The Jaffe Briefing - February 25, 2019

JERSEY CITY - Four whiz kids deserve an A+ for their mad computer skills. But that's not happening. These students are facing criminal charges for hacking into Dickinson High School's computer system to change grades. Police tell the Jersey Journal the four students, all under 18, used teachers' passwords to alter other students' grades and maybe some of their own. District officials do not think they accessed anyone's personal or financial information, but the investigation is ongoing. The four kids go before a Hudson County family court judge this week; seems they all have an enormous potential, perhaps to one day collude with Russia.

PATERSON - It's tough to find Spanish-speaking teachers here in New Jersey. Wait. That can't be right! ¡Incorrecto!  Not in a perse state of 9 million people with more than 140,000 certified educators. Yet school officials say they have no choice but to fly six top administrators to warm, sunny Puerto Rico in March on a teacher-recruiting junket. School officials tell the Paterson Press their all-out efforts to find Spanish-speaking teachers locally have repeatedly failed. Huh? Maybe too many have heard about the district's budget deficits, or 500 teacher layoffs in recent years, or perhaps they got a good look at Paterson's urban grittiness. With 4,200 Spanish-speaking pupils, this district's need is very real. And that's why school officials are jetting off into the sun to recruit over piña coladas.

STATEWIDE - It's almost half a century since the Title X program was set to provide federal cash for facilities that provide healthcare to low-income women and their families. In addition to free and low-cost birth control, these clinics conduct screenings for a range of diseases. But most contentious, of course, is the provision for abortions. From the get-go, the Trump administration has been eager to cut off Title X funding to Planned Parenthood and other entities that do abortions. It has now announced a new set of regulations to that end, sparking outrage in New Jersey. NJ Spotlight has the details.

EAST BRUNSWICK - A humorless schools superintendent has assessed "sanctions" on a student who admitted playing a practical joke last week, using bogus school letterhead and the superintendent's signature to announce vaping was suddenly allowed in the school bathrooms. While most, if not all, the people who read this story thought it was quite funny, Township Schools Superintendent Victor Valeski offered another take. "I kept track of all the time I invested trying to tell people that this was not an accurate document," Valeski told NJ 101.5  "And, of course, all the time reporting it out to the news outlets that found it interesting. I'm going to go back to the student with that accounting of time and say, basically, you're going to owe me public service time or that equivalent... It literally took the better part of two and a half days of my time to explain to people it was not my writing." (Chuckle.)

IN THE MEDIA

LINDEN, Ala. - We may have found the only newspaper publisher in the United States who shouldn't be protected by free speech. And that's 80-year-old Goodloe Sutton, who mercifully resigned this weekend as editor of his backwoods newspaper, The Democrat-Reporter, in Alabama. He handed over the editorial reins after he penned a 1930s-era editorial suggesting that the Ku Klux Klan "night ride again," as he railed against high taxes in Alabama. Good Lord, Goodloe. And, then, facing a heap of criticism for this editorial, he "clarified" his points, adding this gem: "If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we'd all been better off."  Oh, my. This weekend, facing the obvious demise of his two-bit publication, Sutton named an African-American woman as his editor, as this newspaper has about two weeks left in business. Thankfully.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

CORMORANT, MN - The four-term, four-legged mayor here just died, sending this sprawling Minnesota town's 1,039 residents into mourning. "Duke," a 13-year-old Great Pyrenees, became one of the Gopher State's most popular politicians after winning his first term in 2014. Duke became so popular he was even featured on state highway billboards. Duke's "staff," Rick and Karen Nelson, tell the Duluth News-Tribune their pooch proudly served as Cormorant's "ambassador," but mostly he "hung out at a local pub, making sure everything ran okay, keeping the riff-raff out, and overseeing the works." Maybe it's not so bad when politics goes to the dogs.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

It was this day in 1981 that fans flocked to see the Rolling Stones perform their sixth U.S. tour, this time at the open-air JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Fans packed the place, figuring these guys were getting old and, hey, who knows if it could be the last tour.

WORD OF THE DAY

Chockablock - [CHAH-kə-blahk] - adjective

Definition: Jammed tightly together; very full or crowded

Example: The news story was chockablock with fact, figures, stats and a dizzying array of other information, none of which offered any context.

WIT OF THE DAY

"Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, you ought to set up a life you don't need to escape from - Seth Godin

WEATHER IN A WORD

Gusty

THE NEW 60

A Jaffe Briefing exclusive by Andy Landorf & John Colquhoun