Tag: nj

politics

Election Day is Next Tues and No One Cares

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Election Day is next Tuesday, November 8th. In my home state, the great state of NJ, voters will decide who represents them in the Legislature. All 120 seats are up for grabs, however as Alfred Doblin in the Bergen Record so aptly put, “Well, not really.”
He continues to by stating,

“At best two, maybe three legislative districts are considered competitive. That means either most incumbents will be reelected or the party faithful who were socially promoted up the food chain in a safe district will become legislators”

and the sad part is, he is absolutely correct. Regarding the men and women who make our laws and govern us, we are given very little choice in this country, a country that prides itself on giving its citizens 31 flavors of ice cream. I mean, there are 8 different varieties of Wheat Thins for god’s sake! An organization called Americans Elect is trying to alter this dynamic for the 2012 Presidential Election, but that is a topic for another post. Let’s instead go back to the two (potentially good, probably bad) choices that we do have.
We’ve spent $120 billion (that’s billion with a ‘b’) fighting to give people in Afghanistan the right to vote – we are trying to bring democracy to them and that is what you do in a democracy, you elect your leaders – but only 1/4 of our population actually votes, and that is in a good year. If you divide that number equally between the two parties that dominate politics (Democrats and Republicans) then you see how its possible that someone who only 1/8 of the population wants to be elected winds up in charge of your life. It’s possible that people do not vote because they think they are just deciding between a giant douchebag and a turd sandwich. It’s possible that they do not have time and/or it is not convenient. These are topics for another post as well. Again, let’s instead go back to the two (potentially good, probably bad).
I vote, year in and year out, and I usually vote for a Democrat because the Democratic Party’s platform is the one that is the most aligned with my worldview. I’ve never missed an election since I turned 18 and never plan to either. I care, and believe that the only wasted vote is the vote you do not make. I’ve complained about this issue before on this blog and five years later, nothing has changed.
Doblin concludes his op-ed with the following:

State legislatures are the test kitchens for new public policy, some of it down-right anti-American — that is, if you believe civil liberties aren’t decided by the popular vote. Some of the people elected this November to go to Trenton will be the people going to Washington in future years. If they are inarticulate, if they lack creativity, and most important, are incapable of looking at both the needs of their district and the needs of the state now, they will not change in two, four or six years.
New Jersey needs its best leaders in Washington and it needs to mold them in Trenton. If mediocrity is the gold standard, democracy is what is devalued. State elections should matter. They don’t.
And you wonder how these things begin.

To that I say, “hear hear!” Unfortunately, most of the population will not…

humor

"NJ drove me nuts!" says lawsuit

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What a birthday day treat! The NY Post reported yesterday that an Elie Tahari manager exiled to New Jersey is demanding $2M for ‘anguish.’ To quote the article, Thomas Horodecki, 36, said:

“It was the smog. It was depressing driving to Jersey, the traffic was horrendous on Route 4, and they are pretty bad drivers. The stores are kind of cheesy for the most part. New York City has everything when it comes to fashion, especially Saks. And when it comes to styling, let’s just say Jersey is difficult. Fashion it is not!”

Horodecki claims that in December, his depression drove him to leave work on disability.
This is a pretty ridiculous lawsuit but I can understand where he is coming from. As I’ve said many times to many people, I’m a New Yorker who happens to live in New Jersey. I’ll need to still be living here full time when I’m 67 to consider myself a New Jerseyite and that isn’t going to happen. Route 4 traffic sucks. If he wins his lawsuit, I may sue my family for making me live here…
I kid, I kid!

ramblings

Not That Bad of a Place

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Today I became a landowner in our nation’s third state which is what my friend Adam refers to as “The Great State of New Jersey.” At some point in 2010, my family and I will head west across the Hudson and this lifelong New York resident (first Long Island for my formative years, then Binghamton for college and then NYC for the last decade) will be forced to gets a Jersey license. This exodus is not happening immediately though so I’ll save my thoughts about what this move means, first from a leaving Manhattan for the Burbs point of view and then from a leaving New York for New Jersey point of view, for a future post. Let’s just say I’ll probably be writing that one late at night, full of scotch, listening to Ryan Adam’s “New York, New York” along with Sinatra’s “New York, New York” on repeat. It’s not going to be pretty.
This post’s title came from a title – agent that is – at today’s closing. Once I had signed the final piece of paperwork, the seller said to me with a twinkle in his eye, “Welcome to the highest taxed and most corrupt state in the Union.”
< Insert your salt-in-the-wounds metaphor here >
After I made a few jokes about how I’m from Long Island and therefore (as the Daily Show put it a few months back) a conjoined twin of the aforementioned corrupt land, the representative from the title company said, “Its actually not that bad of a place. And the town you are moving to is one of my favorites.”
Not that bad of a place. That should be the new state motto for New Jersey. Seriously, if Borough President Marty Markowitz can make all sorts of fun slogans up for Brooklyn (see below), then why can’t Corzine as one of his last acts in office put up signs up and down the Turnpike saying “Welcome to NJ: Not that bad of a place!”
Sign 1:

Sign 2:

Sign 3:

This could be my first contribution to my eventual new home. It’s the least I could do.

ramblings

It Came Fron New Jersey

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A horrible smell best described as “gassy” invaded NYC yesterday. It concerned many, closed buildings and forced a PATH station to evacuate. It was actually so bad and people were so freaked out that Mayor Bloomberg held a press conference to say basically, “everything is fine – its not terrorism – go about your business.”
After much investigation, a marsh around Bayonne is being blamed and the news outlets are having a field day with their headlines. NY1’s “Who Dealt it?” is one of my favorites. In case you were wondering, Bayonne is in the “Garden State,” aka New Jersey. It seems that NJ smells so bad these days that it can’t even contain itself anymore, – sort of how I felt in while on vacation after eating Israeli salad, cabbage and choumous at every meal of the day…