Author: hankkalet

Route 1 at Henderson Road. The 7-mile stretch of the highway in South Brunswick is only two lanes.

I have spent half of my adult life in the news business, 22 years of it covering local news. As a reporter, as an editor, my focus was on context. My belief — and it’s a belief I try to impart to my journalism students at Rutgers — is that we have a responsibility to do more than just report on what’s happening. We have to answer the important question and make it clear why the information we bombard readers with matters.

I tell my students that, when they focus on the journalist “five Ws” — who, what, where, when, and why (along with how) — they need to do so not from the perspective of their sources or even of journalists. Their responsibility is to the readers.

Take the first W, “who.” As reporters, we assume The “who” is the star of our stories — who is developing the property? Who was arrested, etc? I ask them to answer those questions, it to treat the “who” a little differently. They need to ask and answer this question: who is affected?

We can answer — and should answer — each of the w-questions in this way: What is the impact? What can the reader do about it? When will it go into effect? When can the reader act? Where will the reader see the impact? Why should the reader care?

These questions expand upon the Ws and get the reporter out of his or her head. Young reporters, in particular, but also most political reporters, tend to be captured by their sources. I don’t mean they do their sources’ bidding, but they do start to see the world through their sources’ eyes. They view he bureaucracy as most important, and end up writing stories for the people they cover, as opposed to the people who read their papers or news sites.

I’m not singling any news organization out — this approach is rampant — but I am being critical. We can do a lot better as an industry. Would this address the revenue and readership issues? I doubt it, but we can’t allow that to be our only concern.

To better understand what I’m talking about, I want to offer five South Brunswick stories I’d assign if I edited the local paper — stories designed to provide context. I chose South Brunswick because of my history as a newsman in the community. I’m curious if there are other stories others might add to this list, and what approach might be taken. Here they are:

1. When will the traffic light on Route 522 at Stouts Lane be repaired?

The light has been out and access to and from Stouts has been limited since a dump truck took out the light April 26. The impact of the light on local traffic patterns is significant — Stouts Lane is a primary access road for South Brunswick High School, the Target shopping center, and for Dow Jones employees. The closure, therefore, creates traffic problems elsewhere. When will it be repaired?

2. What can be done to resurrect the South Brunswick Square Mall?

Bob’s Furniture and the Tilted Kilt have abandoned the shopping center in recent months, Bob’s moving down the road and the Tilted Kilt just shutting its doors. Neither closing should shock locals — both storefronts have seen regular turnover in the mall’s 30 years of existence. As a reporter and editor, I’ve written about the difficulties faced by the mall, and while new stores open occasionally, the prime anchors (aside from Home Depot) have not been able to survive.

I don’t know that anyone will have the answers, but we have to keep asking. Shopping centers without anchors are a drag on their smaller stores, and empty storefronts only make it more difficult to fill storefronts. That means an empty mall, and an empty mall creates the potential for other issues.

3. Has widening Route 1 fallen off the radar?

This has long been a priority for local officials and, while it remains so, the public needs to be reminded why and brought back into the discussion — if for no other reason than public pressure could be brought to bear on state decision makers now that the state has some money available for infrastructure.

4. Will Route 522 ever be extended to Ridge Road near the NJ Turnpike?

Another priority, but one dependent on warehouse construction. What is the status, and is this still a needed project?

5. What might the township look like in a decade, with state courts — as of now — mandating nearly 1,400 new affordable housing units?

This story has a lot of tentacles — a 200-unit development proposed for New Road, the potential for 7,000 to 10,000 new housing units total to offset the cost to developers of building the affordable. Where will these proposed units go? What happens to other township facilities. After all, we are talking about an increase in the number of housing units in the township of about 30 percent. There will be an impact on infrastructure (roads, schools, parks) and there is the broader question of responsibility. There is a desperate need for new affordable units statewide, but they need to be distributed fairly. What is happening elsewhere in the state, and what should that mean for South Brunswick?

All of these are important questions, the answers of which will affect nearly all of the township’s 45,000 residents. Someone should be attempting to answer them. While some of these stories have received coverage, few are getting the deep dives that provide context and allow residents to understand their full impact. More deep dives are needed, but I don’t hold out any illusions. The cut backs at newspapers have taken their toll, making it far more difficult to pull off these kinds of time-intensive pieces. But we should try. We have to try

This story is heartbreaking:

Two children in Texas have died after they were locked in a hot car Friday as temperatures soared to 96 degrees, according to police.

The children were young — 16 months and 2 years old — and the deaths are under investigation. But police said,

The children’s mother told police that they “took off.” After searching for them on the property, she found them inside a small four-door vehicle, where they had somehow locked themselves inside, police said.

The mother then broke one of the windows and found the children unresponsive, police said. They were pronounced dead at 4:33 p.m.

This is all we know, but it hasn’t stopped the outrage on social media. A friend, for instance, responded this way:

What the hell kind of mother says her babies “took off?!”

Lock HER up.

Elsewhere, we have this

2 children found dead in hot car https://t.co/oWU1Xu28xE Mother is a liar! Lock her in a car in high heat! #rt #wtf #BULLSHIT

— Hella (@Hella_Chick) May 27, 2017

and this

The two children found dead in the car. My personal opinion, I believe that they were murdered. Sounds suspicious to me.

— Mark Allen (@MarkAll95600234) May 27, 2017

The reports I’ve read have not cast doubt on the mother’s story, saying only that the deaths remain under investigation. But the tenor of the response is fairly consistent with earlier tragedies — such as the child killed by an alligator in Florida or the child who fell into the gorilla cage in Cincinnati a year ago today. We assume that the mother — always the mother — has failed, and our outrage meters turn to 10. We immediately judge, failing to grasp the unpredictability of these situations.

Basically, children are unpredictable. They run off. They wander. No matter how careful a parent might be, a child can get away. It’s happened to me — with my nephews Joe and Dan (separately), with my niece Kim, with me when I was a kid.

When Joe was 3, for instance, he got away from us at the Quakerbridge Mall. He was teasing my mom, hiding in clothes racks and then jumping out. Until he didn’t. Suddenly we were in a mass panic — what happened, where was he? We contacted security, they locked down the mall, while we fanned out. We found him at the other end of the mall playing with a Spider-Man toy, so it all ended well.

But it could have gone the other way. Those lost seconds, the quickness with which he was able to get away — it could have meant tragedy.

I think most of us understand this and, if we are willing to be honest with ourselves, have experienced this on some level. There is a gender component to this — the judgment always targets the mother — but it is more than that. We judge because we think it makes us better by comparison.

When I read my friend’s post — and some of the responses to it on Facebook. I found myself getting angry. My response:

I love how judgmental we all are. It’s as if none of us has had a kid get away from us. I know it’s happened with my nephews — and it can happen to any of us. If you don’t believe that, you’re either delusional or full of crap.

Send me an e-mail.

Locked out workers protest in Freehold. (Photo from Democratic press release)

Workers at a New Jersey Shore beer distributor have been locked out — a tactic growing more frequent as corporate managers around the country attempt to gut union protections, slow wage growth and slash health and retirement costs.

As The Nation reported last year, lockouts are growing in frequency. It is the management version of the strike — except that the strike is a tool designed to level the playing field between workers and management, who usually hold most of the cars. The lockout also stops work, but it makes use of management’s unequal power — as a rule, they hold all the cards — to force workers to grant concessions. As Michelle Chen writes,

The lockout is, essentially, a work stoppage initiated by the employer: the boss applies pressure to workers in a labor dispute by suspending operations. The power dynamics of blocking workers from their jobs, however, play out differently than a worker-led uprising. The Century Foundation (TCF) analyzed trends in labor lockouts and concluded that firms inherently wield dramatically more leverage over workers—that is, that lockouts are more damaging to workers than strikes are to employers—due to sheer volume of political and economic clout, beyond the bargaining table.

This may seem to fly in the face of current thinking. There are many who view unions as too strong, their workplace rules as an impediment to business. But unions are at their weakest point in decades, perhaps since they first popped up in the United States. The percentage of unionized workers in the private sector has dropped into the single digits, while public employee unions are battling just to maintain their limited power (see Wisconsin). Pro-management, pro-corporate politicians have drafted and passed so-called “right-to-work” laws, laws that allow workers to opt out of joining unions or paying dues for services unions provide.

The Shore Point lockout occurs within this climate. The North Brunswick-based company locked out 113 workers on April 30, “in an attempt to force them to give up their pension, agree to a three-year wage freeze, and agree to give the company permission to change their health insurance plan and healthcare costs at any time,” according to a press release from Teamsters Local 701.

Workers are fighting back by protesting at Shore-area festivals and by convincing local restaurants and bars to stop serving MillerCoors products until the lockout ends — at least according to the Teamsters. Three Democratic state legislators — Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly members Joann Downey and Eric Houghtaling — joined a protest in Freehold yesterday and announced legislation designed to help workers during lockouts. The bill, if approved, would “help workers cover the cost of health care during a lockout” by offering “funding assistance to pay for COBRA health benefits.” The chances of such a bill getting through the Legislature are unclear, but it is unlikely that, if it makes it to his desk, Gov. Chris Christie would sign it.

The bill would be an improvement on current law, which forces locked out workers to pay their own and their employers share of health coverage costs, but it does not go far enough. Current law tilts the playing field toward management, making it easier for companies to use the lockout as a negotiating threat. Employers lose potential revenue when they initiate a work stoppage, but they also avoid paying out salaries and benefit costs, limiting their exposure during a lockout, and they control the lockout’s duration. When workers strike, however, they control duration, but they give up everything — a sacrifice they make willingly. Employers should have to put more on the line when they lock out workers, including covering both their portion of benefit costs and those of their workers. They also should have to pay something into union strike funds, if not be forced to continue meeting their payroll.

I don’t expect changes of this magnitude to occur anytime soon — workers are too fragmented and the labor movement is too weak. The threats of outsourcing and company relocation remain strong, and labor has yet to develop a national and international mindset to address these issues. And rebuilding the labor movement during the age of Trump is likely to prove difficult, given his empty promises on jobs, and the Democrats’ lack of attention to union issues.

Send me an e-mail.

(Updated) The Trump budget unveiled today — a $4.1 trillion plan for fiscal year 2018 — will have devastating affects on all but the richest Americans, cutting programs that aid the poor while increasing spending on security and cutting taxes for the rich.

As The New York Times reports, the budget “calls for an increase in military spending of 10 percent and spending more than $2.6 billion for border security — including $1.6 billion to begin work on a wall on the border with Mexico — as well as huge tax reductions and an improbable promise of 3 percent economic growth.”

At the same time, the paper reports that the budget will be balanced on the backs of the nation’s neediest citizens — with massive cuts to Medicaid and the various nutrition and welfare programs. (The Times wrongly refers to these as entitlement programs, a term that should be reserved only for programs like Social Security whose recipients are entitled to benefits because they paid into the programs. Programs for the poor are means based and often include a variety of other qualifiers that limit participation.)

Over the next decade, it calls for slashing more than $800 billion from Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, while slicing $192 billion from nutritional assistance and $272 billion over all from welfare programs. And domestic programs outside of military and homeland security whose budgets are determined annually by Congress would also take a hit, their funding falling by $57 billion, or 10.6 percent.

The plan would cut by more than $72 billion the disability benefits upon which millions of Americans rely. It would eliminate loan programs that subsidize college education for the poor and those who take jobs in government or nonprofit organizations.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney says the budget will return the nation’s economy to a time of more robust growth. He calls it a

“Taxpayer First Budget,” and he said they worked to jettison any spending that they felt they could not defend. In total, this meant roughly $3.6 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years.

These cuts, White House officials said, would usher in a sustained period of strong economic growth that would grow wealth, create more jobs, and reduce poverty.

“I think what Trumponomics is and what this budget is a part of is an effort to get to sustained 3 percent economic growth in this country again,” Mulvaney said in a briefing with reporters.

This is magical thinking at its finest. Most economists think we are long past the days of 3 percent or better growth, and they view these kinds of projections as overly rosy and potentially dangerous. Assuming growth targets beyond our reach will only inflate our deficits — and it will do so without any discernible economic benefits.

Budgets are priority statements — former N.J. Gov. Christie Whitman famously said they are the place where politicians “put their money where their mouth is.” Budgets tell us what policy makers think is most important, and what they view as unimportant. Trump, in this budget, is underscoring his commitment to security — something I think is overblown — while also highlighting the nastier aspects of his message. His cuts are to programs that assist people in need and, while he claims these are failed programs, he offers no evidence of this. And he makes no real effort to offset his cuts, leaving many to fend for themselves.

Mulvaney said as much, as The Washington Post reported:

Mulvaney said too many of these programs spend other people’s money. He said the government should show “compassion” for low-income Americans but it should “also…have compassion for folks who are paying [for] it.”

“Other people’s money” implies that taxes are illegitimate — a taking of other’s wealth. It also obscures the real issue here, which is that the rich have found ways to pay less and less in recent years, pushing the cost of government onto the backs of the middle class at exactly the same moment that the word taxpayer has replaced citizen as a signifiers of civic connection. Taxpayer in the popular imagination means middle class, which allows people like Mulvaney to claim to be protecting the broad swath of Americans from the poor shiftless folks at the bottom. (There is a racial component to this, but I’ll leave that for another day.)

Trump’s focus on security, especially border security and his targeting of immigrants, is actually of a piece with his proposed gutting of the social safety net. Taken as a whole, the new spending on security and cuts to programs for the poor indicate that those in need are not priorities, that those who have been victimized by capitalism both here and abroad are of no concern.

Trump’s budget, however, is not about “compassion” for the middle class. It is about redistribution upward — and the “folks who are paying” will still get shafted.

Send me an e-mail.

I posted this the other day on my Instagram account as an Instagram essay. The original (corrected) Instagram version is followed by the text of the essay.

#onbreeders 1/2 The verb “to breed” has several different meanings. The Oxford English Dictionary lists its primary meaning (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/breed ) this way: “(of animals) mate and then produce offspring,” with the following example sentence: “toads are said to return to the pond of their birth to breed.” It then offers five primary uses, the first two re-enforcing this animal connection: “[with object] Cause (an animal) to produce offspring, especially in a controlled and organized way” and “[with object] Develop (a variety of animal or plant) for a particular purpose or quality.” Other meanings — to rear and train, to produce or lead to an outcome (“success had bred a certain arrogance”) — expand the word’s use beyond the animal kingdom, but they are more colloquial, and their meanings remain dubious. The notion of breeding in humans is usually used in two ways, both of which are focused on creating division among us and creating a human hierarchy. When the wealthy or upper classes — or even the professional classes in our meritocratic society — talk about breeding, they do so to claim exceptional genetic material or to point to the elite opportunities they’ve received that set them apart from the rest of us. While it is growing more common for us to think this way — the expectation that DNA research will allow us to choose traits in our children — our fascination shares some common elements with the eugenics movement and its goal of creating a better breed of human. Historically, this has been a race-based desire, though one that makes its claim without talking specifically about race. #instagramessay @newspoet41

A post shared by Hank Kalet (@kaletwrites) on May 21, 2017 at 6:17pm PDT

#onbreeders 2/2 When we use it as this decal does, it flips the elitism script and turns the focus onto so-called lower classes and the social safety net. But it does not do this innocently. Most of us do not describe our parents or ourselves as breeders, do not say “we’re allowed to breed kids because we can feed them.” But we — in the middle class — do not have to subject ourselves to this thinking — either do to our racial privileges, or because we’re not asking the government for help. We do expect help, of course, through tax policy and other goodies that favor whites and the middle-class, but we’ve classed as something else. This allows us to say we are better or more evolved. We’re Americans, but welfare mothers are something else; they are “breeders,” the equivalent of horses or sheep, the decal and the them Ning behind it implies. That welfare mothers, in the popular imagination, are believed to be a) black and/or Hispanic, and b) abusing the system by popping out babies purely to increase the size of their welfare checks, is left unstated but ties directly into the word’s various meanings. These “animalistic” women, the decal implies, are “produc(ing) offspring … in a controlled and organized way” to achieve “a particular purpose.” The decal also is being produced for “a particular purpose” — to play on and foster racist stereotypes, to dehumanized and ultimately to gut the social safety net. It is racist in its intent, if not specifically in its language. I don’t know the guy who owns the truck, but he’s sending everyone a message about who he is. #instagramessay @newspoet41

A post shared by Hank Kalet (@kaletwrites) on May 21, 2017 at 6:19pm PDT

The verb “to breed” has several different meanings. The Oxford English Dictionary lists its primary meaning this way: “(of animals) mate and then produce offspring,” with the following example sentence: “toads are said to return to the pond of their birth to breed.” It then offers five primary uses, the first two re-enforcing this animal connection: “[with object] Cause (an animal) to produce offspring, especially in a controlled and organized way” and “[with object] Develop (a variety of animal or plant) for a particular purpose or quality.” Other meanings — to rear and train, to produce or lead to an outcome (“success had bred a certain arrogance”) — expand the word’s use beyond the animal kingdom, but they are more colloquial, and their meanings remain dubious.

The notion of breeding in humans is usually used in two ways, both of which are focused on creating division among us and creating a human hierarchy. When the wealthy or upper classes — or even the professional classes in our meritocratic society — talk about breeding, they do so to claim exceptional genetic material or to point to the elite opportunities they’ve received that set them apart from the rest of us. While it is growing more common for us to think this way — the expectation that DNA research will allow us to choose traits in our children — our fascination shares some common elements with the eugenics movement and its goal of creating a better breed of human. Historically, this has been a race-based desire, though one that makes its claim without talking specifically about race.

When we use it as this decal does, it flips the elitism script and turns the focus onto so-called lower classes and the social safety net. But it does not do this innocently. Most of us do not describe our parents or ourselves as breeders, do not say “we’re allowed to breed kids because we can feed them.” But we — in the middle class — do not have to subject ourselves to this thinking — either due to our racial privileges, or because we’re not asking the government for help. We do expect help, of course, through tax policy and other goodies that favor whites and the middle-class, but we’ve classed them as something else. This allows us to say we are better or more evolved. We’re Americans, but welfare mothers are something else; they are “breeders,” the equivalent of horses or sheep, the decal and the the thinking behind it implies. That welfare mothers, in the popular imagination, are believed to be a) black and/or Hispanic, and b) abusing the system by popping out babies purely to increase the size of their welfare checks, is left unstated but ties directly into the word’s various meanings. These “animalistic” women, the decal implies, are “produc(ing) offspring … in a controlled and organized way” to achieve “a particular purpose.” The decal also is being produced for “a particular purpose” — to play on and foster racist stereotypes, to dehumanized and ultimately to gut the social safety net. It is racist in its intent, if not specifically in its language.

I don’t know the guy who owns the truck, but he’s sending everyone a message about who he is.