Closing the Books on 2008

Monday’s editorial in the Courier News underscored the idea that the fiscal discipline which consumers have begun to show in the recent holiday shopping season is a trait that should be emulated at all levels of government, from Washington, D.C., all the way down to Bridgewater.

I often wonder why it is that governments seem to become as addicted to spending as a crack addict is to cocaine. It looks like some public entities just don’t pay any attention to what is obvious to the average citizen – that, in times of economic distress, spending needs to be adjusted to income. Of course, if a governmental entity can simply adjust income upwards by increasing taxes, then what’s the problem?

So far, there isn’t any sign that public spending for 2009 – at least in a couple of areas – is going to abate. Certainly not at the Federal level, and, from preliminary indications, not at the local level either. In Bridgewater, where the preliminary Bridgewater-Raritan school budget has already been released, spending is assured of coming in at another record level.

All Shopped Out?

One of today’s news reports indicated that retail sales for the Christmas shopping season were down 5% to 8%. You’d think that the world had come to an end! The TV talking head who passed on that information explained how retailers were hoping that consumers would make up that deficit by the end of the year. Deep merchandise discounts are supposed to be the incentive to lure you in.

We may be in the midst of the biggest economic downturn since 1929. If all we had to be concerned about were an 8% slowdown in seasonal consumer spending, it would be a gift from heaven. If only the stock market had gone down by a mere 5% to 8%; or the real estate market; or the auto industry!

Even though the Bridgewater area may not be feeling the pain as severely as the most depressed sections of the USA, the economic issues plaguing this region are similar to those across the nation. Just look around: Our spending habits, expectations, and bellies have simply grown too outsized over too long a period of time.

If you believe in Guardian Angels, then I sincerely wish that yours will watch over you in the coming year. And that’s not an idle wish. You’d probably do better to put your trust in that phenomenon, while keeping your nose to the grindstone, than you would be to trust some of the yahoos who have been misdirecting our financial and governmental institutions.

Merry Christmas, Iraq!

About five weeks ago, Priscille and I shipped a box full of goodies to a soldier in Iraq who we’ve nicknamed Jack. In early December, we received a hand-written note from him expressing his thanks for that shipment of assorted food snacks. He informed us that although the troops have plenty to eat, his soldiers are gratified to personally receive something from back home.

Jack is an officer who was recently promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. He expressed his sentiments that, “It is truly appreciated by everyone here and is a reminder to us that we are supported back home.” He went on to say, “BTW, the nut mix and cookies, along with the other treats, were a big hit and seemed to disappear before the day’s end.” Jack shares everything that he receives with his troops.

With the economic crisis on the U.S. mainland, and with people so concerned about their own financial condition, the media seem to have relegated the account of the lives of American troops to the cul-de-sac of the news wires. Despite that, the spirit and endurance of American men and women in that dusty old Middle Eastern country remain steadfast. These men and women simply want to do their job, complete their tours of duty and get back home safely.

Let’s keep those valiant souls in our thoughts and prayers on this Eve of Christmas, as more than 2 billion Christians worldwide prepare to celebrate the advent of a child born 2000 years ago in yet another country near Iraq, entering humanity with a message of peace, compassion, sacrifice, love and justice.



Note: Please see www.americasupportsyou.mil

Always Look Behind the Veil

The photo of Bernard Madoff in this weekend’s edition of the Wall Street Journal may be one of the most revealing examples of the time-tested adage, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” The picture shows a frontal face shot of Madoff who is alleged to have bilked hundreds, perhaps thousands of people and organizations out of $50 billion. You might think his photograph would look like a mug shot, but it doesn’t – that’s the surprising part.

Indeed, the veneer of Bernie Madoff’s face gives the impression of someone you might instinctively trust. His features are soft: the eyes deep, but not hard; the emergent smile, welcoming. He sports unpretentious spectacles and a round, almost jovial visage that emanates no sign of deceit. All those features are topped off by a blue baseball cap covering a head of silver. The photo gives off the air of an informal personality. The guy might just as well be your own grandfather, he looks so first-rate!

However, if the allegations brought against him prove to be true, no one would trust him any further than they would a recidivist, child-abusing relative nestled in the middle of a family get-together sprinkled with innocent children.

This phenomenon brings up the age-old question that comes up in such situations: Why? No one but Madoff can explain what happened. Even though his investors should have been wary of returns that were consistently too high in both up and down markets to be credible, there is something else: People want to trust other people. Despite all of the mendacity in the world, trust, properly applied, is still one of the essential oils that lubricate the operation of a viable society.

The fact that so many well-trained empty business suits, bureaucrats, and elected officials have taken advantage of that human attribute is the main reason why our economy is now in the tank.

Go Ahead! Be an Angel

The two Salvation Army Angel Trees are beckoning your attention again at the Bridgewater Commons Mall. One is located on the second level at the indoor entrance to Macy’s, near Foot Locker and Bridget’s Irish Cottages. The second is located at ground level, against the wall opposite Guest Services.

Each tree is amply decorated with individual “wish tags” which bear the name of a deserving person and his/her wish. It’s very easy to fulfill the request, because each tag bears the name of an item – clothing, toy, etc., together with gender, age, and clothing size. You don’t even have to wrap the gift.

Simply select and remove a tag from one of the trees, purchase the item and, together with the tag, return both to the ground floor location and deposit them in the large collection box next to the tree. You can’t miss the location: It’s near the entrance to the ground floor rest rooms and a short walk from Santa Claus.

A notice asks that, if possible, you leave your gift and tag no later than December 19th. However, if the tree and gift collection box are still there after the 19th, it’s an indication that you might have a few extra days. Remember, though, Santa’s elves will have a lot of wrapping and delivering to do. .

A few days ago, the box was brimming. Another cart had been placed next to it for the overflow but there were still plenty of tags hanging on those trees: Go ahead! Be an angel.

What Would You Do?

“I have no hard feelings,” said Korean-American Dong Yun Yoon, “I know he did everything he could.” So spoke this heart-broken husband and father who recently lost his wife, two young daughters and mother-in-law, when a Marine Corps fighter jet from the nearby Miramar air base lost power and crashed into a San Diego residential neighborhood. The pilot safely ejected before the collision.

A devout Methodist Christian whose firm faith has obviously not inoculated him from the reality of life’s deepest tragedies, Yoon reached out for help. Turning to others who have suffered “more terrible things,” he pleaded, “Please tell me how to do it. I don’t know what to do.”

Christians have sometimes mulled over the meaning of the often disparaged and misapplied question, “What would Jesus do?” Perhaps Dong Yun Yoon, in his deepest moment of grief has intuited the answer: Could it be that the Man who died crucified expects that we should extend ourselves to help those who suffer in the midst of such inexplicable traumas?

Maybe Mr. Yoon is delivering an authentic Christmas message: That we live our lives applying the meaning of The Greatest Commandment. Curious? Check it out. You can find the succinct wording of that message in any copy of the New Testament and in the Hebrew Scriptures from which it is derived.

Gas Price Samplings around Bridgewater

Thursday afternoon, I filled up my nearly half-full, trusty Taurus for fifteen bucks. You can enjoy the same proportionate savings if you say, “Fill ‘er up” at the Hess station on Route 22 West (near “The Office” at the Chimney Rock Road exit).

At $1.579 for regular, that Hess location has to be offering one of the lowest cash prices in the area. Miles later, also on Route 22 West, you should find fairly competitive prices beginning at the Exxon Station just past the Shop Rite. But don’t expect them to be the lowest until you get to the Valero and Liberty stations just a couple of miles further down. If you live near the last two fill-up emporiums, expect prices to be competitive with the Hess Chimney Rock Road location.

But don’t hold your breath if you follow Chimney Rock Road up the mountain and onto Washington Valley Road, where the regular price of gas at the Exxon Station near Blessed Sacrament Church in Martinsville is $1.999. Nor should you expect similar values at some of the other Hess locations in Bridgewater.

Did I mention that my aging tuned-up Taurus delivers 30 mpg’s on the highway?

The Art of the Oblique Political Statement

In a recent AP article by David Espo, President-elect Barack Obama skillfully deflected questions on several topics. When asked whether he had quit smoking, he responded that, “I have done a terrific job . . . of making myself healthier . . . I think you will not see any violations of those rules in the White House.” We’ll never be in the White House, so we won’t know. Nor did he address the status of his smoking habit while in other places. A simple yes or no would have been sufficient.

2. Asked about how quickly he would act to bring our troops home from Iraq, Obama said that he expected military commanders to devise a plan “for a responsible drawdown.” Presumably, we can ignore his prior, well-known Iraq election promises. What Obama will be implementing is none other than the Status of Forces agreement just negotiated between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.

3. On foreign policy, Obama provided no direct response when asked whether India has a right to pursue targets in Pakistan, where water-borne terrorist attacks on the Indian port city of Mumbai originated. Recall that in one of his pre-election claims, Obama threatened to pursue bin Laden in Pakistan. He never hesitated then to question our own right to act militarily in that country.

The difference between campaigning and governing is very stark. But some of Obama’s responses to pre-election topics now seem to be cloudy.

Chasing Debtors in the Bridgewater Library

There is a policy at the Bridgewater location of the Somerset County Library that you turn your cell phone off when entering. The staff is thoughtful, though, because you will see a sign reminding you to turn your phone back on as you leave.

Some folks are either uncaring or forgetful about following that request: On a recent afternoon, sitting at a table near the window walls of an inside courtyard, I heard the musical tones of a nearby cell phone go off. Whoever the owner is, he didn’t pick up quickly and, when he did, it sounded like he had the speaker phone on.

The caller greeted my library neighbor with a friendly female voice, declaring, “Hello, I am a credit collector. . . ” By golly, from the pleasant sound of her voice, you’d think that she was joyfully advising him that he had just won the lottery, and would he please come to pick up the check.

. . . And so it goes. These are appalling economic times, and they affect us all. We don’t know what this guy’s financial status is: whether he is a deadbeat who would be chased down even in good times, or whether he is struggling mightily just to make financial ends meet. Maybe we should keep him in our thoughts and prayers in case he’s a person undeservedly caught up in a job loss and a pile of bills.

Bridgewater’s Budgets

During my Thanksgiving holiday visit to Potomac, MD with family and friends, it was hard not to think of the fiscal and monetary debacle at the Federal and State levels and of its relationship to local expenditures here in Bridgewater. Soon, we are going to find out how reduced state support and spending patterns of the past may come to haunt us in municipal and school tax increases.

BRIDGEWATER-RARITAN SCHOOL DISTRICT. No numbers have yet been released, but a board committee and administrators have put a ‘preliminary’ budget together and already have a good idea of the magnitude of next year’s school budget.

On December 16th, the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education will have its first public review of the 2009-2010 budget at the Wade Building in Martinsville at 8:00 pm. I doubt that Bridgewater and Raritan will be presented with a zero-based, hold-the-line proposal. But we can dream.

Thoughts for the Board: If you present an increase in the budget, please don’t tell the public that it’s for the kids. Worse, don’t use the worn-out rationale that the largest percentage of the budget is for salaries and that, therefore, there is nothing you can do about it because that’s a fixed cost. Remember, you are the same board that, on a wintry December 2007 evening, voted without meaningful debate for a 12.8% three-year wage package hike.

BRIDGEWATER TOWNSHIP. What surprised me about the status of the municipal budget came in today’s Courier-News editorial suggesting that there may not be sufficient involvement in budget development between the mayor’s office and the council. In the past, there was a long history of a sometimes adversarial relationship between former Democrat Mayor James Dowden and the Republican Township Council.

But what would be the excuse for anything but an ongoing and transparent working relationship between Mayor Flannery and the Township Council? Township management is now 100% under Republican control. Both the Major’s office and the Council should be working closely to develop Bridgewater’s budget. These are dreadful economic times demanding nothing less.

SUMMARY. I’m very concerned that both our municipal and school elected officials recognize the enormous power of taxation at their fingertips, yet may not admit that this deflating economic situation requires strong measures to keep one of the country’s highest real estate taxes under control. We can’t keep expecting that major corporate headquarters, national retail outlets, and other businesses located in Bridgewater and Raritan will keep acting as a counter-weight to our over-taxed communities.

One of the ironies in this process is that steep national and local declines in newspaper circulation have so savaged newsroom personnel that the dedicated, on-site reporter doing meeting-to-meeting coverage has had to take a back seat to the economic realities of the newspaper business. We all pay for that with less information and, therefore, with less influence.

So Near, Yet so Far

Late Saturday morning, about a dozen of us left our daughter’s home in Potomac, Maryland, and drove the short distance to Swains Lock, one of the access points to the towpath of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. From that rendezvous we all set out for a bracing walk along this old passageway frequented year-round by bikers, joggers, hikers, campers and day walkers. The 185-mile long C&O canal snakes along the Potomac River where it eventually flows through Washington, D.C.

We enjoyed the conviviality of an invigorating walk on that bright sunny day, observing the light blue of the sky and the steely gray of the river which contrasted dramatically against the earthy fall-brown of the leafy ground cover.

Our one-hour stroll was a welcome break in extended Thanksgiving festivities with families and friends. Even though we’ve all been living in the same sandbox for a couple of days, everyone is playing fair and enjoying good companionship, food, wine and family activities.

During that quiet one-hour towpath trek where the river cliffs rise steeply to the left on one side of the canal, and the river quietly meanders below on the right towards the nation’s capital, there was no physical indication that we were only about 12 miles from the nerve center of national politics. It seems that we had all implicitly decided to take a break from the hustle of the recent elections.

In that natural environment, there were too many other equally important topics.

Forbes on Mark-to-Market

On Friday, November 21, Steve Forbes appeared on a TV show and was asked what could be done to fix some of the problems infecting the financial industry. He was especially emphatic on one point, stating that the mark-to-market rule instituted by FASB (the Financial Accounting Standards Board) be eliminated.

Mark-to-market, as its name implies, requires that all companies who hold financial instruments on their books adjust them on a quarterly basis to the price which those securities would fetch if sold in the open market. In the current environment, though, there is little if any liquidity for mortgage-backed securities; consequently, their pre-meltdown values have tanked. Even as these investments continue to be held on the balance sheet of a company, the FASB rule requires that they be written down to an if-sold value. This has resulted in huge paper losses and corresponding write-downs against reported quarterly earnings.

As Forbes pointed out, this can be devastating. For example, insurance companies purchase and hold financial assets in their investment portfolios for the long term, often until maturity when they are redeemed at full value. By adjusting the book value of these securities to an estimated if-sold market price on a quarterly basis, insurance companies can end up recording enormous book losses which have not, in fact, been incurred.

In a normal economic environment where quarterly bond market fluctuations are relatively minor, the mark-to-market rule may have made sense. But, in the maelstrom in which the U.S. and international economies seem to be navigating, Forbes stated that FASB should re-evaluate this accounting rule.

Yesterday’s events seem to have diminished that prospect: The Federal Reserve announced that it will buy $500 billion of mortgage-backed securities – the so-called ‘toxic assets’ held by banks and investment firms. No indication was given as to how prices would be set or publicly disclosed.

Thanks for checking in, and enjoy your Thanksgiving. Despite all of the turkeys in Washington, we still have immeasurable blessings for which to be thankful.

The BlackBerry Takes Bridgewater by Storm

On Friday morning at 10:30 am, the customer line outside the Verizon Wireless store at the Bridgewater Commons Mall stretched to about 40 feet long, two to three people wide. The store was already open, and a Verizon employee was metering people in towards the counter where service people were already engaged in selling service plans for the newly announced BlackBerry Storm.

This cell phone is the first touch-screen BlackBerry, and it is Verizon’s answer to AT&T’s iPhone designed by Microsoft exclusively for AT&T Wireless. Both operate on a 3G network. It’s too early to tell how much Verizon will be able to temper AT&T’s head start with the IPhone, but the introduction of the new BlackBerry just before the holiday shopping rush should have an impact.

AT&T and Verizon’s service plans with these new devices are not inexpensive; both offer pricing that is either the same or close. It depends which service plan you choose. For example, the Verizon Family SharePlan will give you 700 minutes for the first two lines combined in an all-inclusive voice, unlimited text messaging, unlimited Mobile to Mobile, e-mail, data and video umbrella etc., for $119.99/month.

The comparable AT&T Wireless Family Talk plan seems to be pricier. According to my reading of the AT&T Wireless web site, 700 minutes with a two-line offering will cost you $129.99/month. But that does not include text messaging which is another $30 for unlimited messages, or 20¢ per message if no plan is selected.

AT&T provides Rollover minutes on voice; Verizon does not. Examine all plans carefully before you choose.

Sating your Hunger at the Mall

If you go shopping this weekend at Bridgewater’s regional mall, you will find several counter front eateries ready, willing, and able to satisfy your appetite. The Food Court on the third floor has been completely revamped, and at least two concessionaires will be delighted to see you lining up for their offerings.

Sbarro has returned to its traditional spot at the end on the right, desirous to fill you up with its wide variety of tasty pizzas. Saladworks, a new competitor, is eager to fill the needs of you health-conscious folks.

So far, these are the only ones I saw open for business, but there are more on the way. Charley’s Grilled Subs, Baja-B-Que, and Wendy’s have signs announcing their imminent arrival. Sarku Japan will have two spots. One is a sushi bar positioned at the head of the completely overhauled escalators leading to the upper level.

Don’t forget Gloria Jean’s Coffees which is only a stroll away near Macy’s third-floor entrance. The concessionaire who manages this place weathered the long shutdown of the Food Court, serving everyone with a cup of joe and his pleasant smile. The coffee there is very good, and you can even buy a pastry or bagel, take both back to the Food Court, sit down and enjoy them at the new tables. Why not give this guy some of your business? He deserves it.


Note: The foregoing comments are based on my observations only, without input from Mall management. They do not include a full account of the other businesses who will be taking up space in the Food Court.

Verizon’s Dreaded ‘Service Teams’

It happened quite suddenly and unexpectedly: One moment last week, I was enjoying an upgrade to my Verizon high speed Internet service; the next moment, kaput: nothing but digital silence. About an hour before the line disappeared, I received a call from a Verizon service person in Silver Springs, Maryland, advising me that my line was about to be cut.

She went on to explain that while implementing the upgrade, a technician had “accidentally pushed the wrong button in the central office” and that my line was about to crash. There was nothing she could do about it right then and there, she explained, because Verizon’s erroneous disconnect order had to go through before a second order to restore service could be processed. Not to worry, the Verizon lady assured me, the Internet service would be up and running again before the close of business on Friday.

The day before that conversation, another Verizon person in Westfield advised me that my upgraded service would be available the following day: Two separate assurances of service on two separate days, and I still have an “accidentally disconnected” Verizon Internet line.

But that’s not all! About a week before those episodes, I found myself in an endless loop of international 800 telephone service calls to Verizon because the Internet line was acting funky. It was erratically dropping its connection: The modem’s LED Internet light was toggling from a pulsating green to solid red or no light at all. Not good! That means constant line interruptions.

The latter is what prompted my initial calls to Verizon and what led to a decision to upgrade to higher speeds. Ugh! The take-away behind all this is: May the gods have mercy on you if you ever have to deal with Verizon service people.

ASSESSMENT: Verizon is plagued by an inability to coordinate its disparate service units. The people who control service in the central offices where the rubber meets the road have no effective tie-in with the service people who man the 800 lines. The latter are located worldwide: On this single service issue, I spoke with at least two persons in the Philippines, as well as others located there or elsewhere. The total number of calls which I made (I have profuse notes) is beyond the threshold of what is required to fix a still unresolved, mundane technical issue.

EXAMPLE: Sensing customer frustration, one service person at the end of an 800 line tried to reassure me: She “promised” that my Internet service would be up and running “within 12 hours.” That’s when I heard the rooster crow in the background, with the sinking feeling that I was being betrayed for the third time by a company whose representatives like to end calls by telling us how much Verizon values our business.

Saturday afternoon, the wisest Verizon person was the one who admitted, “I can’t tell you when your Internet service will be restored.” Around 1:30 pm, Monday, when I left my home office for the Bridgewater Library to post this entry, the Internet line was still buried somewhere in a technical graveyard.

Good Morning, Iraq!

The dimensions of the box are only 12”x12”x6”. It is white, and sprinkled with blue and red lettering. You can pick one up for free at any U.S. Post Office, stuff it with as much as it will hold (no weight limit) and mail it to any American military person in Iraq for $10.95.

Friday afternoon, we sent one such cherished parcel crammed with non-perishable food goodies to the son-in-law of one of our friends. Let’s call him Jack to maintain his privacy. He is a New Jerseyan whose unit was reactivated for duty in Iraq. It seems so incongruous for me to be writing this in a safe corner of my home while thinking of Jack, a person I’ve never met, who is half-way across the world in a country whose leaders largely despise Americans and who want them to leave – but just not now!

It doesn’t much matter, though, what I think of all the unfit Iraqi leaders and of their cobbled-together, fractious and ineffective government. Nor does it change anything for me to rail about whether or not American troops should come home now or stay longer. My opinion of the conduct of the war has had no impact on the actions of the Bush Administration; nor will it on the new administration led by Obama.

All that Priscille and I can do is to take this one small step which will have a direct one-on-one effect on another kindred American spirit. The men and women who were sent to Iraq do not deserve to be embroiled in the ongoing Washington Beltway political struggle that resulted in the most misdirected military expedition in U.S. history.

If you are so disposed, you might also consider a few intentional prayers for our brave souls in Iraq. Thanks for checking in.


Note: For information about what you can do to help, please see www.americasupportsyou.mil

Spiffy Food Court

It looks like progress on the food court at the Bridgewater Commons Mall is accelerating at a clip that will have some of the concessions open in time for the post-Thanksgiving day onslaught. I stopped at the management office this morning to speak with the marketing manager about opening dates, but she was out in the main mall area checking things out, so I couldn’t confirm this.

As I walked and paused on the third floor, by the southern end of the mall, the open breadth of the food court area became easily visible. The renovation partitions have been down for some time; tables, chairs and new refuse receptacles are waiting to be placed in the right spots. Several walk-up eateries are already getting ready for business. At one end of a row, on the left side, there is a ‘Grilled Subs.’ Next to it is a salad bar, followed by a ‘Baja-B-Que' concession.

‘Sarku Japan’ is returning, and it is sited in a new location opposite from its former corner spot. In a break with the 100% flavor of the food court, you will also find a ‘Skechers’ to lure you into shoe purchases after you have filled up your belly. Other non-food outlets may open in the food court, looking to accomplish the same purpose.

I must admit that I’ve begun to catch the Christmas Spirit a bit early this year, but it’s with the hope and expectation that, prompted by the economic downturn, people will also remember that the origin of the December festival is the commemoration of the birth of someone whose entry into humanity has had a transformative impact on civilization.

Time’s A’Wastin’

Sorry to interrupt, but the honeymoon is over. Like many married couples who never had the privilege of nestling in for a brief period of nuptial bliss before assuming the demanding obligations of life, so it is for President-Elect Barack Obama.

America can’t wait until after the inauguration on January 20, 2009, for a confirmation or re-direction of the economic engines of the country. With the October 3rd enactment into law of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) by President Bush and the 110th Congress, the groundwork has already been laid for our new chief executive. But it’s a ship that needs a new rudder, and that is President Obama. (I truncated the word “elect” from his title, because time will not permit two months of transitional idling.)

Markets don’t wait for people to move. They have a thrust of their own and, in the absence of consensus on a clearly-stated working plan by Obama – negotiated with Congress and the current administration – financial markets will define the future by what they see and hear today.

President Obama now has the force and prestige of his campaign momentum to reinforce him. He needs to negotiate the introduction of a modified plan, or to endorse the current one with President Bush and Congressional leaders Reid and Pelosi within the next two weeks. It’s time for some late-night cramming and candle-burning.

Should Obama fail to roll up his sleeves now, and should the economy sink further into recession, no longer will there be any basis for Bush-bashing. It’s your dime, Mr. President. Spend it wisely. I know you didn’t ask for this, but neither did we.

Walking the Talk

As I bring to mind some of the expressions that TV talking heads employed as buzz phrases in the months prior to the 2008 national, gubernatorial, and local elections, there is a pair that stands out as meaningless. I think that not even the highly-paid commentators who seeded their sentences with them knew what they were talking about. The first phrase they used is, “talking the talk;” the second is “walking the walk.”

If you think carefully about what that signifies, the answer is nothing. Really! Nothing! Both phrases are a watering down by the TV media of business expressions appropriated by journalists who either did not check real-world usage, or who became tongue-tied in attempting to employ the correct terminology, and just gave up.

The genesis of the two terms is the business world, and they are often used in tandem. For example, managers and executives who are in love with the sound of their voices, but who don’t get things done, often earn a reputation for “talking the walk.” Lots of sound; no action.

On the other hand, an accomplished manager or executive who knows how to “walk the talk,” is one who has not only well articulated what has to be done, but who has laid out a clear path, a plan for execution and – just as important – rolls up his or her sleeves and gets the job done along with the team.

The next time that you hear or see a vapid empty suit (or dress) on TV being critical of someone by misusing these business expressions, you can take that as a sure sign that it is the commentator who does not know how to “walk the talk.”

Bridgewater’s Open Space Money & Other Ballot Questions

Tuesday, when you go to the polls, you will see three public questions seeking your evaluation on the ballot. The first has to do with amending the New Jersey Constitution so that Trenton officials will be required to get your approval by referendum before they can arbitrarily issue unfunded bonds to spend your money. This action is necessary to cancel out State court rulings which have allowed legislators to bypass voters and to issue bonds with impunity. Question #1 deserves a “Yes” vote.

The second ballot question is fraught with ambiguity: It asks your permission to alter the New Jersey Constitution so that “the method of selection and appointment of certain municipal court judges would be set by statute” rather than, as is now the practice, by the Governor’s nomination with ratification by the Senate.

If this ballot question is approved, it means that the N.J. Legislature can pass any law that it wants as to how this class of judges is appointed, including the present process. Knowing how untrustworthy some of our elected officials can be with their propensity for patronage and their skill at circumventing regulations, maybe it’s best to leave well enough alone. You decide.

The third and last question is worthy of your “Yes” vote. It’s strictly a local Bridgewater issue. It asks that you permit that up to 25% of Open Space Trust Fund money be used to purchase and/or to improve land for recreational purposes in Bridgewater. If you vote “Yes,” the Township Council will pass an ordinance to that effect. Makes sense to me.

Note: You can see a pdf. File of a sample ballot of the November 4, 2008 election at http://www.co.somerset.nj.us/clerk/pdf/2008novsamples.pdf

Bridgewater and its “800-Pound Gorilla”

Thursday’s October 30th edition of the Courier News featured a lead story by Michael Deak entitled, “Mapping a Growth Blueprint.” The article reports on an 11.5-square mile Somerset County Regional Center defined in 1996, and composed of parts of Bridgewater, Somerville and Raritan Borough.

The ideal objective is for these three communities to co-ordinate efforts in an attempt to control growth and to contain suburban sprawl. For Bridgewater, the horses are largely out of the barn as to the latter. Nonetheless, rigorous, tri-partite efforts to direct growth along the 11.5 mile regional center corridor are necessary, and any further sprawl in Bridgewater should be truncated.

Ben Spinelli, an official from New Jersey’s Office of Smart Growth addressed the summit. I wish that he had explained how COAH’s state-imposed burden on Bridgewater Township for more housing units will adversely contribute to the “suburban sprawl” which he so roundly decried.

Bridgewater had already exceeded its quota for COAH housing units before the state came roaring back in, imposing even more. The most significant comment in Deak’s reporting was that made by Bridgewater’s Mayor Patricia Flannery, when she said, “The 800-pound gorilla in the room is affordable housing.”

Same ‘Ole, Same ‘Ole

Please indulge me if I use a quotation from the Psalms, because in many ways not much has changed in more than 2000 years. The unbridled personal and structural self-indulgence which led to the current worldwide economic meltdown reminds me that the exploitation of men by other men is as rife now as it was then:

“Defend me, O God, and plead my cause
against a godless nation.
From deceitful and cunning men
rescue me, O God”

Throughout remote history, helpless people pleaded to God for relief from those who took advantage of them. By 2008, mankind should have made quantum leaps toward the Golden Rule, don’t you think? Here we are centuries later; whom are we to trust? To whom among us do we plead?

Palin’s Popularity

The reaction to Palin since she was chosen as McCain’s running mate has been at polar extremes, much of it virulently negative. I don’t know why. To listen to some people, you’d think that Alaska is a third-world country.

Antagonists either stigmatize her or treat her as though she has no grey matter between the ears. Even Kathleen Parker, a prominent conservative columnist, has come down hard on Palin. The piling on continues. Let me share with you what I think:

Sarah Palin is intelligent. That’s right, intelligent. Without smarts, you don’t get to be a governor and to survive and thrive in the political battles which she won in Alaska. Her detractors would like to label her as the brunette version of a dumb blonde – both sexist insults, but political correctness restrains them from saying what they think. She is tough. After getting bushwhacked several times in a couple of unprepared TV interviews, she jumped right back into the fight, seemingly stronger than before, a quick learner.

She is even-tempered. Not once have I seen her lose her cool under relentless campaign pressure. She evokes jealously: Palin has had the guts to have succeeded in a man’s world while simultaneously achieving what women do splendidly – being a loving wife and mother. That has got to stick in the craw of the dying breed of 1960’s-style feminists. She can be self-deprecating; that was evident in her appearance on Saturday Night Live.

She has a magnetic personality and is the best- looking woman on the campaign circuit: Is she supposed to apologize for that? Is she supposed to put a bag on her head? The woman has charisma and is using it almost effortlessly to her advantage. And why not? Others only wish.

OK! OK! She doesn’t have any international exposure and foreign policy experience. She hasn’t hobnobbed with the Washington, D.C. cocktail party crowd. She isn’t a national economics whiz. She doesn’t come from an ivy-league school. She doesn’t charm the New York Times. She doesn’t have the sophistication of Northeast intellectuals and the approval of Hollywood narcissists.

Nor has she taken bribes; or slept around like so many of our prominent Washington officials; or become addicted to drugs, drinking and drunk driving, like a few D.C. Senators and Representatives from prominent families; or aborted a Down Syndrome baby; or taken to abandoning a practicing faith; or rejected her daughter for getting pregnant; or gone along to get along with her own Republican party caught up in scandal and bribery in Alaska.

Whatever else may be said, the woman has integrity.

Too Smart for Their Own Britches

On October 23, 2008, former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to testify about the recent credit freeze caused by the sub-prime mortgage mess. He read from a prepared text and then took what were mainly softball questions from committee members.

I pored over every word contained in Greenspan’s written testimony before that committee. I also listened carefully to Greenspan’s response to questions from the House panel. This is a man of great intelligence who simply cannot sit before other people and express in common language what he did and why he did it.

Greenspan was a key factor in causing the credit markets to fall apart. He kept interest rates too low, too long, and refused to introduce regulatory measures that might have kept the house of cards from crumbling. His written testimony was more like an excuse than an explanation. I won’t bore you with all of the 50-cent words that he used as a shield.

Greenspan’s basic and most absurdly memorable explanation for the sub-prime fiasco was to state its cause as originating from, “A flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.” Huh! Is he kidding? Please read that quote again. With a straight face, Greenspan told everyone within earshot not only that there is a complex mathematical computer model that defines how the world goes ‘round & ‘round, but that the model is a financial one. How overly simplistic!

It appears that while he was Fed Chairman, Greenspan placed great faith in economic models. Although he did not specify in his testimony the one to which he referred, there are several candidates. One is known by its abbreviation, CAPM (The Capital Asset Pricing Model). Another is the Black–Scholes model. Developers of both received Nobel Prizes for their work.

Greenspan defended the use of computerized risk management models which became the backbone for the trading of mortgage-backed securities. Heck, he testified, there was nothing wrong with them; it’s just that people didn’t feed in the right data.

So many smart people, so little wisdom. Have I said that before?

Loins, Politics, & Religion

When Joe Biden addressed a group of supporters at a fundraiser on Sunday night, his comments were notable for at least three reasons. One, Biden rattled his handlers with, “Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy . . . we’re going to have . . . an international . . . generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy . . . I promise you it will occur.”

Two, Biden made these comments and others like it before he realized that print journalists were in the room, after which he promptly concluded his address, stating, “I probably shouldn’t have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here.”

Three, in his remarks that evening, Biden used Biblical language in explaining that the “generated crisis” would engender a response by Barack Obama that would be hugely unpopular and would cause his standing to plummet in the polls. Americans would, according to Biden, have to “gird their loins.”

I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea that Obama, the man who is supposed to get us out of Iraq, is according to Biden, going to turn into a hawk in the first six months of 2009 in order to prove his mettle. Besides, Biden didn’t get the term right.

Although I have read several internet interpretations of the Biblical expression that “girding their loins” means simply securing one’s belt a little tighter, that’s not what it indicates.

The expression appears in several places and forms in Scripture. Its original intent in some of the earliest writings of the Bible, as in 1 Kings, refers to getting ready for battle. In this context, it signifies that a fighter “draws up and ties his lower garments between his legs as to increase mobility and agility.” Although the practice varied as the centuries progressed, there is nothing peaceful about it.

Later in time, in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks about “taking on the whole armor of God . . . and, having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist." Paul continues, “Take the shield of faith.” These are intended as words of internal fortitude and of peaceful resistance, not of warfare. To which of the two meanings was Joe Biden referring?

Autumn Leaf Peeping

Since this could be the last favorable weekend to view the sunny brilliance of autumn foliage in the Garden State, Priscille and I decided to grasp the opportunity. Starting in Bridgewater, we drove northwest onto the byways of Warren County early this afternoon. When we embark upon one of these short local motor trips, we always end up meandering along scenic back roads in a random fashion.

Today was no exception. Our goal was to let our eyes and minds soak in the palette of rich autumn colors found in the foliage spilling out along the roadside and on the rolling hills of New Jersey. We weren’t disappointed and both agreed that this year is one of the best for leaf peeping.

Eventually finding ourselves on State Road 519 in Belvidere, we stopped at the Four Sisters Winery at Matarazzo Farms. This winery offers plenty of choices, but one of my favorite local varietals is Beaver Creek Red. I like it because it’s made with love and skill from Concord grapes – semi-sweet, but not sugary. I came to appreciate the robust, full-bodied flavor that this type of grape produces when we lived for a time close to the wine country of New York’s Finger Lakes region, host to a wide variety of small wineries.

If anybody out there is in the market for changing careers and seeks to run a winery, Four Sisters is up for sale. We spotted an announcement to that fact as we checked out with three cherished bottles of Beaver Creek Red.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

In the movie classic, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” there is a moment when the terminally ill family patriarch, played by Burl Ives, unexpectedly walks into the drawing room of his southern mansion and finds his two grown children and their mates quarreling among themselves about how they will split things up upon his death.

There is a moment of hanging quiet as they realize that he has heard them talking about him. Not having picked up the entire conversation, but knowing that he is on the carpet, Ives, in his heavy authoritarian voice, declares, “I smell mendacity in this room.”

After listening for months on end to the race for the White House as it has narrowed down to the remaining candidates, Obama and McCain, I also declare that, “I smell mendacity in this room.” Although one might think that McCain and Obama are as far apart as their ages, there is, in one respect, not even spitting distance between the two.

They each have or have had on their teams, key advisors who played a direct role in the developing financial debacle. As to Obama, mortgage executive Franklin Delano Raines is said to have “taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing matters," according to http://www.realclearpolitics.com/. Raines was chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae and walked off after earning $99 million in three years.

For McCain, it’s economic advisor Phil Gramm, the former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. He led the fight to successfully poison financial markets by dismantling laws which separated banking, insurance and brokerage activities. Gramm got his reward by subsequently landing a job as vice-chairman for Swiss-based UBS investment bank.

The choice of these men and others like them for campaign advice underscores that both McCain and Obama have put personal relationships ahead of good judgment. There is no evidence that it will be any different when one of them is in the White House.

Subaru Satisfaction

We have two old cars that are on the road a lot. Many of our driving is to points north or south to visit with our out-of-state children, their kids, families and friends. So it’s absolutely necessary to have those two vehicles ready to go at any time and in tip-top condition.

It’s a bonus to have competent, courteous service when we take one of those cars in for scheduled maintenance. One of them, the Subaru, always gets serviced at Flemington Subaru. That dealership, I’m guessing, is one of the smaller ones in the group. But the service is among the best and the attitudes which we run across at the service desk are always customer-oriented. There is no question in my mind about that.

Friday, we needed to take the Subaru in for an oil & filter change – just a routine trip, no other problems. Or, so I thought. As I pulled out of the driveway, I felt the gear shifter stiffening up. Oh! Oh! Didn’t notice that one before. Well, I thought, if it had to happen, then it might as well be on our way to a service appointment.

The team at Flemington Subaru maintains a welcoming, positive demeanor every time that Priscille and I drive there. The people at the front desk have always handled the pressure of that job professionally, while personally assuring us that whatever the problem is, it will be taken care of.

We drove out that afternoon with the car in good shape and even had a great time joking around in the waiting area with a woman from Jugtown Mountain who has a great sense of humor.

FHA Nixes Home Financing Program

The Washington Post recently featured the story of a lending abuse practice which the Federal Housing Administration shut down mere days before the current financial panic caused a freeze-up in credit markets.

This mortgage procedure was just one of many loan gimmicks which the housing industry, government, and banks cooked up to push out mortgages to people, most of whom didn’t have a prayer of honoring their obligations.

Here’s how it worked: Until October 1, when the FHA dismantled the program, home buyers could purchase FHA-insured homes by taking advantage of a chancy procedure known as a seller-funded down payment.

Writing for the Washington Post, Dina ElBoghdady describes it this way: “Under this arrangement, the FHA allowed charities to provide down-payment money to buyers. The sellers then reimbursed the charities and paid an administrative fee for the service.” The result was yet another class of brittle loans to otherwise unqualified buyers. These loans contributed to the current flood of “foreclosures that crippled the housing market and damaged the economy at large.”

According to ElBoghdady, the FHA sought to rid itself of the seller-funded down payment program because people who get such loans “go into foreclosure at nearly three times the rate of those who do not.”

This funding method was used by home builders and promoted by their mortgage representatives who pushed these predatory loans onto “first-time home buyers, minorities and single parents.”

Keep an eye out for the building industry and its lobbyists, as they could try to reinstate similar programs through modification of the recently enacted $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

A Committee of Vultures

The Washington, D.C. political vultures who have been circling the corpse of Lehman Brothers descended on it today and began picking at the remains. It happened in the Rayburn House Office Building this morning, when members of Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) Committee on Oversight and Government Reform grilled Richard Fuld. Fuld is the former Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, the now-defunct Wall Street investment firm.

The usage of the phrase ‘Oversight and Government Reform’ in the name of Waxman’s Committee is one of the best examples of the noun ‘oxymoron’ that I can think of. Waxman’s committee has enforced absolutely no effective oversight, nor has it proposed any significant reforms having to do with the economic meltdown and resulting panic gripping U.S. and international markets. Nada!

But these politicians need cover, and that means beating the bushes for fall guys. It’s easy to do these days. One of Waxman’s first targets today was Lehman’s Richard Fuld. I’m no fan of this man, because a unit of his firm was up to its eyeballs in risky financial derivatives – a primary cause of the fiscal crisis.

That was not the only cause. Another major factor was the failure of Congress to implement and to enforce reasonable regulations for mortgage guidelines designed to protect vulnerable borrowers. No one in Congress wants to hear this now, but the Legislative Branch in D.C. is one of the key irresponsible participants for having actively stimulated the writing of loans to people who had no decent chance of repaying them.


Fuld, in response to a question about how the fiscal fiasco occurred, had the guts to push back on Waxman’s committee and to say, “A goal of the government was to provide funding to people who could not or would not pay their mortgages.” That’s an incontrovertible fact.

Bridgewater Road Gets Fixed

There’s been so much bad news pouring into our Township via Washington, D.C. in the last thirty days, that it is a refreshing relief to see evidence of something being done right at the local level in Bridgewater.

Anyone who has used Hunter Road which runs in a north/south pattern across the Second Watchung Mountain ridge knows how badly deteriorated the road surface had become. Every time that I have used this shortcut which crosses over I-78, I’ve always found myself impossibly trying to dodge patched potholes over patched potholes which covered the width of this short Bridgewater stretch of narrow roadway, as it wound its way north into the next township.

At one point, I just gave up and slowly hugged the right side of this tightly serpentine country road, away from oncoming vehicles. At commuter time, it was a serious hazard.

Somebody done good, though! For several days recently, Hunter road was closed to traffic as road crews worked diligently to resurface the entire Bridgewater section. I was on it again the day after it was reopened to traffic. Beautiful! It’s now as smooth as a baby’s bum.

I’m not sure who did the work, but I think it’s the crews of Bridgewater’s Public Works Department, or of their hired contractor. Either way, thanks. It’s a not so small blessing to see money being put to work the right way.

Note: For an compelling description of the volcanic origin of the Watchung ridges, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchung_Mountains

Blame it on God, or the Republicans

Monday, as my wife and I were driving north from Potomac, MD, about 15 miles from the center of the Capitol Building in D.C., I tuned in C-Span radio to get a live feed of the debate taking place in the House of Representatives. The lower house was debating the famed “bailout bill” which was defeated later that afternoon.

Radio, when used in this manner, presents events with surprising clarity. There are no Wolf Blitzers to paraphrase what happened and to tell you what you should think about it. Most TV talking heads like to spoon feed us with selected video clips tailored to their own views. Listening to an event in real time radio, uninterrupted and unvarnished, gives the listener a wholly different look: it’s called reality.

At one point in the deliberations last Monday, a congressman who arose to speak out against the proposal concluded his comments with this ending, “Duty is ours. Outcomes belong to God.” I could think about that for weeks before I could even begin to decipher what in blazes he was talking about. Could it have been something like this: “Well, I’m going to vote ‘no’ on this bill, and God can figure out what to do next.” It’s a pretty sick dude who would put the consequences for the sub-prime mess squarely in God’s lap.

Especially since the record shows that Congress, through its willful inaction, is largely responsible for ignoring oversight of the financial markets and, in particular, for not reining in the run-away lending habits of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Furthermore, Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker, didn’t do herself or the process any good when, before Monday’s debate, she stood in front of reporters and pronounced in accusatory tones that Republicans who didn’t attend a previous bipartisan caucus were “unpatriotic” for not having been present.

If Republicans had attended that meeting, it would have been a slick trick, since Democrat Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, later confirmed that he had been so busy that he simply forgot to invite members of the opposing party.

Pelosi got a free pass from the media for that insult, because the brief news conference in which she fired the “unpatriotic” label against her opponents received scant, if any, TV coverage.

If you like, you can view Pelosi’s brief comments at, http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/pelosi_calls_republicans_unpatriotic/

As I wrote before, we all deserve much better than this from our representatives on “both sides of the aisle,” as they like to intone on Capitol Hill where, sometimes, I think the inmates run the asylum.

A Collapse of Character

The current meltdown and resulting panic within the U.S. and international financial system have, as their proximate cause, a long slow fuse which was burning for years towards a dynamite charge consisting of bad loans, sliced and diced into mortgage-backed securities whose stability was only as solid as the credit-worthiness of people who could not afford them, and of the banks and bond aggregators who could not have cared less.

The chickens began coming home to roost when institutional holders of these bad debts slowly realized that the stability behind many of these bundled securities – far too many – was, in effect, as secure as a morning fog quickly dissipating under the penetrating light of the sun.

Every American who gives a hoot is now choking, trying to swallow the alphabet soup explanation of high-falutin’ abbreviations and names such as CDO’s, credit default swaps, naked short selling, derivatives, etc., ad nauseam.

It took thousands of very bright people throughout the financial industry, working hand in hand with sharp government administrators and legislators to set up the financial models and to write the rules and legislation which caused this crash. Adequate governmental oversight was either ignored or, worse, was dismantled. We no longer know what is safe and what isn’t.

But a technical understanding of the financially sophisticated way by which mortgages were marketed, securitized, and resold, and the way in which government was complicit does very little in helping to comprehend the underlying causality.

So, if all these people were so bright and intelligent, then what? Not that hard to understand. Ordinary citizens can perceive the answer: There was a collectively massive collapse of character and fiduciary responsibility, leading to a breakdown of institutional and governmental integrity. Our elected and appointed officials gave the store away, while Wall Street wizards thought they could get out before the collapse.

But it was too big, and it came down too fast.

Drilling Off the New Jersey Coast

NIMBY: Not in my back yard. For decades, this has been the mantra of those who have successfully sought to prevent drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Well, that’s just changed. Democrat leadership in both the House and Senate dropped their support for keeping a moratorium on Atlantic and Pacific coastal drilling in effect. The next president, whoever he is, needs to make sure it stays that way.

It’s about time. For too long, we have relied on oil from unstable nations in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela to our south, and Russia, not only to keep us supplied, but to keep all the potentially nasty problems of oil production far away from us, elsewhere in the world. We nervously watch oil prices shoot up every time that a potentially major hurricane threatens to temporarily halt drilling in the western Gulf of Mexico and to shut down refineries along the Texas coastline and bordering states.

The Canadian government has already announced that it will begin exploring for oil on the continental shelf of the Grand Banks. We could do the same on our section of the Grand Banks, in the Gulf of Maine, and off the New Jersey coast. But oh no: NIMBY.

Too many vain and unrealistic politicians want the oil spigots to remain wide open, but don’t want oil rigs nearby. I say baloney to that. We either stop using as much oil as we do (it won’t happen voluntarily) or we go where the oil is – and, that’s in our own back yard right here in America.

Bridgewater-Raritan’s Everyday Math Program

What is the answer to seven times seven? Quickly! You may know the correct result, but does your elementary school child enrolled in the Bridgewater-Raritan school district know? That, in a nutshell, is the educational controversy which is now swirling about in this school district.

Two weeks ago today, I attended a work session of the B-R Board of Education at which there was a special presentation and discussion of Everyday Math. The basis for the Board’s lengthy discussion was a quarter-inch thick report on double-sided paper. The report summarized the completed work of a 9-member Everyday Math (EDM) Committee, all educators except two parents from the B-R School District.

Outcome: A written response by Superindent Michael Schilder which, among other points, recommends that he “. . . direct a sub-committee of the Five-Year K4 Mathematics Program Evaluation Committee to review mathematics programs other than Everyday Math for consideration of adoption.”

The preceding quote is a mouthful, but it simply means that another committee (no parents this time) will be charged with reviewing EDM and other Math programs further. By February, 2009, the new committee is to come up with potential alternatives that may replace EDM – note the conditionality and ambiguity of this sentence.

The ensuing discussion among board members, the superintendent and his assistant superintendent, Cheryl Dyer was lively and controversial. There is no unanimity of agreement on the status of EDM between the B-R BOE and the administration.

My concern is that the September 9, 2008, meeting of the B-R BOE was a work session. No formal board action can legally take place at such a meeting unless it is specifically placed on the agenda and identified as an item on which “action may be taken.” That means a formal resolution, published on an agenda, in advance under the Open Public Meetings act, presented to the board, discussed by board members, and opened to the public for comment before the board votes on it.

No such item appeared on the agenda of the September 9th meeting with respect to action to be taken on EDM. The agenda item listed was to be for discussion only. The significance of this is that the sub-committee referred to in Dr. Schilder’s recommendation may already be a done deal, without formal board action having been taken.

At the end of the Tuesday, September 9th meeting, the B-R BOE did not fully concur with Dr. Schilder’s sub-committee proposal. There was very strong opposition to the formation of such a committee by at least several members of the board. Even more seemed to be opposed to the EDM program, but wished to let the sub-committee go forward. Very confusing! That’s why the B-R BOE needs to place this item on its agenda for a regular board meeting and schedule it for an up or down vote as to whether or not to proceed with the Superintendent’s recommendation for another committee.

This clearly is a policy matter, one of the few issues for which a board of education has direct oversight responsibilities. Additionally, preparation of a board agenda is one of the other few items over which a school board president – Cynthia Cullen in this case – has direct accountability.

If this is not done, the sub-committee will be formed, move ahead with its work and will issue a report in mid-February, 2009, just in time to start up another April school election controversy!

Finally, Action!

It’s hard to believe what Congress was about to do in the midst of the financial crisis engulfing the nation. A week from today, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives were scheduled to go home for three months without lifting a finger to stem the financial markets meltdown. They will not return until after January 1st, 2009.

That may not sound plausible, but just read this excerpt of what Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee had to say in a TV interview just two days ago when asked what Congress would do: “It is inconceivable to do anything before the election” . . . we need “to do this in a rational and measured way.” The Bay State representative went on to say, “It is conceivable that after the election, you could get some kind of consensus . . . it is by no means certain.”

That was on Wednesday. A day later the entire picture, as well as the attitude of this do-nothing Congress made a 180° turn.

We don’t know what words were used by Hank Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, and Ben Bernanke in a closed door meeting of key legislators yesterday. Whatever both men said, it was enough to light a fire under economically timid and reluctant Republican and Democrat lawmakers. The word is that they have accepted an Administration proposal to unravel the chaos.

If no one throws a monkey wrench in the works, the nation should have a comprehensive law to fix things before these bozos go on vacation. (According to an August 27, Rasmussen report, “just 9% of likely voters give congress positive ratings.”)

Blaah . . . Blaah . . . Blaah!

This is one of those times when I am happy to be an independent voter. Today, McCain and Obama responded to questions about what they would do to solve the financial tsunami once more threatening to spread from Wall Street into the cities and towns of mainstream USA. Their answers show how, in the midst of a major fiscal crisis, we are not being well-served by the rhetoric of either candidacy

First, McCain: He proposes to set up an independent, bi-partisan committee to address problems of the type caused by Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG. Nice try, but just ask the senior Tom Kean who headed up the 9/11 committee and who, to this day, maintains that the committee’s recommendations were never fully enacted. We don’t have the time for that.

Next, Obama: When asked what he would do about the imminent bankruptcy of the world’s largest insurer, AIG, the response from his staff is that his campaign will take no position, because he doesn’t know the status of AIG’s books. How nice: A Harvard education, mind you; and, while the rest of the world knows that investments made by AIG in mortgage-backed securities, as well as credit default swaps (insurance issued on those securities) would take down profitable units of this financial giant and spread to other firms, Obama doesn’t know seem to know this. How credible is that?

Somebody had to act, and now! Somebody just did: As of this writing, the U.S. government, according to a 9:15 p.m., web news release, “has agreed to provide an $85 billion emergency loan to rescue the huge insurer AIG, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday.”

We don’t have to agree with this particular course of action, but at least some people in Washington and on Wall Street have come together to assess the problem and have taken swift action.

Note: For a colorful reaction to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, see Jay Jefferson Cooke’s essay at, http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008809160323
Disclosure: I have a son who works for a fiscally sound subsidiary of AIG.

Political Chicanery

If there’s one thing that gets my dander up, it’s some dolt tapping the keys of a PC, writing some missive about which he knows nothing, not having done any fact-checking. When the result is the savaging of the integrity of a genuine U.S. war hero, it gets my dander up even more.

A recent TV ad by the Obama campaign claims that McCain is out of touch with reality because he can’t send an e-mail and doesn’t know how to use a PC. I’d like to know: Since when did the ability to use these tools automatically impart intelligence, discernment and wisdom to a person? That’s the first argument.

The second is that the impulsive staffers who work for David Plouffe, Obama’s chief strategist, got the basis for their claim disgustingly wrong. Here’s an excerpt from a Boston Globe profile of McCain which appeared on March 4, 2000:

"McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan -- Ted Williams is his hero -- but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball."

Enough said. Thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves out there; it can be a vicious world at times.

Note: Regardless of your political persuasion, it never hurts to be informed. If you’d like to read the source for this post and see the Obama campaign video, you can view them at, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/obama-ad-email.html. Also, it you have the inclination to read the Boston Globe’s profile on McCain published in March, 2000, it can be found at, http://graphics.boston.com/news/politics/campaign2000/news/McCain_character_loyal_to_a_fault+.shtml . The story begins with McCain’s response to a political thrust against the gay major of Tempe Arizona.

Is This Price Gouging?

On my way back from a few errands in Somerset County, I wanted to fill the half-empty gas tank of my car. Pointing it west on Route 22, I decided to stop at an independent Liberty gas station where, yesterday, September 11, my wife gassed up her auto at $3.39 per gallon, regular.

On the way there, I saw two Exxon stations which service both directions of Route 22, near ShopRite. They posted prices of $3.45. The next gas station going west, Valero, posted $3.59. Just past that, on the eastbound side, Gulf also showed $3.59.

As I approached the Liberty gas station, the posted price for regular had gone up .30¢ overnight to $3.69! I drove past it, turned back east on Route 22, and stopped at the Exxon across from ShopRite, filling up for $3.45. Waiting at the pump, I was in disbelief at the price back at Liberty. I must have misread the big sign on the highway. How could it have gone up .30¢ in 24 hours?

My tank full, I needed to satisfy myself that I had this right. Pulling away from Exxon, I negotiated the first jughandle, reversing direction back west on Route 22. Slowing down slightly as I passed the Liberty gas station, the big sign read $3.69, regular. I wasn’t dreaming!

I hope that Somerset County officials check this out: because, although there may be a sound economic reason for this, it smells like a skunk.

(Note: The word Friday afternoon is that stations ordering gas now may have to pay as much as .50¢ per gallon above the NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) price, due to Hurricane Ike. Still, are some stations out there with gas in their storage tanks purchased at lower prices taking advantage of the hurricane to jack up prices?)

A Place to Remember

The inscription on the plaque affixed to the horizontal beam salvaged from one of the World Trade Towers is very simple and direct:

A Place to Remember
A Tribute to Life, Lives Lost, and Lives Changed Forever
September 11, 2001

It’s located in a circle of fidelity at Harry Dunham Park in Bernards Township, near the northern tip of Bridgewater. The location of this park memorial is at the confluence of two semi-elliptical walking paths, one large, one small, where they conjoin. The design is well thought out, evidently intended to not let a walker forget as he/she circles the park in exercise.

Late in the afternoon, after parking the car and walking towards ‘A Place to Remember,’ Pris and I saw from the distance the figure of a lone man in a dark business suit standing still, his body straight, his head bent down, his eyes fixed upon the inscription etched in one of the square slates. The names on that plate must have represented loved ones or friends who perished on that dreadful day seven years ago.

The U.S. flag fluttered quietly at half-staff and three bouquets rested on top of the beam, just below the ‘Place to Remember’ inscription. A pot of mums had been placed at the foot of the plaque.

I have written about this honored site before. I’m sure that I will write about it again. I don’t want to forget. Nor do I forget Osama bin Laden – one of the world’s greatest malignant minds – who stays holed up under the protection of his Pakistani patrons in the mountainous region of northwestern Pakistan known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, far away from the steely hand of justice.

Boring Wordsmiths

A new lingo seems to have crept into American English mainly through TV talk show hosts, commentators and their guests who have come to use it profusely. The jargon revolves around meaningless expressions such as ‘going forward’ and ‘on the ground.’

Tonight I heard a CNN talking head ask one of her guests in a most serious tone, “….what do you think the strategy is ‘going forward?’” Campbell Brown could simply have asked, “What is the strategy?”

You might think that this is not a big deal. It’s not. But it’s a symptom of the low level of sophistication that passes for newsworthy reporting and analysis on the boob tube. The term ‘going forward’ is appended to thousands of sentences every day like kernels of corn bursting into popcorn in my stove-top Whirley-Pop. Popcorn tastes great. Useless word appendages don’t.

A second wordsmith attachment often stuck to the end of sentences by TV talking heads is the expression, ‘on the ground.’ When originally used in its derivative sense to highlight the debate over the number of soldiers that were required in Iraq, the term had import. Now, it’s seemingly thrown about on any topic having to do with military issues or with simply trying to sound credible.

We keep hearing about ‘boots on the ground.’ By golly where else would they be? Or, we might hear a well-paid TV analyst trying to add gravitas to his/her conclusion by saying something like, “John/Jane Doe is flying to Iraq next week, and will talk to Nouri al-Maliki so that he/she can get the facts ‘on the ground.’”

I hope the person dispatched to Baghdad didn’t get shot in the butt by a sniper, as he/she was walking about that beleaguered city, bending over to collect facts ‘on the ground’ in order that we uninformed citizens could understand what strategy is proposed ‘going forward.’

The Restless Russian Bear

In the middle of the Olympic Games in China when the world was distracted, Russian troops stormed over the border into South Ossetia, a long-contested separatist region of Georgia, both of which were part of the former U.S.S.R.

Immediately after the invasion, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded with a strongly-worded, verbal defense of this small, beleaguered republic. The two presidential candidates were quick to add their support for Georgia, with McCain uttering tough words and Obama, well . . . not-so-tough.

No matter. If Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili expected more than verbal support from the U.S., he should have checked in with Washington before he decided to launch a rocket attack against South Ossetia on August 7. That barrage was the only excuse that Russia needed to launch an invasion of this tiny country – an act for which Putin was undoubtedly set to go and for which he needed only the slightest pretext.

Saakashvili made a key strategic blunder. He should have realized that the U.S. is currently in no position to military engage Russia on his behalf at a time when our troops are committed in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Dead, displaced and injured Georgians are now paying the price of this miscalculation.


Note: For an excellent analysis of this conflict, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7549736.stm

Let’s Roll!

Early Wednesday morning, school buses of the Bridgewater-Raritan School District, as well as those of its contractors will roll out of their garages and parking lots and head to their first pickup location. They will then crisscross the Township and the Borough, loading up with a first-day-of-school cargo of students. On Garretson Road, upper classmen who have coveted passes for high school parking will be pulling into the lots in private cars.

It’s going to be a particularly critical time to be alert, especially after a summer of driving in Bridgewater and Raritan with those big yellow buses off the road. Bus drivers are well-trained and know what they are doing. Many of those who work directly for the district have a long history of solid experience, know safety well, and are as familiar with Bridgewater and Raritan roads as they are with the back of their hands.

Unfortunately, they are also only too familiar with the few – but very dangerous drivers – whose passion for speed and for bending the rules of the road could result in an accident. When you see the flashing lights of a bus as it slows down for a stop, don’t give in to the urge to quickly pass it by. There are plenty of kids in this district, but none to spare.



The Educational Services Commission of Somerset County, which covers an even larger geographic area, will also have its vans and buses out on the road transporting kids, so it would be a good idea for everybody involved to have an extra amount of patience in the next two weeks.

Parents, Students, and Bridgewater-Raritan Busing

On Wednesday, September 3rd, thousands of Bridgewater and Raritan kids will be outside awaiting the arrival of buses that will shepherd them to their schools for the first day of the 2008-2009 school year. For some young ones and their anxious moms, it will also be the first time that they are separated from the nest.

On Commons Way, in a small office next to the Transportation and Maintenance garage, there is a dedicated staff of four people who have spent much of their time since school closed in June, gathering information about your kids and entering it into a sophisticated computer queuing program that matches up all of the information to place your children on the right bus, at the right time. The results are reviewed for accuracy.

For the most part, given the complexity and logistics of matching up individual bus capacity and most efficient routing with specific students, time, pick-up location, and specific school destination, the process should proceed smoothly.

However, be prepared for glitches. They do happen. Most of the time, they are minor. Sometimes, but rarely, they are not. Either way, you can expect that the phone lines into the Bridgewater-Raritan Schools Transportation Department will be jammed for at least a week or two.

If something doesn’t go quite right for your kids and you need to make contact with your school and the transportation department, here’s some advice that is virtually guaranteed to get you a better outcome: More bees are attracted with a little honey; none with vinegar.

Horizon Gives its Members the Blues

When the President of the Medical Society of New Jersey takes time to submit a carefully crafted letter to the editor, we need to read it. When Dr. Raj Gupta, the Society’s head, goes on to write in the Courier News that New Jersey’s citizens are about to be ripped off by the terms of Horizon’s proposal to go ‘for-profit,’ we had better listen closely.

The purpose of an insurer like Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is to provide the funds to cover the health-care needs of its premium-paying members. Its obligation is to do that as thoroughly and as effectively as possible, while maintaining reserves sufficient to meet that goal. It is not a business; nor is it a welfare institution. It is an organization whose purpose is to meet the needs of its members. Other objectives, though they may be noble, are not within its purview.

But, because the delivery of health-care is so unequal and so fractured, Horizon’s management currently sees an opening to change the purpose and vision of Horizon’s charter. That perceived opening is the combination of New Jersey’s current fiscal mess and its salivating Trenton politicians who may be ready to grasp at any straw to gain any advantage, however temporary, to infuse cash into the system.

As Dr. Gupta points out in his letter, the measly one billion dollars that would accrue to New Jersey citizens comes down to an equivalent, one-time payment of about $588 for every uninsured person in this state: In other words – peanuts. But, as Dr. Gupta points out, the windfall for top Horizon executives could be in the millions: That, of course, is the real purpose and motivating force behind making Horizon a publicly-traded corporation.

Look, I’m just as conservative and as profit-minded as many others in the Garden State. But the Horizon proposal is not about providing uninsured New Jerseyans better health-care. It’s about stuffing the pockets of executives who either don’t know or don’t care about what the purpose of their organization is all about.

Non-existent government oversight and management malfeasance within the financial industry have caused the collapse of a once-thriving real estate market. We don’t need to see a mini repetition of that in New Jersey in the form of an ill-advised initial public offering of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield stock. (And, by the way, which Wall Street investment firm is Horizon working with to craft this misguided health-care boondoggle?)

Dr. Raj Gupta’s letter-to-the editor is a splendid piece and well-deserving of your reading time. You can find it at http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080825/OPINION04/808250308/1063. Don’t miss it. Thanks for your patient reading. Have a good end-of-summer.

Never any Guarantees

The most telling moment of the finals of the Olympic Games matchup between the women’s U.S. soccer team and heavily-favored Brazil was expressed in a quote by Brazilian superstar, Marta. After she missed a point-blank scoring attempt late in regulation play, she lamented, “I don’t understand why the ball didn’t go in . . . in other games, we were able to score easily.”

We see it all the time. Teams who aren’t given a chance surprise everyone and win the golden ring. The N.Y. Giants did it to the undefeated New England Patriots in the last Super Bowl. The Boston Celtics won the 2008 NBA championship against teams with presumably bigger superstars. In a 1980 “miracle on ice,” a gaggle of U.S. college kids stole the gold medal in hockey from a superior U.S.S.R professional team. In these Olympics, the heavily favored U.S. softball team lost the gold to a Japanese team that didn’t know it was supposed to lose.

Similarly, the women’s U.S. soccer team didn’t buy the notion that it stood little chance against the formidable Brazilians led by Marta. The U.S. won 1-0 in overtime. Four of the soccer heroines hail from New Jersey: Heather O’Reilly, Christie Rampone, Carli Lloyd (she scored the winning goal), and Tobin Heath from nearby Basking Ridge.

Skill combined with confidence, tenacity and a will never to relent until the game is over is a human characteristic that is present not only in sports, but in all aspects of life. That is why every day, hundreds of thousands of people overcome seemingly insuperable disadvantages and hardships to achieve similar personal victories of their own.

Note: For a recap by Kevin Manahan describing the women’s U.S. soccer team victory, see http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/08/beijing_when_the_final.html

The Bear is Back

If anyone ever thought that the breakup of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 would result in a declawed, friendlier Russian bear wholly unable to assert itself on the international scene, recent events in The Republic of Georgia have reminded the world community that the Russian bear will be a very potent influence in the 21st century.

Vladimir Putin – a former KGB agent and judo devotee – is still smarting from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which he labeled, “The greatest political catastrophe of the last century.” Now buoyed by the economic stimulus provided from Russian oil fields, he seeks to reassert Russian influence over some of its strategically-positioned, former client states.

In June, 2001, when Presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin first met in Slovenia, they both seemed to hit it off well personally. At least President Bush thought so, because he voiced his opinion that, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul."

Well! Well! I don’t know about you, but I have enough challenges just trying to get a good sense of my own soul, let alone anyone else’s. I prefer to leave that relationship up to the Almighty.

If George Bush was about to dance with this particular Russian bear, he would have been much better off to forget about trying to peer into Putin’s soul; and, instead, to keep very alert for the condition of that bear’s claws – that, it seems to me, would have been a much more accurate indicator of the state of Putin’s soul.

Bridgewater’s Michael Hsing

Bridgewater Councilman, Michael Hsing, recently announced that he would run as an independent for the U.S. Congressional seat in the 7th District. That seat will be vacant as a result of Rep. Mike Ferguson’s decision not to run for re-election.

As a Republican who was initially in the GOP primary, but subsequently decided to pursue the seat without party affiliation, Mr. Hsing is reported to be a conservative on hot-button issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

He will be running against two big guns: Democrat Linda Stender of Union County, who is currently serving her fourth term in the New Jersey General Assembly; and Republican Leonard Lance of Hunterdon County, who was elected to the General Assembly in 1991, and who is currently serving as a New Jersey State Senator.

Stender came close to unseating Rep. Mike Ferguson two years ago. Consequently, some prognosticators have written that Mr. Hsing could draw heavily upon the district’s Chinese-American community and, should he garner enough total votes, be a spoiler to Lance’s winning the 7th District seat.

Nonetheless, I doubt that Michael Hsing is running for any purpose other than to win – he’s too smart to do otherwise. If he doesn’t make it, he gets to live for another day, although he will have some fences to mend. His hurdle is that of an untried state entity attempting to push aside two very well-known politicians who enter this contest with high name recognition.

For example, whether we liked them or not, who can forget those interminable TV ads branding her as “Stender the Spender?” Over time, things change. What once might have been considered a very negative ad may have solidified Stender’s name in the public imagination.

As for myself, I’m looking forward to a vigorous campaign by all three candidates and, especially, to see how sincere or phony their promises prove to be.


Note: The candidates’ web sites may be found at, http://www.lindastenderforcongress.com/, http://www.hsingforcongress.com/home.asp, http://www.leonardlance.com/

A Mom, Her Boys, and 9/11

My better half went swimming at the JCC in Bridgewater this morning, while I, still nursing a summer cough, decided to stay out of the water – perhaps tomorrow I can do a few laps. Instead, the Taurus took me to Harry Dunham Park, a municipal oasis in Liberty Corner, close to our home. Paved walking paths encircle the park, with nothing but green grass in between, the big sky above, trees and grassy berms lining the perimeter.

You can’t complete circling that park without passing by the 9/11 memorial to the World Trade Towers victims who fell to craven terrorism on that unforgettable day. From a distance, a tall U.S. flag first draws your attention. When you come right up to it, though, the impression is unmistakable: Steel beams from the World Trade Towers spread out at the bottom of the flag post, hallowing the entire area with reverence for the memory of innocent lives lost through the actions of a small group of bin-Laden-inspired barbarians.

If you believe in shrines, then believe in this one, because that is its most appropriate description.

This morning I stopped for a breather and sat on a bench just behind the steel girders of the memorial. A young mom with three boys, the oldest of which appeared to be about 10 years old, walked by. Something drew her attention to that hard brown steel and, as she walked on, she turned past the line of shrubs, and inside to the round area whose slate floor is inscribed with names of area victims from that fateful day. Her boys followed her.

I overheard the ensuing conversation, which went something like this: “See those beams,” she told the boys, “they come from the buildings that were destroyed by the attack on this country on 9/11.” “Is that right?” one of the kids replied, as all four continued to walk right up to the girders, seeing, touching, and believing.

“Imagine,” the mom continued, “the heat and intensity of the explosion that it took to make those two skyscrapers come crashing down,” she went on. “Wow!” the oldest boy exclaimed, as the two younger ones listened. The conversion was much more extensive, but you get the idea.

Today, that one mom gave her three boys the best history lesson that they will ever get about what happened on 9/11 – more compelling, I wager, than any that they are likely to get in some watered-down text book later on in school.

The New Journalism

Kelly Heyboer, writing for Jersey Blogs, asks, “Is it time to write the obituary for newspapers?” I don’t think so. Even though the newspaper industry is undergoing a major structural transformation, few prognosticators, if any, have a crystal ball accurate enough to predict the exact outcome of such a fundamental industry shift.

The impact of print newspaper circulation shrinkage in our own backyard of Bridgewater and Somerset County is undeniable. It’s easily observable in the heavily reduced on-site reporting for state and local proceedings; as, for example, in meetings of elected officials. Newspaper bureaus do their best, but it’s simply not possible to cover the entire waterfront with a severely reduced staff.

One of the major casualties is full, on-site coverage for boards of education meetings. It was hard enough for a reporter to sit through often interminable, long-winded meetings and be able to capture the one moment or two where someone might bring up a controversial topic, or try to slip through a crucial, but otherwise undetected item. Lack of funds for full coverage of public meetings has made it impossible for editors to even consider such full-time coverage. The public is the ultimate loser in this seemingly endless circulation slide.

However, I am an optimist on this matter. Blogger Chris Hedges writes – as reported in the Star-Ledger – that transferring news gathering to the Internet is an illusion. He goes on to conclude that, although “bloggers and internet addicts . . . can produce stinging and insightful commentary . . . they rarely pick up the phone, much less go out and find a story.”

Hedges claims that, “at least 80 percent (of all reporting) is done by newspapers and the wire services. Take that away and we have a huge black hole.”

I agree with that assessment. Take, for example, the latest flap over the proposed salary increase for Bridgewater’s Township Administrator. Without the original reporting and follow-up of an on-the-ground writer like Kara L. Richardson of the Courier News, you wouldn’t have known anything about this until the game was over. As it turns out, her story on the topic prompted two editorials, one in the Courier News, and the other in the Star-Ledger.


Note: 1.) Responsibility for any omissions or errors of fact in this blog post are strictly my own. 2.) Richardson’s story may be found at: http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080805/NEWS/808050381/1012/NEWS0201

Getting Down and Dirty

Sometimes, it feels good to get down and dirty – literally down and dirty, where your body, mind and soul get to meet the elemental earth. That may sound kind of kooky, but it’s something with which farm workers, landscape people, and home gardeners are on intimate terms.

I did a little weeding today, and found myself on my hands and knees, using hand tools to cut and pull out stubborn weeds encroaching on a few shrubs, as well as around the perimeter of the mulching bed. When you’re down on all fours like that, you get dirt black. But, it’s with a satisfaction that comes from the knowledge that it’s from honest work done on honest soil put there by God’s own creation.

Some politicians, through their actions, have given the intrinsically good expression ‘down and dirty’ a bad name by changing its original, derivative meaning to one in which dirt is seen as a negative noun.

We can fix that: Instead of sending convicted politicians to serve time in prison, maybe the judge could dole out sentences in which offenders would be required to spend spring, summer, and fall out in the open working the soil, thereby helping to restore nature’s lost reputation.

They Played, We Pay

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is holding the discount rate to a below-market 2% and, together with Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, has pulled out of the fire the collective butts of some prominent investment firms; as well as those of national and international banks, most of which speculated heavily in high risk, hybridized, mortgage-backed financial instruments.

Nonetheless, housing markets are still in a funk, and artificially low interest rates perpetuate poor lending practices, while possibly encouraging inflation. On top of this, the U.S. Congress and the Administration seek to bail out borrowers whose credit worthiness is sub-par.

Thirty-five years ago, the late, iconoclastic Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that, “Unless lower interest rates and easier borrowing are accompanied by good prospects for selling goods or houses, nothing much may happen.”

Well, nothing much is happening, except that the housing market hasn’t hit bottom yet, GDP growth is hovering barely above recession levels, and the U.S. taxpayer is picking up the tab for corporate mismanagement, poor legislation, anemic regulation, a deflated dollar, dead-beat loans, and an increase in core inflation.

If one wishes to empty a cesspool, one has to drain its contents, nor merely stir them about.

Free Community WiFi

Tom Perry, a popular columnist for the Courier News back when newspapers enjoyed higher circulation, was fond of saying that he was an inveterate newspaper junkie. He once wrote that when on vacation, he would always pick up a copy of the local paper to get a feel for the people and customs of the area.

I like to do the same. That’s how I came across a noteworthy story of how the City of Nashua, N.H. deployed a free, extensive WiFi network, one which blankets the downtown area with seamless and reliable Internet service.

Nashua’s wireless network was designed and deployed under the initiative of the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, which worked with the support of a prominent consortium of area businesses and a California firm. John T. Barker, IT Director for the City of Nashua, directed much of the technical aspects of the project, working strictly as an unpaid volunteer, contributing, he says, approximately 100 hours of his time. The project was completed for about $40,000. Project bids exceeding $100,000 were thrown out.

We in Central Jersey can learn from this example: The patrons of businesses in downtown Somerville would benefit enormously from the provisioning of a free WiFi network which doesn’t break the bank.

Bridgewater Township, which has no central business area, could prod management of the Bridgewater Commons Mall to establish a free WiFi network to cover the entire Mall area. Similarly, such a network could be made available for public use in the Township’s new, showcase Municipal Building Complex, where space could be set aside for public use.

Even the Bridgewater-Raritan school district should consider opening up the nearby high school on Garretson Road for free public internet access: The school library, located just to the left of the main entrance is a perfect spot for such public use.

We all have the same DNA. Yet, as I travel about, I am always struck as I observe the number and diversity of communities outside of New Jersey which seem to be squeezing so much more out of a dollar than we in Central Jersey seem to have the will to do.


Note: According to Wikipedia, “Nashua was twice named ‘Best Place to Live in America’ in annual surveys by Money magazine. It is the only city to get the No. 1 ranking two times—in 1987 and 1997.”