The Jaffe Briefing - March 7, 2022

STATEWIDE – There will be plenty of smiling faces in schools today. And we will know that because, finally, the masks will be off. For the first time in two years, the state will no longer require students to wear masks inside schools, child care facilities or on school buses. Now, some school districts are still opting to implement the mandate on their own, but it’s no longer state policy. Also, as a nice little perk, New Jersey awakens this morning to this first time in two years without a health emergency order in effect. With the infection rates continuing to drop, we dare now ponder, are things now “normal”?

MAPLEWOOD – With so much strife happening all over the world, let’s focus on the really irrelevant stuff for the moment. And here’s the perfect nugget: Sen. Andrew Zwicker, who pushed for the bog turtle to be the official state reptile, is at it again, Politico reports. This time, he is pushing for “Ultimate Frisbee” to be the official state sport, as it started at Columbia High School in 1967 and had its first interscholastic game against Millburn High School in 1970.  (Columbia High won 43-10 in the Columbia parking lot, as everyone knows.) Zwicker makes a good point: Ultimate is a New Jersey-bred sport, so why not celebrate it with an official state designation?

BRIEFING BREATHER

 A newborn has 300 bones; an adult has only 206 bones.

ON THE ROAD – And keeping with comparatively irrelevant news, perhaps it’s time for New Jerseyans to finally pump our own damn gas. There’s been surprisingly plenty written about the issue, even people penning opinion pieces for the Sunday papers. We’ve been banned since 1949 from pumping our own, despite the fact that many of us have mastered the practice by travelling to other states. It may be time for change: No attendant has asked to wash our windows or check our oil in years. Gas stations are now having problems finding people for these menial, mind-numbing jobs, and perhaps self-service will cut soaring consumer costs. Also, because there’s already self-serve at Home Depot, Target and pretty much everywhere else, it seems time to consider a “hybrid” model at the pump and assess if New Jersey drivers can figure it all out.

STATEWIDE – Kids should take tests, but not teachers?  That’s the thinking of some education groups, trying to get the state to scrap the edTPA test for prospective teachers to pass.  Why? Because with this statewide shortage of teachers, this assessment is “costly, redundant, and fails to provide useful information” beyond what is already collected as part of a teacher’s training, these groups say. Certified teachers need to graduate a four-year school and then be a student teacher for 12 weeks, as well as pass the edTPA, before they are let loose in a classroom. Yes, the teacher shortage is a crisis in some school districts. But should we be weakening the credentials to attract more teachers? Doesn’t it water down the profession?

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

CANTON, MA – The bell is coming! The bell is coming! That’s the big excitement at Paul Revere’s foundry, as a bronze bell cast in 1834 at his foundry has finally come home. Over the past 188 years, or so, the bell had been dragged by oxcart to churches in Ohio before sitting for decades in a California garage. After a weeklong journey across the U.S., the historic bell was returned over the weekend to the Paul Revere Heritage Site in Canton. The 1,000-pound bell was made by Revere’s son, Joseph, who took over the foundry in 1804. (Hmm. Nepotism, anyone?) The Revere & Son Heritage Trust Corp. says there are still a few hundred Revere bells out there; most in private hands.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

 Just wait until Mr. Drummond hears that Todd Bridges stabbed one of his tenants on this day in 1993.

 WORD OF THE DAY

 Milieu – [meel-YOO] – noun

 Definition: The physical or social setting in which something occurs or develops.

 Example: Terrific milieu yesterday at the RAC, as Rutgers’ big win over Penn State puts us in the NCAA tourney.

WIT OF THE DAY

 “If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.”

 -Lyndon Johnson

BIDEN BLURB

“While it often appears that we never agree, that isn’t true.”

 -Joe Biden

 WEATHER IN A WORD

May?