Fresh Jersey

Got A Minute? Why did Rudy Giuliani fall so fast?

How did it happen?  Why did Rudy Giuliani fail so miserably as a presidential candidate.  Only last August, he was leading all other Republican challengers by 20 percentage points in the polls.  When he dropped into a Teaneck kosher deli last year, he was treated like the president himself.  What went wrong?  Actually, the signs of failure were there all along.  For my one-minute audio commentary on Rudy's collapse, click here:   Download GotAMinute013008.mp3

Audio Column: Ben Chaney's Message

Ben Chaney, the subject of my Record column today, is a special man.  In 1964, his brother, James Chaney, was murdered by the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan, along with two white men from New York, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner.  The murders of the three young civil rights workers galvanized the entire civil rights movement and captured the attention of the nation and the world. Today, Ben Chaney has a message.  Yes, he talks about the brutality of his brother's murder and, indeed, the brutality of the system of segregation that caused it.  But his core message is nonviolence. Last week, he spoke to students at Passaic's Abraham Lincoln Middle School and several staffers.  Beforehand, he sat down and talked with me.  Click here to listen:  Download 012808BenChaneysMessage.mp3   

"Got A Minute?" Should Rutgers expand its football stadium?

On Tuesday, the Rutgers University Board of Governors is scheduled to vote to spend $102 million to expand the football stadium -- a stadium that was built only in 1994.  This expenditure comes at a time when Rutgers has cut more than 400 classes, frozen hiring of new professors and hiked tuition by double digits.  Is this any way to run a tax-funded university?  I don't think so.  The current football stadium is fine.  I wrote a column for today's newspaper about the misguided priorities at Rutgers.  For a shorter version of the column, here is my one-minute audio commentary. Click to listen: Download GotAMinute012708.mp3

Readers react: Do cops need machine guns?

My column on Thursday about the MP5 submachine gun that was missing for a week or so by the Wayne police department raised a secondary question:  Why do cops need these commando-style weapons anyway?  I received a number of emails on the subject and wanted to share two of them here.  The first is by a police sergeant with a Bergen County police department.  The seond is from a resident of Wayne.

* * *

As I got older and hopefully wiser, I learned to withhold my opinion on subjects that I knew nothing about.  I would research a subject or learn the facts first before offering my opinion.  This helped with my credibility.  I believe commenting on a subject such as why do police officers need superior weapons without having some facts is ridiculous and for a professional reporter, downright irresponsible.

With the rise of terrorist incidents, foreign or domestic, police are challenged to try to prepare for the possibility of an incident in their or surrounding jurisdictions.  These terrorists may be armed with superior weapons and body armour (bullet proof vests).  I would hate to be the officer who comes across such a terrorist with only my .40 caliber handgun.  Laugh as you may, it might happen.  Knowing your paper, the Record, I'm sure that you will report on that officer's death and how untrained or unprofessional  he/she was and that is why he or she died.   Granted, it might not happen in

Bergen

County

.....but on the other hand, it might and that is what we have to be prepared for.

To further the point, we have to look at the past to prepare for the future.  Have we seen armed bank  robberies where superior weapons and body armour  have been used?  Have we seen school shootings with the use of superior weapons?  Has the Record or other publications done reports where lawbreakers have used body armour while committing crimes? The answer is yes to all of them. Do some research and learn of what you speak and write about.   Most handguns will not penetrate body armour but superior weapons will in most cases depending on the armour and weapon used. (Granted the H&K MP5 shoots only pistol caliber rounds and this is why most departments carry a .223 rifle which will defeat most body armour.)

Would you have it that the police are less armed then the bad guy?  I think that you should get a dose of reality.  The fight should never be fair and we should always win.  I should have at least the same tools as the bad guy.  The better scenario is that I have more people on my side, with better and more capable weapons and resources in our hands in conjunction with being better trained then our adversaries.   

In

Bergen

County

, we are all mandated to train for active shooter scenarios.  We do this in our community's schools and businesses.  We train to immediately set up a perimeter and to then break up into 3 or 4 man teams. These teams enter the building and terminate the active threat at great risk to ourselves.  Yes this means kill.  He or she shall be killed before he/she gets the chance to kill other innocent people or the people that I work with.    History has taught us that as we wait outside in these type of scenarios, people are dying inside.  (The training and techniques have all changed since  the Columbine incident.)  Maybe you think that we should wait for our

county

SWAT

teams to come to the rescue. Yes they are very good at what they do but the reality is,  it takes a SWAT team close to an hour to get on scene and begin their operation.  If you had a child in that school; would that be acceptable to you?  I think that you would much prefer that the local police form up ASAP, gear up (with better weapons than the bad guy) and  go kill the scumbag(s) that are killing the innocent.

We train hard at our craft and we prepare to deal with what unknown incidents may come or way.  It might not come....and then again, it may.  Whether it be law enforcement,  the military,

EMS

, or fire services, we must prepare for types incidents that we will deal with everyday AND for the incidents that we may  never or rarely come across.  I have never used my gas mask or bio. suit in an actual emergency but it's damn nice to know it's there if needed.  Speaking for the men and women in law enforcement,  we must be ready, trained and armed to answer whatever comes.  We do not have the luxury of being a Monday morning quarterback  as you do.  You only write but we die. Have a little faith in the people sworn to lay down their lives  if needed to protect you and you family if needed to do so.  Give us the tools to do what we may have to do.  It might never happen  and I pray that it doesn't, but it may.

Also, please try to learn about a topic before "mocking what you do not understand."  Research  the topic or just ask those who are more familiar with the subject.  Then form you opinion and put it to paper.

* * *

1. Great article: "Why do local cops need assault weapons?"

    You know the PBA will get the word out to hammer Mike Kelly.

2. Did you ever see a parade and the arsenal of weapons and machinery at the county level in addition to the local police hardware. Who are these weapons going to kill? American citizens! There must be a better way. Irrespective of suburban or city, police should be people friendly and not address the public as if we live in some junta-run country or a totalitarian oligarchy. Look at the mayhem and injuries that recently occurred in

South Paterson

over a "domestic" dispute: cracked skulls, child beaten and thrown against a kitchen table, women trashed: all while the PBA president claims "his" men will continue to keep the peace:

what does that mean?

3. And yes! why are police still riding in autos when they should be "walking the beat." Yes even in the suburbs: stop the auto, get out and walk the area: get to know the people, the kids, the neighborhoods in the town you are being paid to protect. Police should PREVENT the crime, not hang around until the crime is committed than try to investigate. After a crime is committed, we need professionally trained, college educated men and women in dress suits, not guns, solving the crime.

4. And while we are at it, in addition to the Rambo weapons, why are police sitting on roadways in disguised cars stopping poor saps going to work or shopping and giving out "speeding" tickets when you go 3 miles over the limit? How does this stop robberies? rapes? assaults? How people friendly is that?

5. A simple handgun with a backup shotgun is more than enough for any local cop. Local cop: not a county police, a prosecutor's office police, a federal drug police, a railroad police, a motor vehicle inspection police, etc. Get the picture! Way too many armed people to keep our democracy free by suppressing us common folk. Way too many and VERY COSTLY. Every 20 years another one retires at half pay and full family benefits, very costly.

6. After all, a community is family  and you wouldn't shoot your brother would you? Or would THEY?

Got A Minute? For once, politics works

Yes, folks, politics is actually working.  I'm talking about our presidential primaries, including one in New Jersey on Feb. 5.  This season has been a virtual picnic for politics -- and actually seeing the candidates debate and press the flesh.  Maybe they're doing it because they have to -- the primaries are coming one after the other, and there are a lot of candidates to sort out.  But if you wanted to be informed, this year has been informative...so far.   For my one-minute audio commentary on this, click here:  Download GotAMinute012408.mp3

Death of a colleague: Michael Thaler

The Record is, obviously, a newspaper, but it's also collection of people, with friendships that go beyond the craft of journalism and the often mundane work of news reporting and writing.  One of our friends and colleagues, Michael Thaler, died recently after a long battle with cancer. 

Mike was a copy editor, one of those deeply valuable assets to news gathering.  Copy editors are the last line of defense for spelling errors, bad grammar, faulty logic and inaccurate reporting for even the most experienced journalists.  It's a thankless job -- and all too often overlooked when awards are handed out to those of us with by-lines.   I mention the work of copy editors because Mike labored at his craft despite the pain of cancer.  It was a valiant battle and many of us will never forget how he endured, often with a smile and a humorous line when he would drop by my desk to say hello. Our obituary writer, Jay Levin, wrote a beautiful tribute to Mike that was published last week on the Record's op-ed page.  In case you did not read it, I'm sharing it with you now. 

My colleague, my friend

By JAY LEVIN

LET ME tell you about my friend Michael Thaler. As a copy editor and headline writer at The Record, he worked with words, but he poured his soul into pictures — his remarkable photographs of East Village street life.

That’s one in a bundle of contradictions about Michael.

Here’s another: He lived alone, with his cats and thousands of books, in an old carriage house set back from the street, across from a Teaneck park. He didn’t want neighbors. Yet through his blog, my reclusive friend — prickly one moment, thoughtful and generous the next — shared all aspects of the rare parathyroid cancer ravaging his body. The severe weight loss, the mind-boggling pain, the panic attacks, the insurance headaches, the operations, the hopes raised and dashed … He held nothing back.

“My skin grows more taut. My beard is shot through with gray. My eyes are increasingly bloodshot,” Michael wrote on Jan. 3, the day before he was moved to a hospice and 12 days before he died, at 45. “I can’t recognize the person staring back at me — in fact, the stranger is scaring me.”

Michael was hard to figure. A native of Long Island who wound up in Jersey, he would rather have been in Philadelphia (he went to college there) but his heart was in Japan, where he spent three transformational years teaching English at a junior high. That experience left him with a passion for all things, all customs Japanese. God pity the visitor who stepped into his apartment wearing shoes.

Other passions at various times: Civil War reenactment, swords, old watches and the Green Bay Packers.

A fitness buff, he studied karate for more than 15 years and took weekend walks from New Jersey to lower Manhattan. Health consciousness did not extend to mealtime. A typical dinner was meat and fries and ginger ale. Nothing green on his plate.

We speak so often of people waging “battle” against illness that the word is cliché. In Michael’s case, it was understatement. After learning he had cancer in 2002, he had five operations. The first reduced his voice to a raspy whisper; in another operation, doctors opened up his chest. After each, he was back to work within a week or two.

He soldiered on, keeping up his photo-taking jaunts to the East Village and his karate. On Sept. 21, he was promoted to the karate rank of brown belt with two black tabs.

“He trained through the bad days,” said his teacher, Rick Rohrman. “He was a fighter. If there was a word that defined Michael, it was kokoro, which means heart.”

The end came quickly. On Christmas Eve, Michael excused himself from the copy desk after two hours because of the pain in his legs and left the building on his cane. By then he had begun a process that was extremely important to him — matching his prized possessions with his friends, co-workers and Buddhist spiritual advisers.

“I want you to have that,” he told me, motioning to a beautiful pane of stained glass. He thought it was right for my living room.

Before entering the hospice, Michael was brought to the newspaper to say goodbye. He was in a wheelchair. The man who taught us more than we’ll ever know about grit, grace and perseverance said: “You have all been great teachers, though I haven’t always been the best student. But please know that I did learn, from each and every one of you. And I thank you.”

Kokoro indeed.

Jay Levin is The Record’s obituary writer and a copy editor. Contact him at levin@northjersey.com.

Speech: National Council of Jewish Women / Bergen County Section

I had the honor of speaking today to the January meeting of the Bergen County section of the National Council of Jewish Women.  And what a terrific group.  I spoke for 33 minutes about some of the underlying issues that New Jersey voters are concerned about in this presidential primary season, then took questions on any subject for another 20-30 minutes.  All in all, I came away feeling very hopeful about the idealism and energy of women in Bergen County.  If you would like to hear my speak, please click here: Download NationalCouncilofJewishWomen012208.WMA

Readers react to Boss Ferriero

My recent columns on pay-to-play and other antics by the Bergen Democratic Party and its Boss, Joe Ferriero, have touched a nerve with readers.  Simply put:  They are fed up with this style of politics.  Indeed, I have yet to hear from a single reader -- except one attorney who is addicted to the pay-to-play system -- who thinks the Bergen Democrats and Ferriero are wonderful.  For more perspective on this subject, check my Sunday column and today's column by my colleague Charles Stile.  Then, read below and see what readers have to say:

Thank you for standing up for openness nstead of boss rule.  Ferriero is
shameless in selecting Rev. Walton to be a freeholder.  Not only is the
man a poor choice, but also he doesn't begin to deserve the honor.
Walton's only claim to representation was one term on the Englewood City
Council, where he did absolutely nothing.  When he ran for reelection,
he conducted a most slanderous, deplorable campaign not befitting a man
of the cloth. Rev. Walton pays no property taxes, since he lives in a
church-owned house, has no relationship to the public schools or any of
the other facets of county life. Evidently. Ferriero thinks there is
something magical about a man who is a minister, and he caters to black
ministers as if they are similar to the leaders of the SCLC, who could
not be bought.
Walton on January 29th at the County Democratic meeting, but I am one of
the few people who has no ties to Ferriero!

* * *

How great to read your lucid, hard hitting "Old time boss rule...." 
piece in today's paper.

Re Hillary Clinton: Loved you pie-in-the-sky wish that she would 
confront Ferriero about his attitude toward reformers. Don't hold 
your breath. She supported Michael Wildes in his primary fight with 
Bob Stern. Wildes raised funds for Hillary so Wildes ends up on the 
Good Guy list, with robo calls from Bill and Hillary's blessing.

Walton is the ultimate puppet, the ultimate Yes man, but you already 
got that message. Thanks for telling it like it is.

* * * *

Mike,

Great piece on

Bergen

county major criminal Joe Ferriero( and his cronies Oury,Ortiz,

Bern

,Kaufman etc). Your piece on Walton, a paid tool of Ferriero, is important for voters to know about. The BCDO and the Democrats on it are bought lock stock and barrel as you pointed out. This past election the democratic freeholders were elected by a slim margin. If you continue to attack ferriero and walton maybe the republicans can win a few seats.( I choke as I wish for Republicans to win) . The party of Steve Lonergan is an anathema to me with their racist anti-immigrant stance.

* * * * *

Do

Bergen

County

's Democrats get the concept? Some of us, more then a few years ago at least, yet still an uphill climb.  Thanks (yet again) for helping with such columns.  Please keep it coming! Never forget that in politics, time wounds all heals.

"Got A Minute?" Hooray for the Giants !!!!

On this frigid January, the young Giants team brings us the warmth of inspiration.  Who could figure back in November that this team would make it to the Super Bowl?  But the Giants did just that.  Good for them.  We often look wrongly to sports for inspiration?  (Since when is a baseball pitcher or a quarterback a "hero?")  But this Giants team is truly an inspiration -- not just as athletes but as people who overcame obstacles and even harsh criticism from a former team mate.  For my one-minute audio commentary, click here:  Download GotAMinute012108.mp3

"Got A Minute?" audio column: It's time for Bergen's Democrats to stand up to bossism

Bergen's Democrats are facing a choice -- and it's not about candidates for the open freeholder's seat.  The real choice is whether the Democrats want to behave democratically and stand up to their party boss, Joe Ferriero.  Ferriero recently announced that he has hand-picked the party's choice to fill the open freeholder's seat.  Why is he picking?  Shouldn't the party hold a primary and select a candidate?  You can read my column today about this, then listen to a one-minute audio commentary by clicking here:  Download GotAMinute012008.mp3