The Jaffe Briefing - January 26, 2018
OUR TAKE ON THE NEWS IN NEW JERSEY
TRENTON - Minor league ballplayers will do anything to make it to the show. That will be evident in Trenton, where the team will be renamed the "Trenton Pork Roll" for its Friday night games, beginning May 18. Players will be handed special uniforms featuring a pork roll and will be instructed to actually wear them in public, before actual fans on an actual ballfield. Obviously, the concession guys will be selling pork roll and expect plenty or pork-based merchandise to be hawked. Embarrassing for players? You betcha. But these guys are well aware the Thunder is the AA affiliate of the New York Yankees, home of the multi-million dollar contracts. So, hey, whatever it takes.
HIGHLAND PARK - An effort to detain a handful of non-criminal, unauthorized Christian Indonesian immigrants was met with firm resistance from Gov. Phil Murphy and Rep. Frank Pallone as the feds swooped in to round up individuals trying to avoid religious persecution back home. Murphy, who made a last-minute detour to visit three Indonesian men in a church seeking sanctuary, is now smack in the middle of a growing immigration debate that continues to vex policy makers, TAPInto New Brunswick reports. Shining a spotlight on the cold, calculated work of ICE is certainly a great way to sway public opinion.
STATEWIDE - Educating our kids has not been a good return on investment. New Jersey plunks down $20,000 or so a year, per kid, on public education, and then the proud graduate flees to another state where its much cheaper to live. How do we keep them here? The New Jersey Business and Industry Association has some ideas: Make it easier to transfer college credits, teach technical skills that employers actually need, and consider smart milennials for mid-level jobs without the need for fancy - and expensive - college degrees. NJBIA figures there's 40,000 mid-level, good-paying jobs now vacant in New Jersey. Perhaps taking down unnecessary barriers is the solution.
CRANBURY - They've got great names like "Grape Ape," "AK-47" and "Cannatonic." And these strains of marijuana were on full display yesterday when the governor swung by to tour a medical marijuana dispensary, the Recordreports. Gov. Phil Murphy was at the Breakwater Treatment and Wellness Center in Cranbury to get a better idea how this growing business actually works. Murphy checked out the merchandise, featuring packages of bud, glass pipes, oils, etc. There was also a convenient ATM on site for this cash-only business. "This is a life or death reality for too many folks," Murphy told reporters afterward, as an obvious supporter of the operation. Check out the current product list.
STATEWIDE - Is New Jersey the next Napa Valley? Let's not make that leap, but the state's wine industry is certainly aging well. A new study shows that our wine growers are exploding in their production, with 73 percent growth between 2011-2016. The wine industry is now a formidable $323 million industry, reports the Garden State Wine Growers Association. Amazing. And equally amazing is the fact that New Jersey still bans many supermarkets from selling this popular home-grown product.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
PARIS - The glorious goo known as Nutella caused a ruckus in France yesterday, as a supermarket chain decided to offer a 70 percent discount. For some reason, the Intermarché chain of grocery stores slashed the price to $1.75, prompting shoppers to climb, claw and hit each other to get a bottle of the chocolate spread. Imagine the scene, as social media showed a woman getting her hair pulled, a grandma taking a box to the head and someone's bloody hand reaching out for yet another jar. "Serious? All that for Nutella," one shopper tweeted.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1998 that President Clinton famously said, "I want to say one thing to the American people...I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."
(And we get to run the same photo two days in a row.)
WORD OF THE DAY
Retrodict - [ret-ruh-DIKT] - verb
Definition: To use present information or ideas to infer or explain
Example: Donald Trump has retrodicted the opinions of every President in the nation's history, all of whom would completely and obviously agree he is the best person to ever hold the job.
WEATHER IN A WORD
Warming