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Ridgewood High School graduates urged to earn happiness

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Ridgewood High School graduates urged to earn happiness

JUNE 25, 2014    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2014, 6:29 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER

Facing a sea of red roses and white dresses covered in sparkling details, Ridgewood High School (RHS) Principal Tom Gorman told the Class of 2014 that life is not a fairytale, with one easy way to happiness.

“Happiness is earned,” he said. “It is not a system based on awards and rewards, based solely on wants. When pursuing happiness, many times there are no raises, promotions or awards.”

As he spoke to about 400 students and several hundred more in attendance at Tuesday’s graduation, the principal’s point was that in American culture “happiness as a pursuit is strongly encouraged” – yet how to get there can be unclear.

Promising students that they will not find happiness simply through professional success or “by pursuing money, material possessions or fame” (though they may be fortunate enough to acquire those things), he invoked the struggle of Nelson Mandela and the research of Dan Buettner, who wrote “Thrive,” a book focusing on happiness.

Mandela’s 27-year imprisonment while fighting against apartheid exemplified the importance of “delayed gratification,” helping others, and having faith in something larger than oneself. And Buettner’s work illustrated that true happiness has many components.

Buettner, Gorman said, found that 40 percent of happiness is related to one’s daily thoughts and actions. Buettner’s research on “true happiness,” Gorman observed, included several key themes: the development of a caring group of healthy friends; working at meaningful jobs; engaging in enriching hobbies; staying in reasonable shape; volunteering one’s time and services; and belonging to a faith-based community.

“He also found that true happiness involves the pursuit of worthy goals,” Gorman said. “You need to believe in something bigger than yourself, something that transcends you. This gives hope and we cannot live without faith, love, and especially hope.”

Gorman told students to “remember you are not alone in your pursuit of happiness, and be true to yourself and others. And may you all live happily ever after.”

On Wednesday, the principal said he got his inspiration for the speech from a magazine article.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/education/ridgewood-high-school-graduates-urged-to-earn-happiness-1.1041312#sthash.xpY66TuE.dpuf

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Congratulations to the RHS class of 2014 ,Grad of 1952 looks back

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class of 2014 photo Ridgewood PD

Congratulations to the Ridgewood High School class of 2014.

RHS grads turning 80 looks back at the class of ’52

JUNE 20, 2014    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2014, 12:31 AM
BY DEIRDRE FLANAGAN WARD
SOCIAL EDITOR

The reunion may be over, but for a group of committee grads from Ridgewood High School Class of 1952, the party never ends. On a balmy mid-week evening (these kids don’t worry about work the next day because most of them are retired!) the group got together at the home of Anne (Ward) and Hank Allen in Glen Rock for some light fare, delicious libations, lively conversation and birthday celebrations. Marking their 80th birthdays were classmates Roy Tarvin, Claire Carter, Lois Clapp, Nancy Jeanne Alward, Judy Kaiser, Connie Macchi, Bob Croland, Donald Heller, Bruce Crocco, Anne Allen, Joan Van Ry, Carole Frank and Mimi Maxfield. Classmate Jim Craig, who was not able to attend, was celebrated in spirit. In addition to toasting a remarkable lifetime achievement, several members of the group also reminisced about their longstanding friendships; some forged in their kindergarten years, others as neighborhood pals, and then there were the childhood sweethearts.

The committee, although not planning a reunion this year, meets on a regular basis because they enjoy each others’ company – spouses included. A number of the gals additionally branched off to start “The Lunch Bunch” as a social adventure in dining. The venture proved to be so popular it expanded into weekend getaways. And not to be confused with senior citizen outings, these gals take to the road and drive themselves! The group has been very active and diligent in reaching out to classmates over the years, which explains the high attendance rate at reunions and other affairs. They even started a newsletter to keep people up to date and recently initiated a giving back movement by making a donation to the RHS Learning Center. Individually, and collectively, the committee members and longtime friends are testimony to the fact that 80 may be their chronological status, but forever in their hearts they will remain the ages they were in 1952.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/celebrations/rhs-grads-turning-80-embrace-52-1.1038651#sthash.8hvmo6Vi.dpuf

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Bell, Booker and Candle

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Bell, Booker and Candle
By Post Editorial Board
June 22, 2014 | 7:55pm

Sen. Cory Booker has everything going for him in his re-election race against former Reagan speechwriter Jeff Bell.

Booker has a war chest of $2.9 million, against a mere $76,000 for Bell. Booker is a Democratic incumbent running in a mostly blue state where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by 700,000. And according to a recent Rassmussen poll, 39 percent of New Jerseyans don’t even know who the heck Jeff Bell is.

All Bell has going for him is his conviction, which is that government is making it harder for working people to support their families.

In short, he’s a free-market, traditional values, pro-immigration conservative who thinks its high time someone took this message to the people of New Jersey.

So here’s the question: Despite all Booker’s advantages, why does the latest poll show his support at under 50 percent?

Rassmussen’s recent survey of likely voters puts Booker’s support at 48 percent, against 35 percent for Bell. That’s a 13 percentage-point difference, which is the same percentage who say they are undecided.

Bell, of course, remains a long shot in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican to the US Senate since 1972. Ironically, the Republican who won that seat was Clifford Case, the man Bell beat in the Republican primary back in 1978 — only to lose to Democrat Bill Bradley in the general election.

https://nypost.com/2014/06/22/bell-booker-and-candle/

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Republicans dropped a hammer on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen during a testy hearing covering the disappearance of emails tied to the agency’s tea party targeting scandal

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Republicans dropped a hammer on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen during a testy hearing covering the disappearance of emails tied to the agency’s tea party targeting scandal

‘We have a problem with you, and you have a problem maintaining your credibility’: House Republicans slam IRS commissioner as they subpoena a White House lawyer in ‘missing emails’ case

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified Monday in a rare evening hearing, just days after being called a liar in another House proceeding
He defended the IRS against insinuations that it covered up a political targeting scheme by burying inconvenient emails
Republicans say he lied in March when he promised to deliver copies of ‘all’ of former official Lois Lerner’s communications even though he knew of a 2011 computer crash that destroyed 28 months’ worth
Koskinen couldn’t explain why a six-month ‘disaster recovery’ backup wasn’t tapped to restore her emails after the computer crash
He complained that it would take $10 to $30 million to upgrade IRS computers to retain all its emails and documents; the agency paid $89 million in bonuses last year and has an $1.8 billion IT budget
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa subpoenaed White House attorney Jennifer O’Connor on Monday to testify Tuesday morning
O’Connor, former counsel to the then-acting IRS commissioner, was invited to testify but the White House Counsel’s office refused to let her appear

By DAVID MARTOSKO, U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR

PUBLISHED: 17:36 EST, 23 June 2014 | UPDATED: 02:30 EST, 24 June 2014

Republicans dropped a hammer on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen during a testy hearing covering the disappearance of emails tied to the agency’s tea party targeting scandal.

The emails, covering the period January 2009 to April 2011, belonged to embattled former official Lois Lerner and could shed light on whether an expansive scheme to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny was guided by members of Congress or administration officials outside the IRS.

‘The committee requested all of Lois Lerner’s emails over a year ago,’ said House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa. ‘And we subpoenaed the emails in August 2013 and again in February 2014. … You worked to cover up the fact they were missing and only came forward to fess up on a Friday afternoon after you had been caught red-handed.’

‘You personally did not cause the targeting,’ he told Koskinen, referring to the tea party scandal. ‘You personally did not destroy the emails. But by your actions and your deception, you now own this scandal.’

‘We have a problem with you,’ Issa sniped at the front end of a three-hour, 36-minute ordeal, ‘and you have a problem maintaining your credibility.’


Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2666413/House-Republicans-subpoena-White-House-lawyer-missing-emails-case-IRS-commissioner-prepares-prime-time-grilling.html#ixzz35Y9oLRPl

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The scandal of fiddled global warming data

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The scandal of fiddled global warming data

The US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record

By Christopher Booker
4:04PM BST 21 Jun 2014

When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data. There was already much evidence of this seven years ago, when I was writing my history of the scare, The Real Global Warming Disaster. But now another damning example has been uncovered by Steven Goddard’s US blog Real Science, showing how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the world’s most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been “adjusting” its record by replacing real temperatures with data “fabricated” by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data. In several posts headed “Data tampering at USHCN/GISS”, Goddard compares the currently published temperature graphs with those based only on temperatures measured at the time. These show that the US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record; whereas the latest graph, nearly half of it based on “fabricated” data, shows it to have been warming at a rate equivalent to more than 3 degrees centigrade per century.

When I first began examining the global-warming scare, I found nothing more puzzling than the way officially approved scientists kept on being shown to have finagled their data, as in that ludicrous “hockey stick” graph, pretending to prove that the world had suddenly become much hotter than at any time in 1,000 years. Any theory needing to rely so consistently on fudging the evidence, I concluded, must be looked on not as science at all, but as simply a rather alarming case study in the aberrations of group psychology.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10916086/The-scandal-of-fiddled-global-warming-data.html

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2014 Parade Theme,The Star Spangled Banner, 1814 – 2014

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2014 Parade Theme,The Star Spangled Banner, 1814 – 2014

Displayed at Schoolhouse Museum

The Ridgewood Fourth of July Celebration Committee is proud to announce their theme
for the 2014 celebration. The theme will be “The Star Spangled Banner, 1814 – 2014”.
The Ridgewood Fourth of July Celebration Committee will sponsor its annual celebration on Friday, July 4, 2014.

The purpose of the Ridgewood Fourth of July Celebration is to celebrate the USA and its history and to honor American Patriots of all times. For 2014, we would like to focus on our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. We will celebrate the people and events involved with creating this important American song.

The purpose of the Ridgewood Fourth of July Celebration is to celebrate the USA and its history and to honor American Patriots of all times. For 2014, we would like to focus on our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. We will celebrate the people and eventsinvolved with creating this important American song.

The Ridgewood Fourth of July Celebration is organized by the Ridgewood Fourth of
July Celebration, Inc., an all-volunteer community group. All aspects of this annual
Celebration including fireworks, bands, evening performers, insurance, and police and
fire personnel are funded by voluntary contributions from businesses and individuals.

This year we’re excited to announce that The Ridgewood Historical Society in their
Schoolhouse Museum has a copy on display of a beautiful Currier and Ives print entitled “The Star Spangles Banner”. Lady Liberty crowned with an American crest bears the American flag as she points forward to victory. The fires of the battle burn in the distance– presumably the defense of Fort McHenry by American forces during the British attack on September 13, 1814 (in the War of 1812) that inspired Francis Scott Key to write The Star Spangled Banner. Several phrases from the song The Star Spangled Banner serve as the title printed in the lower margin: “O! long may it wave,/ O’er the land of the free,And the home of the brave.”

Part of the mission of the Ridgewood Historical Society, which operates the
Schoolhouse Museum, is to design exhibits using artifacts that tell the stories about ou
history, culture, and the lives of ordinary people from Ridgewood and the surrounding
celebrates New Jersey’s 350th and liberty. Highlighted in this exhibit is the museum’s collection of U.S. flags, a fitting complement to this years’ July 4th festivities.

The Schoolhouse Museum located at 650 E. Glen Ave, Ridgewood, is open this summer on Thursdays and Saturdays from 1 to 3 and Sundays 2 to 4.
through the 20th century. The current exhibit, A Community’s Journey,
anniversary using the themes of diversity, innovation,and liberty. Highlighted in this exhibit is the museum’s collection of U.S. flags, a fitting complement to this years’ July 4th festivities.

The Schoolhouse Museum located at 650 E. Glen Ave, Ridgewood, is open this summer on Thursdays and Saturdays from 1 to 3 and Sundays 2 to 4.

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Revolution in the Air? Glen Rock grassroots group fights turf plan there

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Revolution in the Air? Glen Rock grassroots group fights turf plan there
Interested Observer
June 22,2014
2:50 PM 

Just south of The Wood, yet another grassroots group is fighting yet another multimillion-dollar bonded turf project.

It’s happening all over. (Just saw this; was away last week.) I had a feeling that the huge number of people in Glen Rock who were against that turf project from the start weren’t going to accept their council’s decision not only to let it go through but also, adding financial insult to bad-politics injury, to pay for 90% of the $3 million with tax money instead of 0%, as the sports groups once promised–while promising to raise the funds, which they failed to do.

Green Up Glen Rock  
NEWSLETTER   ·     JUNE 2014   

Last Chance to Fight Turf Field

Sign the petition tonight, June 17 at Starbucks 

Many Glen Rock citizens are dismayed with the Mayor and Council’s recent decision to pass a $3,000,000 bond ordinance–without a citizen-wide vote–to fund the synthetic turf athletic field project and accompanying commercial sports complex at Faber Field (which is to include restrictive fencing, unsightly billboards and lighting and revenue-producing commercial concessions and non-resident field rentals).  If you are concerned about the preservation of Glen Rock’s peaceful parkland, cooling green open space, and natural grass fields that are available to all Glen Rockers, please consider signing our Citizen Petition.  You can read a copy of the petition below, and if you are both a Glen Rock resident and registered voter, you may join us in this challenge by signing a hard copy of this document at the following locations both today and tomorrow:
 
Tuesday June 17th at the Starbuck’s Glen Rock from 6:30 to 8:30 pm

Thank you.

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************CITIZEN PETITION  


“We the undersigned wish to challenge the adoption of Borough of Glen Rock 

May 28, 2014 Ordinance # 1701 — 

BOND ORDINANCE TO AUTHORIZE THE FABER FIELD SYNTHETIC TURF ATHLETIC FIELD PROJECT IN, BY AND FOR THE BOROUGH OF GLEN ROCK, IN THE COUNTY OF BERGEN, STATE OF NEW JERSEY, TO APPROPRIATE THE SUM OF $3,000,000 TO PAY THE COST THEREOF, TO MAKE A DOWN PAYMENT, TO AUTHORIZE THE ISSUANCE OF BONDS TO FINANCE SUCH APPROPRIATION AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE ISSUANCE OF BOND ANTICIPATION NOTES IN ANTICIPATION OF THE ISSUANCE OF SUCH BONDS.

and wish to submit the question to the voters of Glen Rock by referendum.

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Green-Up-Glen-Rock/140345582620

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Bergen County Farm saved

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Bergen County Farm saved

JUNE 22, 2014    LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JUNE 22, 2014, 1:21 AM
THE RECORD

CONSIDERING how congested Bergen County is, the idea of preserving whatever open space remains always sounds good in theory. Sometimes, though, the details can prove difficult.

It’s nice to see that the Demarest Farms in Saddle River and Hillsdale will be preserved. Seeing other farm properties in the area close and redeveloped as retail or housing shows that this outcome can’t happen in every instance.

The Bergen County Freeholders voted unanimously last week to spend about $2.6 million in open-space money for the development rights to a 17-acre section of the Saddle River property. The money came from the county’s share of a state farmland preservation program, with an additional $1.15 million from the Garden State Trust Fund.

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The owner, Peter Demarest, said he and his family, who have owned the farm property since 1886, probably could have made up to $1.5 million more if they sold it to a developer.

But they instead chose to sell the county the development rights, which allows two of the farm’s longtime employees to take over the operations going forward. The Demarest family sold development rights to a 10-acre portion in 2004 and will move on from the area after selling the rights to the remaining section.

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The new portion of Demarest Farms is Bergen County’s eighth successful farm preservation project, with a total amount of about 331 acres in permanently preserved farmland.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-editorials/farm-saved-1.1039448#sthash.kMVZMwiE.dpuf

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A Majority of Young Adults Are Having Kids Outside Marriage. Why That Hurts Kids’ Futures.

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Kim Kardashian and Kanye West had a baby together before getting married. (Photo: Judy Eddy/WENN/Newscom)

A Majority of Young Adults Are Having Kids Outside Marriage. Why That Hurts Kids’ Futures.

Rachel Sheffield June 21, 2014

Rachel Sheffield focuses on welfare, marriage and family, and education as policy analyst in the DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.

Among young adults, first comes baby, then (maybe) comes marriage. This increasingly is the new normal.

According to a new study from Johns Hopkins University, 57 percent of mothers between 26 and 31 are unmarried when their child is born

But not all young adults are having kids outside of marriage. Instead, the key factor appears to be whether a young woman has attended college.

Among mothers without a high school degree, 63 percent of births occur outside marriage. But among college educated young women, 71 percent of births occur within marriage.

Unfortunately, these differences have consequences. “The U.S. is steadily separating into a two-caste system with marriage and education as the dividing line,” says my colleague Robert Rector.

“In the high-income third of the population, children are raised by married parents with a college education. In the bottom-income third, children are raised by single parents with a high school degree or less.”

Similarly, the authors of the Hopkins study found that “American society is moving toward two different patterns of family formation and two diverging destinies for children.”

But one of those destinies is far less promising, leaving a significant portion of the nation’s next generation with less opportunity.

Children in single-parent homes are more than five times as likely to experience poverty. That isn’t simply because of their parents’ generally lower education level. Even parents with lower levels of education are at far less risk of poverty if they are married.

Children raised by their married, biological parents have other advantages. They are more likely to graduate from high school or college, less likely to engage in delinquent behaviors and less likely to become single parents themselves.

So why do many young adults then still have children outside of marriage?

It’s not because they’re anti-marriage: Research suggests that young, single mothers are not hostile to marriage. Yet they don’t believe it is necessary to marry prior to having children. Rather than seeing marriage as a step to achieving a stable family and social mobility, they view it as a capstone that occurs after they have arrived.

Still, , young men and women don’t seem to understand the consequences of the breakdown of marriage. Thus, the first step would be to get the message out about the importance of marriage in building stable families and communities, particularly in areas where this stability is not the norm.

Additionally, leaders at every level should engage in finding ways to strengthen and maintain healthy families. Examples of this include high schools in Alabama that have taught relationship education courses to youth, the community healthy marriage initiative in Chattanooga, Tenn., that provides relationship education and other resources to couples and families, or the state healthy marriage initiative in Oklahoma that operates marriage and relationship education programs for lower-income couples.

Restoring a culture of marriage is crucial to today’s generation and to the generations they will raise. The goal for all individuals, families, churches, communities and policymakers should be to give every child–regardless of economic background–the greatest opportunity to be reared by their mother and father in a stable married relationship.

https://dailysignal.com/2014/06/21/majority-young-adults-kids-outside-marriage-hurts-kids-futures/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

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Why Are So Many Young Adults Not Looking for Jobs?

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Why Are So Many Young Adults Not Looking for Jobs?
Stephen Moore

June 21, 2014

Stephen Moore, who formerly wrote on the economy and public policy for The Wall Street Journal, is chief economist at The Heritage Foundation.

Economists are scratching their heads trying to figure out a puzzle in this recovery: Why are young people not working? People retiring at age 60 or even 55 in a weak economy is easy to understand. But at 25?

The percentage of adult Americans who are working or looking for work now stands at 62.8%, a 36-year low and down more than 3 percentage points since late 2007, according to the Labor Department’s May employment report.

This is fairly well-known. What isn’t so well-known is that a major reason for the decline is that fewer and fewer young people are holding jobs. This exit from the workforce by the young is counter to the conventional wisdom or the Obama administration’s official line.

The White House claims the workforce is contracting because more baby boomers are retiring. There’s some truth to that. About 10,000 boomers retire every day of the workweek, so that’s clearly depressing the labor market. Since 2009, 7 million Americans have reached official retirement age. The problem will get worse in the years to come as nearly 80 million boomers hit age 65.

But that trend tells only part of the story. The chart above shows the real problem: The largest decline in workforce participation has been those under 25.

Idle Youth

The percentage of young Americans earning a paycheck or looking for work has fallen by 4 percentage points over the course of the recovery, and those between 16 and 25 have experienced the largest decline.

Those over 65, by the way, are more likely to be working today than five years ago. This shift has cushioned the blow of young people not working.

Why is this trend so troubling? Studies show that teens who start working at a job at a young age have higher earnings later in life. One study found that those who work as teenagers have earnings that are about 10% higher at age 27 than those who did not work.

“When we hold young Americans out of jobs,” explains Michael Saltsman of the Employment Policies Institute, “that makes it more difficult for them to get higher-paying jobs later.”

The federal minimum-wage hikes that started in 2007 didn’t help. Teens were priced out of the job market. The overall teen jobless rate skyrocketed. For black males, it topped 40%.

The teen unemployment rate remains at 19.2% — even with the participation rate down sharply — so it would be hard to imagine a worse time to raise the minimum wage again.

Minimum Wage Impact

Saltsman’s research shows that a 10% rise in the minimum wage could mean a 2% or 3% decline in young Americans working. Seattle is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour. A $10.10 federal minimum wage is being pushed by the White House. The current minimum wage is $7.25.

“When wages are held artificially high,” says Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder, “jobs are a lot more scarce. Unemployment is negatively associated with the wage rate.”

High teen unemployment is a big problem in Europe, where wage floors are very high. In nations such as France and Spain, the young delay their entry into the workforce until their mid- or even late 20s. These workers’ wages rarely catch up to those who start working earlier. Europe has traditionally had a much smaller share of young adults in jobs.

“Where have the workers been going in the U.S.?” asks Louis Woodhill, an economist in Houston. “They have been fleeing into the arms of the welfare state.” Since 2007, 2 million more Americans have started receiving Social Security disability payments, and food-stamp rolls have increased by 20 million. This has substituted for jobs.

Student Loans

One possible reason that the young are staying away from the labor force is student loans. Since 2007, student loans have risen by more than $500 billion, a subsidy that may be giving college-age students an incentive to take aid instead of look for work to become financially self-sufficient and acquire marketable skills.

We do no favors to the young by teaching them that they can consume or have a good time without first earning the money they spend. The decline in young workers couldn’t come at a worse time. At the other end of the spectrum, as the 80 million boomers move swiftly out of the workforce in the decade ahead, who will support them? Mick Jagger isn’t going to be playing forever.

Originally posted on Investors.com.

https://dailysignal.com/2014/06/21/number-employed-young-americans-drops/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

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The Great Ridgewood Duck Derby- July 19th

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file photo Boyd Loving

The Great Ridgewood Duck Derby- July 19th

The Great Ridgewood Duck Derby

On Saturday, July 19th, Ridgewood Parks & Recreation, in cooperation with Jacobsen Landscape Contractors of Midland Park, will be hosting the Great Ridgewood Duck Derby at Graydon Pool. Come out and embrace the national “Come Alive Outside” campaign and join us for an afternoon of fun family activity. This event will feature an array of different types of entertainment. There will also be a number of different kinds of activities throughout the day such as beach games, a sand sculpture contest, duck decorating, face painting, and ultimately concluding with a rubber duck race. 

Pre-registration is a must and the deadline for advance sales is July 17th. The cost to take part in this fun family event is $10 per person ($15 per person non-residents) which includes a BBQ ticket and one rubber duck. With the BBQ ticket you get a hamburger or hotdog, chips, and a beverage. 

The “Come Alive Outside” campaign started in 2010 by Jim Paluch in hopes of combating the sedentary, indoor lifestyle that is contributing to a multitude of adverse effects in our society. Playing outside has more benefits than just the physical, outdoor play can help children develop social skills, reduce stress, and increase their self-confidence. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 60 minutes of free play outside daily is essential for a child’s development which is why it is the “Come Alive Outside” campaign’s mission to create opportunities for children to get outside for some good healthy fun. 

To register for the Great Ridgewood Duck Derby you can either stop by The Stable at 259 N. Maple Ave and fill out a registration form or go online at www.ridgewoodnj.net/communitypass. The rain date for this event will be on Sunday July 20th. Please call the Parks & Recreation Department at 201-670-5560 with any questions.

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Michael Feeney’s Best Day Ever – Saturday, June 21 from 10AM to 4PM

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Michael Feeney’s Best Day Ever – Saturday, June 21 from 10AM to 4PM

Bring your family and join the Ridgewood Community in celebrating the 1st “BEST DAY EVER” celebration… June 21st at BF Middle School…Rain date June 22

Enjoy Carnival Games, Face painting, Crafts, Contests, Color Fun Run…and more!

Tickets: Bookends, Backyard Living, Ben & Jerry’s, Leapin’ Lizard… or Community Pass – https://register.communitypass.net/ridgewood

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Ridgewood joins group seeking return of Open Space Trust Fund

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Ridgewood joins group seeking return of Open Space Trust Fund

JUNE 20, 2014    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2014, 12:31 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER

Ridgewood has joined a group of municipalities that is seeking restoration of full funding to the Bergen County Open Space Trust Fund.

Members of the Village Council unanimously approved last week a resolution endorsing the change, and a copy of legislation will be forwarded to the county executive and freeholder board.

The open space trust fund is fueled by the county open space tax, which all property owners currently pay at a rate of a quarter of one cent per $100 of real property valuation. Ridgewood, led by the village’s Open Space Committee, has asked the county to increase the rate to a full one cent per $100.

In a May 20 letter from the Open Space Committee to Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan and the freeholders, Chairman Ralph Currey noted that the county’s open space tax had been set at the one cent figure between 2004 and 2009. During that period, Ridgewood and other municipalities received “vital support” from the trust fund for open space purchases and recreation facility improvements.

The county then slashed the tax by 75 percent in 2010, and “in essence dried up the open space money,” according to Tom Riche, the Village Council representative to the Open Space Committee.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/village-joins-growing-group-seeking-return-of-trust-fund-1.1038614#sthash.nHecbzBn.dpuf

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America’s expanding police state

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America’s expanding police state
Neighborhood cops are becoming armed soldiers
By Tammy Bruce
Friday, June 20, 201

With so much happening internationally and the number of scandals, crises and general screw-ups of the Obama administration here at home, it’s worth noting a disturbing development here on the domestic front: a rapidly expanding police state.

On my radio program last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Cheryl Chumley, a reporter for The Washington Times, about her new book, “Police State USA: How George Orwell’s Nightmare is Becoming our Reality.” The title says it all, and aptly describes the shocking transformation of what had been our free society.

We all know about the scope of National Security Agency (NSA) spying. It’s fair to say at this point in our lives that the notion of privacy is all but dead and gone. However, it didn’t start there. In her book, Mrs. Chumley takes us on a ride through history, reminding us of the original intentions of the Founding Fathers versus the assault on the original design by “21st century realities.”

Keep in mind, people in the political class constantly reveal their contempt for regular citizens. That contempt is the inevitable result of a group of people who have convinced themselves that big government is necessary because the little people can’t control their own lives.

These same politicians and bureaucrats then begin to see themselves a genuinely better than everyone else. After all, if they were just like us, then they’d be part of the rabble, and they can’t have that. The solution to their dilemma is a police state.

Mrs. Chumley’s chapters in “Police State USA” provide a treatise on all the elements of society that are under attack as big government seeks to sustain itself through a police state, including aspects of an expanding and increasingly paranoid bureaucratic system that has decided the individual is the problem.

Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/20/bruceraising-a-police-state-army/#ixzz35GDNh6iR

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Readers continue to Praise CRR

stopvalley

Readers continue to Praise CRR

Pete and all of CRR have done an amazing job. It may be time for others to step up and take leadership roles at CRR. Pete and a few others are private citizens who have put COUNTLESS hours into this effort for the last 6 or 7 years. They’d probably like to get some time to relax. Meanwhile, Valley will probably launch another expansion idea, eventually.

Yes, Thanks you to CRR and all those folks who attended these meetings for years and spent their own money. While I have donated a small amount in the past, I agree it would be great for people to take this opportunity to donate again.

I hope they have a big celebration as they should be really proud of themselves!

The CRR is a most amazing example of grass roots community activism. These guys stared down Goliath and never blinked. Congratulations to Pete McKenna, Lisa Baney, Lorraine Reynolds, Marla Sherman and everyone else in that organization that never gave up hope. They should make a movie.

Everyone who has congratulated CRR should make sure they have chipped in to repay the money spent! We all owe a tremendous debt to the hardworking CRR; lets find out how much they are in the red, and help out!

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