The Darwin Awards

Here is a picture of the dumpster on Freudenmacher Alley where Gladiz Polanco-Ramos's body was allegedly dumped by her ex-boyfriend.

I recall seeing a movie on TV about an insurance investigator which traveled the country to study deaths deserving of "Darwin Awards".  Basically, the Darwin went to people who did something so stupid to get themselves killed that they distinguished themselves as someone deserving of being taken out of the human gene pool.

Back in the first decades of the 20th century eugenics was popular.  Eugenics was the idea that medical professionals and scientists should take steps to keep all people with inferior genes from reproducing so that the quality of the human race could be improved over time.  Needless to say, after World War II, this theory went out of vogue.

The concept of people of inferior intelligence corrupting the human race by being allowed to reproduce still is a part of popular culture.  In addition to "Darwin Awards", another movie which humorously looks at the theory is "Idiocracy", which is about a rather dumb GI that is placed in suspended animation in a military experiment and wakes up in the distant future to save the human race from leaders who encourage the watering of crops with Gatorade.  It seems that in the future, the white hillbillies and minorities from the urban ghettos take over the world and need the help of the GI who happens to be the smartest person alive at the time.

Back to Trenton.  Well in recent weeks we have had a few people in the news that did monumentally stupid things that deserve awards,  Here they are:

Mayor Mack's former chief of staff Paul Sigmund gets the "clean living award" for getting caught buying heroin on East Hanover Street a stone's throw from city hall.  It seems he was noticed loitering on the corner of North Stockton and East Hanover by a cop that didn't recognize him.  When the cop approached him, he took off only to be stopped on East Hanover about an hour later with seven decks of heroin on his person.

Mr. Sigmund was on the job in the number two position in city hall for a few weeks before this.  Not only did Paul Sigmund hold a top position in Trenton city government, he comes from a long line of famous people.  His mother was Barbara Sigmund, who was mayor of Princeton back in the 1980s.  Her father was a congressman from Louisiana.  Barbara Sigmund's mother served out the remainder of the term after her husband died.  Paul Sigmund's father was a Princeton University professor and his aunt is Cokie Roberts, a reporter for National Public Radio and ABC News.  I guess the apple sometimes falls far from the tree.  Here is a link to the story from NJ.Com.  http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/05/trenton_mayors_chief_of_staff_2.html

The "green living award" goes to illegal immigrant David Lopez who killed his ex-girlfriend Gladiz Polanco-Ramos and deposited her body in a dumpster a short distance from his house.  He recently broke up with Polanco-Ramos, but returned to her house at 12 Roebling Avenue and got into a loud argument with her, that attracted the attention of neighbors who saw him walk out the front door of his house, go around the corner and deposit her body about 200 feet from her house.  That takes brains you know.  Nothing like the cops having witnesses that saw you throw your ex's warm body in the dumpster.  Well, at least he was considerate of others and the environment and did not leave the body to rot in the house.  No he put trash in its place and disposed of it properly.  Here is a link to the story from NJ.Com.  http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/05/trenton_murder_suspect_in_cust.html

The "parents of the year award" goes to Plesie Nicholas and her live-in boyfriend Anthony Roberson, who are accused of tying Nicholas' 8-year old daughter up to door knobs and their South Logan Street home's staircase.  The little girl sustained rope marks which cut through the skin almost to the bone and the child is in danger of losing one of her arms due to the abuse.

The child was discovered when Mercer County Sheriff's officers showed up at the house to arrest Roberson on an unrelated warrant.  The little girl approached detectives and asked them to take her away from her mother.  When asked why she wanted to be taken away, the girl said her mother doesn't feed her and she has to steal food and she said her mother ties her up.  The officer noticed marks on her arm and had paramedics examine her.  The paramedics found her injuries to be worse than originally suspected.  The sheriff's officers noted that the house was filthy and filled with dead rodents and garbage.  Here is a link to the story on NJ.Com.   http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/05/trenton_couple_charged_child_abuse.html

Speaking of abuse and torture, there is the case of the 15-year old girl who was kidnapped by her boyfriend and held in the attic of an Ingham Avenue house for three days.  She was not given any food and received very little water.  The boyfriend sexually assaulted her druing this time.  In addition she was burned with cigarettes and beaten during her captivity.  After she escaped from the house by climbing out a window when the boyfriend left the property for a while, she was examined at a local hospital and her bruises and cigarette burns were documented.

According to the boyfriend's lawyer, the girl is just making up the story and that it is a "Trenton tradition" for disgruntled girlfriends to frame their boyfriends by alledging rape and abuse.

See the following link from The Trentonian for more about this story.  http://www.trentonian.com/articles/2011/05/20/news/doc4dd578b2c4b71083534448.txt

So there it is, we live in a wonderful city don't we?

Unlike the previous stories, the following incident did not happen recently, but rather occurred about 15 years ago.  Perhaps for that reason, I was unable to find any references to it on the Internet, but it shows the Darwinistic nature of some of the people in this town and is worth recounting.

An article appeared in the Trentonian about a woman and two men who lived at a house on the 700 block of East State Street.  I believe this happened sometime in the 1990s.  For reference, the 700 block is the block just after State and Chambers going toward town.  This is a pretty rough area and back then was home to scores of alcoholics, drug addicts and gang bangers.  A harder than typical ghetto area.

The woman was walking through a state parking lot and came upon a gallon wine bottle which contained a green liquid.  Her reaction was that someone left some moonshine and I am going to take it home.  So she went back to her room in a house where the men also rented rooms and drank some of the "wine".  She got sick and died.

The men heard about the wine and the death and decided to take the bottle before the police arrived to investigate the death.  From what I remember one of the men recounted to the Trentonian reporter. that he and his buddy were "aiming to get high" and that explained "where their heads were at."  So one of the men figured that if the wine killed the woman it must be really good stuff and if they drink just a few sips of it they probably would get real high.  So that's what they did and they got sick and went to the emergency room to have their stomachs pumped.

It turned out that the "wine" was discarded antifreeze containing ethylene glycol.  Small amounts of this sweet liquid have been known to kill. 

True Darwin material, these three chaps.

I Want to Tell You a Secret

Psst...wanna know a secret. Actually not a real secret, been on at least one business website already, but not in the Trenton Times or Trentonian.  (Ah-Ah I scooped ya!!!) .  Ocean Spray on Park Street in Bordentown will be closing in a year or two.  They are moving to Allentown, PA.

Don't think it's anything we did, the decision was probably already made when the Lt. Governor met with them.  It owuld have been nice if they stayed.  I have an attachment both to manufacturing and Bordentown. My Mom grew up in Bordentown.  I had a relative who was mayor of Bordentown in the 19th century.  My mom and dad and their parents all worked in factories.

By the way, Chris Christie changed our job descriptions late last year. It seems that our last governor, Corzine thought it would be a good idea to dismiss the economics unit from Commerce. Now Commerce is the Business Commission, under the Lt. Governor.  Maybe we shouldn't really be helping business, al least that's what 19th century socialists thought when they were advocating for a Labor Department, but I am all=in when it comes to my job.  I conributed my bit to keeping Ocean Spray here and feel bad/

It seems nowadays we are allabout business and recruiting them to get them to move here or stay here.  Hey companies are the people who pay the taxes and I have no problem with that.  Just takes a lot of getting used to.

More about this latter when I write latter on this weekend about our wonderful Turnpike and the economics conferfence in New Brunswick. 

It;s Official, Government Workers Are Not Overpaid

You've seen the articles in the New Jersey papers many times that claim we are overpaid because the average state employee, federal employee, whatever makes more on the average than the average wage for private sector employees.  This fact is normally used to show that we are overpaid and is used as an argument for everything from giving us a 40-hour week to watering down our health and pension benefits to decertifying our unions.

No less a source than the New York Times has an article that explains this.  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/06/us/public-private-employees.html?ref=us

Basically, the fact that we make more than private-sector employees is something that you could place into the "No shit Sherlock" folder.  A little arrogant, you may say.  Not exactly.  See, we're basically missing workers from the hotel and restaurant industry and from retail trade, two on the lowest=paid sectors in the economy.  Ditto for landscapers and janitors too.  The state contracts out for all these services.  Private landscapers get to cut the grass at the Labor Building.  Private workers work in the cafeteria.  We have mentally handicapped people from a sheltered workshop cleaning our building.

So what are we long on?  Well, the Division of Workers Compensation hires a lot of attorneys, both as council and as judges.  The division of Labor Planning and Analysis hires a lot of economists and statisticians.  And unemployment, disability and workers compensation all hire their share of investigators.  Add to this layers of senior and middle management to supervise everybody, and you got one highly educated workforce.  It also happens to be highly paid, and rightly so, with those occupations.

When one is looking at clerical workers, perhaps they are paid more than average, but not more for a large organization such as Bristol Meyers or Lockheed of Boeing.  Once you start moving up the ranks, the pay differential goes the other way.  For professionals such as economists and attorneys, wages are about 20 percent lower in the public sector than in the private.  True, we don't work as many hours, so it is not such a bad deal, but you still have to pay to get qualified people.

When you are talking about executives responsible for several hundred people, the pay differential is even less.  Our Director, for instance makes about $130,000.  Find a general manager of a factory employing 300 or 400 people and I bet you they make a lot more than that.

Thank God for the Times, I couldn't have written it as well.

'Tis The Season

Now let's see....April 12 was the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.  They celebrated in Charleston, SC and across the South.  April 15 is traditionally the end of tax season, but because April 16 is Emancipation Day in Washington DC, the deadline has been extended to Monday April 18, which happens to be Passover.  April 17 is Palm Sunday. 

As you might guess, this is a festive time of the year.  The weather is mild and the Robins are out there chirping, so who needs more than a thin excuse to get out and make a day of it.  Here in Trenton, it was no different.  We had our own town party on Saturday, April 16th, which was a rainy, dreary day, and no it wasn't to celebrate the first day of freedom for the slaves in Washington, D.C.  No, up here in the north, we has the National Socialist Movement come to our fine city to treat us to a genuine Nazi rally.

The National Socialist Movement (NSM), from out of Detroit. is America.s largest Neo-Nazi party.   Here is a link to their website.  http://www.nsm88.org/   Here is a link to an NSM video:    http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=qXFSiZ4UW4Q  Here is another video from the Nazi's close relative, the Ku Klux Klan:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVQBZJnAVsU   They said in a speech at the rally that they picked Trenton because it was the place that George Washington helped keep a dying revolution alive by defeating the British on Christmas Day, 1776.  They say they admire Washington.  So did the German-American Bund.  I recall they once held a Rally at Madison Square Garden just before the start of World War II.  It featured a huge portrait of Washington on the stage.  It began with a procession of snare-drumming American Hitler Youths walking down the center aisle.  It ended shortly thereafter when the first speaker took the podium.  It seems the crowd was infiltrated by Jewish toughs who came to break up the event.  It ended in a massive riot.  Here is some footage of the German American Bund including shots of the Madison Square Garden rally:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw4_xmUgo3w

This time in Trenton, Washington's freedom helped protect the Nazis, as did hordes of police officers.
Our event had counter protesters from several groups including our very own New Black Panther Party led by former city council candidate Divine Allah.  In this race Marge Caldwell Wilson became the first white person to win the North Ward council seat in over 30 years in a runoff against Allah.  This might be because Allah admitted burning an American flag and said he didn't believe in what our country stands for.   Here is a link to a counter-protester video from the Trenton Rally:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQV82MGncnc.  Here is a link to the New Black Panther Party website:   http://www.newblackpanther.com/

Perhaps that's because the New Black Panther website says they want to establish a black man's homeland somewhere in the United States.  Yup, they're black supremacists, lust like the Klan and the Nazis are white supremacists.  The two groups are so much alike, perhaps they should join forces.  They both march around in military uniforms and believe in racial exclusion and supremacy of their respective races.

The NSM in Wednesday paper said they will allow people of any race to live in their homeland if they took over and that they hate nobody.  I guess they're just a bunch of wonderful choir boys that like carrying swastikas and wearing brown shirts and jackboots.  Then the cat came out of the bag in Thursday's paper.  Yes, they will let anyone live here, but only whites can be citizens and only whites can be party members. (This also means that Jews and gays can't be citizens either, even if they are also white.)  Everybody else besides whites will have to register as foreigners and live under the laws for foreigners.

Remember the NSDAP.  You know, the original German Nazis that ran their country from 1933 to 1945.  They had a group of laws called the Nuremberg laws, so named because they were announced at their September annual party rally in Nuremberg.  They said pretty much the same thing.  Well they eventually led to the extermination of the Jews.  The Slavs would have been next if Germany won the war.

See the idea of racial superiority is a slippery slope.  Over time, the definition of a "pure" person gets narrower once the group takes power.  Remember George Rockwell.  No, not the painter, but Commander George Rockwell who wrote the book "White Power" and founded the American Nazi Party.  He wound up with a bullet in the head back in 1966 as a result of a dispute over whether blonde Nazis were superior to brunette Nazis.

As an interesting sidebar, after his death, his group sued and wanted him buried in Arlington National Cemetery with an SS funeral with an SS honor guard.  The Nazis lost their case.  Decorated WWII pilot Rockwell who fought in the Japanese theater is now in Arlington, but never got his Nazi funeral.  (Boo Hoo).

Besides Divine Allah, we had another local political wackjob weigh in on the rally.  Juan Martinez said they shouldn't rally here because they are racist.  Look, it's the pot calling the kettle black!  For it's Martinez who is always calling for hiring preferences for Latinos in city government and he has said Latinos have a duty to vote for Latino candidates.  Doesn't sound too much different from what the Klan and Nazis say (White people should only vote for whites regardless of political party).

Thank god for the cops.  Everyone went home OK from Trenton on Saturday.  Not so at the Nazi meeting in Pemberton Friday night.  There was a fight at the meeting hall between the blacks and Nazis.  The police had to come to break it up and several people got injured.

So ;ong as we are on the subject of dates in April, did you know that the NSM is planning to rally in Washington, D.C. on April 19.  That explainms why they came to Trenton.  These guys are riding around in buses and they are kind ol like Grateful Dead fans.  Just like the Deadheads, they ride from place to place and really don't have a life.  So if you are going to Washington on 4/19, why not stop in Pemberton on 4/15 and Trenton on 4/16.  After all, they are on the way.

Do you know what Aprl 20 is?  Yes it is Colombine day.  It is also the stoner's national holiday.  But originally it was Hitler's birthday.  He was born April 20, 1889.

Who Ruined Trenton High?

Trenton High was one of the finest high schools in the country when it was first built.  It is still a beautiful building from a distance, if one doesn't look too closely.  It also may become a rallying point that will help destroy Governor Christie;s national reputation as a fair but firm fiscal conservative.

I heard the stories over the years about Trenton High.  As anybody around here knows, the school is supposed to be a real snakepit.  Back in the late 1980s I worked there as a substitute teacher, and at the time I thought the kids were fairly well behaved (at least compared to Junior 5 and Junior 1), and the building was old and a little worn, but still in fairly good repair.  You have to remember at that time, Art Holland was still the mayor, and we only had an appointed school board for a few years. 

Since the early 1980s, Trenton has had an appointed school board.  The board is appointed by the mayor.  Holland pushed for the appointed board because at the time Trenton was racially divided (sounds familiar?) and Holland thought it would be better to have the mayor pick the best people rather than having them sit for election when the public picks candidates solely by their race.

I haven't been in Trenton High since 1990, when I last worked there.  However, I have gotten the chance to go into Dunn Middle School (Junior 4 back in my substitute teaching days) and I got to see how that building has gone downhill.  While I can't say anything about the quality of the instruction or student safety, I can tell you about bricks and mortar, because I been in there a lot to work on elections.  And as recently as last November, when I was last in there, the school hasn't been painted inside since the late 1980s.

In Dunn, the ceiling is peeling in the music room, plaster is bubbling up in the auditorium from the roof leaks, and the rest of the paint is filthy.  The lockers, bathrooms and everything else inside has a left-where-it-was-for-years, unmaintained look.  Nothing done since Mayor Palmer took office.

Back to Trenton High.  Last week, I was watching Channel 6 news and saw a story on Trenton High.  In the video, there was a teacher explaining that the roof leaks all over the place and that teachers use buckets on the floor to catch the water.  When the buckets are filled, they are emptied.  The librarian keeps a mousetrap on her desk, because there are mice running at will in the library.  They frequently climb up on the students.  The librarian says she traps the mice and hopes for the best.

Here is a link to the channel 6 video:  http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8030319

Today, there was a story in the Trentonian about a meeting that was held at the school yesterday between state and local officials.  About 60 students showed up and some of them testified.  The school officials and students said that the roof leaks, half the bathrooms are closed because they are no longer functional, the auditorium is closed because of loose asbestos, and that the drinking water from the fountains is contaminated by lead from the pipes.  Basically, the school is a health hazard, and it provides a poor environment for learning.  At the very least, kids are sent a message by being put into that facility and it is this.  "The building is a piece of garbage, so we must be garbage too.  Suburban kids get decent schools, but the let us sit in this thing.  Why bother trying."

The state offered to replace the high school several years back when Governor Corzine was in office.  The offer was not accepted because city and state officials wanted the building replaced, but several community leaders wanted the old building restored.  Restoration would cost more than replacement, and by the time the decision was made to restore the school, the state was not willing to pay, but would only go for replacement.  No agreement could be reached on that, so the old school remained in use.

Enter Governor Christie.  Last year, the governor cut $850 million from school aid statewide as part of his plan to balance the state budget without renewing the millionaire surtax.  This took money mainly from the low income Abbott districts (which include Trenton).  It also took money from the fund the state uses to subsidize school construction projects.  Because the funding was cut, the state was not willing to subsidize the construction of a new Trenton High.  Christie has also gone on the record saying he wants to pull still more money out of urban public school systems, because he believes they are unfixable and the money should be spent on charter schools and school choice vouchers instead.

At the meeting, community activist Juan Martinez attacked Christie's offer of $24 million for renovations to the school, rather than $150 million to replace the building.  He suggested marching on the statehouse and getting CNN out to the school so the national news service could show the nation what a cheap S.O.B. Christie really is.

You think you know what I'm going to say, but I'm going to fool you.  First, I have no love for Juan Martinez or the Trentonian.  I am sick of Martinez;s racist rants that the South Ward should elect a Latino councilman because it is a majority Latino district and that the city should hire more Latinos for city jobs.  Hell, if he was a white man making the same statements about whites, he would have been run out of town by the media and the powers that be.  But that's besides the point here.  Likewise for the Trentonian ,  The newspaper is rabidly anti-union and ardently pro-Christie.  However it the case of the high school, the paper appears to support getting state aid to solve the problem with either a new or a restored building.

Personally, I prefer restoration over a new building.  Our high school's architecture is unique, and it is built a lot stronger than any new building would be.  I bet that if it was put back together, it would last a lot longer than a new high school.

Now for the hook!  Yeah, Christie has the compassion of Marie Antoinette (Let them eat cake.) when it comes to giving more money to urban school districts.  And yes, once I found something that I agree on with Juan Martinez.  It would be great to get CNN in there and shame the Governor before the nation.  The school is a disgrace.

But, the real question is how did the school get in such deplorable condition.  Remember that the city was getting millions more in state aid before Christie cut it off.  Yet they couldn't find any money to fix it.  It didn't get like that overnight.  It took decades of neglect.

Also, I know Dunn Middle School is also in a state of disrepair.  How many other schools did the city fail to maintain?  What have they done with the money all these years since Palmer took over in 1990.  Tony Mack has been in office less than a year, and he had to deal with the tight budget after Christie cut the city off.  We can't really blame him, at least not yet.   The schools fell apart during the 20 years of Mayor Palmer's rule, and probably weren't fully maintained for some time before that.

I think Palmer and his underlings on the school board let Trenton High go downhill to make their case to the state that the building needed to be replaced.  Let it fall apart and the Great Father in Trenton will buy the city a new school.  It didn't happen.  And now, New Great Father is a stone-cold asshole that doesn't want to part with a dime if it has to come away from the suburban districts that supported him in the election. 

While it may be nice to let the city officials stew in the mess they created, it wouldn't be right.  The kids do need a better school and the only way Trenton could afford one is with the state bearing most of the cost.  Let go governor!  Give the kids a new school.

On the other hand, we need to demand accountability from our city officials.  We at the very least need to get an elected school board.  Give the power to put the schools under new management back to the people.  The school system shouldn't be the mayor's private fiefdom.

(P.S.  Where did the money go?  Probably to the same place the money went that the city was supposed to spend on blacktop for roads.  We now live in pothole city, so I wouldn't be surprised if we have schools that look something like something out of Al Capp's Lil Abner.  Perhaps it went for all night coke and hooker parties at city hall.  Probably not, but it might have been better spent that way.)

A Stupid War

Let's see, "A Stupid War."  Sounds like an oxymoron.  Ever hear of a smart war?
Well, let's say that our intervention in Libya is stupider than most wars.  Here's why.

President Obama seems to be more concerned about how he looks to the American public and how he looks to the members of the European Union than he is about the interests of America, the lives of American troops or the lives of the Libyan people.

Like a typical post-Vietnam Democrat, Obama has no stomach for doing anything without the involvement and approval of the United Nations.  The problem with going in with the UN is that it means fighting a war by committee.  The members of the UN have different interests, some are opposed to our involvement, some are lukewarm, while others support it.

For instance, Russia gave its approval when the UN Security Council voted on the resolution authorizing the action, then complained once the US began providing air support for the rebels.  What did Obama do after the Russians complained?  He stopped the air support.  With air support, the rebels were able to advance 200 miles westward.  Once we stopped attacking concentrations of Libyan troops and equipment, two days ago, the rebels lost nearly all the ground they gained.  This on-again, off again air support is something like a method of torture where the victim is held underwater until he passes out, then taken out until revived, then dunked again.

Either we should provide the air cover, or not get involved at all.  If we stayed out from the beginning, Qaddafi would have regained control and crushed the revolt.  The fighting would be over, and buildings would not be getting blown up and people would not be getting killed en masse.  If we went in and made a concerted effort to support the uprising, Qaddafi would likely quickly lose, and peace would be restored.  Either way, the conflict would end.

All the lukewarm "war by UN" that we now have will accomplish is to prolong the conflict.  It comes with the price tag of billions of dollars of American tax dollars, and the possibility of death of American pilots.  Also, one of our planes may be shot down and the wreckage recovered by the enemy - like what happened in the Kosovo conflict.  The Serbs recovered the wreckage and allowed the Chinese to examine it.  They gained enough knowledge of American aircraft technology to build their own stealth bomber.  Great!  Let's give the enemy more chances to steal American weapons technology so they can kick our asses on the battlefield in the next war.

Another risk of a less than 100% commitment to the conflict now that we are involved is that Qaddafi will still crush the rebellion and remain in power.  What then?  Does anybody think he would then make nice with the United States and forgive us for bombing his country and trying to overthrow him?  Of course not.  He will be as ornery as ever and most likely will strike back at us by refusing to sell the west oil and by committing acts of terrorism against the countries that opposed him.

So let's forget what the rest of the world thinks.  Get rid of the UN charade, go in and do the job ourselves and go into Trippoi and make sure Kadaffi dies.

These Businesses Don't Want Business From Union Workers

I'm looking at today's Trentonian/  The headline says "Chri$tie V. Union on the front page and on page 3 it says UnionS' Lifeline.  The article goes on to cheer Christie's decision to refuse to negotiate with the union about health benefits, while at the same time saying that NJ's governor is not like Wisconsin Goivernor Scott Walker because he perfers to negotiate with the union rather than effectively decertifying it.

Sounds like double talk to me.  What part of "Negotiate, Don't Legislate" don't you understand Fat Boy?  I heard your budget address.  You clearly came out in support for Governor Walker's plan to destroy public employee unions.  The Trentonian went further than Christie has so far in this article and suggests that Christie should outlaw the "Agency Shop" and prevent the unions from using the state payroll system to automatically collect dues from members and nonmembers.  At first blush, the paper is talking about eliminating collections from nonmembers, who benefit from the union because they receive the benefits of the union contract.  They get union scale wages and can greive contract violations, just like full union members.  They benefit from the contract and should be paying.

The Trentonian of course would also like to see payroll contributions from members stopped too.  What this is really about is muzzling the union.  In this day and age it takes money to get your views out, and that means buying advertising time on TV and radio stations and paying lobbyists to talk to the politicians.  And why not, nobody is suggesting that the Chamber of Commerce or the State Business and Industry Association be barred from using lobbyists and the media to advance their positions.  Fair is fair.

And what's this about businesses that don't want our business.  Why else would someboby advertise their business in a reactionary anti-union publication like the Trentonian except to make a public statement that they support the paper's political position and would like to see Trenton's unionized workers take a pay cut.  So why should we spend money at any business that advertises there.

So who are the businesses that had the nerve to advertise in an anti-union publication in a union town.  These are the people who advertised in the Trentonian today.  No doubt they think you should not get a raise and should pay a lot more for health insurance and pension.

Clearly the owners of these businessesdon't like us and think they don't need our money.  Let's oblige them.  Boycott these businesses until they stop advertising in the Trentonian.  (There will be further updates of companies that chose to advertise in this rag when it runs anti-union tirades in the future). STAY AWAY FROM THESE ADVERTISERS, THEY DON'T NEED OR WANT UNION BUSINESS.

(Let 'em switch to the Trenton Times, they are less hostile to us.)

Trent Jewelers

16 Edingburg Rd.

Mercerville.NJ

544-8400

The Little Shop

1111 State Hwy 33

Hamilton, NJ

609-586-1075

Mr Wilson

(car dealer)

609-575-1599

www.THEGREATCOURSES.com/4TRN

1-800-832-2412

Canal Laundry

111 West Bridge St.

Morrisville, PA

267-797-5338

Ray's Sub Shop

1540 Pennington Rd

Rt 31

Ewing, NJ

609-771-8006

Town & Country Diner

Rt. 130 &206

Bordentown

609-298-1711

Liberty Jewelery Buyers
2115 Hamilton Ave.
609-586-0303

Italian People's Bakery
61-63 Butler St
Trenton, NJ
394-7161

Dance It Up
1062 Whitehorse-Mercerville Rd
Hamilton, NJ
581-0808

Peter E. Zimnis, Esz.
1245 Whitehorse-Mercerville Rd
Hamilton, NJ
609-581-9353

Eagle Petroleum
394-5078

"I Buy Houses"
609-581-2207

$1.99 Cleaners
2699 South Broad St.
Hamilton
609-888-2300

Divorce 101
1027 S. Broad St.
Trenton
609-392-0229

The Trentonian
600 Perry St
Trenton, NJ
609-989-7800

Advanced Urgent Care
111 Lawrenceville Rd.
Lawrenceville, NJ
609-943-2071

Scott Oil
609-631-8840

Kathleen Scott Chasar, Esq.
2500 Brunswick Pike
Lawrenceville, NJ
609-882-2200

Paul Robinson Charter School
643 Indiana Ave.
Trenton, NJ
609-394-7727

"Military Family Nights"
609-635-0633

http://www.thedivorcecenter,com/
800-762-3111

The Haldeman Auto Group
607 Highway 33
Hamilton Square, NJ
609-631-7512

MercerRegionalChamber of Commerce
1A Quakerbridge Plaza Dr, Suite 2
Mercerville, NJ
609-689-9960

Amichi Milano
600 Chestnut Ave.
Trenton, NJ

609-396-6300



A Well Intentioned Law Backfires

Electronic Waste including old television sets, stereos, computers and batteries contaminate the environment when they are improperly disposed of.  The equipment contains toxic materials such as lead and cadmium which leach into the soil and groundwater when old equipment is thrown into landfills.  Although individual batteries contain only small amounts of toxic chemicals, these add up considering the number of batteries the over eight million New Jerseyians throw away each year.  That is why Governor Corzine signed a law several years ago which requires recycling of electronic waste generated by homes and apartments.

I knew there was going to be a problem as soon as I heard the message from city hall on an autodialer message that was sent to my home back in February.  The message said that the Trenton's garbage collectors would no longer pick up old television sets and other electronic items when put out on the curb with the regular trash.  Starting March 1, these items have to be taken to the city;s recycling center on Calhoun Street.

It was then that I remember reading something in the paper about two or three years ago that said that Governor Corzine signed a law that said that towns have to recycle these items rather than collect and dispose of them in landfills or incinerators.  Prior to the implementation of this law, residences were still allowed to put electronic items in the regular garbage, even though businesses have been required to recycle them for several years.  As I said above, the idea was to keep toxic chemicals out of our air, soil and water as well as to further reduce the amount of material disposed of in landfills.

Problem is that these laws are dreamed up by lobbyists and other professional types with college degrees that live in the suburbs.  The authors probably assumed that most people would store these items until a collection date is organized or will arrange to have them hauled to a recycling facility.  They had in mind communities with environmentally conscious residents who want to do the right thing and local governments with the resources to organize an effective collection program.  The authors probably pictured most electronic devices as relatively small affairs that could be transported to the recycling facility in the family car.

Enter TRENTON, where the city government lacks the money to pay for its police and fire departments without implementing a massive tax increase which most people can't afford.  Perhaps that's why the city came up with its hare-brained plan to have people drop off the old equipment at the recycling center rather than scheduling frequent (let's say monthly) collection days for these items.

We are over two weeks into the era of garbage men refusing to take old TV sets.  How is it going?  I don't know about your street, but around here on Home, Randall, Tremont, Elm, Chestnut, Beatty, etc., we have dozens of old TVs littering the ground.  Kids and other passersby have even begun picking them up and throwing them into the streets, smashing them to bits.

You tell me what's more environmentally responsible.  Putting old TV sets into landfills away from people, or allowing this junk to accumulate in the streets, so it can be smashed to bits, leaving pieces of lead and glass shards on the ground for barefoot children and others to cut their feet on and have the material leach into people's front yards.

So why then, do the local citizenry choose to behave in a 'brown" manner and insist on destroying their own environment?  Perhaps because most people living here are not lawyers or environmental lobbyists.

Homeowners and tenants basically just want to get rid of this junk and the way you do this is by putting it on the curb.  A lot of them don't get newspapers, some of them don't have landline telephones or even speak English, so they never got the word that the garbage people won't take the junk away.  

And even if they did know about the new law, what do you expect them to do with this stuff anyway?  Most of the TVs that are being tossed out are the old type with glass picture tubes.  They are big, bulky and heavy.  It is not convenient to put them into cars, because modern cars are  often too small to transport them.  And by the way what do you do with old fashioned console TVs or the buffet size cabinet-type stereos that many elderly residents still have.  I really can picture granny carrying one of these two miles to the recycling center, can't you?

Let's face it, the law isn't working.  We didn't get a cleaner environment.  Instead, we got dozens of old televisions laying on the street getting vandalized. 

Either do the job right and implement regular collections, or allow distressed cities like Trenton to opt out and go back to landfilling this junk.  This is just another unfunded mandate, being forced on towns by the state, without state money to pay for it.  If the state wants this stuff recycled, they should pay for the collections.  Fact is, we can't afford to do the things we were already required to do.

Unwanted Vistors

I logged onto my Blogspot account today to see who has been visiting my blog and what people are reading.  I noticed that one of the referring sites that was recorded today was something called notify.bluecoat2.njsp.org.

I can only imagine what this is about.  NJSP.ORG is the official New Jersey State Police website and someone logged on from this site to read my blog.  I wonder if this has something to do with the posting "Christie Check Yourself".  I hope not, but I believe it is probable that someone gave the State Police a tip that I was calling for the killing of the governor and they wanted to check it out.

First, the posting did not say this, but rather stated that there is a possibility that a sniper attack is possible, given the number of laid off police officers out there.  I gave out the governor's home address, but that is easilly obtainable from public sources online and would be accessible by anyone seriously planning an attack.  I even said that the assassin would most likely be arrested and put on trial.  Although I indicated that acquital through jury nullification might happen, allowing the shooter to get away scott free, you must admit that anybody who would think this would be anything other than a long-shot possibility would be mistaken.  After all acquital would require 12 not guilty votes.  Anything less than that would lead to a mistrial and the case would be put back on the docket for another trial.

The second comment I want to make has more to do with the ineptness of the State Police.  Checking me out by logging on through notify.bluecoat2.njsp.org is akin to conducting surveillence in a plain white Crown Victoria with hubcaps rather than wheel covers.  It is espionoge conducted with a neon sign.  You have to be blind not to notice it.

I just have to wonder, are all undercover cops this obvious, or only just the State Police.

Quack Doctors, Part II

The Three Stooges were masters of the Short, which were short films shown in movie theaters before the main feature back in the days before television became popular.  Although the Stooges stopped making new movies in the 1950s because the Hollywood studios thought the short comedy genre was dated, their shows continued to live on, and their slapstick humor can still be seen today on television, which was the very thing that originally put them out of business.  While they are funny, I sure wouldn't go to them for dental work.

 When it rains, it pours.  If a busted hot water heater and computer aren't enough for one week consider this.

When I was in bed last night, my jaw was killing me.  I had a real nasty toothache going on, but didn't do anything about it until I got up.  I was just too tired and lazy to get out of bed at 2:00 AM.  First thing in the morning I brushed my teeth and tried to floss them.  When I got near the sore spot, I practically went through the ceiling.  Guess what, it wasn't some food stuck between my teeth after all.

So onto step two.  I called out of work and called my family dentist.  I was just there a month ago for my six month checkup and he said everything was fine.  No, I don't go to Eastern Dental or some other mas production shop.  I have a 40 year old Jewish gentleman who practices alone in Bordentown.  Just him, the dental assistant and the receptionist.  Do to some prior experiences with this guy (like the time he informed me that he broke a dental drill off inside my tooth when he was attempting a root canal), I know he isn't the best dentist in the world, but how good to you have to be to do checkups and cleanings.  After the root canal from hell, I let him know that I prefer to go to a real endodontist for the heavy stuff.

So why go to this guy?  Because he gives you the personal attention you deserve and you can get an appointment right on the spot if you have a toothache.

Off to the family dentist.  He looks at the tooth and said it was fine a month ago.  He then X-rays it and says there is nothing wrong with the tooth.  I probably was grinding on it because I have been under a lot of stress lately.  He then said he will inspect the tooth by looking at it and poking on it.  He then found what he thought was the problem.  The tooth was fractured.  He said he was going to numb me up and drill it a little bit,  However after two shots of Novacane, my jaw refused to become numb.  That was actually a good thing, because it saved me from being drilled on by some Three Stooges guy with a dental license.

The family dentist got me an appointment latter in the day with my endodontist in Mt. Laurel.  She got the thing numb right away and did the root canal.  She said that this was a longstanding problem, that my tooth was infected and that the infection was so bad that it left the root of the tooth and went into the jaw.  She said that if the infection can be stopped, she can probably save the tooth.  (When she gets done, Three Stooges guy gets to put a crown on it.)  So she gave me a prescription for pennicilin and Percocet and sent me home.  I feel 100% better without the infected root pulp and nerve.  Also, I;m relieved knowing I probably won't get encephelitis from the infected tooth the other dentist missed.

Christie, Check Yourself

Lee Harvey Oswald was the man who shot President Kennedy.  A crack shot, trained as a sniper in the United States Marine Corps, he was able to take the president down with three shots from a window in the Texas School Book Depository.  Was he just a lone nut, or did he work for Fidel Castro or the CIA, we'll never know.  In any event a rifle in the hands of a trained sniper is a proven political gamechanger.

Right now, I'm relaxing, listening to my girlfriend, Ada Falcon on the DVR.  In case you don't know, Ada Falcon is the tango singer that had a better voice than Liberitad Lamarque, but quit the business in 1942 to become a cloistered nun.  She died in 2002 or 2003.  I think it is a requirement for tango singers to live to at least 90 years old.  You know, they put something in the water in Argentina to keep them alive that long.

Over the past week I have been trying to prove Murphy's Law.  My laptop fried out around Tuesday or Wednesday and way replaced with some asskicking model from HP for about $1,000.  On Friday, my hot water heater kicked the bucket and left me with a flood in the basement.  I played Auschwitz yesterday dragging this heavy 50 gallon 50,000 BTU unit in my basement yesterday and hooking it up.  I got my nephew coming tomorrow to help me drag the dead unit out of the basement.  We'll see how long it takes the scavengers to take it off the curb.

Speaking of life's disasters, last Thursday, there was a protest at the statehouse.  About 7,000 police and fire fighters showed up to protest proposed increases to the cost of health insurance and lengthening the time it takes to become eligible for a pension.  The Trentonian was somewhat baffled.  They couldn't understand why the cops were also opposed to Stephen Sweeney, since he is a Democrat.Both Sweeney and Christie are collaborating on a plan to drastically increase the cost of health insurance, dilute the quality of the coverage, increase the cost of pensions and decrease the payout that retirees receive.

This is just plain wrong.  Perhaps the senate should take up Shirley Turner's bill to permanently increase income tax rates on those making a million a year or more.  Both Sweeney and Christie are opposed to this.  They think the millionaires need their yacht gas money more than workers need decent and affordable health insurance and pensions.Last year, Christie allowed the temporary increase on income taxes for millionaires to expire.  He said it would help create jobs because the millionaires will hire more people.  I don't know, but I haven't seen any new jobs result from it.  I have seen our cities stripped of municipal aid and have seen hundreds of cops laid off.  Just like I said before if you want bigger fires and stronger gangs, support Christie.

In Trenton, so far no police or fire personnel have been laid off.  Mayor Mack has been balancing the city's budget with hope and peanut oil.  He hoped to get federal grants to pay for the cops, but they never came through.  He also put in a massive property tax increase last year.  He wanted to raise property taxes again this year by about 10 percent, but City Council won't go for it.  Too bad.  When the cops go and the criminals start running wild, blame city council, not Tony Mack.  Better yet, blame your governor friend who gutted the city's treasury.

Besides not being on the job, there is another danger involved in having lots of laid off policemen sitting on their butts collecting unemployment.  These men are trained in the use of firearms and have a deep seated grudge against the governor.  I could imagine one of them stationing himself in the woods across the street from 40 Corey Lane in Mendham and blowing the governor's head off.  The ex-cop just also might take out his lovely stockbroker wife and a few state trooper bodyguards.  Not that I would want to see the governor actually assassinated, but it is a strong possibility that could happen.  I also wouldn't be surprised if a jury acquitted the assassin of all charges regardless of the evidence presented.  Juries have the right to nullification, which is to ignore the evidence and let the defendant go because they disagree with the law.  That's why we have juries.  They are a check on the state's power to enforce arbitrary laws.  The right goes all the back to the Magna Carta, when knights wore armor and rode around on horseback.

Perhaps someone will go to Mendham and solve the problem by busting a cap in Christie's head. If that happens, it would be a sad day indeed.

Farming the Web

Articles appeared on the web earlier this week describing Google's ongoing attempt to elevate the ratings of sites with "original" content and send to the Internet basement listings from so-called "content farms", which are owned by businesses that hire legions of part-time amateur writers to crank out articles for a few dollars apiece.

The operators of the content farms claim that their product provides an alternative perspective on the world because it is being produced by everyday people - usually stay-at-home housewives, rather than professional journalists who share similar backgrounds and have similar world views.

Google says that these articles are shallow, provide little value for the consumer and that the shear volume of the material causes it to clog up search engine results, which distracts web searchers and limits the value of Google as a tool for finding material from legitimate sources.

I believe the truth runs a little deeper.  The farm sites try to accumulate articles on subjects that provide hits on search engines and use these articles to link to advertisements.  In other words, they are basically advertising agencies and are competing against Google for the same pot of revenue.  Read---Google is trying to get rid of the competition, even if it also has a more altruistic model such as cleaning up the search process.

I happen to agree there is a problem with some farming sites, because they don't pay for material.  Rather they steal it from others then repost it as their own.  No, I haven't done my homework, so I can't list the sites that snatched my stuff, but it has been a problem since day one.  One popular thing to hijack is the address list on "Christie Contributors Outed".  Type in a search for a dentist, find one on the list and get a ton of ads for other dentists, not from Google, but from the pirate link.

On the other hand, the original stuff written by all those stay-at-home moms out there isn't always useless garbage.  In fact, I think a lot of it is insightful and better than my stuff.  After all, I am doing this for nothing, so how much time do you think I really put into cleaning up these articles.  My stuff gets its quality because a lot of what I write comes from personal experience and a lot of the research - such as the information I got on farm sites - has come from research I do anyway while on the clock.

Google says the written-by-housewife product is inferior because the writers put little effort into it.  (Sounds familiar, after all I am on Blogspot, Google's own content farm).  They say that since the women are trying to make a living at it, they can crank out seven or eight stories a day which means they put little effort into each one.

So I decided to put Google's claim to the test.  The biggest player in the farm business is an outfit called Demand Media.  They produce a variety of websites including http://www.cracked.com/ .  I went to Cracked to see how bad this trash was.  I was impressed.  A lot of the stuff on Cracked is well written.  In fact I would recommend it. The material is not bad, and the site provides a source of income for people interested in becoming freelance writers.

The bottom line.  Don't ever accept anything that authority figures say at face value without doing your own research.  You just might be surprised how often you come to a different conclusion than the so-called experts. 

Demonstration Tomorow

Friday Demonstration TomorowFebruary 25th 2011

In Front of State House

West State Street, Trenton, New Jersey

Starting 12:00 Noon

Sponsored by NJ AFL-CIO

Support Rights of NJ Public Employees

By Showing Up.

(If you are a New Jersey Public Employee, Bring Your Paystub.  You Will Receive a half-day's pay with your pay stub.)

Revolution Now.

Christie Says He Supports Wisconsin Governor's Walker's Plan

to

Outlaw Public Employee Unions.

Come Out To Show Your Support

for Public Employees.

The Battle of Wisconsin Rages On

Earlier this week thousands of Wisconsin public employees occupied the state capital in Madison.  The result was quite unlike what Republican governor Scott Walker intended when he had a bill introduced to make workers pay more for benefits and eliminate the right of public employees to negotiate collective bargaining agreements with their employers through their unions.  He expected a quick rubber stamp vote for the measure since his party controls both houses of the legislature.  What he got instead was an event of international proportions.  Union activists have come from all over the country to assist in the occupation of the state capital building and reporters have come from all over the world to cover the events.  For instance, this photo was posted by the Manchester Guardian all the way from the United Kingdom.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker thought he was Billy Bad Ass.   The governor cut taxes last year, despite the fact that the state is operating at a deficit.  Governor Walker thought he'd out-Christie our own Governor Chris Christie, who has gained a national reputation for ruthlessly pushing around unions representing government employees.  He introduced legislation to make workers pay more for health insurance and pension benefits.  Nothing unusual here, this is being done all over the country as the recession caused state budgets to go into the red and politicians look for a way out that does not involve raising taxes.

Governor Walker went one step further, and decided to try to emasculate the unions which represent public workers.  His bill would deny unions the right to negotiate contracts with management covering wages and working conditions.  Unions would no longer be able to collect dues through deductions from employee paychecks and unions would have to conduct elections each year to maintain their certification as representatives of each workplace.  This law would effectively destroy the power of unions to represent workers.  It would apply to all public workers except police, which would retain their right to negotiate collectively.

Walker thought the move was going to be a pushover.  After all, it was his  bill and his party, which supports the measure, controls both houses of the legislature.  He overplayed his hand because he wasn't counting on two things.  First, the unions were not ready to quietly walk away into the dustbin of history and secondly the Democratic lawmakers figured out a way to outmaneuver the majority party.

The Republicans first tried to introduce the legislation in the Senate, but they couldn't  because all the Democratic senators left the state and vowed not to return until the governor agrees to negotiate with them about removing the language baring unions from the workplace.  The governor says this point is non-negotiable and sent the state troopers out to arrest the senators and bring them back to the state house so they could vote.

Since the senators were in Illinois, they could not be arrested by Wisconsin authorities.  Because they did not come to the chamber, the senate could not conduct business because they did not have a quorum.  This stalled the measure until the senators come back.  Wisconsin does not have the filibuster in their senate, so the only way the Democrats could stop the matter was to boycott the meeting.

The measure was supposed to come up in the assembly, which is also being boycotted by the Democrats.  If the lone Independent assemblyman shows up, the Republicans can consider the bill and pass it in the lower chamber.  However, if he does not show up, they have the same problem as in the senate...no quorum, so they can't vote there either.  As far as I can tell, nothing happened in the assembly yet either.

At the same time all this was going on, union workers occupied the state capital building and the surrounding grounds.  In order to prevent the governor from removing them without the use of excessive force, the unions have kept the area packed with workers both night and day.  (Thank God, this is not Egypt, we don't use bullets and tanks to clear out mass demonstrations.)  Unions from all over the country, most notably the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have sent in workers to keep the building packed while others go home for rest breaks.

All this has attracted national attention.  The protest caught the eye of President Obama who sent his expression of support.  Of course the Wisconsin governor told the president to but out of state business.

How is this playing out and who is winning the propaganda war.  Governor Walker so far has come off looking like a fool.  He has resorted to wild stunts like sending the state troopers out to arrest senators and has threatened to call out the National Guard should the unions call a general strike.  He has been powerless to move the measure forward.

The unions on the other hand have gained a national forum to educate the public about the value of organized labor and the need for unions in the government workplace.  They have shown that the Republicans are not unstoppable if workers choose to stand together.  They have served as an example for workers across the country so they will be motivated to act should their politicians decide to try to destroy unions in their states.

What is happening in Wisconsin is important for New Jersey workers.   Here too, the governor has been using legislation to set the terms and conditions of employment.  So far Christie has managed to be more successful than Walker because rather than trying to ban unions outright, he has been moving in piecemeal fashion to define the work arrangement through legislation so there is little for unions to negotiate.

For instance, Christie has proposed drastic increases in health insurance premiums and pension costs for public employees while at the same time reducing benefits.  He hopes to accomplish this through legislation, not at the bargaining table.  Unlike Wisconsin, our Democrats so far have lapdogs for the governor, largely because the governor has Senate President Stephen Sweeney as a messenger boy.  For instance, Sweeney, who is president of the Ironworkers union has introduced legislation to increase health insurance costs, and his buddy, Senator Donald Norcross, who is president of the state International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers introduced a bill which passed both houses that would require all future state employees to live in New Jersey.  Although other Democratic legislators have initially objected to some of the program being fed to Sweeney by the governor, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver and others usually come around to support the senate president's proposals.

Why do Norcross and Sweeney want to sell us out if they union presidents.  The short answer is that the governor bought them out by pushing through economic development projects that provide work to construction workers in South Jersey.  For instance, work is expected to resume shortly on the Revel Entertainment casino in Atlantic City.  The project was stalled until the state agreed to advance a loan with taxpayer money equal to 20 percent of the value of the finished project.  The governor also recently sighed legislation to subsidize construction of a gas-fired electrical generating plant in Deptford and has promised $100 million in tax credits to any companies willing to manufacturing wind turbines in a state-owned industrial park in Paulsboro.

Perhaps these aren't bribes in the traditional sense because neither Sweeney nor Norcross are personally enriched by them.  But the governor has certainly used the power of his office to buy the loyalty of two Democratic senators and break union solidarity.

What is to be done?  We can only thank the Wisconsin Democratic legislators and the state's unions for what they have done.  So far, Christie has stuck to petty antics like the battle of Lincoln's Birthday (see previous post).  But since he hasn't even begun to negotiate a new contract with the CWA, there's no telling what he had in mind for July.  If Walker was successful, no doubt it would have been very possible that he would have tried to outlaw unions here too.  Make no doubt about it, Christie supports what Walker is doing.  If you don't believe me, see what Christie said in this article from NJ.com.  http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/gov_christie_supports_wisconsi.html

Since Walker has made a fool out of himself,.this is far less likely now.

What is going on in Wisconsin is part of a broader trend where governors aree trying to use legislation to snatch power from unions so they can cut benefits and hold down wages.  Politicians see workers and unions as being weak and that taking them on is the logical place to find more money for state services without raising taxes.  For more on this, see this article from CNN.Com.  http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/18/news/economy/union_protest/index.htm

We need to keep the heat on.  Force the governor to negotiate with us, rather than trying to legislate our benefits.  We also need to show the Democratic legislators in this side what side their bread is buttered on.

We can't replace all of them.  There's no need to.  In order to bring them around to our side, all we need to do is knock out Sweeney and Norcross in the elections in November.  I haven't checked, but if anybody is running against them in the June primary, you should vote for the opponent, no matter who they are.  New Jersey has a sore loser law and once a candidate loses a primary election, they can't run in the general election either.  And of course, if Sweeney and Norcross survive the primary, we must vote Republican and get them out.  True, the Republicans will also be hostile to us, but they will lack the power and union connections that Sweeney and Norcross have.  They would just be greenhorn freshman senators with little influence.  And of course, we can replace them with Democrats during the next senate race.

Go Ahead. Take Lincoln's Birthday Off. I Dare Ya



Abraham Lincoln was the first member of the Republican Party to be elected president.  He successfully presided over the Civil War and was assassinated by a Confederate sympathiser shortly thereafter.  You would think that a governor who prides himself on his Republican credentials would show more respect for the man who put his party on the map than he has in the following incident.


At the end of the day, Lincoln's Birthday was a normal workday for unionized civilian state employees this year, as it was last year.  However, Governor Chris Christie, who never likes to loose, decided to sow some more confusion because he lost the battle with the unions over the day after Thanksgiving last year.

So he could furlough workers during 2009 and the first part of 2010, Governor Corzine entered into an agreement with the unions called the Memorandum of Agreement.(MOA).  The Governor let us have most of what was in the MOA without any problem.  He didn't mind furloughing us six times in 2010.  He then gave us 8 extra days off to pay us back for being furloughed 12 times in the period from July 2009 to June 2010.

His problem came with the next part of the agreement, which said we got the day after Thanksgiving off and that we would work Lincoln's Birthday instead.  The big fat crybaby said the MOA was not binding and we would nave to work Black Friday.  The union sued and the courts said the agreement was binding and we got Black Friday off. 

However, Governor Christie, like any other schoolyard bully, is a sore looser.  To make his point he said that unionized workers could have Black Friday off, but non-unionized workers such as management, temporaries, and political appointees had to work.  All the big shots used their vacation time and took the day off of course, leaving low-level non-union people on the job.  That meant they had to heat and light the 13-story Labor Building at taxpayer expense for maybe 25 people on Black Friday.

Since bullies never give up, nobody really knew what was going to happen on Lincoln's Birthday until we got there.  Last week, as expected, the governor was back up to his old tricks.  Here is the full text of the memo from the Governor's Office dated 2/7/2011.

From:  Yvonne Catley
Sent:  Monday, February 7, 2011 12:59 PM
To:  Debbie Mahal
Subject:  FW: Lincoln's B-day

To:  All Employee Relations Coordinators and the Nine State Colleges and Universities
From:  Governor's Office of Employee Relations

This notice will address the observance of Lincoln's Birthday on Friday, February 11, 2011 for civilian Executive Branch employees.  Pursuant to 2009 Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) entered into by the state and the State's civilian unions, the covered civilian Executive Branch employees received Thanksgiving Friday in 2010 as a paid day off and those same employees agreed to have Lincoln's Birthday in 2011 treated as a regular work day.  Because Lincoln's Birthday 2011 remains a statutory holiday, legislation was needed to change its status to a regular work day.  To date, there has been no legislation adopted to change the date to a regular work day for State Executive Branch employees in 2011.  Beginning in 2012, the law provides that Lincoln's Birthday will no longer be a holiday for state employees.
 .
Although civilian Executive Branch employees, who normally have off on a holiday will not be compelled to worked that day, you should be aware that the Governor's office will be open and fully staffed that day and employees reporting to work will be allowed  to work. The Governor understands that this may create inequities, in that certain MOA employees will have received an  extra day off on the state after Thanksgiving 2010, pursuant to the MOA.  The Governor intends to address those issues in the future.  Law enforcement personnel, not covered by a MOA, will operate under the terms of their collective bargaining agreements.  (Italics and bold type not in original)

What's really going on here?  First, since we took Lincoln's Birthday off last year under the MOA as a mandatory furlough day, the problem isn't that Lincoln's Birthday has to be a paid day off.  The governor just seems to say that the day has to be a day off

And if that's the case, why is he forcing his employees in the Governor's Office to work.  They are not under the MOA.  They are non-union and should be entitled to celebrate the day just as any other state employee.

My guess is he wants the law changed so that the day is no longer a state holiday.  I don't know why.  The law already says that it will no longer be an official holiday starting in 2012, so what's the rush.

The only explanation is that he is a crybaby.  He wanted to try to bully the unions to work on Black Friday against our agreement with the previous governor and he lost.

What gives about the sentence in bold type.  The one that says  The Governor intends to address those issues in the future.   Everything before this says that everyone can take Lincoln's Birthday off except police and correction officers, regardless of the MOA.  Sure sounds like some kind of threat to me.  Just like the headline says, here is this holiday, you can have it off.  I dare ya!

What was the union's response to this memo.  Read their memo below:

To All CWA Members

As you know, under our MOA, we got the Day After Thanksgiving off and we agreed to work on Lincoln's Birthday.  The Christie Administration tried to violate the MOA and make everyone work on the Day After Thanksgiving.

Now, they have sent out a completely incomprehensible memo about Lincoln's Birthday.  Please be clear:

Lincoln's Birthday is a regular workday, and not a paid holiday for those who fall under the MOA.  We had off the day after Thanksgiving.

If you take off on Lincoln's Birthday, you need to be on approved leave.  If you have not been approved leave to be off on Lincoln's Birthday, GO TO WORK.

Now there is a first.  The management is telling people it is OK to take off and the union says go to work.  We live in a strange world, don't we.

On Wednesday, the labor Department's employment relations officer issued a memo which said that if you are non-union, then Lincoln's Birthday was a normal workday and that if you were nonunion, you could take the day off as a paid holiday.

This time we get the Indians reporting for work and the chiefs staying home.  Makes sense.  When the cat's away, the mice will play.  Now that's real efficient employee management for you.

Lincoln's Birthday was celebrated Friday February 10th.  What really happened?  Lots of people took off and we had about half our normal staffing.  Most people used their own time and took a 3 day weekend.  Management of course took the paid holiday off.

I don't believe too many people did not "get the memo" from the union and their immediate supervisors (who are also union members).  Practically all union people not on leave went to work like they should have.

Super Mooch

No offense to the people in this picture (I uploaded it from the web after doing a Google search for trailer trash), but you can take some people out of the trailer park but you can't take the trailer park out of the people.  And basically, many of the long-time residents still remaining in the formerly Slavic part of South Trenton are trailer trash living in row houses.

I was over a longtime friend's house last night.  He lives on Tremont Street which is a few blocks from my house, located off South Broad Street in Trenton.  My friend, I'll call him Joe here has known me since I got a job at the Trane plant on East State Street when I first came home from college in 1981.  Back then, General Electric owned the plant and it made central air conditioners and gas heaters for houses.

I remember when I got the job.  I just got done working a temporary job for an outfit called EWB Productions.  They were producing a promotional film for AT&T about their new computer operating system called Unix.  At the time Unix was super top secret stuff.  I had to sign a release agreeing to keep everything secret, a promise I kept for 30 years.  Since Unix is the operating system which makes the Internet work and that is common knowledge today, I feel I'm under no obligation to keep what I did secret anymore.

I was hired by EWB because they couldn't find a real secretary (makeup and curlers type) who knew how to operate an Apple II computer complete with Peachtree operating software.  They thought they would try a recent college grad.  Since I wrote for the Iowa State Daily when I was in school, they figured I was the man for the job.  You had to memorize codes to make Peachtree work, because back in the day, there were no mouses (mice) attached to computers.  Everything was done off the keyboard.

What I did was transcribe from a Dictaphone.  I got fired when I went on a job interview and gave EWB as a reference.  Then I learned it was a no-no to be a bad boy and job hunt when working for a temp agency.  (rub my nose in some cowshit please!).

Back to the job interview at Trane.  It was with Chuck Walker, a no-nonsense black guy who was a junior officer in Vietnam.  I don't know if he was a Lieutenant or Captain, but he was up front with the action.  Racial prejudice, is a time-sensitive thing.  The further back in time you go, the more prejudiced white people were, and I was pretty prejudiced by modern standards, but I kept my mouth shut. I told the truth on the job app and said I last worked as a secretary.  He told me there won't be any secing here, rather there will be a lot of sweating, and they were hiring me to lay me off.  I did get laid off four months later, long enough to get unemployment.

(forgive me for posting another half-finished article.  Come back in a day or so.  Promise to finish it.  Physical therapy is in an hour so I got to get out of here.)

Well it's the following Saturday and I have been back to work for a week.  Been really busy.

Back to the story about Joe and the characters on Tremont Street.

I got hired to work in the coil area as an assembler.  My job was to screw little metal plates to the coils so they could secure the tubes that carried Freon from the compresser to the coils that transfer heat from houses on central air conditioners.  At first I dantilly tried to put each screw into the holes and was falling behind.  Joe came up and said "grab a hand full of screws and shoot 'em in.  If they hit the floor, so what.  If you can't find a hole, press down and make a hole."  That was all I needed to know to keep up and we became friends.

Soon I went to his house on Jersey Street, met his girlfriend Lorrie and his son, little Joe and we began to regularly hang out together.  The relationship survived the time I got laid off at the plant.  We have been seeing each other ever since then.

Back then the first block of Jersey Street between Home Ave. and Tremont St.was a nice place/  Old ladies kept plants on their stoops, which they swept regularly.  Everything was neat and clean.  I liked going to the Jersey One Tavern on the corner of Jersey and Home and the Veterans' Tavern on the corner of Tremont and Jersey.

Even back in the 1980s when Joe and practically everyone else in the area of working age worked in the factories, heavy drug and alcohol use was the norm.  Lorrie used to tell her boyfriend to go down to the bar and get some crank.  I was like, "What's crank?"  Joe would say its shit that keeps you up and gets her off her ass so she will clean up and do some housework.  When she didn't want crank, she was looking for more cigarettes.

At parties there would be plenty of food on the grill and of course there would be lots of beer and shirtless, bearded men drinking it.  The pot would also come out and everybody would smoke until they got stoned.  In addition to these things, we'd occasionally break out some Jack Daniel's or some Spirytus alcohol.  Spyritus is something they drink back in Poland and the countries which formerly made up the Soviet Union.  It's 192 proof grain alcohol.  It has to be "rectified" to get to be this strong, meaning it is treated with lye during the distillation process, which makes it two proof stronger than Everclear which is only 190 proof.  Unlike Everclear, Spirytus can be drunk straight up because it has a much cleaner and smoother taste, kind of like vodka, which is what it basically is.  I have a buddy at work from Russia who tells me that in the old country, soldiers, students and other 20 and 30 somethings don't usually drink 80 proof vodka unless they are wimps.  Real youths in the old country drink straight up rectified grain alcohol when they party.  The old timers also use it to make a local version of brandy by mixing fruit and fruit juice with the booze and letting it ferment in the bottle for a while before drinking it.

No, you don't have to be Polish to drink the stuff, and this video proves it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKqfoZQ_Nwc&feature=related (it also proves the stuff exists)  You can buy it at Landmark Liquors, at the Capital Plaza shopping center on North Olden Avenue in Ewing, where Foreman Mills is located.  To show you how badass powerful this stuff is, watch this clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WycQ3aTGnN0&feature=related also, here's a clip about underage drinking in college that they would never put on Campus PD.  It features the closest thing made in the USA, which is Everclear.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On_m3V7ZMtE&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Deverclear%2B%26aq%3Df&has_verified=1

Needless to say, exceptional indulgence in partying South Trenton style will rot your brain out.  That tends to knock most people who grew up around here out of commission by the time they reach middle age.

Fast forward about 30 years.  Joe no longer works at Trane.  He became an alcoholic and no longer works anywhere.  He gets SSI, for over $700 per month as well as food stamps.  He is 58 and qualifies medically.  He had prostate cancer and they fried his hips by giving him too much radiation.  He now walks with a limp and can walk only for short distances.

But he is not the real super mooch.  He's just a garden variety Trenton mooch.

It takes his neighbors across the street to take that honor.  There is a mother living with her daughter and they also have several roomers in the house.  Both mother and daughter are heroin addicts and they are both on SSI.  The roomers are on general assistance from the county.  Everybody gets food stamps.

The daughter is a crack whore and screws black gangbangers in the basement for drugs.  Everybody walks around with that expression that Stepinwolf once described in a song as "tombstones in their eyes".  All junkies itch like hounds from the heroin and have that thousand yard stare.

Mommy gets a rental subsidy from Section 8.  Basically, Uncle Sam pays the rent.  They get a subsidy from the state to pay their electric bill.  It shows up on your electric bill as "universal service surcharge".  That's what it is for, to subsidize gas and electric service for the poor.  They get heating assistance from the LIHEAP program on top of this.  They get free cell phone service from the government.  They advertise this program on local TV channels.  You get 250 minutes a month free.  On top of this, they have a caseworker that actually goes to the store and buys them groceries and transports them to their house.

Boy, wouldn't it be great to have the government put you up so you can live in a house and do drugs and alcohol all day.

As you guessed, that part of town is no longer so nice.  The park across the street from the Hungarian Reformed Church on the corner of Beatty and Home is better known as Needle Park.  The area has become a regular ghetto and shows up frequently in crime stories in the Trentonian.

Neighborhoods like this gurantee that there are many more welfare kings and queens like Joe's neighbors out there.  Maybe one reason why our taxes are so high.