Good for Jack!

In one of today’s newspapers, New Jersey State Assemblyman, Jack Ciattarelli said, “I have heard that there’s conversations about linking staff salary increases to the legal ads bill.  It’s disturbing and the legislative leadership should be doing everything possible to get that genie back in the bottle . . .. It’s the worst kind of horse trading, and I want nothing of it.”

How refreshing it is that this man has remained true to the same solid ethics that he had when I first came across him years ago when he was a Somerset County Freeholder.

How About an Adult Time Out?

If you still read print newspapers as I do, you would do well to skip the editorials in The Star-Ledger and the Courier News today.  The latter was marginally better than the former, but still too off-key for my taste on this, the day of America’s celebration of Thanksgiving. 

 

Since when did America’s ability to give thanks and praise for its hard-won abundance become hostage to the results of a national presidential election?

This morning, both editorial writers missed the mark by a superabundant margin!

Samples:  The Star-Ledger writes that “We still believe much of the American creed, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get spiky around the dinner table today.” The writer bemoans that “Some of us just spent 18 months living in a perpetual state of xenophobic paranoia”

Never in all of my born days . . .

. . . and there are plenty of those behind me, have I experienced such a divisive national election.  Is there any doubt about the corrosiveness of this situation? 

It’s been bubbling up for decades and seems to have come to a tipping point with this plebiscite as we, the electorate, head to the polls to register our choice for the next occupant of the Oval Office.

It seems to me that there are large cult-like followings for each of the presidential candidates – logic and respect for civil discussion flew out the window months ago.

Frustrated by the National Election Scene?

. . . Then perhaps it’s time to take a look at candidates running for local office.  In particular, three people who may not be getting much attention are those on the ballot for appointment to the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education.

Jeffrey Brookner & Jill Gladstone at a 6/12/2012 Board Event.

All three are incumbents, and all are running unopposed.  To a certain degree, that frustrates me, because this large school district is one of the most important resources to these two communities, and it commands the largest share of the real estate tax burden.

There was a time in this district when BR-BOE School Board seats were hotly contested and when attendance and participation by the public at School Board meetings was high.

Those days are gone.

Although I would like to see more diversity on this School Board and the infusion of fresh blood, that does not necessarily lead to better outcomes.

Keeping up with America

Flying high at the Bridgewater Municipal Complex

By any measure, our nation is one of the world’s most advanced and diverse countries, especially when taking into account the size of our population – 321 million – and the vastness of our geography.

We have become a paradoxical wonder of modern civilization. Nonetheless, times are troubling:  Tens of millions of us find ourselves in the midst of a fragile tension and a nascent social fragmentation that is straining the threads of the American fabric.

There is political gridlock and a cultural upheaval not seen in decades, one that is punctuated with seemingly unremitting chaos and violence in our inner cities with no apparent, workable solution in sight.

Unrealistically, local police forces are expected to establish order, maintain the peace and establish good community relations where endless teams of social scientists, advisors, and elected officials have failed.

“A Place to Remember . . .”

Photo Credit, Bergeron Images

The title of this post appears as the heading on a plaque affixed to a steel beam recovered after the World Trade Towers came crashing down fifteen years ago in New York City . . .

. . . “A tribute to life, lives lost and lives changed forever, September 11, 2001” is the accompanying sentiment. 

 

It is a day of infamy forever burnished into the American consciousness by a covert attack from a band of hate-filled Jihadists emanating in the Middle East.

This memorial stands in Dunham Park, in the Liberty Corner Section of Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

Standing on that venerable, memory-filled steel beam are two American flags below which rests a fresh bouquet of flowers. 

 

Both were placed on the beam in memory of the innocent victims from this area of New Jersey who perished in that disgraceful attack.

Sweeney’s Good Call

If you feel as I do about the divisive state of politics in Washington and Trenton these days, then you may be at least temporarily refreshed about a recent act of integrity in New Jersey’s Capital.

It seems that the relationship between some of this state’s most influential lobbyists and Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney (D) may not be as rosy as it once was.

 

Sweeney had been leading the charge to get a key constitutional amendment placed on this November’s ballot. 

 

His effort was intended to put a referendum before Garden State voters which, if passed, would have required mandatory, systematic payments into the state’s public pension plans.

No more shortchanging union members as had happened over the last two decades by unthinking, shortsighted legislators who underfunded those pensions for years either by not making regular payments, or by raiding the pension fund through borrowing.

“The Government People” of Miller’s Valley

My prior blog post of July 26, 2016, is a book review that discusses the lives of people living, working, and planning out their days in a small, tightly knit community.

They are trying to do their best with what they have, tied down to the places of their birth by tradition, and dealing with bureaucratic officials planning to move them off their land and out of their homes, ostensibly for “progress.”

Below is an excerpt from the prologue of the book that I reviewed, Miller’s Valley, by author Anna Quindlen.

It conveys better than any paraphrase of mine could the frustration of dealing with public (dare I say?) ‘servants’ determined to do what they are determined to do, come hell or, especially as in this case, high water:

“It was a put-up job, and we all knew it by then. . .

A Lifetime in Miller’s Valley

In her latest novel, Miller’s Valley, Anna Quindlen weaves the tale of a family living deep in a valley about to be flooded for the expansion of a dam, a federal project that is supposed to bring “progress” to long-time valley residents

 

But they don’t concur.  These families mount a resolute, yet futile attempt to block the plan of government experts at public meeting after public meeting.  

Ray Bateman, New Jersey Great, Succumbs

Ray Bateman at a Christie Town Hall Meeting, April 11, 2013

If you have not yet checked your newspaper, smartphone or TV, you may not have learned that the Garden State just lost the presence of one of its finest public servants.

 

All major news outlets have already covered the details of his life, all of which include an abundant list of his lifelong achievements in journalism, political and educational realms.

Today’s (Sunday) edition of My Central Jersey, as well as the Courier News print edition, carries one of the most complete accounts of his life, so I won’t repeat those here.  I would, however, like to share a few words with you from another perspective:

Clinton v. Trump: Politics, War and the 2016 Presidential Race – Part II

This post is the second and final part of an essay dealing with the application of power in politics.   

Part I addressed how, in the 1960’s, Lyndon Baines Johnson interpreted the nature of power and of how he used it to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite almost overwhelming opposition from his own Democratic Party, and of how he unsuccessfully expanded the Vietnam War.

Also, Part II of this essay describes my understanding of how Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump view the application of power, and of how their insights about it are not dissimilar to the forceful manner by which power was employed by LBJ.

NEARLY SIX DECADES AFTER LBJ, THIS IS WHAT POWER LOOKS LIKE IN THE QUEST FOR THE PRESIDENCY: 

 

There are early signs that the initial preparations being made by advisers for both Clinton and Trump will result in a presidential race that has all of the hallmarks of political warfare similar to that which LBJ employed to get his results.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is anticipating Trump’s no-holds-barred onslaught, but will not likely respond in kind – she will leave that job to her proxies.

Expect that she will attempt to maintain her composure during forthcoming debates, while still pushing back very strongly against Trump’s fierce and fiery language, (if that’s what he chooses to do) – a barrage of words not heard in public at this level during my lifetime. 

      

Nonetheless, Trump is unlikely to change his approach materially, since it is what propelled him to this point in his campaign.

However, his previous strategy may not be effectively sustainable without behavior modification.  He is getting distracted by self-inflicted forays that have nothing to do with his campaign, but are placing him under an unfavorable spotlight, even among some of his high level supporters.

The latest incident was Trump’s comments about Gonzalo Curiel, the Federal Judge currently presiding over the Trump University lawsuit – a completely tangential affair having no direct impact whatsoever on Trump’s presidential hopes, but one that minimizes his judgment and questions his ability to compartmentalize.

Clinton v. Trump: Politics, War and the 2016 Presidential Race – Part I

This post is the first part of an essay which addresses the topic of power politics at the highest levels of office in the United States, especially at the presidential level. 

 

Today’s writing sets the background for describing the nature of the current run for the U.S. Presidency as I see it by harkening back to the days when Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson (All the way with LBJ!!) assumed control of the Oval Office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The second and final part of the essay will follow on the next post.

It will deal with the power plays and tactics which we might expect to see employed by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the red heat of their run for the Presidency of the U.S.

IT HAPPENED THEN, ALMOST SIX DECADES AGO:

“All the Way” is the title of an award-winning play that depicts the tumultuous years of the LBJ Presidency during the 1960’s – a time of the Kennedy assassination, of racial strife, and of the acceleration of the Vietnam War.  Enough of an agenda to test the mettle of any president.

Recently, Pris and I viewed that play in Washington, D.C. courtesy of our daughter and, a few weeks later, on a PBS special of the same name.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was a master political strategist and tactician who knew how to cajole, twist arms, and effectively threaten – anything to get his programs through the U.S. Congress.

Susan Wigenton: A judge reaching for a bridge too far.

Christie and Bridget Anne Kelly.  (Screen Grab on 01/09/2014)

The drama continues and the band plays on as some of the blood-seeking, revenge-toting politicians, as well as a few in the press continue to pursue their on-the-record speculation that “Christie had to know” about vehicular lane closures leading from Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge.

If our governor had to satisfy all the demands of those who dislike him (despise him is a more accurate verb), he would have to turn himself into a pretzel.  Yet, even that wouldn’t be acceptable.

The characterization in the aggregate of what his detractors want him to do is unbalanced and contradictory:  It is a schizophrenic conflation of bipolar thinking that evokes a “Can’t live with him, can’t live without him” syndrome.  Impossible!

Governor Christopher Christie is a tough personality and can be very abrasive in his interactions, no matter with whom – no news to anyone.

His I-am-what-I-am behavior does not sit very well with political opponents, even, lately, among some of those in his own party where he has kept a tight rein.

Forbes Advances a Compelling Socio-Economic Argument

Forbes with a book fan. (Bergeron Image)

A week ago yesterday, on a beautifully sunny afternoon, Priscille and I attended Steve Forbes’ discussion of his latest book, Reviving America, at the library in Bridgewater.

The nature of book signings is as varied as the personality of the authors.  Some writers, pleasant as they can be, will simply be introduced to their audience, say a few words, and politely put their John Hancock to paper.

On the other hand, some writers will speak at length to a captivating audience that is just as eager to hear what the author has to say as they are to obtain his signature.

Listening to Forbes falls in the second category.  It’s like being exposed to a flow of information presented with a rare clarity dispensed from a man who has devoted a lifetime honing his skills on economic matters.

Non-fiction books can be very dry and boring, but not this one.

Americana Visits the Mall, Lego-Style

A Massive Lego Creation of the U.S. Capitol Building, 

Last Saturday, before the stores at the Bridgewater Commons Mall opened, and long before the flood of shoppers began to stream in, Priscille and I came to see the “Lego Americana Roadshow, Building Across America.”

It’s a superb display of nine historic structures marking the birth and development of our country.  There are also displays of varied scenes and cityscapes behind glass – all constructed with Lego Blocks.  They are impressive for their detailed beauty and significance.

The models were first created digitally with computer-aided design software, and all of the Lego pieces were individually fabricated to plan requirements.  It took from one to three skilled assembly teams to put together each of the nine big Lego models.

Two of my favorites are the U.S. Capitol Building and The White House.  I was awed by the ingenuity of the designers and builders.  The Capitol Building is so massive that it dominates the Mall’s Center Court at Level 1, amazing those who stand before it.

An Easter like no other

Crystal Cross (Bergeron Image)

The cross depicted in the photo that accompanies this post sits on the meeting rail of a window before my writing desk.  It has rested there undisturbed for years, catching the rays of the sun as it rises above the eastern edge of the Second Watchung ridgeline in Bridgewater.

Each day, the morning light of the eastern sky casts a different hue on it, reflecting nature’s mood on any particular day.  In July, 2011, when I composed this shot, the sun beamed brightly upon it, framing it against a cloudlessly blue sky.  It left a penetrating burst of white light near the crystal crossbeam.

Sounds so serene and almost poetic, doesn’t it?  But there is a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree difference in meaning between a wooden crucifix and an innocent looking crystal cross – the former bears the body of Jesus crucified, while the other brings the hope of a Jesus resurrected:  Body gone.  Memory alive forever.

That wooden cross which stood on the hill of Golgotha centuries ago carried the body of Jesus nailed to its crossbar by the Romans, cast in the role of a common criminal, and left there to suffocate to death.

 

The penalty of crucifixion was so savagely brutal and tortuously slow that it was reserved only for non-Romans living within the Empire.  It was administered to people who dared to step out-of-line, or who were deemed to have breached or challenged the authoritarian rule of Rome.

Apple Stonewalls FBI Request, Part II

Gatehouse, Swain's Lock, C&O Canal, Potomac, MD (Bergeron Image)

(Author’s Note:  In my prior post of Sunday, March 13, 2016, I discussed the problems facing U.S. security agencies as they attempt to obtain release of encrypted information stored on the iPhones of actual and potential terrorists.  The post below is the second half of that topic.)

American high-tech firms with international operations continue to expand production in mainland China.  Luring them is the siren song of higher profit margins made available by an apparently endless supply of low-cost labor, as well as the prospect of expanded revenues for products and services sold within the Chinese internal market.

One American firm with such ambitions is Apple.  That company, according to my assessment of Herman’s article referred to in my previous post, has responded to demands by Chinese government officials concerning customer information much differently than it has to the recent request made by the FBI to unlock the iPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist shooter.

Herman writes that “Apple is the first foreign company that has agreed to let China carry out security checks on its devices in obedience to the counterterrorism and national security law passed [in China] in November, 2014.”

He adds that “Apple obligingly stores its information on Chinese users on servers in China; it has also agreed to inspections by Internet police of the data stored there.”

His revelations get to the very core (no pun intended!) of why Apple may be so intransigently hypocritical about its refusal to share information with the FBI while simultaneously caving in to Chinese government demands for customer surveillance.

Apple Stonewalls FBI Request, Part I.

A March 2016 Bridgewater Sunset, (Bergeron Image)

Apple continues to resist the FBI’s request to unlock the iPhone of San Bernardino terrorist shooter Syed Rizwan Farook.  U.S. Security experts have made unsuccessful attempts to unlock that phone and are now in court petitioning the judicial branch to compel Apple to cooperate.

 

Apple’s stance in resisting the FBI’s request is that to unlock the iPhone used by shooter Syed Farook would set an alarming precedent that would lead to weakening the privacy of all iPhone users.

However, Apple seems to have employed a very dissimilar set of standards in its approach to Internet security in its business dealings with mainland Chinese government officials.  The latter have very different ideas about how Internet security should be controlled and monitored within their borders.

This is not the first time that Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, has been embroiled in controversy:

On December 20, 2015, when Cook appeared on 60 Minutes, Charlie Rose pressed him as to why Apple produces the preponderance of its iPhones [70 percent overseas] in China-based manufacturing plants.  Conditions in some of these factories are reported to be onerous:  In at least several such company facilities, suicide nets were placed on the outside to discourage overstressed workers from jumping.

Significant Stories of March 1, 2016

12/05/2013 Bedminster Mtg., KDC Power Plant (Bergeron Image)

BIGGEST LOCAL IMPACT STORY:

KDC RECONSIDERS ITS PROPOSAL FOR A BADLY-SITED POWER PLANT IN BEDMINSTER

OTHERS STORIES OF INTEREST:

Editorial Discusses Impact of Pacific Research Institute’s Study on New Jersey Schools.  

New Hampshire Newspaper Mirrors Star-Ledger’s Reversal of its Prior Christie Endorsement.  

 

National GOP Stalls on Obama Appointment to U.S. Supreme Court: Sweeney Returns Favor by Blocking Christie Appointment to N.J. Supreme Court!

Unions Lose Supreme Court Appeal over Pensions. 

  

Controversy over Trump Continues to Soak up the Oxygen.  

 

Globally Prominent Boston Cardinal Praises Spotlight’s Critical Role [of] Investigative Journalism.

Note:  Below I offer an aphorism from an ancient, trustworthy source:  It’s as good today as it was centuries ago.  Particularly applicable to the politics of the day, don’t you think?

 “He taught them saying: ‘Be careful not to parade your uprightness in public to attract attention; otherwise you will lose all reward. . . ‘” Very pithy.  Very deep.

 Thanks for reading.