The Morning Briefing - March 18, 2015
NEWARK – It will be interesting to see which city officials join the fight to keep Saint Michael’s Medical Center open, and who will quietly sit on their hands. Hospital doctors and nurses, joined by a growing number of elected and civic leaders, are vowing to fight. Tonight, they will be at the City Council meeting to blast a state-commissioned study that suggests St. Mike’s be converted into another watered-down ambulatory care center in Newark and are demanding Gov. Chris Christie support a sale to a company that wants to save the hospital.
ELIZABETH – Ikea wants people to know their superstores are used to selling furniture, not for grand games of hide-and-seek. There is now a growing phenomenon, especially in Ikea’s stores in the Netherlands, where thousands are signing up on Facebook to meet up for hide-and-seek games. Company officials are likely saying "det är nog," enough is enough in Swedish, after 19,000 registered on Facebook to meet at an Ikea in Amsterdam next month. “We have contacted these pages on social media and humbly asked them to have their hide and seek games somewhere else,” a company spokeswoman said yesterday.
EVESHAM – The town’s mayor is once again accepting questions from the public. Evesham Mayor Randy Brown, who also happens to be kicking coach of the Baltimore Ravens, as well as the four other Republicans rounding out the town council, decided to go mum in December, after a resident asked a question about tax abatements, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. At that meeting, the resident famously told the mayor, “You’re acting like a jerk.” Not only has the mayor decided to begin communicating again with those who elected him, he is mulling a run for the Republican ticket for governor in 2017. (Add your own punch line here.)
TRENTON – Today’s anti-Christie article in The Star-Ledger focuses on the claim the governor will lose a half-billion dollars by pulling the state out of the northeastern compact designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. says the state lost more than $114 million so far, and will lose an additional $387.1 million over the next five years. Christie’s camp said the compact is nothing more than a tax on business, the state’s job creators.
NEWARK – Mayor Ras Baraka says the city should tax its way out of its latest financial crisis. For example, the state should approve a plan to tax storage containers entering the city through the seaport. Also, the mayor says, how about a city tax on anything a traveller may buy at the airport? And how about some more money from the Port Authority for its seaport operations? And how about those colleges and universities that call Newark home? Pay up, or at least hand out scholarships to Newark students, Baraka says. People are willing to pay taxes and surcharges, but expect decent snow removal, trash-free streets, public safety and a vibrant downtown (now hampered by the city’s despised business tax.) Looks like all parties have some work to do.
PRINCETON – Much more needs to be written about the Princeton University women’s basketball team, with a 30-0 record that is the best ever achieved by any Ivy League basketball team, including the men’s teams that seem to steal all the attention. The team has landed the eighth seed in the NCAA tourney, playing the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay team in College Park, Md., on Saturday at 11 a.m. Princeton is the team to watch in all this March Madness.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1992 that "4 Baboons Adoring the Sun" opened at the Beaumont Theater in New York for 38 performances. A decent run, yes, but we still feel for the fifth baboon.
WORD OF THE DAY
Canoodle –verb
To hug and kiss.
Completely unrelated example:
Moe: (answers the phone) Yeah, just a sec; I'll check. (calls) Amanda Hugginkiss? Hey, I'm lookin' fer Amanda Hugginkiss. Why can't I find Amanda Hugginkiss?
Barney: Maybe your standards are too high!
Moe: [to phone] You little S.O.B. Why, when I find out who you are, I'm going to shove a sausage down your throat and stick starving dogs in your butt!
Bart: My name is Jimbo Jones, and I live at 1094 Evergreen Terrace.
Moe: I knew he'd slip up sooner or later! (He then unsheathes a rusty knife and heads out of the tavern.)