Category: Bergen County

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New Discoveries in the Old Country

Budapest, Hungary

If you’ve been to Europe a couple of times, you may think you’ve seen it all. But on a continent that’s roughly the size of the United States, chances are that you’ve only scratched the surface.

Destinations that are household names to many European travelers are barely a blip on the radar for most Americans. Europeans bask on the beach in Cyprus, linger in sidewalk cafes in Tallinn and Dubrovnik, visit spas in Budapest and go horseback riding in the Czech Republic. They eat pastizzi – flaky pastries stuffed with ricotta cheese – in Malta’s sunny capital of Valletta and sample reindeer stew with Laplanders in Finland. This year they’ll be flocking to Istanbul, which will be marking its selection as the 2010 European Capital of Culture with a ballet competition, a youth festival, a new opera house and much more.

Even in wildly popular countries, off-the-beaten-path adventures abound for those who know where to look. So, even if you think you’ve “done” Europe, ask the travel consultants at The Travel Center / American Express for recommendations on intriguing things to see and do this year. They’ll make you see the continent in a whole new light.

Undiscovered Countries

Large swaths of Europe were once hidden behind the Iron Curtain. Now a whole new world awaits curious American travelers:

*The Baltic region: The tiny countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are rich in history. Don’t miss the charmingly preserved central cities of Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius, each a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

*Croatia: Gorgeous Dubrovnik, the new building of the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Adriatic diving sites off the coast of Istria are just three highlights of this Balkan country.

*Hungary: Spend a few days in Budapest, with its lovely baroque and Art Nouveau buildings and famed thermal baths. Then hop a train to Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Central Europe, where you can enjoy just about any water sport, from sailing to kite surfing.

*Romania: Top draws include resorts along the Black Sea and sites associated with Dracula in castle-dotted Transylvania.

Intrigued? Speak with a travel consultant at:

The Travel Center / American Express

50 E. Ridgewood Ave.

Ridgewood, NJ 07450

(201) 447-3311

RidgewoodAmex@gmail.com

Or find unique itineraries on our NEW website:

https://www.thetravelcenterae.com/

“Ridgewood’s only full-service travel agency”

Euros and British Pounds available on-site immediately; call ahead for additional European currencies.

>Ingle: Falling revenue could cause bigger cuts

If new revenue projections hold, there could be steep cuts above those already announced by the Christie administration.The Asbury Park Press obtained an analysis by the Office of Legislative Services saying taxes and other revenue for the budget year that ends June 30 will be $402 million less than expected. (Ingle, Gannett)
https://blogs.app.com/politicspatrol/2010/05/25/falling-revenue-could-cause-bigger-cuts/

>6th Annual Wiffle for Cancer Tournament : Have Fun for a Good Cause!

6th Annual Wiffle for Cancer Tournament on Sunday, June 13 The 6th Annual Wiffle for Cancer Tournament takes place on Sunday, June 13, 2010, at Benjamin Franklin Middle School, 335 North Van Dien Avenue, Ridgewood, starting at 12:00 noon. There are 3 to 5 players on a team and a $50/team entry fee. For further information about the tournament and sign up go to https://www.wiffleforcancer.org. All proceeds of the tournament will benefit the Nick Currey Fund for Ewing’s Sarcoma Research. The Fund was established in memory of Nick Currey, Ridgewood High School Class of 2004, who lost his 14-month battle against Ewing’s Sarcoma on November 3, 2005. So come out, have some fun and do some good!

>MEMORIAL DAY SERVICE
Sponsored by American Legion Post 53

American Legion Post 53 invites everyone to attend the Memorial Day service at 11AM on Monday, May 31 in the park by the monument in Van Neste Square. Bring chairs or blankets to sit on. Also, the Americal Legion will be placing American Flags at the sites of all the veterans buried in Valleau Cemetary. American flags have been placed on sites of veterans at Valleau Cemetary.

>Christie Says N.J. ‘Careening Toward Becoming Greece’ (Update1)
May 25, 2010, 11:57 AM EDT

By Terrence Dopp

https://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-25/christie-says-n-j-careening-toward-becoming-greece-update1-.html

May 25 (Bloomberg) — New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said the state is “careening our way toward becoming Greece” and can’t afford the cost of benefits and pensions for current workers.

The governor, speaking today to members of the Manhattan Institute, said his state must reduce its tax burden and control government spending. He has proposed a constitutional amendment to cap growth in property taxes, the main source of funding for schools and towns, at 2.5 percent a year.

“Higher taxes are not going to solve the problem,” said Christie, a Republican who took office Jan. 19. “We’ve got to change the course.”

New Jersey’s tax revenue will fall $767 million short of targets over the next 13 months, the state Legislature’s chief budget analyst told lawmakers today. The $29.3 billion spending plan Christie proposed in March for the fiscal year starting July 1 “will have to be modified to respond to this reality,” analyst David Rosen said.

Christie already proposed $10 billion of spending cuts to close a record $10.7 billion budget deficit. He declined to say following his speech how he plans to close the additional gap.

Pensions, Benefits

Greece agreed this month to cut wages for government workers, raise sales, fuel and alcohol taxes and overhaul the state-run pension system in return for 110 billion euros ($136 billion) in emergency loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

New Jersey, like Greece, has a high proportion of public workers who have been entitled to benefits such as free health insurance that outstrip taxpayers’ ability to pay for them, Christie said. In the past decade the state added 11,000 public- sector jobs as it lost more than 120,000 private positions, he said.

Politicians in New Jersey have bowed to public unions for too long, failing to cut teacher benefits and enacting civil- service laws that have tied governments’ hands in trimming workforces, Christie said. Over the last decade, municipal spending has grown by 69 percent, and property taxes have climbed by 70 percent, according to the governor’s office.

The average New Jersey household paid $7,281 in property taxes last year, the highest rate in the nation, according to the state Department of Community Affairs.

“Things that used to be considered sacred cows, the third rails of politics, no longer are,” said Christie. “They’ve been replaced by the issue of affordability.”

–Editors: Stacie Servetah, Pete Young

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Trenton at tdopp@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net

https://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-25/christie-says-n-j-careening-toward-becoming-greece-update1-.html

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ROCKY PATEL CIGARS WEEK-LONG PROMOTION
Tuesday, May 25th thru Saturday, May 29th

For every 3 Rocky cigars purchased you will receive 1 Rocky cigar FREE!

Get a chance to putt a Rocky golf ball on our putting green.
If you make a hole-in-one you get a chance to win a box of Rocky Patel
cigars or a Rocky Patel Decade Golf Gift Pack.

The Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood | 10 Chestnut Street | Ridgewood, New Jersey 07450
Phone: 201-447-2204 | Email: info@tobaccoshop.com
Hours: Monday – Saturday 10:00AM – 5:30PM and Thursday Night 6:30PM – 8:30PM

>First, I have no connection to the RHS lax team and I would not consider myself a friend or “supporter” of Coach Pounds. But, I am reasonably knowledgeable about lacrosse and the players on the team this year.

Secondly, Coach Pounds does many things that hurt his program. For example, Ridgewood teams have a bizarre tradition of “honoring seniors” by playing them over underclassmen, rather than putting the best players on the field (regardless of their class). Pounds has followed this “tradition” on the lax team. On ANY Varsity team, the best players should be the starters and team leaders, PERIOD! He also doesn’t have definitive cuts at the start of the season, so underclassmen float “in limbo” between the Varsity and JV. This has a negative effect on the moral and spirit of these players and fails to fully develop their skills. The JV program historically has mediocre coaching and a weak schedule, thereby, ineffectively preparing the boys for the Varsity, which plays a very tough schedule. These “limbo players” would be better off getting more playing time on the JV and stepping into leadership roles, in preparation for their time on the Varsity, particularly if the coaching and schedule could be improved.

With that said, I am astounded by the negative comments from people on this blog, who clearly have no idea what they are talking about. Make no mistake. Noah Pounds is the MOST TALENTED lacrosse goalie at RHS. I understand that Pounds did not start him earlier in the season because he was concerned about the negative perception that might be created behind his son’s back (I guess he was right). I am sure that Pounds felt he was helping the team by putting “the best goalie” in the game. As a former college goalie, Pounds is well qualified to evaluate the skills of that position. Unfortunately, by not giving him the necessary preparation on the Varsity throughout the season, he probably did his son and the team a disservice.

The truth about this year’s team is that this senior class is one of the weakest in many years. Perhaps many of these boys tried to balance baseball, soccer and lacrosse every spring as youth players (an impossibility) and they never developed the skills necessary to compete at a top level in lacrosse (or the other sports). Or, maybe they just never dedicated the personal time and effort to improve their skills outside of practice and to develop an understanding of the game’s nuances. Whatever the reason, their lacrosse skills are weak. In general, the best players on the team are Juniors and Sophomores. Furthermore, there is no clear leadership on the team and very few players, in any grade, play with the passion needed to have a great season, let alone win championships. My understanding is that the coaches tried to address this all season, with little success. Unfortunately, that is something that is not easily coached. Generally a player has a burning desire to compete or he doesn’t. In my opinion, it has a lot to due with whether the player is coddled at home as a child or is taught the meaning of commitment and responsibility at an early age and whether he has older brothers, who played sports or not. This team did not demonstrate 100% commitment on or off the field (as evidenced by the drinking issues). These are the reasons why this team had an unsuccessful season this year…plain and simple. Armchair coaches (parents), who never picked up a lacrosse stick in their lives, need to find a scapegoat to explain their son’s frustration (the blame could never lie with their son). But, this is the reality.

Anyone, who suggests that a coach would intentionally lose a game to end the season early or punish players, has never played on a truly competitive team in any sport in his or her life. No coach would ever do this. Besides, while the coach may take the responsibility, it is generally the players, who determine the outcome of a game, not the coach. Grow up people!

>Statewide NJ Tea Party continues to challenge incumbents

Facing three Tea Partiers, Lance campaign front-ends Christie’s support

An establishment Republican congressman facing Tea Party challengers is specifically burnishing support from Gov. Chris Christie as evidence that he has a strong conservative Republican on his side. Facing no fewer than three Tea Party-affiliated conservatives as he runs for his second term as the 7th Congressional District incumbent, U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-Lebanon) turned to Christie for official fortification at a fundraising rally two Fridays ago at the Warren Somerset Hills Hotel.
 (Pizarro, PolitickerNJ)

https://www.politickernj.com/max/39331/facing-three-tea-partiers-lance-campaign-front-ends-christies-support

Tea Party candidate challenges Congressman Frelinghuysen

The 11th Congressional District, which starts in Raritan Borough and extends northward to Morris, Sussex and Passaic counties, is so reliably Republican, that the more important election of the year is the GOP primary on June 8. Whoever wins the GOP nomination in the primary is an overwhelming favorite to win a two-year seat in the House of Representatives in the November general election. (Deak, Gannett)

https://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20100523/POLITICS/100523002/1098

>Ridgewood Junior Football Association Golf Fundraiser

>Amazingly few Democrat elected leaders bothered to attend the May 22nd union rally specifically orchestrated to influence the voting public’s perception of Governor Christie’s calls for wage freezes, pension changes, and benefits reforms. “Virtually none” is probably a more accurate account. U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), LD-14 Assemblycrats Linda Greenstein and Wayne DeAngelo, and State Senator Shirley Turner (D-Plainsboro) were reportedly the only Dems of notable rank on hand. Four is hardly a quorum!

Speaker Sheila Oliver (an ideological liberal) and Senate President Sweeney (a backer of Governor Christie’s pension reforms) were also notably absent.

So what the heck happened this weekend, Save Jerseyans? Democrats primarily rely on two groups for GOTV: union thugs and collegiate liberals. Since student opposition to Christie’s cuts hasn’t exactly materialized on a grand scale, the Dems certainly can’t afford to take union muscle for granted. It’s therefore a little difficult to understand why not a single Democrat legislator addressed the crowd.

There’s always the possibility that Democrat leaders and union chieftains concluded their rally would be more effective if it wasn’t perceived as an overtly partisan affair. More likely, Democrats realized that locking arms and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with angry union members demanding pay raises wasn’t the best image to convey to taxpayers heading into another tough election cycle. “Chickening out” definitely seems like the most plausible explanation.

Whatever the reason for their no-show performance, the dearth of Democrat participants suggests trouble ahead for the Garden State’s liberal-labor coalition. A more than ironic result given the rally’s intended effect, Save Jerseyans!

Permalink: blog.savejersey.com/2010/05/24/democrat-caucus-chickens-out–skips-saturdays-union-protest.aspx