Owner: NJ Voices -- Joel Schwartzberg URL:http://blog.nj.com/njv_joel_schwartzberg/ Join Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:36:14 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A-musings about New Jersey culture from an award-winning humorist and essayist. Affiliated with the Star Ledger, NJ's largest newspaper. Site statistics:Click here
Does Christmas need our protection? 2007-12-13 11:04:36 It's beginning to look a lot like "War on Christmas
," Ev'ry-where you go... This week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a formal resolution that says, in essence, Christmas is important and they support Christians and Christmas. Stop the...
Assessing Sick Vick's verdict 2007-12-10 14:02:23 Ending a sad chapter in fallen-idol history, Ex-NFL star Michael Vick was sentenced to just under two years in prison for his role in dogfighting. The Humane Society notes some positive consequences to Vick's extended public ignominy, including a...
Is a writer's strike really so terrible? 2007-12-10 09:14:41 Who has the write of way? Mega-Important News Break: Negotiations to end the Writer's Strike have broken down again. The world mourns; the video tube darkens. The media -- especially Hollywood media -- will have us believe that the strike
...
What prejudice looks like 2008-03-07 09:15:02 Whose idea of a joke? The photo on the right was sent to a friend of mine as an email joke entitled: "What a Muslim P____y Looks Like." (Think: another word for cat) The sender has a history of sending...
Votes off my chest 2008-03-05 08:37:12 Hillary's "triumphant comeback" in Ohio and Texas last night represents the last straw. Not a straw for or against Hillary -- which, for Democrats, is really a vote for another contentious election or for one more winnable -- but... Read more:Votes
My Oscar Moment 2008-02-21 08:00:00 I know a bit more about the Academy Awards than your average Oscar
fan. Seventeen years ago, I was an unemployed 22 year-old living in a friend's studio apartment near Los Angeles when I took a job working for... Read more:Moment
Valentine's Day disconnect 2008-02-13 19:58:19 Valentine's Day is probably the one holiday least connected to its historical and cultural roots. And it's no wonder. Nobody appears on Bill O'Reilly decrying the "War on Saint Valentine." Retail stores face no religious backlash when they push... Read more:Valentine
, disconnect
Toxic candidates 2008-02-06 12:20:29 Toxic Adventures? Columnist Tony Blankley, featured today by the right-wing GOPUSA, stated that a likely McCain nomination... "would be the first time in living memory that a Republican presidential nomination went to a candidate who was not merely opposed by...
Super Tuesday intermingling in NJ 2008-02-05 09:03:40 Scenes from a train station A dedicated political canvasser cradling a stack of Obama pamphlets. A gaggle of liberated teenagers, most wearing jeans either shockingly tight or clumsily loose. A Dad with graying hair and his school-aged son, dressed in... Read more:Super
, Tuesday
Giant victory: A hometown win for NJ? 2008-02-04 08:44:31 Friends I grew up with in Houston, Texas can't get their heads around the idea of living in one state and working in another. The stumbling block for them isn't just the geographical border between New Jersey and New... Read more:hometown
Superbowl party woes 2008-01-29 08:12:47 Hey, these are mine, na-chos! I've seen about 17 Superbowl
s, give or take. I deduced this number by adding up the years in my life since college -- when I last I thought of my "free time" as functional. In...
Defending bullying and name-calling 2008-01-22 10:16:41 I blogged a few weeks ago about "No Name-Calling Week," which began yesterday. "No Name-Calling Week" is a national effort by the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to call attention the destructive effects of name-calling. I'm all... Read more:bullying
All in a day's travel 2008-01-15 09:37:27 I took a business trip to San Francisco this week, and the universality of airplane travel inspired me to record a personal timeline of the ups and down you go through before "you get there." Feel free to commiserate,...
They might be giants 2008-01-11 08:50:31 "Tony Romo is dating Jessica Simpson, not Jessica Alba. You told me he was dating Jessica Alba." A father is talking to his school-age son about the famous quarterback this morning over coffee and orange juice in a Montclair...
Who cares about YOU? 2008-01-10 11:26:35 TIME Magazine's 2006 Person of the Year was, as we all remember, YOU. Do you remember how YOU celebrated? Or who YOU called with the good news? I immediately placed "2006 Person of the Year, TIME Magazine" on my...
2008 Candidates: High School Newsical 2008-01-07 08:13:49 High school hopefuls (clockwise): Mitt, Barack, Hillary, Huckabee Judging by poll results and citizen interviews I've seen on television, I suspect average U.S. voters see the candidates as if they were running for high school senior class president, and generate... Read more:Candidates
, School
, High School
Book ideas shelved in 2008 2008-01-05 09:16:28 Don't Book Now Last month, a proposed parenting memoir by Britney Spears' mother was shelved after her 16 year-old daughter Jamie Lynn announced she was pregnant. Britney Spears' mom putting out a book about successful parenting is kinda like...like...like...well, it's... Read more:ideas
No more name-calling? 2008-01-02 09:00:25 If GLSEN can't help people think straight, who can? We've all been guilty of -- or at least exposed to -- name-calling at some point in our lives. While my parents were able to retreat into Yiddish for their invectives,...
Horton Hears Hollywood: What happened to kid movies? 2008-03-17 11:32:12 Horton heard a Who And the reviews were rave But unheard was Ted Geisel, Spinning somewhere in his grave... Like so many little people and grownups, my kids and I saw "Horton Hears a Who" on opening weekend. While... Read more:Horton
, Hollywood
, movies
When politics attack 2008-03-24 10:51:03 Most good screenwriters know that true character is revealed not by what happens to a person so much as how that person reacts to what has happened. Will Bruce Willis, for example, make his reactive point with the chainsaw,... Read more:politics
, attack
On the hunt for good Jersey pizza 2008-03-27 10:07:02 That's what I'm talkin' about!Last night, my fiance and I made a crucial decision that millions of Americans make every day -- we chose to forego making dinner (and by that I mean she chose to postpone making yummy white... Read more:Jersey
Training on Transit 2008-04-03 08:30:36 On Tuesday, I was witness to a very unusual occurrence on the 8:30-ish New Jersey Transit
train from Montclair to Penn Station. It wasn't that the train both left and arrived exactly on time, no. That would be a... Read more:Training
Spring screen cleaning 2008-04-01 09:16:26 Any office worker who watches in amazement as someone in the tech department "takes over" his computer from afar knows society has turned a corner in technology convenience. Nowadays, people can access their hard drives remotely, technicians can identify... Read more:Spring
, screen
Will AC casinos be blowing smoke? 2008-04-08 09:07:49 What would the 1942 classic film "Casablanca", perhaps the smokiest movie in cinema history, be without the cigarette? Well, if Rick's Cafe were located in New Jersey, it would have to be smoke-free per the New Jersey Smoke-Free Air... Read more:casinos
The Sadist Show on Earth? 2008-04-14 12:12:09 Izod Center, April 12Irate at Izod My kids and I went to the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus on Saturday at the Izod Center. I can't remember the last time I'd been to the circus -- possibly never... Read more:Earth
Calorie-ality check for NYC restaurants: NJ next? 2008-04-21 10:58:08 Let them greet cake "I know you're scaring away a lot of business, but you're doing the right thing," I said to the heavy-set Starbucks worker taking my skim mocha order in New York this morning. "Yeah," my server replied,... Read more:restaurants
Silver lining of Obama/Wright cloud 2008-04-29 14:13:44 Upstaging an annoyance Reading about Barack Obama
's public outrage over Rev. Jeremiah Wright
-- what The Post nicely calls "Pastor Disaster" -- it becomes obvious that Obama did the right thing, politically and morally, with his speech today. People clearly... Read more:Silver
Healing my NJ road rage 2008-04-29 12:08:07 I always thought New Jersey had a beef with me. Not New Jerseyans per se, nor the diverse and delightful traveling points from one end of the Garden State to the other. No, it was New Jersey's roads and... Read more:Healing
The Mother of all holidays 2008-05-09 08:57:04 When my brother Paul and I were in middle school, we ordered a "personally-engraved tribute plaque" for our mom a few months before Mother's Day. Being teenagers, we forgot all about it until one Saturday morning when we found...
Even more secret airline fees 2008-05-22 10:21:29 Fee-Quent Flying As you may have heard, American Airlines will begin charging passengers $15 for the first checked bag on domestic flights starting next month. AA (which should stand for Antagonistic Airways) already has an unhappy face in my book...
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