The Jaffe Briefing - March 12, 2021

TRENTON – In life, one just assumes women pay more than men for stuff like dry cleaning, tailoring, razors, etc. Unfair? Yep. Part of life? Well, perhaps no more, under a bill working through the state Legislature that would fine businesses for committing “gender pricing.” Sure, a guy would pay 89 cents for a bottle of shampoo if he could get away with it. But women are often willing to pay much more – and marketers know that, NJ.com reports. A guy’s haircut? $20. A woman’s? Whoa. NYC found a five-pack of razors marketed to men were selling for $14.99, the “female” version was $18.49. A red toy scooter sold for $24.00. The pink version? $49.99. Products that are “substantially similar” must cost the same in New Jersey, finally, under this way overdue bill.

STATEWIDE – So much for all this statewide skullduggery to land a vaccine appointment before your “phase” is open. President Biden wants to throw all that nonsense out by May 1, calling for all states to open the vaccination centers to all adults by that deadline. He even dangled a glorious carrot if we all get with the vaccination program: small parties would be permitted on the Fourth of July. To help meet this goal, Biden is pledging a massive infusion of additional vaccination centers, as if you could almost get a shot when you run into Wawa for your morning coffee and a lottery ticket. Maybe it could be part of a new combo plan: “The Morning Moderna Special.” (We’re still tinkering with that one…)

BRIEFING BREATHER

The human body contains enough fat to make seven bars of soap.

NOT NEW JERSEY - Asbury Park native Danny DeVito made a small fortune believing ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.’ But Philly or New Jersey just aren't good enough for the 76-year-old funnyman. Nope. The New York Post says DeVito paid millions to buy a four-story brownstone in Brooklyn’s trendy Cobble Hill section. His estranged wife, Rhea Perlman, is also on the deed to the four-bedroom, five-bath rowhouse built in 2014. DeVito was inducted in the N.J. Hall of Fame in 2010 and, when Asbury Park’s council declared his Nov. 17th birthday as “Danny DeVito Day,” Gov. Phil Murphy boasted: “Danny has never forgotten where he came from.” Apparently, the Garden State has now slipped his mind. Taxi!

CARTERET – A runaway cow is an unlikely sight here unless you happen to know that Carteret has a big slaughterhouse on Roosevelt Avenue. Just after 3 a.m. Wednesday, one doomed cow enroute to those butchers made a quick escape while being transferred between trucks on Port Reading Avenue. Patch.com says Carteret and Woodbridge cops went all-cowboy, lassoing the footloose animal after a 20-minute chase. You can see the fleeing cow on a passerby's video, as he runs for the glorious hills of Rahway.

IN THE MEDIA

NEWARK – A fun fact: New Jersey is the only state that doesn’t subsidize its public television channel. Not surprising. Who wants to support those pesky reporters with their really relevant, yet unanswerable, questions? Gov. Phil Murphy finally wants to throw out a bone, New Jersey Globe reports, earmarking $1 million in the proposed budget to support NJ PBS (the new, flashy name of NJTV.) This windfall must certainly be appreciated at PBS, which now owes the governor a complimentary tote bag.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

BERLIN – It was the bite heard around Berlin, as cops say a half-eaten piece of sausage has led them to the culprit of a nine-year-old burglary. Police say that piece of sausage belonged to the victim. And the suspect – now identified as a 30-year-old Albanian citizen — appeared to have helped himself to a bite during the March 2012 break-in. Media had one probing, vital question: “So, what kind of sausage was it?” All we know is that the burglar nibbled the tasteless, hard variety, which everyone knows is the wurst. (OK, bad joke.) Anyway, Berlin investigators recently learned the French police had taken a matching DNA sample from a man involved in a violent crime, stemming all the back to that fateful sausage in 2012.

WORD OF THE DAY

Felicitate – [fih-LISS-uh-tayt] – verb

Definition: To make happy

Example: I am felicitating about this 60-degree weather.

WIT OF THE DAY

“We Americans have no commission from God to police the world."

-Benjamin Harrison (1889)

BIDEN BLURB

“America has been tested, and we′ve come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.”

-Joe Biden (2021)

WEATHER IN A WORD

Sixties