OCTOBER 3, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2014, 1:21 AM BY JIM MCCONVILLE SPECIAL TO THE RECORD THE RECORD Print
RIDGEWOOD – You can just see Mitch Campbell’s eyes light up when he knows that a pass play has been called. The senior running back has been a revelation in Ridgewood’s passing game, and on Thursday night he had the big plays.
Campbell hauled in five passes for 141 yards and a touchdown, and it was his work in the first quarter that helped set the tone for Ridgewood, which remained undefeated.
Ridgewood recorded a second straight shutout, 35-0 over Kennedy, and continued its early season offensive show. It marked the 63rd time in coach Chuck Johnson’s 31 seasons that his team has recorded a shutout.
While the defense was not spectacular, Ridgewood (4-0) did produce three turnovers on fumbles, and for the second time this season stopped a team on a fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line. Sophomore inside linebacker James Mondi, in his second varsity start, had 12 tackles and a forced fumble.
The offense did its job early, taking the opening kickoff and scoring on six plays covering 57 yards. Campbell had catches of 18 and 17 yards to set up sophomore Drew Granski’s 2-yard touchdown.
“It all starts with the offensive line,” Campbell said. “They’ve done a great job of pass blocking all year and [senior quarterback Matt] Donovan is putting it right there. All I have to do is run under it.”
Ridgewood Football breaks quickly from the starting gate
October 3, 2014 Last updated: Friday, October 3, 2014, 12:31 AM
By Jim McConville
CORRESPONDENT
The Ridgewood News
RIDGEWOOD — Heading into Thursday night’s home game versus Kennedy, the Ridgewood High School football team was looking not only to continue its winning ways but also to continue to develop the chemistry, experience and execution it will need as the schedule toughens later this month.
There were plenty of positives through the Maroons’ first three games, and much of that had to do with the way the sophomores injected themselves into the lineup and made key contributions.
Members of the 2004 Ridgewood High School North 1, Group 4 championship football team gather on the field of RHS Stadium at halftime of last Friday’s game to be honored on the 10th anniversary of their state-sectional title.
The youth movement can be a double-edged sword, however. RHS benefitted from an early schedule in which its first three opponents were a combined 2-7, and the team won all three games by an average of 46-4 (Kennedy was 0-3 entering Thursday). That necessitates tempering any enthusiasm a bit in assessing the results.
Still, every win is important, and the schedule is what it is. Ridgewood need not make excuses for winning the games it is supposed to win while giving some of its rookies a dose of confidence at the varsity level.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/sports/high-school-sports/football/ridgewood-breaks-quickly-from-the-starting-gate-1.1101679#sthash.qMj2EYGh.dpuf
The Khorosan Group Does Not Exist
It’s a fictitious name the Obama administration invented to deceive us.
September 27, 2014 4:00 AM
By Andrew C. McCarthy
We’re being had. Again.
For six years, President Obama has endeavored to will the country into accepting two pillars of his alternative national-security reality. First, he claims to have dealt decisively with the terrorist threat, rendering it a disparate series of ragtag jayvees. Second, he asserts that the threat is unrelated to Islam, which is innately peaceful, moderate, and opposed to the wanton “violent extremists” who purport to act in its name.
Now, the president has been compelled to act against a jihad that has neither ended nor been “decimated.” The jihad, in fact, has inevitably intensified under his counterfactual worldview, which holds that empowering Islamic supremacists is the path to security and stability. Yet even as war intensifies in Iraq and Syria — even as jihadists continue advancing, continue killing and capturing hapless opposition forces on the ground despite Obama’s futile air raids — the president won’t let go of the charade.
September 19, 2014 Last updated: Friday, September 19, 2014, 9:54 AM
The Ridgewood News
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Village should not forget 9/11
Katherine McCarthy
to the Editor:
I was saddened that Ridgewood had no official recognition of one of the most tragic days in American history. We had 12 Ridgewood residents killed on that day: Sept. 11, 2001. Most towns in Bergen didn’t have as many, but they “remembered” with ceremonies.
Ridgewood High School Football delivers head coach his 200th Maroon win
SEPTEMBER 19, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2014, 12:31 AM BY JIM MCCONVILLE CORRESPONDENT THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
RIDGEWOOD — Taking the football field before the season-opening game against Passaic last Friday, Ridgewood High School head coach Chuck Johnson had no idea what to expect. With a team that had little varsity experience, there was a sense of the unknown.
Four quarters later, there was a different sense — one of joy. Not only did the Maroons take care of business, but they accomplished a piece of history in the process.
Their 53-6 trouncing of the Indians was surprising in the margin of victory, but it also marked the 200th win of Johnson’s Ridgewood tenure. In his 31st season at the helm, the coach is now 200-105-1 at RHS and 235-124-2 overall, including his six seasons as head coach at Bogota (1978-83).
“I would have been happy with a 28-0 or 35-7 win,” he said. “To do this was more than I expected. We came out without any injuries, too, which is wonderful.”
That means the Maroons (1-0) will be real close to full strength Saturday when they travel to Fair Lawn for a 1 p.m. kickoff. The Cutters (1-0) had a surprising win of their own last week, 22-0 over Clifton.
Ridgewood senior Mitch Campbell, who sat out last game with an injury, will be back at cornerback and running back. Sophomore Jack Kiernan is likely still a week away, and sophomore Alec Jacobson could also be back in a week.
RHS Class of 2015 Project Graduation Gets off to a Fast Start
Class of 2015 Project Graduation Representatives Chairpersons Tara Callaghan 201-803-7778 and Rosie McCooe 201-602-8097 Chairpersons email: [email protected] Treasurer Sharon Walker [email protected] Communications Jeff Coster [email protected]
Project Graduation dues are $165 per student and go toward the Project Graduation party, baby pictures, and to offset the cost of the Graduation dinner dance and the Thanksgiving 2015 reunion. Please send your check for $165 payable to “RHS PG Class of 2015” ASAP to Sharon Walker, 94 Sherwood Rd., Ridgewood, NJ 07450. Confidential support is available for any family that needs help with dues or other graduation expenses. Please contact the Class of 2015 Grade Administrator, Meredith Yannone, for more information.
Project Graduation Surplus Funds: Surplus funds may not be donated to charities. Remaining funds will be used to purchase a gift to RHS from the Class or will be gifted back to the school through the HSA.
September 13, 2014 Last updated: Saturday, September 13, 2014, 1:21 AM
By JIM McCONVILLE
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
The Record
RIDGEWOOD – There was no way to know what to expect as Ridgewood opened the football season Friday night. The Maroons were green as the grass coming in, but after four quarters they were feeling good.
With a completely rebuilt offensive line providing plenty of openings, Ridgewood rushed for 404 yards on the way to a 53-6 victory over Passaic. The victory marked the 200th win at Ridgewood for head coach Chuck Johnson, who is 235-119-2 overall in his career (including five seasons at Bogota).
The game started auspiciously for the Maroons, who lost a fumble on the second play from scrimmage, but they scored on each of their next eight possessions. Cooper Telesco got the first two scores on runs of 65 and 2 yards on the way to 140 rushing yards on six first-half carries.
“It was a great job by the offensive line,” Telesco said of the quintet, each making their first varsity start. “They’ve been working so hard all preseason and they really were getting off the ball.’
Football Preview: Ridgewood welcomes host of new faces
September 5, 2014 Last updated: Friday, September 5, 2014, 12:31 AM
By JIM MCCONVILLE
CORRESPONDENT
RIDGEWOOD – What a difference a year makes.
Last season, the Ridgewood High School football team was built for the now, with 31 seniors and expectations of reaching the North 1, Group 5 championship game, which it did.
This season, the Maroons are building toward an uncertain future.
Not only did the bulk of their starters graduate, but four assistant coaches elected not to return, including the offensive and defensive coordinators and the line coach. In their place are a couple of old returning faces in Jim Stroker and Mark Aramburu, plus a group of younger coaches.
“We are green as the grass,” RHS head coach Chuck Johnson said. “There are a lot of unknowns, but it has really been fun so far, and I’m excited to see where this goes.”
The first Maroon victory this season will be the 200th of Johnson’s 31-year career at Ridgewood (he has 35 more wins from his six seasons at Bogota from 1978-83), but milestones are taking a back seat to player development.
Sharpen your pencils, boys and girls. Here’s a little quiz:
Last spring the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in the case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission that removed the limit on total campaign contributions by an individual.
In response, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker issued a news release that included the following sentence:
“This ruling further concentrates power in the hands of the very wealthy and enhances their ability to dramatically influence elections.”
Here’s the question: Was Booker praising the court’s decision or panning it?
After last week, I’m not sure. On Thursday, the Democratic candidate for re-election released his financial statement for 2013. The report offers further proof that Booker has as much talent as anyone on the American political scene when it comes to taking money out of the hands of the very wealthy and depositing it in his own pockets.
We already knew that Booker was among the very best at getting campaign contributions. He ranks No. 2 on the Center for Responsive Politics “Who Raised the Most?” list for senators, with a staggering $16,171,449 raised in the current cycle. The top three types of contributors were big law firms, big investment firms and big real estate interests.
Libertarian, Liberal Lawmakers Share Concerns About Police Tactics in Ferguson
As many Americans turned to Twitter TWTR +2.67% to follow the chaos unfolding in Ferguson, Mo., some members of Congress — currently on August recess — tiptoed onto social media to weigh in as well.
The reactions came from across the political spectrum, with many calling for peaceful protests but also expressing serious concerns over the tactics used by police. The confrontations between police and protesters came after the weekend shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.
Rep. Justin Amash (R., Mich.), a conservative with libertarian leanings, was one of the first to tweet, calling the reports from Ferguson “frightening” and asking “Is this a war zone or a US city?” He said the government was escalating tensions with use of military equipment and tactics.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) tweeted: “This is America, not a war zone. The people of #Ferguson just want answers. We all want answers.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), an avid user of social media, tweeted a photo of people holding a sign that read, “Peaceful protest is a right.”
Missouri Sens. Roy Blunt (R.) and Claire McCaskill (D.) also used Twitter to assure constituents they were working to resolve the situation. Mr. Blunt said he was “staying in contact w/ local, state & federal officials & urge everyone to please be safe in #Ferguson,” while Ms. McCaskill saying she was “continuing to work the phones to de escalate the tense and unacceptable situation in Ferguson.”
The same judge and prosecutor who let professional football star Ray Rice avoid a trial after beating his wife unconscious are pushing forward with the prosecution of Shaneen Allen, a single mother who carried a gun into New Jersey without realizing her Pennsylvania permit didn’t apply there.
Allen, a mother of two from Philadelphia, was driving in New Jersey last fall when she was pulled over by a police officer. She informed the officer she had a handgun in her purse and a Pennsylvania license-to-carry permit, at which point the officer arrested her and charged her with a felony for unlawful possession of a weapon, because New Jersey does not recognize out-of-state gun permits.
Allen tried to avoid a trial and jail time by applying to a pre-trial intervention program in New Jersey for first-time offenders. Ray Rice, the Baltimore Ravens running back who knocked his then-fiancée unconscious during an altercation in Atlantic City in February, was accepted into the program in May.
But Superior Court Judge Michael Donio and New Jersey District Attorney Jim McClain, the same judge and prosecutor who allowed Rice to avoid prosecution, denied Allen’s application to the program on Wednesday.
Allen has no criminal record, and she claims she bought the gun for self-defense after being robbed. Her trial is scheduled for October.
The Trouble with Pop Economics
By Matt McCaffrey
Friday, July 18th, 2014
John Lott writes in Barron’s that we should be sceptical of the populist economics trend that’s been prevalent in the past few years. Specifically, Lott criticizes Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of Freakonomics, for peddling a kind of “naïve economics” that fascinates readers, but doesn’t hold up to serious scrutiny (rather than “naïve economics,” maybe “economics for the naïve” would be better).
I’ve been working through some similar ideas myself, especially in a new paper criticizing aspects of the pop econ literature. I should point out that these books—including Freakonomics and its many imitators—do have a reasonable goal, namely, to bring the economic point of view to the general public. Now, the fact that economics needs a special literature to explain its ideas to the public is telling, and to some extent an indictment of how the profession has developed (e.g. into an abstract and often excessively technical discipline). Still, as writers like Hazlitt show, it’s a great advantage to be able to communicate economic ideas simply and powerfully. But while in general we should welcome economic writing for non-economists, too often pop econ forgets to stop when descending the ivory tower, and ends up on the intellectual parking sublevel.
Of course, there is a lot that could be said for and against pop writings, which come in all shapes and sizes. But there are a few common threads in the literature that I think give a misleading view of what economics is fundamentally about. One of these is the tendency of pop writers to define economics as the study of incentives. This idea goes back at least to Steve Landsburg’s book The Armchair Economist (1993), which was basically the founding document of pop economics. As he puts it, “Most of economics can be summarized in four words: ‘People respond to incentives.’ The rest is commentary” (p. 3).
The same idea is repeated in other books in the pop genre. Freakonomics, for instance, states that “Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them—or, often, ferreting them out—is the key to solving just about any riddle” (p. 13; emphasis in original). The hyperbole about incentives is impressive: “An incentive is a bullet, a lever, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation” (p. 20).
The trouble with the incentive-based view of economics is that it is far too narrow. An incentive is just something an individual finds valuable, so when economists speak of the importance of incentives, they’re really just saying that people pursue things that will make them better off. This is an important fact, but it’s only one of many insights at the core of economic science. The proclamations “people respond to incentives,” and “incentives matter” are certainly true, but they’re so true that they’re trivial.
Furthermore, there are important problems in economics that cannot be solved with reference to incentives. A good example is the socialist calculation debate. Many economists believe the major problem with socialism is that it doesn’t properly incentivize people to organize production efficiently. Of course, socialism certainly does offer poor incentives, but as Mises and others demonstrated, the central problem of socialism is that without private ownership of the means of production, it is impossible for entrepreneurs to use monetary calculation to appraise the prices of the factors of production, and hence, to allocate them. This problem does not hinge on the presence of “good” incentives for socialist managers. If anything, struggling to arrange incentives for effective production is an alternative that central planners try in the absence of calculation.
In any case, economics—even at the introductory level—is about a lot more than the carrot-and-stick logic of incentives. As Austrians in particular have emphasized, economic laws exist that trump the preferences of individuals, especially those seeking to impose their will on other members of society. Mises puts it nicely in Human Action:
Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power. They must reluctantly admit that they are subject to the laws of nature. But they reject the very notion of economic law… economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics. (p. 67)
Such was the case with socialist economies as well as many other small-scale experiments in economic planning. Now, pop econ writers are not despots, but I do think there are definite traces of the “planning mentality” in books like Freakonomics, which always seem to hint that if we pay enough attention to incentives, we can use them to tweak economic policy by “urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing” (p. 5). These kinds of value judgments are usually only implied in the pop literature, but for that very reason readers should take care not to fall prey to the “fatal conceit” of focusing too much on incentives and how to engineer them.
By the way, the paper I refer to above was published in The Review of Social and Economic Issues, which has just launched its inaugural issue. The journal welcomes research in Austrian economics and related topics, and the editorial board features several prominent Austrian scholars, including Joe Salerno, Guido Hülsmann, Peter Klein, Jesús Huerta de Soto, and (not so prominent) yours truly.
The Apollo 11 crew from left to right: Neil Armstrong, Commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and , Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot.
Kennedy Space Center Celebrates the Apollo 11 Lunar Landings 45th Anniversary
Celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 2014, at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Guests visiting the Visitor Complex on this historic day receive a collectible pin commemorating this memorable event.
On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended the ladder of their lunar lander and become the first humans to step onto the surface of the moon. This anniversary of landing on the moon celebrates one of the greatest achievements of the modern age.
Apollo 45th Anniversary Schedule
Throughout the day guests can explore the Apollo/Saturn V Center, a highlight of the daily bus tour to Kennedy Space Center, the world’s leading active spaceflight facility. At the Apollo/Saturn V Center, view actual moon dust on Alan Shepard’s lunar suit, touch a moon rock and feel the space race come alive while standing under the largest rocket ever flown, the mighty Saturn V.
1 – 2 pm: Be part of a Meet and Greet/photo opportunity with Apollo 11 capsule communicator (CAPCOM) and space shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless II in Space Shuttle Atlantis℠ by the Hubble Space Telescope Exhibit.
4 pm: Relive the Apollo 11 moon landing during a special commemorative video presentation at the Astronaut Encounter Theater. Hear firsthand what it was like for veteran NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II to communicate with the Apollo 11 crew as they made their iconic step in history. Additionally, astronaut Jack Lousma relates his experiences with the Apollo program. Be part of history at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex 45 years later at this special presentation which is set to coincide with the exact time of the moon landing at 4:17 pm EDT.
John Fund / Hans von Spakovsky / @HvonSpakovsky / July 13, 2014
Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative.
If Eric Holder were a baseball player, he’d have been benched long ago — if not kicked off the team. His batting average before the Supreme Court is abysmal, losing again and again in his efforts to undermine the Constitution.
This term featured four big strike downs.
First was Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the Supremes tossed out ObamaCare’s contraceptive abortion mandate and upheld the First Amendment rights of several family-owned businesses to make their living in conformance with their religious beliefs.
Although the government was not party to another case, Harris v. Quinn, the Justice Department filed an amicus brief on the side of Illinois and the SEIU, arguing that unwilling home health-care workers could be forced into unions (and made to pay compulsory dues) simply because their services are paid for through Medicaid.
Fortunately, the Court ruled against Illinois’s heavy-handed attempt to help bolster its political allies, public sector unions.
On June 26, in National Labor Relations Board v. Canning, all nine Justices ruled that President Obama’s “recess” appointments to the NLRB violated the Constitution.
Not only did Obama’s own judicial appointees vote against him (including his former solicitor general), but the majority opinion was written by Stephen Breyer, a liberal stalwart of the Court.
The Administration also lost United State v. Wurie, in which the Holder Justice Department claimed that the police and federal authorities did not need a search warrant to seize all of the information stored in the cellphone of someone who had been arrested.
Once again, the administration lost all nine justices.
The basic invasion of privacy and violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful searches and seizures represented by the administration’s position is in line with its frightening view of governmental power over its citizens.
Canning and Wurie are only the latest losses of the administration in which all nine Supreme Court justices ruled against the government.
In fact, there have been 20 such cases during this administration — and even more if you include cases in which the administration filed an amicus brief, such as in McCullen v. Coakley, the free-speech case that was handed down the same day as the recess appointments case.
The Obama administration filed an amicus brief in that case supporting the Massachusetts law in question and helped argue the case before the Supreme Court.
But all nine justices found the Massachusetts law, which created a 35-foot “buffer” zone around abortion clinics, violated the First Amendment by restricting speech in public areas “that have historically been open to the public for speech activities.”
It is no surprise that the administration supported a law that restricted the voice of pro-life supporters.
That is in accord with its general attack on the political speech and activities of disfavored conservative advocacy organizations through the IRS and other government agencies. The positions taken by this administration in the other 9-to-0 cases are just as overbroad.
In 2012’s Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, DOJ displayed an open hostility to religious freedom by claiming that the federal government had the right, as the Supreme Court termed it, to “interfere” in a church’s employment decisions on the hiring and firing of its ministers and religious teachers.
The Supreme Court was clearly astounded at the arguments being made by the Justice Department and unanimously rejected it.
In Sackett v. EPA, the administration tried to prevent a family from defending itself in court and contesting a punitive order from EPA bureaucrats imposing a fine of $75,000 a day for trying to develop a lot in a residential neighborhood which the EPA considered a wetland. The administration lost.
In US v. Jones, just like in the Riley/Wurie cases, the administration claimed that law enforcement could attach a GPS device to your car without a warrant or even any suspicion of criminal activity.
The Court unanimously rejected this position and, in a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the administration was trying to invade “privacy interests long afforded, and undoubtedly entitled to, Fourth Amendment protection.”
Typically, the Justice Department does very well before the Supreme Court. Holder has made that a losing record.
That’s because, as legal scholar Ilya Shapiro says, the administration has “relied on outlandish legal theories that pushed a constitutional interpretation of extreme federal power.”
Holder and Obama have argued that we as Americans don’t have the right to free speech, the right to privacy, the right to due process or the freedom of religion.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court has become the last defense for those who still believe in those rights.
