Category: Village of Ridgewood

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The Travel Center/American Express Travel Service Representative
Azamara & Celebrity Cruises

invite you to a cruise night at :

Blend Restaurant
17 Chestnut Street,
Ridgewood, NJ
November 18, 2009
6-8 PM

Tapas
Cocktails at Happy Hour Prices
Seating is limited – Reservations required
Call The Travel Center 201.447-3311
Special Event Pricing!

>

THIS FLIER IS CLASSIC AND I HOPE EVERYONE GETS A GOOD LAUGH OUT OF THIS ONE. YOU ONLY TURN 30 ONCE, SO WHY NOT ENJOY IT RIGHT! FREE ADMISSION FOR ANYONE THAT WANTS IT, JUST COME DOWN THIS THURSDAY NIGHT AND CELEBRATE MY 30TH.

LADIES I HAVE FREE CHAMPANGE FOR ANY GROUP OF 6-8 GIRLS THAT RSVP’S, A FREE BOTLLE OF YELLOW OR… PINK CHAMANGE. COMPLEMENTS OF ELITE AND UPSCALE PROMOTIONS.

$5 UV VODKA COCKTAILS ALL NEXT.
“TRY THE VIAGRA COCKTAIL ITS ADDICTIVE”

6-9PM DJ RICHIE RICARDO
HAPPY HOUR 1/2 PRICE OFF ALL YOUR FAVORTIE COCKTAILS.
MUSIC FROM THE 80’s-TODAY (House, Hip-Hop, Rock)

9-12AM DJ SHANT AND DJ RENOWN TEARING UP THE TURN TABLES. (House, Hip-Hop, Rock)

CLOSING OUT THE NIGHT DJ BRIAN EDWARDS PLAYING THE BEST OF THE BEST!Read More

>The Ridgewood blog would like Govenor Christie take a strong stance to assure the fairness of the electoral process and begin an investigation of the flood of absentee ballots received this past election . The state received a 180,000 absentee ballot requests and some 3,000 forms were submitted where signatures didn’t match the one on file with county clerks. New Jersey voters have a right to expect their votes are counted fairly without concerns that they the voters would not be disenfranchised.This would go a long way to assure the sanctity of the electoral process in the future.

the Staff of the Ridgewood blog

Recanvassing shows NY-23 race tightens even as Rep. Bill Owens is sworn into House seat

By Mark Weiner / The Post-Standard
November 12, 2009, 6:02AM

https://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/its_not_over_recanvassing_shows_ny23_race.html

Washington — Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.

As it turns out, neither was true.

But Hoffman’s concession — based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted — set off a chain of events that echoed all the way to Washington, D.C., and helped secure passage of a historic health care reform bill.

Democratic Rep. Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives. His support sealed his party’s narrow victory on the health care legislation.

Now a recanvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.

In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes — 12,748 to 11,000.

The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed, said John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections.

Under a new law in New York that extended deadlines, military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday (and postmarked by Nov. 2) will be counted. Standard absentee ballots had to be returned this past Monday.

Conklin said the state sent a letter to the House Clerk last week explaining that no winner had been determined in the 23rd District, and therefore the state had not certified the election. But the letter noted that Owens still led by about 3,000 votes, and that the special election was not contested — two factors that legally allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to swear in Owens on Friday.

“We sent a letter to the clerk laying out the totals,” Conklin said. “The key is that Hoffman conceded, which means the race is not contested. However, all ballots will be counted, and if the result changes, Owens will have to be removed.”

Before Owens was sworn in Friday, Rep. John Garamendi, a Democrat who won a special election in California, was sworn in Thursday. The two gave Pelosi the votes she needed to reach a majority of 218 and pass the historic health care reform legislation in the House.

The bill passed 220-215 late Saturday with the support of only one Republican. The Republican, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, said he voted for the legislation only after seeing that Democrats had the 218 votes needed for passage.

Now Hoffman, who campaigned against the health care reform bill, is carefully watching as the 23rd District race tightens and he is left to wonder if he conceded too soon.

“I don’t know if we would have conceded on election night,” Rob Ryan, Hoffman’s campaign spokesman, said Wednesday while discussing the latest results of the recanvassing. “I’m someone who doesn’t like to look back. But would we have taken longer to make a decision on election night? Probably, if we knew it was only 3,000 votes making the difference.”

Ryan, while acknowledging that Hoffman’s chances of pulling off a come-from-behind victory are still remote, said the campaign is looking at its legal options.

“We’re basically watching and waiting,” Ryan said. “We’ve been looking very closely at the recanvass. We’re going to see how this week shapes up, and then we’re going to determine what to do.”

Ryan said an important factor in the decision to concede was the unexpected — and erroneous — close vote in Oswego County, where polls had Hoffman with a double digit percentage point lead heading into Election Day.

“That’s the thing that threw us off,” Ryan said.

Oswego County elections officials blame the mistakes on “chaos” in their call-in center that included a phone system foul-up and inspectors who read numbers incorrectly when phoning in results. Of 245 races in the county — not including the congressional and court races — 84 had incorrect totals reported election night.

In the congressional race, more votes were cast in Oswego County than any other in the 11-county district.

The district’s second biggest voter turnout was in Jefferson County, where Hoffman also has benefited from a turnaround since election night, gaining about 700 votes. Owens led Hoffman by 300 votes on the final election night tally. But after recanvassing, Hoffman now leads by 424 votes, 10,884 to 10,460.

Jerry Eaton, the Republican elections commissioner for Jefferson County, said inspectors found a problem in four districts where Hoffman’s vote total was mistakenly entered as zero.

“Hoffman definitely gained votes where he didn’t have them,” Eaton said.

Jefferson County, home of Fort Drum and the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, distributed 2,299 absentee ballots for the special election. As of this week, 1,303 had been returned but not counted, Eaton said. He said the county will begin counting the absentee ballots earyl next week.

Conklin, of the state Board of Elections, said officials did not have updated absentee ballot totals from the other counties.

When asked about the tightening race, Owens spokesman Jon Boughtin released a statement without directly addressing the election. “Since being elected, Congressman Owens has remained focused on the issues at hand: working with local leaders to address the Champlain Bridge closure, meeting with commanders at Fort Drum and continuing the work to strengthen Upstate New York,” the statement said.

Ryan said the absentee ballots are likely to favor Hoffman because most were likely mailed before Republican Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign three days before the election.

“For Doug to win, we needed a three-way race,” Ryan said, adding that the campaign’s internal polls showed Hoffman would win with all three candidates.

“Given the majority of these ballots are from a three-way race, we think the ballots are going to break Doug’s way,” Ryan said.

Ryan declined to say what percentage of the absentee vote the campaign believes Hoffman would need to win the race. Nevertheless, Hoffman’s campaign is optimistic.

“When people look back at this race, it was a remote possibility that Doug Hoffman would be a contender,” Ryan said. “But miracles do happen.

Washington correspondent Mark Weiner can be reached at [email protected] or 571-970-3751

https://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/its_not_over_recanvassing_shows_ny23_race.html

>From the NEA website

https://www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm

Recommended Reading: Saul Alinsky, The American Organizer

Reveille for Radicals
by Saul Alinsky
Vintage; Reissue edition (October 23, 1989)
Buy It

Rules for Radicals
by Saul Alinsky
Vintage; Reissue edition (October 23, 1989)
Buy It

An inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!

Saul Alinsky wrote the book on American radicalism – two books, in fact: a 1945 best-seller, “Reveille for Radicals” and “Rules for Radicals” in 1971. The “Reveille” title page quotes Thomas Paine… “Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.”

Saul Alinsky, who was a labor and civil-rights activist from the 1910’s until he died in 1972, has written here a guidebook for those who are out to change things. He sets down what the goal is: a society where people are free to live, and also aren’t starving in the streets. A society where there is legal and economic justice. Then he sets out to say how to get there.

Alinsky spends a lot of time critiquing the idea that “The end does not justify the means.” What end? What means? He feels that there are circumstances where one can and should use means that in other circumstances would be unethical. I am not sure I agree, but Alinsky certainly speaks with the voice of experience.

Alinsky’s goal seems to be to encourage positive social change by equipping activists with a realistic view of the world, a kind of preemptive disillusionment. If a person already knows what evil the world is capable of, then perhaps the surprise factor can be eliminated, making the person a more effective activist. Alinsky further seems to be encouraging the budding activist not to worry to much about getting his or her hands dirty. It’s all a part of the job, he seems to say.

Alinsky, the master political agitator, tactical planner and social organizer didn’t mince words…

“Liberals in their meetings utter bold works; they strut, grimace belligerently, and then issue a weasel-worded statement ‘which has tremendous implications, if read between the lines.’ They sit calmly, dispassionately, studying the issue; judging both sides; they sit and still sit.

“The Radical does not sit frozen by cold objectivity. He sees injustice and strikes at it with hot passion. He is a man of decision and action. There is a saying that the Liberal is one who walks out of the room when the argument turns into a fight.

“Society has good reason to fear the Radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the Radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives.

“Radicals precipitate the social crisis by action – by using power. Liberals may then timidly follow along or else, as in most cases, be swept forward along the course set by Radicals, but all because of forces unloosed by Radical action. They are forced to positive action only in spite of their desires …

“The American Radical will fight privilege and power whether it be inherited or acquired by any small group, whether it be political or financial or organized creed.
“He curses a caste system which he recognizes despite all patriotic denials.
“He will fight conservatives whether they are business or labor leaders.
“He will fight any concentration of power hostile to a broad, popular democracy, whether he finds it in financial circles or in politics.
“The Radical recognizes that constant dissension and conflict is and has been the fire under the boiler of democracy. He firmly believes in that brave saying of a brave people, “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!”
“The Radical may resort to the sword but when he does he is not filled with hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people.
“That is the reason why Radicals, although frequently embarking upon revolutions, have rarely resorted to personal terrorism.”
Alinsky practiced what he preached. He said, “Tactics means doing what you can with what you have … tactics is the art of how to take and how to give.”

He uses eyes, ears and nose for examples…

Eyes
“If you have a vast organization, parade it before the enemy, openly show your power.”

Ears
“If your organization is small, do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more that it does.”

Nose
“If your organization is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place.”

Alinsky devised and proved thirteen tactical rules for use against opponents vastly superior in power and wealth.

1. “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. “Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. “Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.
4. “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
6. “A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. “Keep the pressure on.
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. “Major premise for tactics is development of operations that will maintain constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

“The real action is in the enemy’s reaction. The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength. Tactics, like life, require that you move with the action.”

Alinsky was hated and defamed by powerful enemies, proof that his tactics worked. His simple formula for success…

“Agitate + Aggravate + Educate + Organize”

https://www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm

>The “fat” in the school system lies in 1 place…at the top! We have a fat head, so to speak! I work in the school system and I have lived here for 17 years.

My particular school JUST got a new phone system. My 1st day on the job, I walked into a time warp- an antiquated phone that I shared with 4 other teachers and no voice mail. This was 4 years ago.

We (the people responsible for my school’s physical plant) do the best job with the monies available. No squandering.

Where the money flies out the window is with the high salaries of the administrators. Do we need as many? (a guidance counselor per grade? the last school I came from had 1, albeit a smaller student population) TWO crisis intervention specialists? Does a secretary at the ed. center really warrant a 6-figure salary? I make slightly more than 1/2 that and I am in the trenches every day, responsible for teaching my subject matter, dealing with students, etc WHILE doing my paperwork (grade-keeping, providing input for parent/teacher team conferences, input for the child study team, implementing my LEGAL responsibilities in the classroom for my students on 504 plans and IEPs. Does a secretary really provide that much more of a useful service?

We have many, many caring, capable and superb teachers and administrators. I think any fat trimming needs to come from the top. My humble 2 cents.

>Update:

the Ridgewood blog has been informed by several readers that on the Virgin Mobile’s website if you change or attempt to change your plan or account information you will automatically charged the full monthly change with out any prorating of charges and fees .Like most mobile phone companies customer service is almost impossible to get on the line and when you do there answer to everything is you changed your plan so you were charged for a new plan no refunds end of story. the Ridgewood blog would suggest that dumping Virgin Mobile is a better end of story.

let us know if you have been riped off by a business or government agency

[email protected]

>The Fly was somewhat surprised to receive a piece of campaign literature from BOE member Bob Hutton in her mailbox yesterday (April 28). Several other residents on The Fly’s street received the mailing yesterday also.

The BOE election was held on Tuesday, April 21. Mr. Hutton ran unopposed.

Does anyone have a clue as to why Bob’s flyer arrived a full week post-election, and why he bothered spending money on campaign literature if he had no opposition?

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1976: President Gerald Ford orders a nationwide vaccination program to prevent a swine-flu epidemic.

https://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/dayintech_0324

Ford was acting on the advice of medical experts, who believed they were dealing with a virus potentially as deadly as the one that caused the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic.

The virus surfaced in February at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis told his drill instructor that he felt tired and weak, although not sick enough to skip a training hike. Lewis was dead with 24 hours.

The autopsy revealed that Lewis had been killed by “swine flu,” an influenza virus originating in pigs. By then several other soldiers had been hospitalized with symptoms. Government doctors became alarmed when they discovered that at least 500 soldiers on the base were infected without becoming ill.

It recalled 1918, when infected soldiers returning from the trenches of World War I triggered a contagion that spread quickly around the world, killing at least 20 million people. Fearing another plague, the nation’s health officials urged Ford to authorize a mass inoculation program aimed at reaching every man, woman and child. He did, to the tune of $135 million ($500 million in today’s money).

Mass vaccinations started in October, but within weeks reports started coming in of people developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease, right after taking the shot. Within two months, 500 people were affected, and more than 30 died. Amid a rising uproar and growing public reluctance to risk the shot, federal officials abruptly canceled the program Dec. 16.

In the end, 40 million Americans were inoculated, and there was no epidemic. A later, more technically advanced examination of the virus revealed that it was nowhere near as deadly as the 1918 influenza virus. The only recorded fatality from swine flu itself was the unfortunate Pvt. Lewis.

History’s verdict of the program is mixed. Critics assail Ford, accusing him of grandstanding during an election year — it did him no good, because he lost anyway — while kowtowing to the pharmaceutical companies. Supporters laud the ability of the nation’s health bureaucracy to mobilize so effectively.

Those who remembered 1918 probably consider it money well spent.
https://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/dayintech_0324

>Under a plan discussed during their April 22nd Work Session, Village Council members may soon introduce an ordinance that would increase metered parking rates from 25 cents to 50 cents per hour.

Coincident with the proposed rate increase, the time period during which metered rates are in effect would change to 10AM – 6PM Monday through Saturday (excluding train station parking lot meters). Currently, metered rates are in effect from 9AM – 8PM Monday through Saturday (excluding train station parking lot meters).

Village Manager James Ten Hoeve advised Council members that the proposed fees were in line with those currently being charged by communities such as Westfield, Milburn, Montclair, and Summit.

>Boomer Bows Out in Shakeout That Led to Vermont Beard

By Mark Clothier and John Helyar
https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aK.0hS39ItNc&refer=home

April 27 (Bloomberg) — In early 2008, David Roberts’s morning routine at the Ridgewood, New Jersey, train station was as unchanged as the view from its platform, which overlooks a downtown anchored by the Daily Treat diner and a 77-year-old movie theater. Roberts would sip coffee, eat a corn muffin, scan the Financial Times and step aboard the 7:50 train.

This was not the same trip he had made for the 14 years he worked for three Wall Street firms. This was a commute to nowhere.

Roberts, 61, was bound for an outplacement center on New York’s East 37th Street, where he pursued job leads and the dream of starting a consulting firm with former colleagues. Like many of his neighbors in Ridgewood, Roberts had been thrown out of work after the credit markets seized up last year, joining thousands of commuters in the competition for jobs that don’t exist anymore.

Roberts, an economist at Dominion Bond Rating Service until January 2008, was fired 13 months after he predicted in a published report the recession that would end his livelihood.

“You can see a train wreck coming,” Roberts says. “But that doesn’t mean you can get out of the way.”

Roberts has suffered through a chain of unanswered job applications, an ill-fated relocation to Washington, and depression. As of April, he had lost or spent more than half of his $1.4 million in savings. One of the few risks he takes with money these days is at the poker table.

26,000 Jobs Lost

Roberts and his wife — who is battling multiple sclerosis — are moving to Vermont, where they honeymooned and often vacation. He has grown a gray-and-white beard more befitting the Green Mountains than Wall Street.

Knowing that the money he has left won’t last forever, Roberts must figure out a new way to earn a living. “I don’t know where the income is going to come from,” he says.

Roberts is one of 26,000 people who lost financial services jobs in New York City from January 2008 to March 2009, according to Moody’s Economy.com. Many live in bedroom communities such as Ridgewood — a Bergen County enclave of 24,300 people 25 miles from Wall Street.

Ridgewood retailers say some stores’ Christmas receipts were off 40 percent last year. As many as 30 stores and restaurants in the business district are for sale. The village government trimmed three building inspectors after a two-year, 46 percent drop in construction activity.

Ramapo Retreat

Nestled in the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains, Ridgewood has had a symbiotic relationship with New York’s financial district since the mid-1800s, when tycoons built summer homes there. Commuter trains soon carried dad to the financial jungle while mom stayed home and raised the kids. “It’s for domesticated masters of the universe, a throwback to the 1950s,” says Erik Sorenson, chief executive officer of online career firm Vault.com and a Ridgewood resident.

Ridgewood’s projected median household income for 2009 is $129,394, according to market research firm Nielsen Claritas, which makes it the 17th-most-affluent U.S. community in the 20,000 to 50,000 population range. From 1991 to 2006, the average home sale price more than tripled to $864,000, according to the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service.

read the rest on Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aK.0hS39ItNc&refer=home

>How to Wake Up Slumbering Minds

By CHRISTOPHER F. CHABRIS

We are in the midst of an explosion of knowledge about how the human mind and brain work — how memory comes in many different types, each stored in a different part of the brain; how our minds constantly process information outside our conscious awareness; how differences in brain function help to define differences in our personalities. A lot of this new knowledge raises provocative questions, not least about human nature.

But as disgruntled students have been saying for ages: How are we ever going to use this stuff? Chemistry can boast of miracle drugs, and genetics has done wonders for our food supply and for medical diagnosis. What about psychology and neuroscience? Shouldn’t research on learning and memory and thinking help us to learn, remember and think better?

Daniel T. Willingham thinks that it should. In “Why Don’t Students Like School?” he poses nine questions that a teacher might want to ask a cognitive scientist — beginning with the question in the title — and then answers each, citing empirical studies and suggesting ways for teachers to improve their practice accordingly. But Mr. Willingham’s answers apply just as well outside the classroom. Corporate trainers, marketers and, not least, parents — anyone who cares about how we learn — should find his book valuable reading.

So why don’t students like school? According to Mr. Willingham, one major reason is that what school requires students to do — think abstractly — is in fact not something our brains are designed to be good at or to enjoy. When we confront a task that requires us to exert mental effort, it is critical that the task be just difficult enough to hold our interest but not so difficult that we give up in frustration. When this balance is struck, it is actually pleasurable to focus the mind for long periods of time. For an example, just watch a person beavering away at a crossword or playing chess in a noisy public park. But schoolwork and classroom time rarely keep students’ minds in this state of “flow” for long. The result is boredom and displeasure. The challenge, for the teacher, is to design lessons and exercises that will maximize interest and attention and thus make students like school at least a bit more.

Elsewhere Mr. Willingham has his curious teacher ask: “Is drilling worth it?” The answer is yes, because research shows that practice not only makes a skill perfect but also makes it permanent, automatic and transferable to new situations, enabling more complex work that relies on the basics. Another question: “What is the secret to getting students to think like real scientists, mathematicians, and historians?” According to Mr. Willingham, this goal is too ambitious: Students are ready to understand knowledge but not create it. For most, that is enough. Attempting a great leap forward is likely to fail.

It should be said that Mr. Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, is not in favor of merely making learning “fun” or “creative.” He advocates teaching old-fashioned content as the best path to improving a student’s reading comprehension and critical thinking. Such a view makes Mr. Willingham something of an iconoclast, since 21st-century educational theory is ruled by concepts like “multiple intelligences” and “learning styles.”

Mr. Willingham notes that students cannot apply generic “critical thinking skills” (another voguish concept) to new material unless they first understand that material. And they cannot understand it without the requisite background knowledge. The same is true of learning to read: Trying to use “reading strategies” — like searching for the main idea in a passage — will be futile if you don’t know enough facts to fill in what the author has left unsaid. Here, as always, Mr. Willingham shows how experiments support his claims.

The trendy notion that each person has a unique learning style comes under an especially withering assault. “How should I adjust my teaching for different types of learners?” asks Mr. Willingham’s hypothetical teacher. The disillusioning reply: “No one has found consistent evidence supporting a theory describing such a difference. . . . Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn.”

It turns out that while education gurus were promoting the uplifting vision of all students being equal in ability but unique in “style,” researchers were testing the theory behind it. In one experiment, they presented vocabulary words to students classified as “auditory learners” and “visual learners.” Half the words came in sound form, half in print. According to the learning-styles theory, the auditory learners should remember the words presented in sound better than the words presented in print, and vice-versa for the visual learners.

But this is not what happened: Each type of learner did just as well with each type of presentation. Why? Because what is being taught in most of the curriculum — at all levels of schooling — is information about meaning, and meaning is independent of form. “Specious,” for instance, means “seemingly logical, but actually fallacious” whether you hear it, see it or feel it out in Braille. Mr. Willingham makes a convincing case that the distinction between visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners (who supposedly learn best when body movement is involved) is a specious one. At some point, no amount of dancing will help you learn more algebra.

One is tempted to criticize “Why Don’t Students Like School?” in only one respect. The text is peppered with the kind of attention-grabbing but ultimately pointless pictures that abound in contemporary textbooks. When Mr. Willingham cleverly describes an episode of the TV medical drama “House” to illustrate how experts think differently from novices — they don’t necessarily have more knowledge but they do focus more rapidly on the most relevant information — he wastes almost half a page on a photograph of the actor who plays the main character. The space would be better spent on more of Mr. Willingham’s brilliant analysis of how we really learn and his keen insight about how we ought to teach.

Mr. Chabris is a psychology professor at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.

Why Don’t Students Like School?
By Daniel T. Willingham
(Jossey-Bass, 180 pages, $24.95)

>04/28/09 8:00PM Board of Adjustment Work Session

05/05/09 7:30PM Planning Board Public Meetng

05/06/09 7:30PM Village Council Work Session

05/12/09 8:00PM Board of Adjustment Public Meeting

05/13/09 8:00PM Village Council Public Meeting

>
The Fred d’Elia Memorial Day Ridgewood Run is a family-focused day of events that provide a fun environment in a festive open-park atmosphere. Seven distinct events provide the center of activity. They start at 8:30 AM and continue until after the conclusion of the Fun Run at noon. The road races are run through the tree-lined streets of the Village of Ridgewood NJ. Ridgewood is located in Bergen County bordering Rockland, Westchester, and New York counties.

The close proximity to New York City gives families from the NY Metropolitan area a chance to celebrate the holiday by spending a fun-filled weekend that concludes with a day of healthy exercise. At the Ridgewood Run, one spouse might run the 10K, the other the 5K, and then accompany the children in the Fun Run.

The Ridgewood Run has established itself as the must-run road race in the NY-NJ-Connecticut area on Memorial Day. The North Jersey Masters (NJM), the premier running club in Northern NJ, has been the organizer of the race since it’s inception in 1976. In those years NJM has built a reputation for hospitality and the ability to put on a quality day for all participants (see Race History).

Race Amenities in 2009 are: a Flat & Fast Course, Chip Timing, a Baggage Check Area, Mile Clocks, Water Stops, Certified Routes, and this year, a Ridgewood Run Tech T-Shirt to the first 2,000 online registrants. These lightweight running shirts feature a fabric that wicks perspiration to keep you dry and comfortable. Other extras are: a Family Team competition in the 5K, Hotel discounts, and Photographs by Ken Shelton Photography.

Awards and Prizes are plentiful: 1) Prize money to the top three finishers in the Elite 1-Mile races, and to the top 5 finishers in the 5K & 10K. 2) New Balance Gift Certificates to the top three finishers in each five-year age-group bracket. 3) Finisher’s Medal to all registered finishers of the Ridgewood YMCA Fun Run/Health Walk. 4) Park Avenue Mountain Bike drawing. 5) Ridgewood Running Company Baby Jogger Raffle.

REGISTER NOW
Mark your calendar to celebrate Memorial Day 2009 at the
Fred d’Elia Ridgewood Run!

https://www.ridgewoodrun.com/

>Valley admits it needs higher patent turnover to pay for “Renewal”

In an article in Sunday’s the Bergen Record https://www.northjersey.com/news/health/Hospitals_plead_case_against_Pascack_Valley.html

Valley’s CFO Richard Keenan stated that “while Valley Hospital’s survival would not be threatened by the proposed reopening [of PVH], [Valley] would lose half of the caseload it gained as a result of Pascack Valley’s closure and would reduce income from operations by about $12 million a year. A reduction in operating income of that magnitude would force us to modify or delay essential capital projects [RENEWAL] we had planned.”

From the introduction of the “Case for Renewal” in September 27, 2006, Valley has continually stated that only 3 more beds would cause little increase in patients, visitors or traffic. Keenan’s statements contradict this claim as he admits for the first time that Valley needed to increase revenue, through patient turnover to pay for the Renewal.

It is also interesting that the traffic study was conveniently undertaken one year after the “Renewal” presentation, after Pascack Valley had closed and had traffic increased. This means that the traffic study is flawed as it was calculated on the wrong baseline.

If the Valley Hospital is unsuccessful at stopping the reopening of 128 beds at Pascack Valley hospital, should the Planning Board abandon its proposed changes to the Master Plan H-Zone?