Typical Christie

Nothing is ever Chris Christie’s fault. The failures of local and state plow crews? Blame the mayors, not the single-minded focus on slashing budgets. Being in Florida? I would have been doing the same thing here as I was doing there. But you weren’t here. We were.

I should point out that, before this past year of budget cuts, South Brunswick road crews were second to none and always — and I mean always — out-performed the state and county when the white stuff fell. But with fewer public works employees, too many streets were left with too much snow as late as Tuesday.

I could blame the mayor and council. I could blame the public works staff. But that would be wrong-headed, given their past responses to bad weather. I blame the governor, even if he refuses to take any blame for anything.

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  • 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.

Get ready for some Cake (and I don’t mean pastry)

The release of a new Cake album always is good news.

  • 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.

Political World: Tool kit is a Band-Aid

Here’s my take on the governor’s tool-kit plan — in a column on eastwindsor.patch.com (it should make the rounds of the other sites in Central Jersey soon)>

  • 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.

Statistics v. reality, a tale of an economy in decline

Two points worth mentioning about this Bob Herbert column (three if you include this one: Right on, Bob!):

The people who report on the state of the economy, as he says, rarely consider the impact of restructuring on actual workers:

There is a fundamental disconnect between economic indicators pointing in a positive direction and the experience of millions of American families fighting desperately to fend off destitution. Some three out of every four Americans have been personally touched by the recession — either they’ve lost a job or a relative or close friend has. And the outlook, despite the spin being put on the latest data, is not promising.

And the restructuring has dimmed the prospects for any kind of real or sustained rebound:

The fact that so many Americans are out of work, or working at jobs that don’t pay well, undermines the prospects for a robust recovery. Jobless people don’t buy a lot of flat-screen TVs. What we’re really seeing is an erosion of standards of living for an enormous portion of the population, including a substantial segment of the once solid middle class.

Of course, that is not on the agenda in Washington, where an insane turn toward austerity has taken hold. The upshot of this is likely to be more pain, and an accelerating descent into a third-world economy for the United States.

  • 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.