Hoboken geese

These geese were photographed during the Hoboken Cove Boathouse's successful kayaking event last weekend. However, after being polled on their voting preferences for the umpteenth time, they flew off to Newark, where they'll be safe from such questions 'till next year.

More boating to come on Father's Day: Sunday, June 19th.

Categories: Hoboken, Local blogging

Next Tuesday

Possibly the best-known face in Jersey makes a comeback, right here on this site.

I got yer 'Sixth Borough' right heah

We just found this brand-new blog, which subscribes to the view that Hoboken and Jersey City comprise the 'Sixth Borough' of Manhattan. (We see Manhattan as a narcisisstic Hoboken wannabe that's - thankfully - far across the water. But hey, that's us.) It looks as if they'll be an intelligent and useful addition to the local blogging community (as opposed to some cheeseball carpetbaggers we could mention).

Ah. Nothing left to do now but sit back and bask in hate mail.

UPDATE: This post remains one of the top results for "Jersey City" blog on Google. Therefore, to quickly find Jersey CIty-related posts on THIS blog, click the link for "Jersey City" at the bottom of this post.

Battle-tested kittens

We couldn't resist Kitten War. Neither could you. Brain-dead simple and fairly addicting, it lulls you into sitting around judging kitten cuteness instead of whatever it was you were supposed to be doing. We knew this kitten was as cute as they come, because it was the top Kitten War survivor when we found the site.

This is just the sort of thing the net is great at, testing ideas and perceptions (in this case, cuteness) on its enormous, built-in audience. Sites like Metafilter are terriffic (if occasionally high-strung) test beds for all kinds of concepts, memes, slogans, themes, and social experiments. We'd bet there are many more ideas like this yet to be born. (No, not Puppy War. That's taken.)

Categories: Internet culture

Forgotten Hoboken

We just now stumbled across this page of forgotten or obscure Hoboken signage.

Categories: Hoboken, Local blogging

Brand extension?

We glanced at this banner and thought it was a matchmaking service for Levitra users. (It's not.) Still, wouldn't THAT be a wild adventure into uncharted waters of brand extension...

Tris McCall goes to court

That's the man, officer! Tris McCall. Griller of local pols, intrepid reporter, troublemaker, champion of small merchants. The plugged-in, Internet-era muse of Jersey City, and by his own reckoning, 'a real nasty man'. (What's not to like, huh?) But when does this musician find time to make music?

Next Friday (June 17), that's when. At the Hudson County Courthouse. Performing his songs about Hudson County politicians and institutions. (Frank Hague, Tom Kean, Bret Schundler, Congressman Menendez, government departments both real and imaginary, municipal works, architecture and public transit, petty civil disobedience, an ill-fated run for a New Jersey Assembly seat, the Hudson County Democratic Organization, the city under siege. Toe-tappers like "Scatter My Ashes on the New Jersey Turnpike" and ""The Ballad of You and Me and Bret Schundler". Folk songs for Jersey folk, the stuff Bob Dylan might sing - if he lived in Jersey City.)

He's in today's New York Times Metro section. (Registration may be required.)

The Hudson County Courthouse is at 583 Newark Avenue, about two blocks north of the JSQ PATH, and about two more blocks east of the Five Corners.

Politicians don't keep 'musician's hours', so he starts at 8PM. (Tris now says 7:30.)

Dave’s True Story is also on the bill. Sez Tris: "They’ll be the sweet musical part of the evening, and I’ll be the spiky, wordy part. Afterwards, there’s an open mic, so feel free to bring your instrument. It’s $10, but the County Executive already told me he’ll let people in for less if they can’t afford the ticket. No, honestly, he did. He’s a Phil Ochs fan."

If you see one Tris McCall show in your lifetime (and whose lifetime is complete without one?), make it next Friday.

Categories: Local blogging, Hoboken, Culture, Music

Political manipulation for fun and profit

Broke? Unskilled? Don't be at the end of your rope, just because you have nothing to contribute to mankind! Master these 'Power Phrases for Every Occasion'©! In no time at all, you - yes, YOU - can be an important power broker!

Examples -

Religious power: "I'm not saying those other churches are wrong, but the really committed people do seem to wind up here, with us. Let me share with you this passage on 'lukewarm' Christians..."

Business power (Enron-style): "It's too time-consuming to describe how the division makes its money, but there's no arguing with these verified numbers! Of course, I'm assuming the Board LIKES making money [pause here for hearty laughter]."

Business power (all-purpose): "Memo to employees: We need you people to start thinking outside the box. Anyone who can't conform to this will be fired."

Power of the press (J. Jonah Jameison style): "If Spiderman's NOT a crook, how come he wears a mask?"

Sales power (birth): "Do you care about your baby's future?"

Sales power (death): "It's certainly functional, but it might send the wrong message as to how much you loved your [parent/pet/aunt]."

Political power (1): "The great thing about this cloak is that anyone who can't see it is either incompetent or a fool."

Political power (2): "A loyal German would not have a problem with this directive."

Political power (3): "A true patriot should have no problem answering Senator McCarthy's questions."

Political power (4): "The real reformers and folks who honestly want good government are all behind our team."

Comedic power: "Of course, you wouldn't expect those extremists [on the right, in the Church, in the KKK, at the IRS] to have a sense of humor like we do."

When all else fails: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" [Execute exit strategy here.]

{PART OF A SERIES: The 2005 Hoboken municipal election}

Categories: Local, Emperor's New Clothes, Local blogging, Hoboken, New Jersey, Politics, Local politics

You are who you endorse

Comment made immediately after the election:

"There were four campaigns that ran decent, good solid, issue-oriented campaigns, and I want to congratulate all of the people that ran," Marsh said. She added that she would welcome their support for her campaign.
- Hoboken Reporter, May 15, 2005.

Comments made after none of the other campaigns endorsed Soares & Marsh:

...Soares, who is running on Marsh's slate, said Thursday that he suspects that Raia and Russo struck a deal. "They did what was best for themselves, but that's not always what's best for the community," said Soares.
- Hoboken Reporter, June 5, 2005 (page 20, "Political Happenings", not available online).

Marsh said she was not surprised by the endorsements [for Roberts]. "Whatever choice they made is their choice," she said. "I don't think it is carrying a lot of weight with the people."
- Jersey Journal, June 9, 2005 (page 4)

"When people take three weeks to cut their deals before they announce their endorsements, it makes one question their sincerity," said Michael Lenz [Marsh's] co-campaign manager.
- Hoboken Reporter, June 12, 2005 (page 4)

{PART OF A SERIES: The 2005 Hoboken municipal election}

Categories: Local, Local blogging, Hoboken, New+Jersey, Politics, Local politics

Local thought police invade Wikipedia

[click image for larger view on Flicr]

Recently we came across this troubling post in Wikipedia, concerning the Hoboken election. Here are some excerpts (capitalized emphasis ours):

Wikipedia: "IN AN EFFORT TO GAIN SUPPORT, there was a miscommunication on the night of May 10, 2005, when the people at Roberts' headquarters announced over a megaphone to a crowd of supporters that Roberts was going to win the election."

Our response: The writer claims to know WHY Roberts' announcement was made - it was "an effort to gain support" (i.e., it was a deliberate miscommunication). The writer then goes on to say that "they didn't get the correct information in time, or they came to a conclusion too quickly". In which case, it was NOT a deliberate miscommunication, but an error. Which was it? The writer's first six words assume a motivation (s)he fails to document - and then contradicts. Those six words should be removed from the piece.

We wonder why this minor incident, which tells us little about the campaign as a whole, was included. By the evening of May 10th, the voting was, after all, concluded. What is the historical significance of any 'support' that was being sought by anyone at this point? What does this passage actually mean, aside from possibly imparting a childish 'Ha-ha you were wrong?' (Had Marsh won, of course, the moment might have been imbued with a 'Dewey-vs.-Truman' aura. But, as matters turned out, the incident barely rates a footnote.)

More disturbing were these misrepresentations:

Wikipedia: "Independent Scott Delea also KNEW FROM THE VERY START THAT HE WOULD LOSE, since INDEPENDENTS NEVER WIN IN HOBOKEN."

Our response: We could have assured the author that Scott Delea 'knew' no such thing - had (s)he bothered to contact us, or Delea. (We created Delea's campaign materials.) As far as 'independent' candidates' chances of winning an election - Hoboken's last two mayors first ran, and won, as "independent" council candidates. Andrew Amato, who failed in his re-election bid this year, served two terms as an 'independent' councilman. The writer is completely and profoundly wrong. What's most troubling here is that even the most perfunctory fact-checking could have prevented this egregious error.

Delea DID face a challenge and an uphill climb, because this was his first run for office. No doubt about that, and no question that he knew this fact of (political) life. But one has to make a first run to get to a second. Every candidate, for every office, must start somewhere. This hardly means every 'independent' effort is doomed.

Wikipedia: "In an advertisement in the Hoboken Reporter Volume 22 Number 36, Scott Delea said the following: "When you vote for a political team, you're voting for people pledged to represent a mayoral candidate's interests. When you vote for an independent, such as myself, you're electing a Council voice that represents your intrests." He also said that Peter Cammarano, a candidate for council running with Roberts, was last year's democratic campaign manager, and used this as a point to argue that politicians are chosen for political reasons. However, despite his attempt, Delea was unable to win."

Our response: The remarks about Cammarano have nothing to do with Delea's loss, and are peripheral to the overall campaign (why bring up THIS particular detail, of all the campaign's details?). We also wonder - why all this focus on Delea, who was running for a single Council seat? Where are the mentions of Russo and Raia, who were running with entire slates for Mayor? Is this piece really about the history of the 2005 campaign, or something else?

********************************************
Who wrote this piece for Wiki? Unlike whoever composed it and 'knew' Delea's and Roberts' motivation and thinking, we have no mindreading abilities. However, we can form an opinion based on facts.

(1) Whoever wrote the piece is almost certainly affiliated with one of the campaigns running for office, and that party is almost certainly in the runoff. (There are no Wiki pieces on past Hoboken elections, so the post isn't part of any history of Hoboken elections. And the piece is too heavily biased for it to have been witten by, say, a newspaper reporter or historian. A legitimate historian would certainly have interviewed Delea before declaring 'what he knew', and a legitimate historian would have known that 'independent' campaigns DO succeed from time to time.)

(2) Whoever wrote the piece has a problem with David Roberts. (The Roberts' campaign would not have written a piece changing him with a deliberate falsehood.)

(3) Delea didn't write it, since it contains defamatory implications regarding his motives. However, the writer does have a real fixation on Delea. No mentions of Raia or Russo at all, yet a lengthy analysis of a small, independent council campaign? Who saw the 2005 race through such a highly distorted prism?

(4) Whoever did this is someone familiar with the Internet. That leaves out Amato, the only candidate with no web presence.

(5) Whoever did this would have removed it if they went on to endorse Roberts in the runoff. And all the major candidates, except Amato and Marsh, have now endorsed Roberts.

OUR CONCLUSION: Between the gratuitous remarks about Roberts, the falsehoods about and fixation on Delea (and the unfortunate implications of his motives), the incredibly negligent or ignorant statement regarding Hoboken's history of independent candidates, and the gratuitous swipe at Cammarano (who is still in the race against Marsh's slate) it's pretty apparent that this piece was written by someone affiliated with or heavily influenced by the Marsh campaign. The 'official' campaign did not necessarily write the piece. The author in fact has written many other pieces on Hoboken (according to Wikipedia records). It's likely that the author is someone who did not see any need to go outside the campaign's boundaries to get other points of view.

The strange focus on Delea, to the exclusion of entire mayoral slates, likely stems from the Marsh core group's long-standing grumblings that Delea was funded by Roberts to 'steal' votes from them. (The same claims were made about Smith.) That's why Delea would run a campaign 'he knew he would lose' - his real goal was not to win, but to hurt Marsh's chances. In this view, ANY candidate who was out of their control - yet campaigning for 'their' issues - was an enemy. In some fevered minds, it also made him a Roberts-sponsored spoiler. This attitude came as a shock to Delea, and he occasionally noted his surprise and disappointment on his blog. Scott saw himself as extending the message for better government (and he was NOT running for nor endorsing a mayoral candidate), but Marsh's people viewed and treated him as a threat.

The person who wrote the Wiki piece, and Marsh's people, should be reaching out for votes rather than trying to rewrite history in hopes of a better result. 'Reformers' advancing open government will not help that cause by misstating facts.

[The Wikipedia article is mirrored here at Wiki mirror site, Answers.com. The article is also reflected somewhere on the Fact Index site. We expect - in fact we hope - that the author will change the Wiki entry now that its blatant errors and bias have been laid bare. Therefore, the Wiki entry may possibly differ from the image shown (all Wiki entries are moving targets anyway). Nevertheless we have downloaded the entire Answers page and have done likewise with Wiki, in case we are asked to document the article. However, Wiki has a 'history' feature through which one can find past incarnations of any entry - therefore the version we've shown will be available online to anyone who cares to research it.]

{UPDATE: Councilman Soares found this post very quickly, and began a series of highly derogatory and inflammatory personal attacks (under an assumed name), which we've left on the site. Considering the speed of the response, the hysteria behind it, and the fact that he's never been here before (he usually restricts his anonymous posts to other sites), we're pretty certain we've found the post's composer, if not the poster himself. Particularly risible was Soares' heavy-handed pretense at being a 'disinterested party' - who just happened to know and share with us that the Marsh campaign had nothing to do with the Wiki post, and happened to know our identity, 'exposing' us to the world. (FULL DISCLOSURE: We created the strategic marketing and ads for the only campaigns Soares ever won, a fact that seems to irk him.) Even Soares' continuing bitter resentment of Delea ("puppet candidate") finds expression in his comments.

This matter is no big scandal, just election-year rhetoric gone a little haywire, and we won't pursue it any further unless something new presents itself. The posting is mainly an interesting anecdote of the campaign, although of course it is nowhere near a balanced, factual, or accurate accounting of the 2005 election. The dyspeptic Wiki piece really should be taken down by its author.}

{UPDATE 2: A few days later, Soares followed up with an email to his mailing list entitled "Roberts Consultant biased against disabled and dwarf community". 'Roberts consultant' is meant to refer to us, even though we did not work for Roberts during this campaign. (We worked promoting Delea.) Soares likes referring to us as a Roberts consultant as it allows him to suggest a bias and ulterior motive for our blog, which was started long before the 2005 campaign and continues well after it. The mail was sent from TonySoares551@aol.com.}

{UPDATE 3: On June 14th, 2005, Councilman Soares was voted out of office. We wonder how or if the Wiki piece will be updated, and what surprises we might see in it next.}

{PART OF A SERIES: The 2005 Hoboken municipal election}

Categories: Local, Wikipedia, Local blogging, Hoboken, New+Jersey, Politics, Local politics

Blog roundup #3

Changes: We now report on New Jersey (via Enlighten), Hoboken, and 'favorite' blogs. Still on a weekly basis (updates are usually posted on Sunday night, but we're late this week).

NEW JERSEY:

Enlighten has posted their third Carnival of the New Jersey bloggers. This week's format breaks posts down into two categories: "Politics" and "Life". So if anyone asks - yes, there IS life after politics.

HOBOKEN:

It may be argued by most measures that baseball is the most successful professional sport. So what's the argument for realignment? For insight, 11th and Washington delves into baseball history.

Hoboken Rock City has the latest podcast and some thoughts on culture.

Furey learns his blog is depressing. Then his leg gets better - but do his traffic stats get worse?

Quick posts and a pic from Eric before he packs for vacation.

UP AND DOWN THE BLOGROLL:

Do or Do Not recently started posting again. Here's a photo that looks a lot like part of Hoboken's waterfront. He also explains the vexing difference between nerds, geeks, and just plain dorks.

If you ARE a nerd or a geek, you already know that this is the news of the week. But were you aware of this?

Plum Crazy knows the power of the REAL Dark Side. Scary 'cause it's true.

Danny at SloppyDawg whups and whups and whups on Bret Schundler.

Lately we've heard more than we care to about the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and that ilk. So this was refreshing.

Stock market savvy applied to the war in Iraq.

More than you may want to know on why no actual goats are involved in goat sex.

As the blogosphere churns: Thought Balloons pulls the plug, but he's not exactly going away.

That's a wrap.

Categories: Hoboken, Local blogging, New+Jersey

Letter of the year

This letter (from this weekend's Hoboken Reporter) was one of the few of this campaign season that obviously was not composed or encouraged by either political camp. Just some honest words from a citizen, expressing an opinion that's quite possibly shared by a lot of people. It certainly expresses ours.

LOUSY CHOICES FOR MAYOR, SOME DECENT ONES FOR COUNCIL

Dear Editor:

According to the half-page ad placed by Carol "You Gotta Believe" Marsh in your May 15th edition, some 63% of those voting in last week's mayoral election voted against Mayor David Roberts. What Ms. Marsh failed to mention was that more than 71% of that same electorate voted against her.

Don't try to tell me what I gotta believe, Ms. Marsh!

Meanwhile, Mayor Roberts, conserving his campaign funds by writing a letter on this page, asserted that he was "especially proud" of the Roberts Team. Proud of what? Proud that, with all the benefits of incumbency, he and his team ran a feeble campaign barely beating even poorer campaigners?

Given the Hobson's choice facing us on June 14, is there anything about the future of politics in Hoboken that we can feel good about?

I think so. Those of us who saw and heard the mayoral and council candidates speak on successive nights couldn't help but notice the shrillness of the dialogue between Mayor Roberts and Councilwoman Marsh. On the other hand, many of the would-be councilpeople were refreshing, well-prepared, articulate... even idealistic. Those council candidates most impressing this reader were Scott Delea, Theresa Burns, Brian Urbano, Brian Keller and Ron Rosenberg. We can only hope that all of them stay engaged in local politics long enough to help unseat our incumbent ward councilmen and councilwomen when their terms end. Now that is something worth believing in.

A.A.S.

[For whatever reason, many of the letters from this weekend's paper, including this one, aren't on the paper's website.]

{PART OF A SERIES: The 2005 Hoboken municipal election}

Categories: Local, Local blogging, Hoboken, New+Jersey, Politics, Local politics

Maybe it's just us

Does the proposed new Clam Broth House (above) remind you of this?

Categories: Local, Local blogging, Hoboken, New+Jersey