JUNE 10, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015, 11:45 AM
BY AIMEE LA FOUNTAIN
CORRESPONDENT |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
A new subset of the Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce called the Brown Bag Lunch Bunch (BBLB) has formed for women business owners.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” said Ridgewood Chamber Executive Director Joan Groome of the group, which started in 2013.
The idea came about when some chamber members wanted to meet during the day because they were unavailable during regular early morning or evening hours for meetings.
“I thought, ‘This is perfect for a women’s group’ and that’s how it started,” Groome said.
Meetings take place at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Tuesdays.
The purpose of BBLB is to give Ridgewood small business owners a chance to network.
“It’s women helping women in business,” Groome said. “It’s a very dynamic group.”
Lena Antaramian, owner of Live Laugh Love Photography, specializing in children and family photos, has attended meetings for two years.
“Everyone’s energized and it’s great to see women achieving their objectives, making their dreams come true and building their businesses,” she said.
Groome estimated that about half of the members are new or experienced business owners and the rest work for various companies. They have backgrounds in many areas including healthcare, IT, financial advisement and marketing.
During meetings, the women give suggestions, help with referrals, plan events and offer encouragement.
“It’s about real situations and real concerns,” Groome said.
JUNE 11, 2015 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY KEN SWEET
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS |
WIRE SERVICE
NEW YORK — U.S. banks, tired of spending billions each year to pay back fleeced consumers, are in the process of replacing tens of millions of old magnetic strip credit and debit cards with new cards that are equipped with
computer chips that store account data more securely.
By autumn, millions of Americans will have made the switch from the old magnetic strip cards. That 50-year-old technology, replaced in most of world, lingers on the back of U.S. cards and is easily copied by thieves, leaving people vulnerable to fraud. Roughly half of all credit card fraud happens in the U.S., even though the country makes up roughly 25 percent of all credit card transactions, according to a report by Barclays put out last week.
About half of all U.S. credit and debit cards will be replaced by the end of the year. Tens of thousands of individual merchants need to upgrade their equipment to allow for “chip-and-sign” transactions instead of “swipe-and-sign” ones. If the stores aren’t ready, they could be on the hook to cover the cost of fraud.
How the new cards work and how the switch could affect consumers:
JUNE 10, 2015, 11:48 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2015, 12:22 AM
BY VIRGINIA ROHAN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Bingeing can be bad for your heart, may be a sign of depression, and could leave you with blurred memories of the whole experience. That’s what some experts have been saying recently, and they’re not talking about food or drink — they’re talking about the gluttonous consumption of a television series.
Has a binge-watching backlash begun?
“MAD MEN”
Lately a few big-name television producers, including Jenji Kohan — whose heavily-binged-on Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” unveils its entire 13-episode third season on Friday — have expressed misgivings about the approach that allows for this viewing trend: the launching of all the episodes of a series’ season at once rather than in the traditional “linear” fashion, week by week.
“I miss having people on the same page. I do miss being able to go online and have the conversation the day after,” Kohan said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner expressed a similar view during a teleconference before his series’ finale, saying that if he ever created a series for Netflix, he would ask that the streaming service roll out episodes over time “so at least there was just some shared experience.”
According to Oxford Dictionaries, the term “binge-watching” — watching multiple episodes of a TV series in a short span of time — broke into the mainstream about two years ago. (“Binge-watch” was a contender for Oxford’s Word of the Year in 2013, but lost to “selfie.”)
Borough of Ho-Ho-Kus OEM NJ Advisory: The bear cub has been sighted again in the area of Arbor Dr. Please use caution with children and small pets when outside.
file photo
JUNE 10, 2015, 8:46 AM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015, 3:33 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS AND STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
HO-HO-KUS — A black bear cub was spotted in the borough on Wednesday morning but appeared to pose no threat to the public, police said.
Lt. Christopher Minchin, the officer in charge of the Ho-Ho-Kus Police Department, said the cub “exhibited normal behavior” and eventually moved on, heading south.
The cub was initially spotted on Sheridan Avenue around 7 a.m., close to the Waldwick line, Minchin said.
Police decided against intervening, but then the cub headed toward the Ho-Ho-Kus Public School on Lloyd Road. That’s when officers approached the cub, Minchin said, working together to direct the animal out of the borough.
JUNE 10, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015, 10:21 AM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Students were asked to put themselves in unfamiliar shoes as they attempted to help fictional Ridgewood High School (RHS) peers in coping with their issues at the school’s 2015 leadership summit.
After tackling the issue of social media last year, the group of ninth, 10th and 11th grade students were assigned this year with the task of helping their peers with problems they face in everyday life.
Students were split into nine groups, each one receiving a faculty advisor, and given a fictional character with certain demographics, strengths and weaknesses. Each character had a problem to solve and the students had to find a way to help that person deal with his or her troubles.
Teachers and administrators in attendance included Sean McCullough, the district’s director of Fine and Applied Arts, social studies teacher Medha Kirtane, RHS Principal Thomas Gorman and Superintendent Daniel Fishbein.
The obstacles assigned to the characters included divorce, gender issues, social anxiety, insecurity, financial struggles and both learning and physical disabilities.
The exercise taught students to solve a problem through someone else’s eyes, a person who may be very different from them, since a true leader must be able to lead people of all backgrounds and abilities.
“Even if a problem doesn’t necessarily apply to you, you still have to be understanding and be able to cope with it, because that’s what really makes a good leader,” said RHS junior Tyler Porfido.
file photo by Boyd Loving
June 11th 2015
Boyd A. Loving
Ridgewood NJ, During Wednesday evening’s Village Council meeting (06/10/2015), Mayor Paul Aronsohn boasted that he and other members the current Council were personally responsible for enhancing the public comment segment(s) of Village Council meetings by increasing the amount of speaking time allotted from 3 minutes to 5 minutes per individual speaker.
In reality, the 5 minute time limit per individual speaker was established by Ordinance 2442, which was adopted on January 11, 1994. Neither Mr. Aronsohn, nor any other current Village Council member, served on the Council at that time.
On July 11, 2014, a resident became aware that the then in place 3 minute time limit per individual speaker was not consistent with what was established by Ordinance 2442 (a 5 minute time limit), and made Village Clerk Heather Mailander aware of the discrepancy.
Subsequent to receipt of this resident’s advisory, Ms. Mailander notified Mr. Aronsohn and other Council members of the issue and the time limit was adjusted to be consistent with the aforementioned ordinance.
I do so wish that Mr. Aronsohn would stop stretching the truth to bolster his political career.
Fortunately, some of us have been around long enough to remember things as they actually happened as opposed to the “world according to Paul Aronsohn.”
New Bill would extend teen helmet laws to ice skates, scooters
June 11, 2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, If politicians have their way changes in the state’s helmet laws for teens could be coming soon to New Jersey.
Ice skaters and scooter riders 17 or younger would join cyclist and be required for the first time to wear helmets under legislation being considered in the state Senate. The bill also increases the helmet requirement age for riding a bike, roller skates and skateboards from 16 to 17.
The Senate Law and Public Safety Committee is considering the legislation Thursday. Under current law parents or guardians of a minor who fails to wear a helmet when biking, roller skating or skateboarding face a $25 fine for the first offense. This legislation expands that provision to parents of ice skaters or scooter riders.
If the matter was rejected by NJ’s Supreme Court, it’s highly unlikely that The Federal Supreme Court would go the other way. The SCOTUS tends to lean slightly more to the right than their NJ colleagues. There’s also massive nationwide ramifications for the SCOTUS to consider here, as this same issue applies throughout the country. Many States and local Governments are operating at near bankruptcy. The fat lady is doing voice scales in her dressing room.
Yep, we need some real longer-term, structural change in NJ govt spending. A few ideas being thrown around include open bidding NJ state road & infrastructure projects to private sector firms to cut out union & Mafioso graft, increased pension contributions and health insurance premiums paid by state & municipal employees and retirees for health. Asking state & municipal workers to roll back many of the pension enhancements they’ve been given since the 1990s under Florio and Whitman, i.e. maximum pensionable income should be capped like California at $110K, with pensions at 50% of that, ie $55K, in-line with current PFRS avg $57K. New employees should be moved to 401(k) style defined contribution plans, not defined benefit anymore so that politicians can no longer interfere in pension funding issues and raid the funds for Union pet projects like Xanadu, and bye-bye to accumulated leave payouts upon retirement at up to six months of avg final comp rate – “use it or lose it”. Taxes are probably going up too if all of these concessions are made, the sooner the better.
Read the NJ Supreme Court’s full pen/ben decision here
In a long-awaited decision today that comes as a boon to Gov. Chris Christie and a blow public sector unions, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the Republican’s administration does not have to make a slated contribution to a beleaguered pension and benefit system, striking down an earlier lower court decision that ruled the opposite.
In the 115 page document, Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote on behalf of the majority that the court cannot be a mediator of fiscal troubles “in place of the political branches.” (Brush/PolitickerNJ)
New Jersey’s Top Court Rules Christie Can Skip Pension Payments
New Jersey’s highest court ruledon Tuesday that Gov. Chris Christie could skip the pension payments he promised to make in the signature law of his tenure, averting a huge fiscal crisis just weeks before the state closes its books for the year. (Zernike/The New York Times)
In economics, experiments are rare. There is seldom a control group. But sometimes crude experiments can be done. Both the passenger and freight rail system in the US were nationalized after “common carrier” price neutrality regulation bankrupted the industries. But then freight rail was privatized, while passenger rail was kept public. Now, the US has the world’s BEST freight and WORST passenger rail.
Freight rail’s renaissance is powering the U.S. economy even without Uncle Sam’s help
By Michael Grunwald @MikeGrunwaldJuly 09, 2012
Congress is gridlocked over infrastructure. On one side, Democrats want to invest in America. On the other side, Republicans want to tighten government’s belt. But there’s one more side to this story. U.S. freight railroads will get $23 billion worth of upgrades this year, and taxpayers won’t pick up the tab. That’s because the railroads build, maintain and improve their own infrastructure and even pay property taxes on their tracks. Also, freight trains are about three times as fuel-efficient as long-haul trucks, which means they help cut smog and reduce the U.S.’s carbon emissions and oil dependence. And forget those accident-prone trains your kids watch on Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. In reality, shifting freight from roads to rails sharply reduces crashes and congestion.
We don’t think much about freight trains except when they make us wait at intersections or blow their horns while chugging through our towns. The industry evokes images of ruthless Gilded Age monopolies and hapless 1970s bankruptcies. But railroads are one of my favorite special interests–not because they’re less greedy or aggressive than other Washington lobbies but because what’s good for them really does tend to be good for us.
It’s not just that they are self-sufficient and fuel-efficient, employ 175,000 workers and have poured $500 billion into their trains, tracks and terminals since 1980. They are also quite literally the engines of our economy. America’s passenger rail is a global joke, but our freight rail is the envy of the world, carrying over 40% of our intercity cargo. Trains carry much less of Europe’s freight, which is why trucks clog Europe’s highways. And America’s rail-shipping rates are the world’s lowest, reducing the cost of doing business in the U.S.; they’ve fallen 45% in real dollars since the industry was deregulated three decades ago.
The right should love railroads because they’re proof that deregulation can work and the private sector can upgrade infrastructure. The left should love railroads because they fight global warming and provide union jobs. We all should love railroads because they bring us our stuff and keep prices down.
Your constant harping on “work ethic” is growing tiresome. Just because someone’s poor doesn’t mean they’re lazy. The unemployed want to work! And many of those who can’t find work today, didn’t have the benefit of growing up with parents like yours. How can you expect someone with no role model to qualify for one of your scholarships or sign your silly “Sweat Pledge?” Rather than accusing people of not having a work-ethic, why not drop the and help them develop one?
Craig P.
Hi Craig, and Happy Sunday!
I’m afraid you’ve overestimated the reach of my foundation, as well as my ability to motivate people I’ve never met. For the record, I don’t believe all poor people are lazy, any more than I believe all rich people are greedy. But I can understand why so many do.
Everyday on the news, liberal pundits and politicians portray the wealthy as greedy, while conservative pundits and politicians portray the poor as lazy. Democrats have become so good at denouncing greed, Republicans now defend it. And Republicans are so good at condemning laziness, Democrats are now denying it even exists. It’s a never ending dance that gets more contorted by the day.
A few weeks ago in Georgetown, President Obama accused Fox News of “perpetuating a false narrative” by consistently calling poor people “lazy.” Fox News denied the President’s accusation, claiming to have only criticized policies, not people. Unfortunately for Fox, The Daily Show has apparently gained access to the Internet, and after a ten-second google-search and a few minutes in the edit bay, John Stewart was on the air with a devastating montage of Fox personnel referring to the unemployed as “sponges,” “leeches,” “freeloaders,” and “mooches.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/05/14/daily-shows-jon-stewart-buries-fox-news-on-coverage-of-poverty-president-obama/
Over the next few days, the echo chamber got very noisy. The Left howled about the bias at Fox and condemned the one-percent, while the Right shrieked about the bias at MSNBC and bemoaned the growing entitlement state. But through all the howling and shrieking, no one said a word about the millions of jobs that American companies are struggling to fill right now. No one talked the fact that most of those jobs don’t require an expensive four-year degree. And no one mentioned the 1.2 trillion dollars of outstanding student loans, or the madness of lending money we don’t have to kids who can’t pay it back, educating them for jobs that no longer exist.
I started mikeroweWORKS to talk about these issues, and shine a light on a few million good jobs that no one seems excited about. But mostly, I wanted to remind people that real opportunity still exists for those individuals who are willing to work hard, learn a skill, and make a persuasive case for themselves. Sadly, you see my efforts as “right wing propaganda.” But why? Are our differences really political? Or is it something deeper? Something philosophical?
You wrote that, “people want to work.” In my travels, I’ve met a lot of hard-working individuals, and I’ve been singing their praises for the last 12 years. But I’ve seen nothing that would lead me to agree with your generalization. From what I’ve seen of the species, and what I know of myself, most people – given the choice – would prefer NOT to work. In fact, on Dirty Jobs, I saw Help Wanted signs in every state, even at the height of the recession. Is it possible you see the existence of so many unfilled jobs as a challenge to your basic understanding of what makes people tick?
Last week at a policy conference in Mackinac, I talked to several hiring managers from a few of the largest companies in Michigan. They all told me the same thing – the biggest under reported challenge in finding good help, (aside from the inability to “piss clean,”) is an overwhelming lack of “soft skills.” That’s a polite way of saying that many applicants don’t tuck their shirts in, or pull their pants up, or look you in the eye, or say things like “please” and “thank you.” This is not a Michigan problem – this is a national crisis. We’re churning out a generation of poorly educated people with no skill, no ambition, no guidance, and no realistic expectations of what it means to go to work.
These are the people you’re talking about Craig, and their number grows everyday. I understand you would like me to help them, but how? I’m not a mentor, and my foundation doesn’t do interventions. Do you really want me to stop rewarding individual work ethic, just because I don’t have the resources to assist those who don’t have any? If I’m unable to help everyone, do you really want me to help no one?
My goals are modest, and they’ll remain that way. I don’t focus on groups. I focus on individuals who are eager to do whatever it takes to get started. People willing to retool, retrain, and relocate. That doesn’t mean I have no empathy for those less motivated. It just means I’m more inclined to subsidize the cost of training for those who are. That shouldn’t be a partisan position, but if it is, I guess I’ll just have to live with it.
Mike
PS. The Sweat Pledge wasn’t supposed to be partisan either, but it’s probably annoyed as many people as its inspired. I still sell them for $12, and the money still goes to mikeroweWORKS. You can get one here, even if you’re not applying for a scholarship. https://profoundlydisconnected.com/foundation/poster/
PPS. If you’d like Craig, I’ll autograph one for you!
Here’s an interesting take on income inequality that bucks conventional wisdom.
While President Barack Obama claims that low-income Americans work just as hard as their wealthy counterparts, that simply isn’t true, says Stephen Moore, a distinguished visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
“Yes, many people in poor households heroically work very hard at low wages to take care of their families, no doubt about that,” he and Heritage Foundation research associate Joel Griffith write in The Washington Times.
Special: What the Bible Says About Investing (Shocking)
“Yet the average poor family doesn’t work nearly as much as the rich families do. And that’s a key reason why these households are poor.”
Census Bureau data show that for every hour worked by those in a low-income household, those in a wealthy household toil five hours.
“The idea that the rich are idle bondholders who play golf or go to the spa every day while the poor toil isn’t accurate,” Moore and Griffith explain.
“The finding that six out of 10 poor households have no one working at all is disturbing. Since they have no income from work, is it a surprise they are poor?”
Meanwhile, Americans are concerned about the growing inequality of income, but they don’t see the government as a solution for the most part, according to a new study by four esteemed professors for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.
With Tuesday’s big pension news breaking hard, Save Jerseyans, you may’ve missed the 100+ parents and activists whobesieged New Jersey Democrat Assemblywoman Mila Jasey’s Maplewood district office to protest A4351, legislation designed to impose a three-year moratorium on increases in charter school enrollments approved by the Commissioner of Education starting for the 2015-2016 academic year.
It wasn’t a Tea Party crowd:
Let’s narrow this discussion: the offending bill itself is pointless and, if I may be so bold, cruel on its face. Listen to the parents featured above and tell me I’m wrong… make my day! So the only real question worth our consideration is why a legislator would put up such a pointless piece of legislation, right? Given the clear and present failures of our K-12 education system?
Well, Asw. Jasey told NJ Advance Media that she doesn’t have an agenda; all she wants is a “a fair assessment of where we are and where we are going.” Whatever that means.
Mila Jasey
But you and I know the truth: she’s a bought-and-sold NJEA foot soldier.
And in a district (LD27) that is borderline competitive at least on paper, Jasey doesn’t want to risk losing their backing especially in a low-turnout cycle. Jasey’s district added Essex’s Millburn and the Morris County municipalities of Chatham, East Hanover, Florham Park, and Hanover in 2011 redistricting but it shed the Abbott District-designated City of Orange; voucher support, perhaps unsurprisingly, is often strongest among those forced to attend our state’s crappiest failure factory public education institutions.
Selling out kids is consequently as attractive as it is lucrative. Seductively so. The single largest donor of Jasey’s career is – you guessed it – the NJEA at $31,600. Her next closest contributor trails at $9,200. We’re not even touching the Super PAC spending in this post.
Maplewood protest about Assembly bill underscores ongoing N.J. education policy struggle over charter schools
MAPLEWOOD – More than 100 people protested in front of the Maplewood office of state Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-27) on Tuesday morning, decrying her support of a proposed bill that they believe hurts the future of charter schools, a critical issue echoed in next-door Newark, across New Jersey and around the nation. (Bonamo/PolitickerNJ)
file photo by Boyd Loving , Ridgewood REORG with Senator Menendez
Roque indicted on fraud and bribery charges
Having won reelection last month, West New York Mayor Felix Roque now faces another challenge: indictment by the state.
According to prosecutors, Roque, a medical doctor, is accused of referring patients to the medical imaging company Diagnostic Imaging Affiliates in exchange for cash bribes and election campaign contributions. (Pizarro/PolitickerNJ)
Former Bogota mayor and longtime conservative candidate Steve Lonegan has found a home leading the New Jersey campaign of Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s burgeoning presidential bid.
According to an announcement by the Republican today, Lonegan has been named the New Jersey State Chair of Cruz’s presidential campaign, launched four months ago amid much fanfare. In a press release, the Tea Party standard bearer called Lonegan a “tireless advocate for taxpayers,” and praised his work as a conservative activist in the state. (Brush/PolitickerNJ)
