Cornerstone retreats at Ridgewood church help attendees ‘strengthen faith’
Monday January 21, 2013, 11:15 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Ridgewood resident Frank Del Vecchio got word of his brother’s death from emphysema while attending the overnight Men’s Cornerstone retreat at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church last year. He left the retreat, helped his family settle some things, then came back to the church in the middle of the night.
The retreat, he said, “was a good place to be at that time.”
“Sometimes you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders,” said Del Vecchio, this year’s lay director of the men’s annual retreat, which will be held in the church from 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 25 through 9 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26. “The retreat offers a number of things. The central theme of the retreat is perspective, clarity and understanding your faith.”
Registration is still open to anyone age 18 and up for both the Men’s and Women’s Cornerstone retreat. The women’s retreat is being held from Feb. 8 to 9. The retreats, which tend to attract up to 50 participants each year, are planned for several months, and have grown in participation over the past decade, attendees said.
Several participants said the decision to sign up was one of the best choices they ever made.
Both Men’s and Women’s Cornerstone, a name referencing Scripture calling Jesus the “cornerstone” of the church, help people reflect on their faith, said Linda English, pastoral associate for Faith Formation and Women’s Cornerstone organizer.
“I think it’s one of the most effective ways of helping people who seek more in their life or are seeking God to help them,” she said.
Rep. Scott Garrett Supports No Budget No Pay Bill
Jan 23, 2013 Issues: Budget
WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), senior Member of the House Budget Committee and Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, issued the following statement regarding H.R. 325, a bill to ensure the complete and timely payment of the obligations of the United States Government:
“Today, I joined my colleagues in the House to pass H.R. 325, commonly referred to as the ‘No Budget No Pay’ bill. This bill is just the first step, of many, that must be taken in the coming months to put our country on a path to prosperity. I welcome our House Leadership’s—Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor, and Chairman Ryan—commitment to the next steps: advance a 2014 budget that will balance within 10 years, stand firm on automatic spending cuts unless we get comparable spending cuts and reforms to replace them, and seek dollar-for-dollar spending cuts in the next round of debt ceiling talks in May.
“Hardworking American families and small businesses have to budget, yet Senate Democrats have failed to pass a budget—the most basic responsibility of governing—for almost four years. Today’s bill will require the House and Senate each to pass a budget, and Member pay will be withheld if they fail.”
Our country is being attacked by our own citizens
Jan 21 ,2013
Ron DuBois
It is of great importance to watch this. It took place in a relatively small part of the country, and was successful. But to protect and defend our Constitution, if illegal and corrupt offices of our Government go much farther than they already have, in compromising our liberty and freedom, it may require a similar effort on a nation-wide scale, to restore what our Founding Fathers warned that tyrants would attempt to usurp. Before creating our Constitution, the Founders had spent many years studying every form of Government known to man. They learned the strengths and weaknesses of empires that rose and fell, and why.They gave us a new form of Government, a Constitutional Republic, that was unlike any other. Instead of the Government being all-powerful, and ruling the people, they recognized that the people, every one of us, are born with unalienable rights. They recognized, and declared, that these rights were bestowed upon us at birth, by God, and therefore could never be taken away – especially by any Government. Therefore, the power of our Constitutional Government was mostly retained by the people, and the individual States, with the only powers ceded to Government being few and specifically defined.
The Founders also pointed out that a Constitutional Republic, as per John Adams, “was only meant for a moral and religious people. It is totally inadequate for any other.” The flaws were also pointed out by Alexis de Toqueville, who wrote, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” , and James Madison, who wrote, “We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
Today, after about 100 years of pecking away at the foundations of our Republic, the tyrants who would replace the concept of Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with a totalitarian state, are close to achieving their goal. They have used their principles of Socialism, Marxism and Communism, to destroy religion in this country and in our schools, to destroy the family unit that was the core of our society, breach the ethics and morality that this country was built on, through the denegration of the Judeo-Christian principles embodied in the Bible and the Ten Comandments, and indeed have bribed the public with the public’s money – to the point where, as the Congress bribes so many people with other people’s money, the economy and citizens can no longer afford to pay the debts incurred. This is intentional, as the tyrants know that to bankrupt the country will force the people to give up their freedoms in exchange for the government’s help. The Goverment, aided by a Supreme Court acting in an unconstitutional manner, has further damaged the protections of the Constitution by falsely declaring it a “living document” to be changed when they think it no longer suits their purpose; they call it outdated and meaningless. George Washington foresaw this scheme of tyranny, writing,”Toward the preservation of your government…it is requisite…that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles.”
Our country is being attacked by our own citizens – those in Government, from the Congress to the White House, to the Socialist Professors who control our schools and universities, to the Socialist-controlled Mainstream Media that censors reports of corruption in our Government and slants Left-Wing propaganda to deceive the populace, to the Unions that contribute money and manpower in prodigous amounts, so they can influence the lawmakers to legislate in favor of their corrupt control of the labor force, and the Banking Industry that influences Congress with contributions so they receive permission to legally rob the citizens blind.
Wake up, citizens, and educate yourselves. You have already lost much of your freedom and don’t even know it. Most of the Media feed you lies; the only place to find the truth is on the internet, where so many individuals and groups make extreme efforts to bring the truth out into the open. The most important thing I can say to you is: Do not believe me. Challenge me. Find out the truth for yourself – google topics. I can only sound the alarm, give you fair warning; I cannot make you see. You must open your eyes and do that yourselves.
Streets Versus Dreams
by Craig Vincent Mitchell, PhD
I was thinking about postinga new articlebut then I remembered thispiece that I wrote. This article was originally published in a newsletter for the Ruth Institute a few years ago,but the content is still on target. Under President Obama, black unemployment is higher than it has been in over forty years.Because his inaugurataion followed so closely to Dr King’s birthday, I wanted a little separation between the two events.
Over the last few years, as I have travelled the country, I could not help but notice that many large cities have a street named in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Unfortunately, I also noticed that these streets are often in the worst part of those cities. As such, King’s memory receives a dubious honor, at best. But perhaps some honor is better than none at all.
In like manner, King’s dream is only partially fulfilled. To be sure, black people have equal rights. Unfortunately, we do not have an equal chance at success. Was this the design of conservative white men? Not at all, in fact, this situation was put into place by liberal men of all stripes. More specifically, men who subscribed to socialism. When president Lyndon Baines Johnson began his Great Society program, he consigned many black people to familial breakdown, immorality and poverty. Granted, this was not his intent, but socialism did to black people what it does to everyone. It rewards vice instead of virtue by financially encouraging irresponsibility, and self destructive behavior.
Rather than strengthening the family, it encouraged women to have children out of wedlock, and for the men not to be fathers to these children. Rather than empowering black people to succeed, the Great Society made us dependent on the state. The government provided housing, a modicum of food, and other bare necessities. Should the mother begin work to have a better life, the government would stop all support to make their situation even worse. Thus, for almost four decades, black people were trapped in a system that was the opposite of King’s dream. In all fairness, many more white people were locked onto this system as well. As black people only comprise 10% of the population of the U.S. more of us were adversely affected.
The result of socialism is that black people have a higher rate of out of wedlock births. We also have a higher divorce rate, a higher poverty rate, and a far greater tendency to be a victim of crime. Boys without fathers are far more likely to be involved in crime. Girls without fathers are far more likely to experiment with sex and have children at an early age. Children without fathers are more likely to be high school dropouts, experiment with drugs and alcohol. Socialism distorted and destroyed many black families. With socialism, the state becomes a cruel god, or perhaps more accurately, a devil. This devil will grant some desires, but at an outrageous price.
Thomas Sowell reports, that in spite of racism, the black community before the Great Society was experiencing great economic growth.[i] The family is the building block of any community. Strong communities are based on strong families. After the Great Society, the black community is a mess. It may not be experiencing King’s dream, but it at least has a street named after him. Somehow, I think King would prefer to see his dream fulfilled.
In the 1990s, president Bill Clinton, with the help of a number of republicans, greatly reduced the scope of the Great Society. He was aware of its deleterious effects and took action to make changes. Many democrats are committed to socialism and fought Clinton’s changes tooth and nail. Many so- called black leaders (I did not vote for them) urged them on, in spite of socialism’s immoral, anti-family agenda from Hell. These men are quick to invoke King’s name, but somehow they have either forgotten or ignored his dream. Instead of King’s dream, they offer a nightmare that keeps the black family and the black community in a state of distress.
In many ways, I am an example of the success that King hoped for black people. There are many other examples to point at, and there are more all of the time. The free market results in a rising tide that lifts all boats. Nonetheless, there are many more black people who are victims of the socialist system, who can’t get out. They believe that these socialist politicians care about them, when in actuality, these politicians are using them to stay in power and maintain the status quo.
It is not an accident, that Martin Luther King Jr. was a family man and a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was empowered by the theological virtue of love (latin- caritas) The love of God and the love of man for God’s sake. This love moved him to do great things. This love cost him his life. This is not to say that King was perfect. History teaches us that the best of men are men at best. King’s dream, is goal that all should strive for. His dream of a land of equal opportunity for all should extend far beyond the streets that are named after him.
[i] Thomas Sowell, Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? (New York: Quill, ‘1984), 82-85.
Gallery in Ridgewood features watercolors and oils
Friday, January 25, 2013
BY EILEEN LA FORGIA
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Nanette Michelmore and Julie Fornaci are the featured artists at the Valley Hospital Gallery this month. Both artists found a home at the Ridgewood Art Institute where Fornaci takes classes in oil painting with John Osborne and Michelmore studies watercolor with Joel Popadics.
“I love to travel and capture the feeling of a place – the lighting, people, architecture and surrounding nature,” Fornaci said. Whenever possible she brings her oils to paint in plein air and then she takes a lot of photos to use as reference when she comes back to her studio.
“A few of my paintings like “Women Bathers,” “Ladies of Seville,” and “Genoan Fisherman” have been composed from various sources – I use a combination of antique photos and my own reference material,” she said. “Laundry Day” was painted on a trip to Provence where she found amazing lighting. Last September, she traveled to Santa Fe for a workshop.
Robert Menendez: Media Suppression of a Senate Sex Scandal
Tommy De Seno
Maybe you’ve heard of the allegations leveled against New Jersey’s U.S. Senator, Robert Menendez, but if you haven’t, it’s not for your lack of reading the news.
My friend Art Gallagher, who runs the incomparable blog for New Jersey News –MoreMonmouthMusings – has done a wonderful job of covering the story the mainstream media has not.
What is most fascinating is that the links in Art’s latest work actually send you to media outlets reporting on their own refusal to cover the story. Fascinating!
As you can tell from Art’s column, this story has a video of the prostitute who says she was hired and the Middlesex County Republican Chair has written to the Senate Ethics Committee with flight records of Menendez’ unexplained trips to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, the former being where the prostitute in the video claims Menendez stiffed her out of $400, agreeing to pay $500 but leaving only $100 on the nightstand.
The Daily Caller has done some work on the story and FoxNews.Com has a piece up today about whether the FBI is investigating, but since Art Gallagher has done the best job of rounding up the stories I’ve gained his permission to reprint his latest piece on the matter here at Ricochet.
While small “Gun Control” rally in DC garners national media attention , 1/2 a million protesters at the “March of Life’ days earlier get ignored
January 26,2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, while the media focus on the ‘gun control march” i Washing ton , they managed to over look a far larger pro life march . The obvious bias became a point of ridicule on social media and social media picked up the slack .
The march for life saw by some estimates over 500,000 people in the freezing cold show up in Washington , while by most estimates the gun control rally had a meager 3200 demonstrators.
No matter which side of any issue you are on ,the issue here is the media being anything more than just a mouth piece for the administration.
A free society needs a functioning free press .
On twitter especially, the bogus mainstream media coverage got endless retorts .
Christine Rousselle @crousselle “Gun control advocates march on capital” is the main headline on CNN. Did they miss the 500k ppl IN THE SNOW yest at the March for Life?
Nick Hall @nickhall69 3200 march for gun control..on the news, 500,000 march for life yet not a peep on the news #enoughsaid
Matthew @mconn16I see tons of coverage of the gun control march in D.C. which is fine. But where was the coverage of the March for Life which drew 500,000!
Jay Caruso @jaycaruso MSNBC barely gave any coverage to the March For Life, but a small gun control march? FRONT PAGE BABY. https://twitpic.com/byhzop
Ed Stetzer ✔ @edstetzer Fascinating to see the difference btwn the national news coverage of D.C. pro-life march and the D.C. gun control march.
Reader says Mayor and Council should talk directly to the Village Workers
The union’s are not the problem. the problem is the mayor and council don’t talk to the worker’s who do the day to day work. the problem is the top manager’s are bull shit’in you about a lot of things that are going on in town.
If the mayor and council care about this town like they say they do then they will have a meeting with the work force only. NO MANAGER’S . you need to hear the truth. no bull shit story’s. the top brass all they care about is what they are going to get if they cut worker’s. set up a meeting and the worker’s will show. all I can say is if the council has a meeting some people will be pooping right out side the hall way. I know i talk to the worker’s all the time when they pass my home. do it Mr. Mayor.
Credit card surcharge: New 4% credit card fee for customers in January 2013
Most customers are surprised to find out that there is a new 4% credit card surcharge when they pay with a credit card; online and in stores. Merchants are now legally allowed to charge customers up to an extra 4% for using their credit cards according to a Time Jan. 25, 2013, report.
“Starting on Sunday, retailers will be allowed to tack a surcharge of up to 4% extra onto your tab if you want to pay with a credit card.”
For years, most credit card issuers have been charging merchants “so-called interchange fees” which earned credit card companies a lot of money.
Gallup: American Optimism Hits Lowest Point Since Carter Administration
January 22, 2013 12:09 PM
WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Fewer than four-in-10 Americans (39 percent) rate the US in a positive manner – the most negative feedback the country has produced since 1979.
A new Gallup poll finds that Americans are as negative about the country’s prospects as they have been in more than three decades. Americans are more upbeat in their predictions of where the U.S. will be in five years (48 percent positive), but this is the lowest rating since an August 1979 Gallup poll was conducted.
fmr Gov. Jon Corzine on Monday after he signed into law the state’s economic stimulus bill
Will Your College Go Out of Business Before You Graduate ?
Jan 26th 2013 1:41PM
Mark Cuban
I’ve been getting a lot of questions from High School kids asking whether or not they should go to college. The answer is yes.
College is where you find out about yourself. Its where you learn how to learn. Its where you get exposure to new ideas. For those of us who are into business you learn the languages of business, accounting, finance, marketing and sales in college.
The question is not whether or not you should go to school, the question for the class of 2014 is what is your college plan and what is the likelihood that your college or university you attend will still be in business by the time you want to graduate.
Still in business ? Yep. When I look at the university and college systems around the country I see the newspaper industry.
The newspaper industry was once deemed indestructable. Then this thing called the internet came along and took away their classified business. The problem wasn’t really that their classifieds disappeared. It was more that they had accumulated a ton of debt and had over invested in physcial plant and assets that could not adapt to the new digital world.
When revenue fell the debt was still there, as were all the big buildings they had purchased, all those presses they had bought and the acquisitions they had made declined in value, but the debt accumulated to pay for them never went away.
They were stuck with no easy way out.
The exact same thing is happening to our 4 year schools. You can’t go to a big state university and not see construction. Why ?
Reader says Bigger Class sizes would say more than ditching the paid Fire department
Read your tax bill carefully. The ‘municipal’ portion of the taxes (fire, police, streets, sanitation) isn’t the reason your taxes go sky high. Its the schools portion (75%). Having paid firefighters who respond immediately upon receiving the call is the reason your homeowner’s insurance rates are cheaper than towns where you have to wait for a volunteer to drive to the station, grab the engine THEN respond to the fire.
Ridgewood could never fully staff a fire dept with volunteers. They can’t even do that with the ambulance. Want to save money on taxes? Pay attention to the schools portion, with generous salaries and benefits. Maybe increase class size to 30 kids and you’ll save a bundle. When I attended the schools here in the 1970′s we did just fine with large classes.
If there was any debate whether the Fed’s policies have helped the economy or just the market (and specifically the Bernanke-targeted Russell 2000), the following two charts will end any and all debate. As the following chart from the St Louis Fed shows, as of the just completed quarter, US GDP “growth” since the “recovery” is now the worst in US history, having just dipped below the heretofore lowest on record.
But fear not: it is only the worst recovery ever for anyone unlucky enough to still rely on such Old Normal concepts as the “economy” to feed, clothe and provide shelter for themselves.
For those lucky 1% of the US population whose entire wealth is in financial assets (and who once again managed to avoid a tax hike on carried interest or any actual financial assets), times have almost never been so good.
The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide.
The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago “a line was crossed.”
The message read in part:
Citizens of the world, Anonymous has observed for some time now the trajectory of justice in the United States with growing concern. We have marked the departure of this system from the noble ideals in which it was born and enshrined. We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the “discretion” or prosecutors. We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain.”
The hackers say they’ve infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public.
Middletown Township Public Library creates Job Help Center for Local Job seekers
By Alyssa Rosen, Middletown Township Public Library
When I first started working as a librarian for the Middletown Township Public Library in Monmouth County, New Jersey in August 2010, I received what I considered to be an odd assignment—to revamp the library programs that help people find jobs. As someone who worked at libraries since I was 14, it hadn’t occurred even to me that libraries could help job seekers. I sat at my desk for the first few weeks of my new job staring at the computer screen, trying to figure out what kind of events and programs we could offer that could possibly help someone find a job.
Then, I discovered a list of email addresses another librarian put together, of people interested in job information. I sent out an email (BCC, of course, to protect the privacy of the recipients), asking people what they wanted to learn about. They answered that they wanted tips on resume writing, interviewing, and classes teaching computer skills. We had the benefit of a 15 station computer lab, so I began working with the other librarians to expand our schedule of computer classes. I brought in speakers to talk about how the process of interviewing had changed since ten, or even, five years ago. I taught classes on how to research jobs online, and helped guide people through résumé revision using well-regarded books and websites. Everything was free and open to the public.
The library’s foundation was generous enough to provide me with a budget– so I was able to pay speakers, and do extras like set out some coffee and cake to life the spirits of the job seekers who attended events. At every event, I passed around a legal pad, and asked if the attendees wanted to join a jobs email list. Then, I sent out emails every week or so about upcoming events at the library, local job fairs, etc., that might be helpful. In 2011, the Job Help Center, as we now called ourselves, received a grant from the New Jersey Library Association. We began to reach out to help local entrepreneurs, and provide financial literacy classes. By the spring of 2012, the Job Help Center was off the ground: we had over 200 people on the e-mail list, and some well-celebrated job “landings,” by Job Help Center participants, who seemed to have formed a virtual community.
NHN
Career Transition
Support & Networking
Thursday nights
Ridgewood Library
7:00 – 9:00 PM
Library Art Studio
Required
Call John Fugazzie
at 201-262-0103
