Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Army Corps issues EIS on 92

Looks like the final Environmental Impact Statement for Route 92 is out. Army Corps, if my quick review is correct, makes no recommendation but seems to offer information favorable to supporters. I need more time with this monstrosity before I can comment fully, but these things need to remain a part of this discussion:

  • Cost. The pricetag had been placed at $350 million or so, but let’s face it, that estimate is a good decade old and $700 million or more would proably not be out of the question.
  • The Army Corps’ historic role as supporter of building projects (the Corps has always acted as though it could engineer itself out of any problem)
  • Route 522 was included, but not in its longer form. The road is about to be extended to Route 535 and is likely to have a far different impact on traffic than the EIS envisions.
  • The project’s scope and goals were set by the Turnpike, meaning that the platform on which the argument is based will naturally favor the Turnpike.

I’m sure there is more to say, but I need a chance to read this thing when I’m done getting The Cranbury Press out the door.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

The comedy never ends

I’m thinking that, once the New Jersey senate race comes to its painful conclusion, someone might want to turn it into a television reality show. Or maybe a sitcom.

Think abou tit, the race has been full of all the fun stuff that makes for successful television:

Drama — This thing is going down to the wire, with the stakes growing daily as the national GOP finds ways to take seats that were safely Republican and turn them into question marks. That means that the seat that Bob Menendez currently holds (once considered safely Democratic) might be needed by the Republicans to hold their majority.

Intrigue — Menendez apparently is the target of a federal probe into whether he used his position in the House of Representatives to ultimately benefit himself financially, while Tom Kean Jr. has been consorting with some pretty nasty pols in an effort to sully the sitting senator’s not-so-sweet reputation.

Comedy — Tom Kean has skipped out (on more than one occassion) on fundraisers featuring his party’s heavy hitters (i.e., the vice president). And the latest, reported by the Associated Press, has the Kean camp advertising a “Democrats for Kean “rally without telling the Democrats what the rally was about.

The two Democrats who appeared with Kean thought the event was a chance to publicize their own beef over local corrup tion. Kean, however, staged the event to advance his own campaign.

The pair later told reporters that they did, in fact, support the Republican, but only after Kean spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker talked to reporters and only after initial stories to the contrary were published.

Then there is the debate over the debate, with Kean refusing to debate Menendez at a League of Women Voters event and Menendez refusing to appear on Channel 4 with Kean.

All of this would be funny if it didn’t have such impoortant consequences attached.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

A prescient quotation

Catching up on my reading of The Nation, one of my favorite magazines, and I came across this quotation from the Nazi Hermann Göring in a piece by John le Carré. Who does this remind you of?

”Naturally, the common people don’t want war…but after all it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along…. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism…. It works the same in every country.”

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.