.

The Associated Press story has  a huge hole  in it: 

The Record's management refused to spend the money to re-make Page 1 on Sept. 11, 2001, to highlight the inspirational flag-raising image from Staff Photographer Thomas E. Franklin, and banished it to a back page.

Now, NJMG General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg is spending far more in legal fees to punish anyone who uses the photo, even if full credit is given.

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Editors play politics with Christie's reelection bid

To Staff Writer John Cichowski, a big problem for commuters is keeping their tires inflated properly, as the airhead explains in his Road Warrior column on the Local front today. Traffic inching toward the Lincoln Tunnel, above, isn't his concern.

By focusing on the politics of Governor Christie's bid for a second term, The Record's editors continue to hide the GOP bully's many policy failures.

In a negative story about Democratic challenger Barbara Buono, Christie is called "her popular opponent" (A-3).

Popular with whom? The millionaires and special interests he serves exclusively?

That story from The Star-Ledger commits the same sin as others by The Record's own staff: 

It quotes Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University, without mentioning she is one of the Woodland Park daily's Opinion columnists.

Harrison's column today is all about the politics of President Obama's joint appearance with Christie on the Jersey shore (O-2).

Boring politics

Politics are dividing the nation. They put readers to sleep, whether in news stories or columns by Harrison and Staff Writer Charles Stile.

Yet, Editor Marty Gottlieb and other media leaders are news junkies who are hooked on politics for all of the supposed controversy they offer.

Is anyone going to vote for Christie in November, because he appeared with Obama or Britain's Prince Harry at the shore, as the story on A-3 suggests?

Another thin paper

Readers have to scour today's Page 1 story on state police diversity for any numbers, such as the size of the force or the current training class (A-1).

The size of the force and how that compares with past decades isn't given, but readers are left to do the  arithmetic on A-6 to get the size of the training class (6% of 20,000).

Crippled thinking

A concerned reader didn't think much of Road Warrior John Cichowski's idea for colored-coded handicap parking stickers:

"The Road Warrior continues on his merry mistaken ways in his May 29 column. He promulgates an ineffective, impractical idea about disability parking tags and irresponsible, derisive, misleading, and negligently incomplete responses to readers' comments.

"He should offer a retraction to his endorsement of a faulty, poorly thought-out idea for 3 color codes for disability parking tags. It would NOT cover many circumstances and would create too much confusion, contradictions, & complexities for law enforcement, bureaucratic oversight, and those eligible for disability parking.

"He should focus on taking responsibility to correct the hundreds of mistakes and faulty advice or conclusions in his columns over the past 9 months and prevent future problems.

"Instead, he tried to fault me and mislead readers by taking one of my comments completely out of context on a previous column regarding potholes.  

"It shows how small minded and negligent the Road Warrior is for his readers and The Record. 

"I presented facts/comments about a business owner's ineffective response and culpability for his own problems and accidents based on potholes near his Carlstadt business."  
  

To read the full e-mail, click on the following link:

Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers

Where's the aspirin?

My Medicare coverage was set years ago, so I pity readers who have to plow through Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais' confusing columns on the health-insurance program for seniors (B-1). 

Don't look for any food coverage in today's Better Living section, which had to make room for a T&A cover story on that TV show, "The Real Bimbos of New Jersey" (BL-1).

The Real Estate cover story -- "Will house hunters pay for green?" -- appears to be based on a commission-hungry real estate agent's claim that a Ramsey "home's energy efficiency should add $100,000 to its value" (R-1).

That's preposterous. 

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