Boneheads, Pinheads & Incompetents

Yesterday dawned gorgeously sunny over New York City and the region, just like that fatal morning of 9/11, when two terrorist-controlled planes swooped low over the landscape and slammed into the World Trade Towers.

You’d think that no one would be stupid or insensitive enough to roughly replicate the flight pattern of the determined Jihadist extremists ever again. But we’d both be wrong to think that. Not only did it occur, but it happened when the President’s Air Force One (minus Barack Obama), flew low near the Statue of Liberty, followed by what people thought was a chase plane, a U.S. fighter jet.

It was just a photo-op, government operatives later told us. Too late. People in Manhattan, poured out of buildings nearly scared to death, thinking that it was happening all over again.

Upon learning of this idiotic event, the President, we are told, was “furious.” But not enough apparently, to fire the person responsible, Louis Caldera, head man of the White House Military Office who acknowledged responsibility for staging the flyover.

Another bureaucratic bonehead associated with this Beltway faux pas is Marc Mugnos, a city hall staffer who failed to alert New York’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg who was livid when he found out. Pinhead James J. Johnston of the FAA is the person who sent an email directing that the “flying photo-op . . . shall not be released to the public.”

Enough! It’s characteristic of the mindset of people who blindly do what they are told: “Just following orders.”


Sources: The Wall Street Journal and The Star-Ledger stories.

Bridgewater Township Newsletter Goes Electronic

E-NEWS: The Spring 2009 edition of Bridgewater News, the Township’s newsletter, may be the last one that you will receive in paper format through the mail. The current edition of the newsletter advises residents who wish to continue receiving it, that it will be delivered electronically, as soon as about “2000 households sign up.”

However, you must take the initiative and subscribe by sending your email address to newsletter@bridgewaternj.gov.

I checked Bridgewater’s website at http://www.bridgewaternj.gov/, but the yellow “Click here to register for E-News” bar on the home page simply directs you to send an email with your electronic handle.

The Township newsletter further states that a limited number of the paper version will continue to be made available “at the municipal building, senior center and library.”


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Baseball fans, did you see the Yankees/Red Sox game at Fenway Park today? It was a wild marathon – a real cliff-hanger. When I tuned in during the top of the fourth inning, the Yankees were leading 6-0.

In a 4:00 PM day game that lasted until around 8:30 in the evening, the BoSox took it 16-11. The pitching staffs were depleted, and the lead changed hands several times with batters well in control.

It was a heartbreaker for the Yankees. This is definitely the best rivalry in baseball.


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Thanks for checking in, and take care of yourself. It can be a funky world out there.

B-R Schools' Chief Post-Election Acknowledgment

The following e-mail was sent to Bridgewater-Raritan “Key Communicators” including myself this morning, by the Superintendent of the Bridgewater-Raritan School District. Since it is noteworthy information for the entire Bridgewater-Raritan community as well, I’ve included a copy of it in this blog post without additional comment.


“Dick Bergeron:
April 22, 2009

Dear Key Communicators,

As you now know, the 2009-2010 School Budget passed with 3,609 YES votes and 2,314 NO votes. I’d like to thank you for supporting public education in Bridgewater-Raritan and always spreading the good news about the district as key communicators. This election has proven to be historic with the largest voter turnout since 1962 and with one of the widest passage margins in recent memory. Communities across the district, in every polling area, have chosen to invest in education, in spite of the difficult economic times we are all experiencing. We are excited about this opportunity to maintain and improve the educational programs in Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District.

I would like to congratulate the three individuals who won Board seats: Cindy Cullen, Patrick Breslin, and Christine Schneider. I’d also like to thank Richard Guss for his three years of outstanding service to the community in his role as Board member.

Thank you,

Michael Schilder, Superintendent”

Still Time to Vote Today; Polls Close at 9:00 pm

The polls for the local school elections have been open since 7:00 am this morning and will remain so until 9:00 pm this evening. If you haven’t been able to cast your vote yet, please get out there and do so despite the damp, rainy weather. The community needs your participation.

If recent voter turnout remains true to results of the last decade, the Bridgewater-Raritan School District will be lucky to see around 4200 registered voters cast their ballots. That is approximately half of some of the turnouts of the 90’s, when there was greater and more diverse community involvement in the education process.

Ongoing efforts to increase voter input by moving the New Jersey school candidate and budget elections to the fall have been consistently unsuccessful, despite the best efforts of the legislature. One proposal would have done so, but at the expense of taking school budget approval away from the citizenry.

I still think that involving Bridgewater Township and Raritan Borough representatives with a review of the Bridgewater-Raritan school budget is not only a positive check, but results in a more thorough representation of the will of the entire Bridgewater-Raritan community.

The only thing standing between you and that review is the nature of your vote on the budget today.

Obama Disses Symbol of Jesus at Georgetown

Take a careful look at the picture below and concentrate on the triangular section of the photo which shows the Christogram 'IHS' with a Christian cross at the center of the letter 'H'. This is not a gag; nor is it a Dan Brown religious puzzle like the ones which appear in the book, The da Vinci Code.



Next, look at the other pictures below. They are photos of the same but altered background in front of which President Barack Obama delivered an address on Tuesday April 14th , in Gaston Hall at Georgetown, a Jesuit university.

There is a black shroud completely covering up the triangular pediment depicting the name, Jesus -- that's what the letters 'IHS' represent in Greek. It's an ancient symbol, predating the founding of the Catholic Order of Jesuits.

Quoting from an article by Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune: "According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: 'St. Ignatius of Loyola adopted the monogram in his seal as general of the Society of Jesus (1541) and thus it became the emblem of his institute.'"

I don't particularly care what President Barack Obama's religious persuasion is. What I do care about is how he chooses to honor or to disrespect his hosts when he visits a Catholic institution that represents a 2000 year-old tradition, one which will be around long after his Washington tenure is over.

The insistence by President Obama and his staff to conceal a religious symbol while on the grounds of a private Catholic institution shows formal disrespect and a lack of situational statesmanship. Georgetown officials should never have acquiesced to this demand.

The President could learn from a former First Lady, Mrs. Laura Bush who, in a White House photo, was also pictured appearing in Gaston Hall addressing a Georgetown audience on December 4, 2006. She stood before a lectern and delivered her speech in the same spot in which Obama stood. The pediment bearing the Christogram was directly behind her, unaltered, in full view of the audience.

That's the kind of respect and stately demeanor that should have been exhibited by President Barack Obama at Georgetown on April 14th.

Catch 22: The Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget

Next Tuesday, April 21st, when the polls open in the morning, you will be asked to vote yes or no on the proposed $133.2 million school budget. If you have gone to administration presentations, especially if you are a parent, you’ve been told, among other claims, that there isn’t much that can be pared back.

The biggest portion of that $133.2 million tab consists of personnel costs which are now running at 81.3%. We are consistently advised that personnel costs are fixed. The assumption is that that they simply cannot be controlled. Try telling that to the millions of other Americans who are on the ever-expanding unemployment lines.

The fact is that the recent Bridgewater-Raritan Boards of Education and their administrations have done a completely insufficient job of managing people costs. Less than two years ago, this board negotiated a three-year wage hike just a shade under 13%, a number completely out-of-line with inflation and with personnel performance criteria. Today, inflation is running near zero.

If that wage hike had been just 50% of what it is, the budgets during the current three-year wage increase period would be less by millions of dollars.

This school tax eats up 64% of Bridgewater’s real estate tax levy. And things won’t get better in Bridgewater or Raritan, until the Board of Education realizes what’s going on in the real world and acknowledges that the education establishment is part of that world.

School Budget Lobbying Shenanigans

If the $133.2 million budget proposed for the Bridgewater-Raritan School District is so worthy of passage, why is it that there is such reluctance by groups advocating voter acceptance to identify themselves?

Several weeks ago, “Vote Yes” road signs bore the source of an out-of-town group. Those signs have since disappeared. The latest incarnations are very visible white-and-blue signs along the district’s roadways which read, “Vote ‘Yes’ For the School Budget - - April 21st.” Those signs bear no source identification.

I wanted to check out the legality of such an omission, as well as to be fair to the unknown group or individuals who are planting these signs in Bridgewater and Raritan: I called the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, the entity which has oversight responsibility over election behavior.

In a discussion with a compliance officer at the Commission, I was advised that all political signs are required to be labeled with their source, and was directed to the sections of the Compliance Manual which explain this mandate.

The regulations specify that “political communications” such as roadside signs must be labeled “with a political identification statement” that is, “(‘paid for by’ language).” The blue/white “Vote Yes” signs sprouting up on Bridgewater and Raritan byways bear no such labeling.

. . . Which brings me to my first point: Just which persons or organizations are lobbying for the budget’s endorsement, and why are they so reluctant to publicly disclose themselves? This, after all, is not the Kremlin.


Note: Alleged election law violations are subject to investigation by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.

The Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget: Is It Yes, or is It No?

Last week, every Bridgewater and Raritan resident should have received a four-page flyer in the mail from the B-R Board of Education entitled, “The 2009-2010 School Budget”.

The flyer shows five people running for three seats on the school board. Each candidate’s background appears on the back page: Three incumbents wish to retain their seats: Cindy Cullen, current board president; Richard Guss, and Christine Schneider. Two challengers, Patrick Breslin and Stan Serafin hope to unseat two of those incumbents.

The remaining three pages of the flyer are devoted to summarizing the budget and to advise you of what might happen if the budget doesn’t get approved. This is a first. Typically, boards have not gone public in advance with specific items considered for elimination if you don’t vote ‘Yes.’ The list of these items was referred to as “The Doomsday Chart” by Superintendent Michael Schilder at a board meeting.

A person doesn’t have to be a cynic to think that this strategy is aimed directly at intimidating parents. One evening, earlier this year, a standing-room-only turnout of parents showed up at a board meeting, demanding to know why athletic programs were being eliminated from the proposed 2009-2010 budget. Not true, of course, but the rumor mill had done its job. Rumors don’t fly by themselves. Somebody sets them into motion.

With one exception that I know of, the B-R BOE has been very careful not to go on record about publicly lobbying for or against passage of the budget – a practice prohibited under New Jersey law.

Now, it seems that someone may have slipped. In the official flyer which you just received, the superintendent and board seemed to have missed something in their proofreading.

In the section on advice about “How to Help,” you are advised that “There are a number of ways you can help.” One of them is for you to “Join a campaign” such as, “CSA Vote Yes.”

The object of that flyer was to communicate information and to encourage a large, representative voter turnout on April 21st, not, as I have steadfastly maintained, for the board or administration to lobby one way or the other.

You Can Set Your Watch by It!

Almost every year, before one of the major Christian celebrations, some author or research organization comes out with a story or discovery that’s supposed to shock Christianity to its core, minimize it, or put it in a bad light. Again!

The release of such information is maddeningly timed to hit the press and media about a week before a Christian commemoration such as Easter, obviously timed to have the maximum bang-for-the buck for publishers and promoters.

The most recent example is the large red-on-black lettering on the cover of Newsweek’s latest issue, starkly proclaiming, The Decline and Fall of Christian America. In its May, 2006 issue, the National Geographic released research results of an ancient scroll entitled, The Gospel of Judas. The findings were supposed to turn Christianity on its head – I’m still waiting.

Perhaps the most notorious and monetarily successful work of its type in recent times was the book, The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. I read it thoroughly, did extensive research on its claims, wrote a paper on it, and delivered that to a standing-room audience debunking Brown’s pathetic research.

Even President Obama got into the act when, in his recent visit to Turkey, he downplayed the cultural impact of people of faith in the founding of this nation when he said that America is merely “. . . a group of citizens bound by common ideals and values.” That so, Mr. President?

If I sound ornery about this, it’s because I am. I’d like to think – unrealistic, I know – that some of us, could we please, just celebrate a religious fête without the annoyance of a know-it-all telling us what we should believe about our belief.

Meanwhile, Happy Easter to all my fellow Christians, and Happy Passover to all my brothers and sisters of the Jewish faith, without whom our Sacred Writings would be incomplete.

Raritan Supermarket Adds New Electronic Convenience

About 12 days ago, as I entered the Raritan Stop & Shop on Orlando Drive, off Route 206, I noticed two employees greeting customers and encouraging them to learn how to use a new electronic shopping aid. The employees were very friendly and, since I had seen the same device at a Giant food Store in Potomac, MD, I decided to try it.

I liked it so much, that I’ll be using it each time that I visit that Stop & Shop. The gizmo is efficient and easy to use. It saves time at checkout and allows you to track what you are purchasing as you navigate the aisles.

It works like this: After you walk into the store with your shopping cart, pass your bar-coded customer savings card under the electronic reader near the entrance and, in a few seconds, a portable scanner (one of many in a rack) will start to flash. Put it in your cart’s custom holder, and you are on your way.

The product reader has a sharp color screen as big as an IPhone. (When you select it, you should also put as many bags as you may need in your cart.) Then, just shop the same way you always did, with this exception:

Each time you purchase an article, use the gizmo to swipe the product’s bar code, and place the item in one of your cart’s bags. Easy! If you change your mind about any item, just press the ‘remove’ button on the magic gizmo, swipe the item you don’t want, and return it to its shelf. It is idiot proof – I should know!

For items which need to be weighed, as in the produce section, there are new electronic scales which will punch out a descriptive self-stick label. If, for example, your purchase was a bag of grapes, affix it to that, scan it, and keep shopping.

The beauty of the scanner is that it not only shows the description and price for each item, but also displays a running total. The gizmo will occasionally flash a cents-off or dollar-off special on items just for you! That’s right, just for you! These discounts are not in the circular, nor marked-down on the shelf. They are simply an incentive for you to use this handy-dandy device.

Once your shopping is done, each item should have been scanned, bagged and in your cart. Push the cart to the nearest checkout (a clerk will help you with any questions).

You are on the honor system. As you go through the checkout, use your reader to swipe a large bar code above the conveyor belt near the cash register. Your tab will scroll down within seconds on the cash register’s screen. Hand over your scanner to the clerk, pay your bill; don’t forget your receipts and checkout tape, and you are on your way home.

Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget Enters Home Stretch

The most prominent item at Tuesday evening’s Bridgewater-Raritan School Board meeting at which about 12 people were in attendance, was a closing presentation on the 2009-2010 school budget. According to School Superintendent Michael Schilder, there is “substantially no change” to the preliminary number of $133.2 million. That figure will now appear on the April 21st school election ballot.

Schilder went on to explain that the extra $573,000 recently received from the state (in addition to the $12 million already allocated) has been applied to reduce the increase in school real estate taxes in Bridgewater and Raritan.

Bridgewater residents of a $450,000 home will see a $204.85 jump in the school portion of their tax bill. Raritan residents will see their school taxes jump $278.25 on a $350,000 home. Those amounts don’t include additional tax assessments for the municipal, county and other portions of your real estate bill.

Last year the school budget soaked up 64% of the entire real estate tab for Bridgewater home owners.

By the time you vote on the budget, the administration will have held 19 information sessions dubbed, “Community Presentations.” But, with the exception of required presentations at board meetings and others to the Raritan Borough Council and to the Bridgewater Township Council, all other meetings are on school grounds and directed at PTO groups.

None of these meetings has been widely publicized outside of the school community. This could easily create the impression to the general public that the B-R Board of Education and its Administration are lobbying special interest groups for passage of this $133.2 million budget.