Chris Christie should ask Hillary Clinton about what being the crowned successor is worth — especially when he is taking hits from his own party.
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.
Toy company ignores the storyline
We are constantly bombarded with the argument that New Jersey has created an awful business climate that drives companies elsewhere — but then we get news, from NJBIZ.com, that the educational toy company Melissa & Doug, is relocating to South Brunswick from Connecticut.
Melissa & Doug was “looking for a location that was best suited to cover everywhere from Florida to Maine,” said NAI James E. Hanson Senior Vice President Kenneth Lundberg, who along with Joel Hausman, of Fairfield, Conn.-based Colonial Realty, represented the company in the deal. “New Jersey is what appeared on their radar screen.”
Central New Jersey is more centrally located for distribution than Connecticut, being roughly equidistant to Philadelphia and New York and Boston and Washington, D.C., he said. “In a single truck-driving day, by locating in central New Jersey, you probably double the number of population you can reach in one day” compared to Connecticut, Lundberg said.
Apparently, taxes and environmental regulations — the two most-frequently cited reasons that the business community and its apologists offer — are not the only factors businesses consider.
Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Almost a Garp moment
We took the puppies for a nice long walk last night, heading over to my brother and sister-in-law’s so my niece and nephews could see the dogs before they left for Iowa for the week. Aside from the wind and the rain that arrived as we did at their house, the walk was uneventful, though I almost had what I’ll call a Garp moment.
I don’t know if anyone remembers the scene from the 1982 movie with Robin Williams, “The World According to Garp,” in which Williams as Garp goes off on a pickup truck that has been terrorizing the neighborhood by speeding through the quiet suburban streets. But that is how I’ve been feeling lately as we’ve been getting out with the dogs. The number of speeding cars, vans and SUVs — and, no, it’s not just teenage drivers — barrelling around this neighborhood, on Kendall, New, Kingsley and even some of the side streets, is mind-boggling. I said to Annie the other night that I think they drive faster on Kendall than they do on New.
Last night, as we walked, I flashed to the scene in the movie. Garp has reached the boiling point as the same driver of the same red pickup flies through his neighborhood. He takes a baseball bat and chases him and blasts the truck.
Needless to say, I’m not vindictive or violent and I’m the law-abiding sort, so I let the moment pass. But I can see how that kind of overreaction could feel real satisfying.
CJ Radio: Corzine on consolidation
Oops: The trouble with mobile blogging
OK. Maybe I shouldn’t do any substantive blogging when I’m sitting in the drive-thru line at the bank. I blogged about direct deposit and my state tax check earlier today and, as numerous readers pointed out, I was about as far off-base as I could get. So ignore the post and call me some silly names. I deserve it.
