The purpose of this photography project is to highlight the lives of residents over 60 yrs. old, who have stayed in Ridgewood even after raising children.
We are seeking beginner or professional-level photographs of 60+ residents that portray the variety of reasons people over 60 yrs. old do chose to stay in our Village. They can be at social events, at work, or play, at sporting events, at clubs, committees, concerts, restaurants, downtown, etc….
Also, in individual, group, only-senior, or in intergenerational settings…….
A kick-off event will take place at 12 Noon, November 18, in The Senior Center at the Village Hall. A professional photographer will explain photography tips for novices and cameras (donated by Wholesale Camera in Midland Park) will be available for anyone who needs a loaner camera.
Photographs must be submitted by December 21, 2014 to the Ridgewood Village Hall Clerk’s office or sent electronically to [email protected]. Submit photos as often as you want. A editing team will select the best photos for the Final Project. These photos will be made into a slideshow and a book to be displayed at the Ridgewood Library and in the Community Center in February, 2015.
“One picture is worth a thousand words!” 50 photos should tell a lot about the 3500 seniors who live in Ridgewood; their friends, families and connections……
N.J. to allow Medicaid to cover in-home elder care
NOVEMBER 30, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2014, 1:21 AM
BY COLLEEN DISKIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
In its latest move to promote alternatives to nursing homes, the Christie administration will enact a new funding measure on Monday that will allow more elderly and disabled people to apply for Medicaid assistance to pay for care at home or in non-institutional settings.
This newest amendment to the New Jersey’s Medicaid program will allow those who earn too much to qualify for full assistance — but who can’t afford the cost of the care they need — to receive help through the creation of a trust account at a bank.
Any income an elderly or disabled person receives above the Medicaid eligibility limit of $2,163 a month will be deposited into these irrevocable trust accounts, with withdrawals allowed for qualified living expenses as well as for the portion of their care that individuals can afford. Medicaid will then pick up the rest of the tab for their care, whether it’s in a nursing home or their own home.
The change is a response to years of lobbying from advocates who said old Medicaid rules were having the unintended effect of forcing people into nursing homes prematurely, because the state offered no help in paying for home health aides, adult day care programs or assisted living residences.
DEA agent meets with Ridgewood parents, discusses student drug abuse
November 26, 2014 Last updated: Wednesday, November 26, 2014, 9:42 AM
By Jodi Weinberger
Staff Writer |
The Ridgewood News
The most dangerous words from a parent, said retired Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Douglas S. Collier, are “not my child.”
In a presentation titled “The Perfect Storm: Battling the Prescription Drug and Heroin Epidemic,” Collier explained how this type of thinking contributes to the widespread use of opiates in the state.
“The importance is to raise awareness of parents who think it can’t touch them,” Collier said before his presentation.
This event, held last Tuesday at Benjamin Franklin Middle School, is part of the district’s Community Outreach Program with events scheduled throughout the year on a range of topics from technology, to drug use, exercise and financial literacy.
The heroin epidemic reaches beyond New Jersey, Collier said, and is a result of what he called “a nation of users.”
The Obama administration is facing a slew of healthcare challenges as the winter holidays approach.
While this fall has been a far cry from last year, when HealthCare.gov was melting down, 2014 has brought wholly unexpected problems to the fore for federal health officials and the White House.
Take the conflict surrounding Jonathan Gruber, the ObamaCare consultant whose suggestion that a “lack of transparency” and voters’ “stupidity” helped the law pass, went viral.
Though Democrats have sought to distance themselves from Gruber, his remarks have become a new flashpoint in debate over healthcare reform, invigorating GOP critics as the party prepares to take control of the Senate.
Gruber has agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Dec. 9, in a final hearing for outgoing chairman and relentless administration antagonist Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
The gathering, also set to include Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, is sure to prove a distraction for the White House as officials try once again to keep a lid on opposition to the law.
Here are four additional challenges that the administration faces on healthcare this winter.
Charles Ponzi working with the social security administration
Ponzi: Treasury Issues $1T in New Debt in 8 Weeks—To Pay Old Debt
November 28, 2014 – 2:37 PM
The Daily Treasury Statement that was released Wednesday afternoon as Americans were preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving revealed that the U.S. Treasury has been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government.
During those eight weeks, Treasury took in $341,591,000,000 in revenues. That was a record for the period between Oct. 1 and Nov. 25. But that record $341,591,000,000 in revenues was not enough to finance ongoing government spending let alone pay off old debt that matured.
U.S. CEOs threaten to pull tacit Obamacare support over ‘wellness’ spat
By Sharon Begley 4 hours ago
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Leading U.S. CEOs, angered by the Obama administration’s challenge to certain “workplace wellness” programs, are threatening to side with anti-Obamacare forces unless the government backs off, according to people familiar with the matter.
Major U.S. corporations have broadly supported President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform despite concerns over several of its elements, largely because it included provisions encouraging the wellness programs.
The programs aim to control healthcare costs by reducing smoking, obesity, hypertension and other risk factors that can lead to expensive illnesses. A bipartisan provision in the 2010 healthcare reform law allows employers to reward workers who participate and penalize those who don’t.
Saturday, NOVEMBER 29TH, 2014
Small Business Saturday is a national day to encourage people to shop at small businesses.
Saturday, November 29, 2014 is Small Business Saturday® – a day to celebrate and support small businesses and all they do in your community.
Please join the Ridgewood blog and organizations across the country in supporting your local small business by shopping at a small business.
Small Business Saturday is an American shopping holiday held on the Saturday after U.S. Thanksgivingduring 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. By contrast, Small Business Saturday encourages holiday shoppers to patronize brick and mortar businesses that are small and local. Small Business Saturday is a registered trademark of American Express corporation.
Less cash in the tank, more in the bank: Lower gas prices boost N.J. drivers’ bottom line
NOVEMBER 28, 2014, 11:30 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2014, 11:40 PM
BY NICHOLAS PUGLIESE
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Lissette Mendez got so fed up with high gasoline prices over the summer that she started looking for a new job with a shorter commute. Now, not only is the job search less urgent, but she can also set a little money aside for her daughter’s education.
Joseph Christ was able to splurge on a nine-day motorcycle trip to the Grand Canyon in October, just months after he stopped using his beloved 1996 Ford Bronco, whose appetite for gas cost him $120 per fill-up, in favor of a fuel-efficient sedan.
Aaron Carr hadn’t filled the tank of the family car to the top in more than seven months, buying just $20 at a time, hardly enough to budge the fuel gauge. But now, for the last few weeks, he’s been putting unspent gas money “on ice,” saving it for a rainy day.
Just as the holidays arrive, so has a measure of relief for New Jersey drivers. At an average of $2.71 per gallon as of Friday, state gas prices are at their lowest point in nearly four years and about 50 cents less than they were just three months ago. If they remain there, drivers are expected to save roughly $400 annually, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“It’s like going back in time,” Frank Cappiello, 62, of Elmwood Park said as he and his wife treated their 2½-year-old granddaughter to a morning ride Thursday. “There’s money left over in the checkbook.”
Jonathan Gruber, the former ObamaCare adviser in hot water for his comments about the “stupidity of the American voter,” has agreed to testify at a House panel next month, setting up a healthcare showdown in what could be the final week of this Congress.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will also hear from Obama administration official Marilyn Tavenner, who is under fire this week for using inflated enrollment figures for the healthcare law.
“Both Mr. Gruber and Administrator Tavenner have agreed to testify,” committee spokeswoman Caitlin Carroll told The Hill.
Both figures have played a role in major political headaches for the Obama administration, which is facing new allegations of “repeated transparency failures and outright deceptions” from Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will be grilled for a number of speeches he has given since 2010 that blame the Obama administration for intentionally obscuring details of the healthcare law in order to assure its passage.
Hack Friday : Black Friday cybercrime is unstoppable.
By Tal Kopan
11/28/14 8:06 AM EST
This holiday shopping season, kicking off with post-Thanksgiving deals, millions of Americans will almost certainly have their credit or debit card information stolen by overseas hackers.
Just like last year.
Twelve months after data from 40 million cards were stolen from Target, beginning a year of escalating hacks of retailers’ payment card systems, not much has changed beyond awareness.
The absence of federal action reflects the difficulty of improving cybersecurity. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree on the goal of improving the security of the nation’s networks, but disputes over even small details can sidetrack progress. Congressional action has been bogged down in side fights, and industry-led changes have been slow and narrow. Executive action, and power, on the issue is limited, and most administration efforts have been designed to encourage retailers to take extra precautions against theft, rather than apply new regulations.
Come and hear the classic story “Polar Express” and receive a silver bell. Shaw’s Book Shop will be holding story time on Saturday December 6 at 5pm, just before the Home for the Holidays parade. The theme for this year’s parade is children’s books. Shaw’s Book Shop is located at 79 Westwood Avenue, Westwood.
On Christmas Eve, a doubting boy boards a magical train that’s headed to the North Pole and Santa Claus’ home. We follow a beautifully illustrated story of this young boy’s quiet night ride with other children, on the Polar Express train to the North Pole, a “huge city standing alone at the top of the world, filled with factories where every Christmas toy was made.” Our narrator is the fortunate child, picked by Santa, to receive the first gift of that Christmas. He knows exactly what he wants, a simple gift that will help him continue to believe in the magic of Christmas, a silver bell from a reindeer’s harness. Polar Express is a wonderful book for those who want to believe in the spirit of Christmas every day of every year.
The Polar Express is a 1985 children’s book written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg, a former professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. The book is now widely considered to be a classic Christmas story for young children. It was praised for its detailed illustrations and calm, relaxing storyline. In 1986, it was awarded the Caldecott Medal for children’s literature. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the book one of its “Teachers’
Top 100 Books for Children.” It was one of the “Top 100 Picture Books” of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal.
Please join us for this adventure to the North Pole and discover the magic of believing!
Shaw’s Book Shop
79 Westwood Avenue
Westwood, NJ 07675
201-666-4484
Retailers offer apps, Wi-Fi for Black Friday shopping
November 27, 2014 Last updated: Thursday, November 27, 2014, 8:30 PM
By JOAN VERDON
STAFF WRITER |
The Record
This Black Friday, which actually begins tonight, on Thanksgiving, getting shoppers to reach for their smartphones is almost as important to retailers as getting them to reach for their wallets.
While retailers spent the beginning of this week engaged in some of the traditional preparations for Thanksgiving night and Black Friday — stocking shelves, having door-buster specials stacked and ready to go in backrooms and warehouses, unpacking merchandise — some of the most important advance work for this weekend began right after Black Friday 2013, when retailers realized they needed to make it easier to shop by phone.
The country’s largest retailers are greeting customers this weekend with new or upgraded mobile apps that perform functions such as steering them through the store to find a specific item; comparison shopping for them and issuing a refund if they didn’t get the best price; and letting them scan for discounts while shopping.
November 28, 2014 Last updated: Friday, November 28, 2014, 12:31 AM
By Jodi Weinberger
STAFF WRITER |
The Ridgewood News
Ridgewood leaders came together this week to discuss the need for more civility in public discourse.
With many divisive issues taking hold of Ridgewood over the last few years – Valley Hospital, multifamily housing, cell tower applications, the Graydon ramp, the Schedler debate, and Skype votes, among others – leaders believe that often conversations about these matters are hijacked by incivility.
Mayor Paul Aronsohn, who called for the meeting and invited community volunteers from various boards and houses of worship, led the meeting along with Councilwoman Gwenn Hauck and the Rev. Jan Phillips, head of the Community Relations Advisory Board of Ridgewood and Glen Rock.
A handful of residents also showed up to the Nov. 24 meeting to participate.
“This is not about stifling the conversation,” Aronsohn said. “We think this will enrich the conversation. Ridgewood is a community that thrives on discourse and interaction.”
Hauck said fostering civility is particularly challenging as it is a broader, societal issue that expands well beyond the village.
“How can we be more of a ‘we’ community in a ‘me’ world?” Hauck said. “Even as adults we struggle with cooperation, but we need to work together.”
The Thanksgiving guide to making conservative arguments liberals can understand
Timothy P. Carney
November 26th, 2014
Your Baby Boomer aunts are unshakable in their faith in Hillary Clinton. Your nephew Trevor won’t stop spouting vapid Democratic talking points in favor of Obamacare.When Thanksgiving talk turns political, do you feel like you and your liberal relatives can’t communicate?
It’s okay. I can help you. I was born in Greenwich Village to a lawyer dad and community-organizer mom. I used to live on Capitol Hill, and now I live in Montgomery County in Maryland. I even served a year as an MSNBC contributor. This is all to say, I speak liberal.
You won’t win over your lefty in-laws with appeals to liberty. Those warnings about hubris that tickle your Edmund Burke nerve will ring hollow with Nephew Trevor, who is still infected with his 2008 case of Hope & Change. You need to speak their language.
So let me offer my conservative and libertarian readers the first annual Thanksgiving Guide to Making Conservative Arguments in Liberals’ Language.
Regulators will ban your organic kale.
Your liberal relatives generally trust government regulations to solve problems. They don’t sweat the costs to the economy as much as you do. Throw in a healthy distrust of Corporate America — often even an unhealthy disdain for it — and progressives (this is what they call themselves these days) end up regarding regulation as a force for good.
You can plant a seed of skepticism about regulators’ ability to do good, though, by pointing to the salad course Trevor brought. The organic, local, sustainable kale in it might be impossible to get after the Obama administration’s food safety rules go into effect.
The Food Safety Modernization Act that Obama signed is finally being implemented, and it has locavores up in arms. Quote Nathanael Johnson at Grist (your relatives know this site): “Everyone wants safer food, but some small farmers fear the rules could force them out of business.”
Proposed federal rules on manure-spreading and water-testing seem tailored for industrial farming, impossible for smaller farms to meet. As you discuss this, throw in references to author Michael Pollan.
At work here are two dynamics common to regulation: They’re called “regulatory capture” and “the overhead smash.”
Obama’s food safety czar is Michael Taylor, former top lobbyist for Monsanto. (You’ll be amazed at the power of the word “Monsanto” with some of your relatives.) Industrial farms and major food processors hire the best lobbyists and thus get a seat at the table when the FDA writes the rules. Thus, the biggest players in the regulated industry have “captured” the agency that regulates them.
“The overhead smash” is my phrase for the tendency of regulations to add to overhead — the fixed costs of doing business — which smashes smaller competitors while protecting the big guys. In the food safety realm, small farms are begging to be exempted from these rules that only big farms can afford.
In case your aunts think this is an aberration, point them to similar phenomena in the realms of handmade toys, taxi services, bakers, hair-braiders, casket-makers and so on. (All these links are prog-friendly.)
Proclamation of Thanksgiving Washington, D.C. October 3, 1863
This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.
Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”
Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale’s request immediately, unlike several of his predecessors, whoignored her petitions altogether. In her letter to Lincoln she mentioned that she had been advocating a national thanksgiving date for 15 years as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, issuing his request on October 3, 1789, exactly 74 years before Lincoln’s.
The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
