Decision time for clean elections

PoliticsNJ is reporting that the Clean Elections District Selection Committee will be meeting today, despite the weather.

The choice comes down to the 12th and 14th districts — two districts with shared representation. What separates them, in my mind (as I wrote last week week), is the commitment by both parties to clean elections. While the Democrats in the 12th are on the record in favor of the program (they cosponsored the legislation), the Republicans have been quiet.

In the 14th, however, you have the two primary Assembly sponsors (Republican Bill Baroni and Democrat Linda Greenstein), both of whom sat on the committee that studied the earlier trial. Both want this program to work and said they will do what they can to ensure it.

If the state is serious about this, it will select the 14th. If not, it will select the 12th and let the chips fall where they may.

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Va. Tech tragedy in the news

Watching MSNBC and CNN on the horrible shooting today at Virginia Tech. The cable networks are tossing anything they can find on the shooting, no matter how tangential, onto the screen, hoping to stay ahead of a story that no one seems to understand just yet. This has led to some questionable assertions and speculation — MSNBC had a psychologist/lawyer on who outlined what he believed would be the background, both biographical and psychological, of a man that has not been named.

It seem incredibly irresponsible to speculate like this — better to just report what we know as fact, offer comment from those students who wish to speak and go from there.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Fixing a hole

I think it’s stopped raining here, in Kendall Park, which is good news for my kitchen ceiling and the guest room. It’s also good news for motorists, because it should allow the waters that have flooded local roads to recede some.

Watching the news was instructive — we’re lucky here compared to the folks who live in Bergen County or along the Delaware, which helps take me out of my own worries about the water leaking in from around the exhaust vent in the attic. A small ring has developed in the kitchen — newly renovated kitchen, raising anxiety level — but that seems to be it for now.

I’ll have to get up on the roof — or more likely, have someone who knows what to do get up on the roof — and seal it. I’ll also have to seal the window in the guest room, where the rain came in.

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Frank Rich on Imus

I stand by my reaction to the Imus firing — it was warranted as a business decision that came as a reaction to more and better speech unlike the Bill Maher incident which came as a reaction to criticism from the administration — but I wanted to pass along this column from Frank Rich. Rich has some ambivalence on this — he calls himself a free-speech near absolutist (I would characterize myself in the same way — but I think he gives short shrift to the notion that speech has its consequences. forget what CBS and MSNBC said about this, the firing was about money and the decision by the money makers had everything to do with the surprisingly widespread public outcry.

Imus can still go to satellite, perhaps even Fox. There remain outlets and there remain listeners for his brand of unfunny humor. But free-speech does not require CBS or MSNBC from providing him the forum.

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