Photos by Mayor Susan Traina Knudsen
November 27,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Yesterday was the Ridgewood Guild’s Winterfest 2016 and shop locally small business Saturday to celebrate the season in Van Neste Square.
By Karin Price Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on November 24, 2016 at 9:09 AM, updated November 26, 2016 at 11:46 AM
If you plan to shop on Amazon.com this holiday season, be warned.
There’s a new scam afoot, and the con artists are using Amazon to steal your money. Based on the number of complaints reported to Bamboozled from across the country in the past few months, the problem is widespread, if not rampant.
Amazon isn’t doing anything about it, according to shoppers who fell victim to the scam.
Given that we’re at the start of the busy holiday shopping season, one might think Amazon wants to warn its customers.
The retail giant is staying silent.
We’ve reported before about fake third-party sellers who lure buyers to leave Amazon’s site when it comes time for payment. Through untraceable wire transfers, the fraudsters take money for items they never deliver.
This time, the scammers are using Amazon gift cards to pull off the fraud.
And it seems to be working beautifully.
The dozens of complaints reported to Bamboozled share essentially the same story. And, the readers agree, Amazon hasn’t done a thing to help.
We reached out to Amazon about these cases and to ask what it’s doing to protect consumers as the holiday shopping season gets underway. It hasn’t responded to our inquiries.
November 26,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, in our latest poll readers, were overwhelmingly looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner.
Are You Looking Forward to Thanksgiving Dinner ?
Yes 70 %
No 30 %
November 26,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus will present its annual Holiday Gala Concerts on Saturday, December 17, 2016 at 7:30 pm, and on Sunday, December 18, 2016 at 4:00 pm at the Ridgewood United Methodist Church, 100 Dayton Street, Ridgewood, NJ.
This year’s concerts will feature a diverse selection of carols and songs including While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks, the Pop hit: Text Me Merry Christmas, Gesu Bambino, Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo, Schubert’s Ave Maria, selections from Fiddler on the Roof, The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth, and many others. This year’s concerts also feature trumpet soloist, Daniel Minogue, and the West African Drum Ensemble of Montclair State University accompanying the Chorus in the Nigerian carol, Betelehemu.
Tickets for the concert are $15 in advance and $25 at the door. Seniors and students under 17 years of age may purchase tickets at the door for $18. Advance purchase may be made online at the Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus website www.ridgewoodorpheusclub.org and at any of the following local businesses: Daily Treat Restaurant, Wine Seller and Town and Country Apothecary in Ridgewood; Lewis Drug in Westwood; Perry’s Florist and Rock Ridge Pharmacy in Glen Rock; Wine and Spirit World in Ho-Ho-Kus; and Benny’s Luncheonette in Fair Lawn.
The Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus has been a keystone of the cultural life of the tri-state region for 107 years. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest cultural institution in all of Bergen County and the premier men’s chorus in all of New Jersey. Fifty voices strong, it is directed by John Palatucci and accompanied by pianist Ron Levy.
JOHN REITMEYER | NOVEMBER 22, 2016
Christie gets bipartisan plan that he calls ‘more fair than the previous proposals,’ but it offers no constitutional guarantee enforcing payments
After failing to find any common ground for the past several years over the best way to address New Jersey’s grossly underfunded public-employee pension system, state lawmakers reached a rare, bipartisan agreement yesterday, voting in favor of legislation requiring quarterly instead of yearly state pension contributions.
The measure — which legislative leaders say they are confident Gov. Chris Christie will eventually sign — would help the $73 billion pension system by breaking up the annual state pension contribution into smaller installments that the sponsors hope will be easier for the state to afford than the lump sum that administrations typically try to make at the end of each fiscal year.
Depositing the payments on a quarterly basis would also protect more of the pension contribution from end-of-the-year budget cuts and allow the pension system, which is professionally managed, to generate bigger investment returns by getting more money into the system earlier in the fiscal year.
file photo by ArtChick Photography
November 26,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood celebrates Small Business Saturday .The Ridgewood blog encourages readers to support your local businesses today . Many local businesses are your neighbors.
Small Business Saturday is an American shopping holiday held on the Saturday after US Thanksgiving during one of the busiest shopping periods of the year. First observed on November 27, 2010, it is a counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which feature big box retail and e-commerce stores respectively.
Yes, thank you James. Your huge effort in developing, nurturing, marketing, and when appropriate, crowing about the impact and popularity of this forum is a big thing that local individuals and groups who have taken the time to learn about civil society, and who now realize its vital importance as a counterweight to the nanny state zealots who are seemingly all around us, gravely appreciate. Is it too much to say that you have played a significant part in cleaning up our local politics? That you opened the eyes of Village residents to the many virtues associated with our Faulkner Act-inspired tradition of non-partisan decision-making, enough to prompt local voters to take out so much trash in one fell swoop during the most recent round of Village Council elections? If it’s true that all politics is local, then your genuinely local focus is an excellent example to other true patriots operating in your slice of the publishing industry. Please keep doing what you’re doing!!!
TOM JOHNSON | NOVEMBER 23, 2016
Money represents first to come from stable source of funding approved by voters in 2014
Credit: newsworks.org
For the first time in two years, the state is looking to award up to $67.4 million in funding to municipalities, counties, and nonprofit groups to acquire open space and develop recreational projects.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is accepting applications for the first chunk of money to be doled by a new stable source of funding approved by voters back in the fall of 2014 for Green Acres projects.
A dispute between the Christie administration and the Legislature that lasted months derailed the annual disbursement of grants and loans to towns and other groups for park development, land acquisition, and, for the first time, stewardship of protected land.
photo by William Thomas
CELL PRESS
VIDEO: THIS VIDEO SHOWS EPISODIC-LIKE MEMORY IN DOGS (CANIS FAMILIARIS): RECALL OF OTHERS’ ACTIONS AFTERINCIDENTAL ENCODING REVEALED BY THE DO AS I DO METHOD. view more
CREDIT: CLAUDIA FUGAZZA, ÁKOS POGÁNY, AND ÁDÁM MIKLÓS / CURRENT BIOLOGY 2016
People have a remarkable ability to remember and recall events from the past, even when those events didn’t hold any particular importance at the time they occurred. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on November 23 have evidence that dogs have that kind of “episodic memory” too.
The study found that dogs can recall a person’s complex actions even when they don’t expect to have their memory tested.
“The results of our study can be considered as a further step to break down artificially erected barriers between non-human animals and humans,” says Claudia Fugazza of MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Budapest, Hungary. “Dogs are among the few species that people consider ‘clever,’ and yet we are still surprised whenever a study reveals that dogs and their owners may share some mental abilities despite our distant evolutionary relationship.”
Evidence that non-human animals use episodic-like memory has been hard to come by because you can’t just ask a dog what it remembers. In the new study, the researchers took advantage of a trick called “Do as I Do.” Dogs trained to “Do as I Do” can watch a person perform an action and then do the action themselves. For example, if their owner jumps in the air and then gives the “Do it!” command, the dog would jump in the air too.
The fact that dogs can be trained in this way alone wasn’t enough to prove episodic memory. That’s because it needed to be shown that dogs remember what they just saw a person do even when they weren’t expecting to be asked or rewarded. To get around this problem, the researchers first trained 17 dogs to imitate human actions with the “Do as I Do” training method. Next, they did another round of training in which dogs were trained to lie down after watching the human action, no matter what it was.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/cp-ydr111616.php
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Last chance to shop with us.
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Amazing steal on all new styles
Shopettes
22 Chestnut St
Ridgewood, NJ
November 25,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Glen Rock NJ, On Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 10:00 AM, the Ridgewood Ambulance and Emergency Services and the Glen Rock Volunteer Ambulance Corps conducted a training exercise at the Glen Rock High School. There was a large presence of emergency medical personnel, ambulances and emergency vehicles at the High School. This drill was coordinated by Captain Murray Yang, of the Ridgewood Ambulance Corp, under the direction of Chief Tony Lillo, Ridgewood Emergency Services, Chief Ed Esposito, Glen Rock Ambulance Corp, Chief Dean Ackermann, Glen Rock Police.
The exercise was developed for the evaluation on the readiness of our emergency medical personnel, from radio communications, to evacuation procedures, and treatment protocols. The Officers and participants had a briefing following the exercise to assess any further training in which will be necessary in case a devastating incident occurs in our jurisdictions. The lessons learned from this exercise will be a basis for setting procedures and updating protocols for the cooperation and collaboration between Ridgewood Emergency Services and the Glen Rock Volunteer Ambulance Corps.
Volunteers are always needed If you are interested and have the time for a rewarding commitment, please visit https://ridgewood911.ridgewoodnj.net
photos courtesy of Boyd Loving
November 25,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood Nj, Three (3) teenage occupants of a 4-door white Mazda sedan were injured in an early afternoon two (2) vehicle crash at the intersection of Grove Street and South Pleasant Avenue, Ridgewood on Wednesday, 11/23. The Mazda’s female driver lost control of the vehicle after swerving and hit a large tree. Both vehicles involved in the crash were removed from the scene by a flatbed tow truck. All three (3) victims were transported by a Ridgewood EMS ambulance to The Valley Hospital with non life threatening injuries. The adult male driver of the other vehicle involved in the mishap, a Jeep, was uninjured. Ridgewood FD personnel attended to a minor crash related fluid spill. At least three (3) summonses were issued by Ridgewood PD in connection with the incident.
Ridgewood Friends:
I wanted you to know about my friend Rob Skead’s new short Christmas story, which takes place entirely in Ridgewood, and stars his church, Bethlehem on Linwood Avenue. It even has a cameo by Ridgewood’s most famous Thriller author, a completely bald guy everyone should recognize.
Rob got the idea from a dream he had where he was waking up on a cardboard box at the Ridgewood train station. He wanted this story to move people, and represent Christmas in a way stories did many years ago, and he wanted it to represent the true pains of life.
I think he nailed it.
The Light of Bethlehem – A Christmas Novella… Welcome to Bethlehem Church, where a bunch of quirky but committed parishioners have been praying for their pastor. His life is challenged when he meets John Turner, a man who hates churches. Homeless and penniless, John struggles to regain meaning in life after he loses everything. His bad day takes a strange turn when he walks through the front door of Bethlehem Church before Christmas. But can a man angry at God—and himself—get away from the memories that haunt him?
This story will give everyone who reads it that most-special Christmas feeling.
The eBook is priced at a $1 and available via amazon and NOOK.
Some of you may remember Rob who ran Upward Basketball in Ridgewood for nine years.
Thank you!
November 23,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, This Saturday, November 26 the Ridgewood Guild will be holding Winterfest in conjunction with Small Business Saturday.
“Come join us in Memorial Park at Van Neste Square for trackless train rides, story time, singing, ice sculptures, horse drawn carriage through town, hot chocolate, candy canes and more! It will be a great event for the whole family! So, come support our local Ridgewood businesses. Get your holiday shopping done this small business Saturday, while spending time with your families, and kicking off the season meeting Santa!!”
By Paul Milo | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on November 22, 2016 at 7:28 PM, updated November 22, 2016 at 7:38 PM
NEW YORK — The Madison Square Garden Company said Tuesday that data from credit cards used at its properties over much of the past year may have been compromised.
The breach was discovered late last month when banks notified the company of a suspicious pattern of credit card activity. An investigation revealed that the breach began Nov. 9, 2015, and lasted until Oct. 24. The breach has since been addressed, the company said.
Cards used in person at the company’s venues — Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, The Theater at Madison Square Garden, The Chicago Theater and Beacon Theater — may have been affected when used for purchases of food, drinks and merchandise. Not all cards used were affected, nor were any cards used at MSG websites, the venues’ box offices or at Ticketmaster.
The data is encoded in the cards’ magnetic strips and includes card numbers, cardholder names, verification codes and expiration dates, the company said.
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/credit_card_breach_reported_at_madison_square_gard.html
