The Morning Briefing - June 17, 2016
ATLANTIC CITY – No one questions that casino workers should earn higher wages. But it’s like the union doesn’t read the media or notice all those vacant gambling halls. Once again, the union is threatening a strike – this time during the height of the tourist season on July 1 – to demand a fair contract. So, as Tropicana, Caesars, Bally’s and Harrah’s pray for a robust summer that would keep union members employed through the fall, ownership must now prepare for 6,000 picketing casino workers to intentionally destroy their struggling operations. Yes, organized labor should strike if they are being dealt with unfairly. But these workers must recognize the circumstances, or consider seeking work in an industry that isn’t gasping.
JERSEY CITY – Vincent Prieto has one big hope: “A friend” in Trenton after the 2017 governor’s race. That's what the Assembly Speaker told Hudson County Democrats after they returned him as the county Democratic Chairman for a fourth, consecutive term that runs until 2018, the Hudson County View reports. Little wonder Prieto hopes for a friend in the Governor's Office (um … perhaps Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop) after a rancorous year of Statehouse controversies over Atlantic City's rescue plan, North-South Jersey casinos, a state Supreme Court appointment, new gun control measures and now a proposed 23-cent gas tax increase. Of course, real friends are hard to find in Trenton.
PATERSON – Fetty Wap – the local rap sensation – appeared Wednesday night before the Board of Education, joining others to blast officials for suspending the Eastside High School principal, with pay, for allowing him to shoot a wildly inappropriate video in the school building. In the video, Mr. Wap depicts a woman gyrating on a stripper pole in a classroom; another shows an apparent teacher using her apple as a bong. School officials were aghast and suspended the principal for the lack of obvious judgment. Mr. Wap said he had to appear before the board, you know, “For Paterson,” the Paterson Press reports. Supporters of the principal told the school board that he’s really a great guy. We bet he is. But watch the video. Would you want this shot in your kid’s school?
MEDFORD – With the mass shootings and the toddler lost to an alligator at Disney World, the tremendous and senseless loss of “The Voice” singer Christina Grimmie was just a part of an exploding news cycle. Today, family and friends are in Medford to remember the brief life of the 22-year-old shot to death last week as she signed autographs after a show in Orlando. A viewing will be at Fellowship Alliance Chapel in Medford, followed by a memorial service tonight. Grimmie lived in nearby Evesham Township; her claim to fame was appearing on NBC's “The Voice” two years ago. Watch her perform here.
CLIFFWOOD BEACH – A local hip-hop duo takes pot shots at all-things-Jersey in their latest rap song: “Garden State of Mind.” Singers Nico Araco and Kyle Wolf, who call themselves The Empire Project, poke fun at everything from “The Sopranos” to our prodigious number of Wawas to the Parkway to the great 732 area code. Watch it to see if you are amused or insulted. (We love it.)
IN THE MEDIA
HACKENSACK – Back when he would roam the Bergen Record's newsroom, in the paper's heyday years ago, Mac Borg would regale his staff with stories of getting calls from Gannett and other newspaper chains asking him if his paper was for sale. “Sure, it's 35 cents at the deli,” the old man would say with a chuckle. Well, Gannett's persistence finally paid off. It appears The Record is about to be sold, swallowed by a corporate chain that's decimated newspapers across the country for years. Gannett finally got to the next generation of the Borg family and, let's assume, made an offer they couldn't refuse. The state's last great news gathering operation will now likely be gutted like a freshly caught flounder and New Jersey residents will be worse for it. Let's just hope Gannett has the good judgment to save the institutional knowledge, writers like Charles Stile, Herb Jackson and Mike Kelly, rather than replacing everyone with freshly-cut journalism majors who don’t know the difference between Hillsdale and Hillside.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
PARIS – Now you can’t even enjoy a steaming hot beverage in the morning, with a new study that says it will ultimately kill you. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reports that drinks consumed at more than 150 degrees can increase the risk of cancer. But the report also had some good news for us addicted coffee drinkers: Once feared to be a carcinogen, coffee can now be safely enjoyed at “normal” temperatures. “It doesn't matter what the liquid is,” the study reports. “What matters is the temperature.”
ON THE MENU – Monkfish are big, grotesquely ugly and freakishly strong. More of them may soon be on the menu at your favorite Jersey Shore seafood joint. Thrifty chefs already sometimes swap cheaper, leaner and deliciously mild monkfish tails – their only edible part – for lobster fillets or lobster chunks in soups and stews. So, at one time or another, monkfish has ended up on our dinner plates. Now, the Boston Goble says the federal government is giving $4 million to the University of Massachusetts and Cornell's Cooperative Extension to make this “poor man's lobster” genetically stronger and more plentiful. Bon appetit!
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 2011 that Japan got super serious about its fast-depleting Social Security accounts, announcing plans to double the sales tax over four years.
WORD OF THE DAY
Zaftig (ZAHF-tig) – adjective
Definition: Pleasingly plump
Example:
“Honey, do I have a zaftig look in this outfit?”
“Uh, no.”
WEATHER IN A WORD
Nice.