A Whackadoodle or an Astute Person?

It would be easy to dismiss the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, longtime pastor and friend of presidential candidate Barack Obama, as a whackadoodle. Some in the media, especially on talk radio, would have us believe just that. To do so not only would be inaccurate, but it would let the pastor off the hook all too easily.

Just the opposite is true. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a bright, learned, passionate, and articulate person. He is capable of delivering these qualities wrapped in very cunning logic. But many of his messages are filled with a virulent hatred for America and for a large contingent of its population.

In three recent, serial public appearances: on the Bill Moyers TV show; before the NAACP; and before the National Press Club, Wright expressed a series of views about America and about his relationship between him and Senator Obama which, yesterday, the Senator felt it necessary to completely and totally reject. Good for Obama. It was a long time in coming.

Way back in the first century, there was man who roamed the hills and pathways of Palestine preaching a message of hope and change, while striving to be true to his own faith and beliefs. I wonder how He would rate the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Note: The word “whackadoodle” may be found in the contemporary online dictionary, http://www.urbandictionary.com/

Gulf vs. Getty

Yesterday morning, after completing two exercise loops on each of the three levels at the Bridgewater Commons Mall, I drove the car into Somerville for a few errands and to gas up. It’s startling to see how much the price of fuel can vary within the distance of just a few blocks.

Not so long ago, the Gulf station on the corner of Mountain Avenue and West End Ave. (across the street from the Skylands Community Bank) regularly posted some of the very lowest prices in the area. Yesterday, the price was $3.599. Only a few blocks away, at the corner of Cornell Blvd. and West End Ave. (across from Thul Auto Supply) Getty was pumping the same stuff for $3.439, or $.16 less per gallon. That’s worth driving a couple of blocks to save significantly on a fill-up.

Sunday, along Route 22 West, beyond the Somerville circle, gas prices hovered around the $3.479 mark. None of us knows how long gas prices will continue to spike, but it looks like the good old boys from Riyadh and Houston have us all over a barrel.

Hope for Muhlenberg

The lead headline and front-page story in Sunday’s print edition of the Courier News reads, “Muhlenberg backers ready to rally.” For weeks now, I’ve been reading about how the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center is planning to close its 396-bed acute-care facility, leaving several other operations in place.

Blogger Herb Kaufman (http://cnplainfield.blogspot.com/) has had passionate posts on the topic, and the C-N has covered the matter extensively with news reports, as well as on its editorial page.

In a complex issue such as this one, there is often one person who crystallizes the issue in cogent terms, with a clarity that cannot be ignored. This time, it’s the words of Dr. Brian Fertig, a doctor associated with both Muhlenberg and its sister hospital in the Solaris Health System, the JFK Medical Center.

Quoted in the C-N, Fertig asks, “How does this happen with all the wealth in New Jersey?” Fertig’s question cuts right through to a key factor in this equation and, when he answers his own question, “This should not have happened,” he confronts us with a very uncomfortable conclusion.

It becomes rather clear – at least to me – that the health care needs of a community the size of Plainfield cannot be ignored (the 2006 census counted 47,353 people, compared to Bridgewater which came in at 44,818, and which has a nearby hospital in Somerville). Plainfield’s loss of a 396-bed facility would be a major blow. Fertig’s plaintive words need to be heard over and over again. I am not so naïve as to think that the state of New Jersey can simply write a check for Muhlenberg’s operating deficit, or that the parent company, Solaris, can indefinitely continue to absorb financial losses from Muhlenberg.

But there is something very much out-of-kilter when we U.S. citizens can observe the government in Washington spending billions of dollars for a mismanaged war with Iraq, while a local community in New Jersey is expected to lose a major health facility to the detriment of its own citizens. My mom was fond of saying, “Charity begins at home.”

Note: 1. For Sunday’s April 27, 2008, report on Muhlenberg and Shaun O’Hara’s involvement (he’s the center for the New York Giants), see http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080427/NEWS/804270385. The web site of the Solaris Health System is at http://www.solarishs.org/. 2. Although I have not analyzed any of the data associated with Muhlenberg’s predicament, I was once involved with a major business assessment of the health industry at a time when the firm which employed me was evaluating entry into this market segment.

Saudi Arabia: A U.S. Friend?

While catching a break from my backyard chores today, I caught a TV glimpse of Bernie Sanders (I), Senator from Vermont, excoriating the Saudis for capping the production of oil from their fields in the Middle East. The man from Vermont has a point.

Sanders wants the U.S. Senate to prevent a pending arms deal with Saudi Arabia from going through, until the desert monarchy decides to pump significantly more oil in order to throttle down the speculative activity in this commodity. I think Sanders is onto something fundamental.

Yesterday, the price for crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) was $118.30 per barrel. A year ago, on April 02, 2007, it was just above $65 a barrel. The year before that, it was significantly lower. The issue is complex, and there are many reasons why oil prices are skyrocketing. But Sanders has hit on a point which I have advocated for many years: Break up the OPEC oil cartel.

If any consortium of U.S. producers were to conspire to control the output and, thereby, the price of a basic commodity by meeting regularly to set production targets (as OPEC does), the whole lot of them would be set upon by the U.S. Justice Department like a Peregrine falcon hurtling from the sky toward its prey.

Somehow, our erstwhile friends from the Middle East (15 of the 19 terrorists who attacked America on 9/11 were Saudi citizens) continue to demand more U.S. oil dollars, blithely ungrateful that U.S. forces saved their collective rear ends in the first Gulf War.

They seem to have an institutionally short memory of the time when New Jersey native, General Norman Schwarzkopf, led a U.S. expeditionary force which prevented Saddam Hussein from annexing Kuwait and from threatening the security of Saudi Arabia.

Good friends remember. They return favors. Just how good are the Saudis as friends of America?

What Recession?

The official measure of a U.S. recession is two successive quarters of negative economic growth. But, as I heard one commentator recently, present economic expansion – though still positive – is very low and, he opined, if it feels like a recession, then it is.

I don’t know if that last statement is true or not, but anyone who found himself at Costco in Bridgewater Sunday afternoon would have to rethink this whole recession issue. Every checkout register was busy recording purchases. Each line reached into the shopping area, and all of Costco’s oversized checkout carts were brimming.

My wife and I were in one of those serpentine lines that day with only an outdoor table umbrella. At $99.99, it would be hard to find a better comparable value. But the place is a madhouse on weekends. Anecdotally, at least, most people who shop at Costco in Bridgewater don’t seem to have changed their consumption habits much.

I wish we could get a micro-economic assessment of GDP growth specifically for Somerset County, New Jersey. If that number were reported side-by-side with national data, it might show better results, even though the housing market in Somerset County is still depressed.

Within spitting distance from our home, there is a better-than-new ranch house on a large parcel of land that is on the market at a price far below what it would have fetched just 18 months ago. Now, that’s depressing!

Life is a Gift

Life in the present is a magical, mystical, moving moment. There is no past; only the memory of it. There is no future; only the anticipation of it.

Pause and savor the present moment – the now of our lives, that evanescent slice of time which has been given to us and which, in reality, is all that we can absolutely count on, because that is all that we have to work with.

This can be a difficult and painful concept to accept, because most of us – this writer included – can easily delude ourselves into believing that we have tight control over the events of our lives. All our successes: jobs, good marriages, children, achievement in public life, good relationships with friends and family, good health; all tend to confirm that.

But, when life-altering events hit us smack upside the face: the loss of a good job, betrayal by people whom we have trusted, good health turned sour, the death of a loved one etc., we are reminded in a not-so-subtle manner that personal control is fleeting, and that life is for now – not to be squandered in narcissistic self-indulgence – but to be lived fully in the living present.

Note: The daffodil was photographed locally this spring by a friend and photographer who wishes to remain anonymous.

Your Influence is Most Wanted

The Courier News ran a recent survey on its web site, seeking responses to the following question: Do you plan to vote in Tuesday’s [school] election? When I last checked the results, the replies were as follows: 45.3% of the respondents said they would vote; 27.8% said they would not; and, not surprisingly, 26.9% said, “There’s an election Tuesday?”

What a bummer! In the aggregate, more than half of all respondents either won’t vote or don’t even know there’s an election. I forgot to jot down the total number of people who provided their answers, but I remember it as being fairly high for this type of informal poll. Even more importantly, users of the web in this area, I am happy to assume, are fairly informed and intelligent. Don’t show me up to be wrong!

Why then are you not voting in greater numbers? I won’t talk down to you on that one, because you are much too smart for that.

Therefore, for the constituency that I am the most immediately interested in, the voting population of Bridgewater and Raritan, please get out to the polls tomorrow and do what most of the rest of the people on this planet would give their right arm (and more!) to be able to do.

Evan Lerner, Dr. Arvind Mathur and Al Smith (Raritan’s representative), would, I am sure, like to see you place your check mark next to their names. The school budget is the big issue. It’s $128.8 million dollars, and rising. It consumes by far the biggest percentage of your real estate tax bill. The Board of Education and its administration have been doing what they know to do to get out the vote. So why not make yourselves feel good and stop by your polling place tomorrow, Tuesday, April 15, 2008, between seven in the AM and nine in the PM, and cast your vote?

Still the Best Baseball Rivalry!

Baseball or Politics? Did a construction worker-Red Sox fan really bury a Sox T-shirt in the poured concrete of the new Yankee Stadium? What a sacrilege! No matter, though. Unless you are hopelessly superstitious, it won’t have any impact on the outcome of what I still consider to be the best matchup in baseball.

Tonight at 8 o’clock, if you are a baseball fan, you’ll be watching these two teams slug it out inthe rubber-match conclusion of a three-game series at Fenway Park. And, if you are not such a fan … well, you might as well watch it anyway. Otherwise, one of your only other TV alternatives is to click to CNN and suffer along with two presidential candidates, as they slug it out in a two-hour program billed, Faith and Politics, The Compassion Forum.

If you choose the latter option, you’ll get a lot of politics and a lot of posturing about faith, but I honestly doubt that much of it will be accurate or meaningful. I hope I’m proven wrong about that. Nonetheless, best to put the CNN slugfest on the VCR for subsequent viewing.

Friday night’s 4-1 Yankees’ win over the Sox featured stellar pitching by Chien-Ming Wang, the go-to guy for jump-starting this rivalry in unfriendly territory. Saturday afternoon, though, Jonathan Papelbon, Boston’s super-focused star reliever, returned the favor by striking out A-Rod and putting away the rest of the line-up in the top of the ninth inning, after a dramatic, lightning-punctured 2-hour-11-minute rain delay. Manny Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis took care of producing RBIs for the Sox, garnering a 4-3 win.

I’m a Red Sox fan, but I don’t hate the Yankees – I stopped that nonsense awhile ago. I’ve since come to respect the power of the Bronx Bombers, while rooting for the Sox. It’s better that way.

Tuesday’s School Elections: A critical Bridgewater-Raritan schools election is scheduled for this Tuesday, April 15th. Three incumbents, Evan Lerner, Dr. Arvind Mathur, and Al Smith (Raritan’s representative) are running unopposed this year. Ho hum! Nonetheless, there is a monster budget on the ballot for your approval or disapproval. That last one is anything but a trivial matter. So go ahead and get out there with your vote. It really does matter. The polls will be open from 7 AM to 9 PM.

Good Intentions, Bad Bill

At first glance, the bill for Paid Family Leave which State Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) shepherded through the Senate, and which Governor Corzine says he will sign into law looks like a winner. But start unpacking its provisions and, what you find is a fractured law which needs fundamental change, before it even hits the street.

This new legislation applies only to companies with fewer than 50 employees. Larger companies are already required to provide paid family leave and to hold the job until the employee returns – not so for smaller companies.

The new proposal is for firms with fewer than 50 employees. It will provide up to six weeks for a parent to care for a newborn or adopted child, or to care for a sick parent, spouse, or child. The benefit, to be funded by an employee payroll tax of $33, will replace up to two-thirds of a person’s pay, with a $524 weekly limit.

But there is at least one major, built-in problem-in-the-making. It’s the hardly trivial possibility that, under this legislation, a worker effectively can be fired for going on family leave. Here’s how that would happen: If an employee is replaced while he or she is on paid family leave, that person could be virtually out of luck. Under this law, the employee has no right to sue or to take any other action against his/her employer. That worker is now out in the cold, out of a job!

Senator Lance and Governor Corzine are about to implement a law which will have a discriminatory impact upon small companies and their workers, while providing a glaring loophole which could tempt owners of small companies to persuade employees into not taking family leave, under the subtle threat of losing their job. If you own a small firm and cannot afford to keep a critical position unmanned, how would you handle the situation? Neither the small company owner, nor the employee should be put into this untenable position.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and I wonder if Lance went along with the inane provisions of this bill simply to get something – anything – through the New Jersey Senate.

A Happy Coincidence

As the TV commercial for financial services says, “Life comes at you fast.” It can also deal out quite a few surprises, some good, and others … well, you can fill in the rest of the blanks.

Friday night, though, was, for Priscille and me, a happy occasion. We had gone out to Luna Rossa’s Italian eatery in Pluckemin to celebrate our wedding anniversary. That section of Bedminster so closely abuts the northwest tip of Bridgewater, that it might as well be part of the township.

We had reservations for an early evening dinner, arriving just about an hour or so before working people start dribbling in. Our server made sure that the wine glasses were steadily filled with Chianti, as we slowly dined our way through warm bread, appetizers, and a salad. It was just about then, that four Bridgewater friends spotted us as they approached to be seated at the next table.

What a pleasant surprise it was to see the Tracys and the Conlons, who live at opposite ends of Bridgewater. Both couples are long-standing residents here. John Tracy served with me on the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education and became a trusted ally. Bernie Conlon was also a backer. Their wives, Susan and Barbara, were part of a group of rock-solid, active women supporters.

Today, these four are simply friends with whom we are able to share wonderful memories of times past, as we bump into one another along the path of life in Bridgewater Township. Most of us have recollections of life’s events from which we have grown and learned, (some of which we’d just as soon forget!).

On the other hand, some of those memories are identified with the cheery, smiling faces of friends that, when fate causes them to cross our paths once in a while, only evoke the best of thoughts. The two couples we bumped into at Luna Rossa’s last night comfortably fall into the second category.

Integrity

As my wife and I sat down to sipping a cup of Joe from Gloria Jean’s at the Bridgewater Commons Mall, we began to discuss the question of integrity.

Think of how often you are called upon to make a quick choice about whether or not you can trust a person. It happens every day in innumerable situations and contexts. How are you to deal with the quote that you’ve just been given from the salesman from that siding contractor? What about that relative, co-worker or acquaintance who is always shading the truth or holding back on information? Or the elected official whose conduct you are trying to evaluate, but who seems to be just a little too slick?

Priscille and I had begun discussing the topic earlier that morning, as we did our early morning pacing around the inside perimeters of the Mall’s three floors. It happens that the person which we were discussing has had a long history of withholding information, reinventing the past, and holding others responsible for actions of her/his own doing.

If you were the person in question, you would have wanted to have my wife on your side because, in the presence of even the slightest iota of doubt, she will always cut you a great deal of slack: “What about this?” she will remind me. Or, “You don’t really know what happened, because you don’t have all of the facts.” Such an approach to evaluating personal integrity is sound. I’m lucky to be married to such a person.

I, on the other hand, will exhibit a lot of patience with people, but not when I begin to suspect that they are trying to roll me – again!

If, at the end of the day, a person – or a company – consistently exhibits behavior patterns inconsistent with the facts, then that person’s or that company’s integrity begins to fracture. All of us have to make such evaluations constantly.

Just think of what’s going on at the national level right now. We have to decide which person will become President of this country: Clinton, Obama, or McCain? Who do you really believe and trust? The answer to that question is irrevocably tied to a personal evaluation of each candidate’s integrity.

Too Old to Serve?

Robert Andrews, Congressman from New Jersey, has announced that he will be running in the Democratic primary against incumbent Senator, Frank Lautenberg. So far, so good. Anyone has the right to challenge Lautenberg for the Senate seat.

But what, exactly, does Andrews bring to the table, and just what is his beef with Lautenberg? Well, it seems that the Senator, at 84, is too old. As reported in the Star-Ledger, Newark power broker Steve Adubato declared, “I can’t support him because of his age.” Andrews claimed that, “The people of the state want a choice and they want a change.”

I agree that if a person is in deteriorating health – at any age – that condition could, of and by itself, affect the quality of her/his ability to represent us in Washington. But look all around us here in New Jersey. Have you noticed that Trenton, and even some of our county and local offices are saturated with young bucks below the age of 60? And what else have you observed? Are we better off simply because of their youth? Or is the state drowning in a pit of serial bad management, fiscal irresponsibility and over-taxation?

At least Frank Lautenberg seems to have passed the integrity test. There have been no reports of scandal on his watch, and we are not reading that he has been romping around Washington, D.C., chasing any person who looks great in a skirt and a tight blouse. Think about it for goodness sake! The man is clean. He is impeccable. He has character. He has wisdom. He has governmental and business experience.

I don’t think that he should be knocked off his seat just because he is 84. What is fair for Lautenberg and to the rest of us is for him to make a full disclosure of his physical condition, so that voters can make a reasonably informed judgment about whether his health, not his age, will get in the way of his representing New Jersey in the U.S. Senate.

Note: For the full text of the article referred to, see http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-13/120720091911340.xml&coll=1