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.

The scandal is business-as-usual

Peter Scheer gets the absurdity of the Anthony Weiner scandal right — Weiner was arrogant and probably should have resigned, but what he did is nothing compared to the ongoing and too-often legal corruption we witness from Congress, the White House and the state houses and legislatures.

Weiner (along with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer) had been strong progressive voices, aggressive in their defense of workers’ rights, consumer rights and the like, but they both got caught with their pants’ down and paid what I think was an appropriate cost.

Charles Rangel, however, remains in office despite his well-publicized financial shenanigans. Bush and Cheney avoided impeachment despite the various illegalities engaged in by their administration. And the list goes on.

Business as usual in Washington is the real scandal.

In the end, we have to ask ourselves what’s worse — Weiner’s tweets or a presidential administration’s illegal spying. I know the answer. Too bad, the press corps seems not to.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Think anyone at the Times actually read this paragraph?

Anyone notice the contradiction in this sentence from The New York Times on Anthony Weiner’s resignation?

“I don’t think she has made a firm decision, but she is very loyal,” said the friend, who requested anonymity so as not to betray confidential conversations.

So, it’s not a betrayal of a confidence if you don’t use your name?

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Small victories

A frivolous and dangerous challenge to last year’s ruling by a gay federal judge that shot down the state’s ban on gay marriage has been tossed out.

Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware said former Chief Judge Vaughn Walker did not have to divulge whether he wanted to marry his own gay partner before he declared last year that voter-approved Proposition 8 was unconstitutional.

Lawyers for backers of the ban argued at a hearing Monday that Walker should have recused himself or disclosed his relationship because he and his partner stood to personally benefit from the verdict. Walker publicly revealed after he retired in February that he is in a 10-year relationship with a man. Rumors that he was gay had circulated before and after he presided over the trial in early 2010.

Ware said the ruling by Walker, who did not attend Monday’s hearing, raised important questions and called it the first case in which a judge’s same-sex relationship had led to calls for disqualification.

He said there probably were similar struggles when race and gender were the issues.

Just so the issue is clear: This ruling was not about same-sex marriage, but about the attempt to undercut judges. If the challenge had been upheld and Walker’s ruling was overturned, it would have made it impossible for gay judges to rule on gay issues — and opened the door for challenges to decisions made by black judges on racial issues, Latino judges on immigration issues, women judges on gender issues and so on.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Everything is on the block

Maybe I should just accept it, but there is something unsavory about turning school property into an opportunity to make a buck.

South Brunswick approved a plan last night to allow advertising on its property, hoping it will lead to a boost in revenues that will allow the district to increase spending on education. The advertising initiative is allowed under a relatively new state law and is part of a historical trend in which public facilities are put of for sponsorship.

While the district has no plans to create, say, a Patch.com Field House or the AOL Elementary School, you have to wonder just how long it will be before we have that discussion.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Even lefties can be creeps

The list of politicians who have been caught publicly with their pants down extends beyond the usual family-values suspects and now includes a progressive Democrat. Anthony Weiner now joins the long list of elected creeps and he needs to be held just as accountable as Larry Craig, Chris Lee and the others.

  • Send me an e-mail. 
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.  
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.  
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
    Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.