We live in a time of Intemperate Tyrants — and the levels of expectation they set for those who elected them — leads us straight into the grave and never above the Heavens. What have we done, as a country, and a nation, to deserve the leaderless examples of the bloodless Donald Trump and the vampiric Chris Christie?
It’s tax season! Beware the Ides of February! Yesterday, Janna and I were disappointed to learn someone filed a tax return in our name. We discovered this identity theft when we diligently filed our 2015 taxes online via TurboTax and quickly learned our returns had not only been rejected by the IRS, but also by the New York and New Jersey tax offices! I later learned if the Feds reject your return, the States, in turn, will automatically reject your return, too. That’s good there’s some sort of communal, emergency, trigger that is in place for this homegrown brand of unsophisticated, commonplace, thievery.
Continue reading → Beware the Ides of February: Your Identity Has Been Stolen!
It has always been a fascination when I read about pensions — especially forced pension payments from those who are made to pay as a requirement of their continued employment, with some paying over $800 a month into State “pension” coffers — and how those workers are demonized by the Far Right who believe public servants and private pensioners are somehow taking advantage of those who do not pay into a pension program. Pensions are not payoffs or welfare. Pensions are earned investment money entrusted to public or private equity.
There’s an Old Black Guy who stands outside the Journal Square Bus station in Jersey City station selling newspapers on the sidewalk every morning. He greets everyone who walks past him with a hearty, “Good morning, and how are you doin’ this fine day?” His voice is syrupy and friendly, but since he repeats that phrase to single person who passes by, the genuineness of the greeting quickly becomes lost in the rote citation.
One morning, an Old White Guy came up to the Old Black Guy and I overheard their conversation that I will share with you now.
The noises of summertime in Monmouth County, New Jersey start very early in my neighborhood, which has a population ranging from sleepless retirees to gleeful little kids. The ever-present drone of lawnmowers starts to crop up at around seven o’clock in the morning, with the occasional “thwack!” (and subsequent cursing) as an overexcited neighbor unintentionally mows rocks or old toys.
There’s a thin strip of land in the Jersey City Heights wedged between the street and the edge of the baseball field near the reservoir. A few times a year, a carnival, of sorts, will encamp in that one-block-long urban landscape, transforming the area into the saddest little carnival in the world — filled with emptiness and longing and no joy to be had anywhere for any ticket price. Even the Fire Ball circle roller coaster has no flame.
Mike Rice is the head coach — and Head Bully — of the Rutgers University basketball team. By the time you read this, Rice may be long gone, but his bloody head will not be the only one rolling down College Avenue. Athletic Director Tim Pernetti most certainly should lose his head as well — as should Pernetti’s school bosses, like the President Robert Barchi, who, it appears, refused, along with Pernetti, to fire Mike Rice in November 2012 even after watching video evidence of the coach physically and verbally abusing his undergraduate basketball team during practice. The Rutgers Board of Trustees must act now and clean the Rutgers house and fire Mike Rice, Tim Pernetti and President Robert Barchi — because they were all in collusion to not protect the welfare of the student athletes entrusted to their care.
Continue reading → Mike Rice is Head Bully of Rutgers Basketball
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