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| A NEW EV IN OUR GARAGE: Our new 2021 Tesla Model Y, above, has all-wheel drive and a maximum range of 330 miles. We charge it overnight in our garage when the battery is down to about 30 percent of capacity. |
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| OUR OTHER TESLA: I bought this 2016 Tesla Model S 75D, left, in November 2019, when the luxury, all-wheel drive, 4-door hatchback had only about 7,600 miles on the odometer. It's the best car I've ever owned, and faster than my first EV, a 2015 Tesla Model S 60, which had a smaller battery and rear-wheel drive. |
Trump's coup failed, but country
seems more divided than ever
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
HACKENSACK, N.J. -- When I turned 77 last week, I thought life is good:
I'm healthy, I get plenty of exercise food shopping and volunteering at a hospital a total of 4 days to 5 days a week, and we have a new zero-emissions Tesla in the garage.
But then I muttered, "What the fuck?" last Wednesday as I read the news that the election for governor in New Jersey was too close to call.
This with Democrats having a registration edge in the state over Republicans of more than 967,000, according to New Jersey Globe, so I should have been cursing Dems too lazy to get off their asses to vote or fill out a mail-in ballot.
Voter apathy
Did the apathy that paralyzes voters in Hackensack spread statewide, as Governor Murphy sought election to a second term, which a Democrat hadn't accomplished since 1977?
Could Murphy's opponent -- a former, not even a current Republican state assemblyman who lied like Trump during the campaign -- actually take the State House and wreak havoc in a nightmarish scenario recalling the 8 miserable years we experienced under that GOP thug, Chris Christie?
Yes. I buy cars painted red, but always vote blue.
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| MAIL-IN BALLOTS: On the day before the Nov. 2 election, I took the last of our 4 mail-in ballots to a drop box at the Bergen County Administration Building in Hackensack. Although the mail-in ballot is still a challenge to fill out, we have been using them to vote in every election, big and small, for many years, long before the pandemic. |
New Jersey and Virginia
Well, eventually, Murphy was declared the winner in New Jersey, but in Virginia, a Democrat was defeated by a Republican for governor, as Richmond seemed to be reclaiming the title of "capital of the Confederacy."
"Save your Dixie cups, the South will rise again," my high school art teacher used to say. Indeed.
News coverage of the New Jersey and Virginia elections was short on issues and long on polls and opinion writers trying to predict the future.
So, I was shocked to read a New York Times story about Murphy's narrow victory that reported the Democrat's "aggressive approach to controlling the [Covid-19] pandemic became a focal point of the bid to unseat him."
The TV and radio news had said little, if anything, about Murphy's Covid-19 policies during the campaign leading up to the election on Nov. 2.
The pandemic
So, now we can add pandemic policies -- as well as anti-vaccine and anti-mask zealots in Trump counties asserting their right to die in droves -- to gun rights, abortion and racism as among the forces dividing us under President Joe Biden.
As hard as it is to believe nearly a year after Covid-19 vaccines first became available, the virus still kills more than 1,200 people a day in the United States, nearly all of them unvaccinated, according to The Times.
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| I LIKE HATCHBACKS: The Model Y is a 4-door hatchback, one in a long line of hatchbacks I've owed -- from the forgettable Mustang II to a 1986 Toyota Celica to a 1988 Toyota Celica All-Trac turbo to 4 Toyota Priuses, one of which we still have, and the Tesla Model S. |
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| SEXY CURVE: No design feature in our new Tesla Model Y or any other car I know can match the elegance of the curved door pull on each of the 4 doors in my Tesla Model S. I keep an eyeglass cleaning cloth in the space in the driver's door, but there is room for a pair of glasses or loose change for tolls. |
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| PESCATARIAN'S DELIGHT: Jumbo Shrimp, above, and a beautifully composed Mahi-Mahi Ceviche with avocado, tomato and cilantro, below, were just 2 of the courses in a lavish lunch my wife and I enjoyed at The Hill in Closter to celebrate my birthday last week. |
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| AN EMPTY DINING ROOM: The Hill is the best seafood restaurant in northern New Jersey, when price is no object. But we were the only customers seated in the large dining room for lunch last Thursday. |
The Record's wretched staff
The staff of The Record complained in a tweet last week that they have been denied raises by Gannett, the newspaper conglomerate that bought the former Hackensack-based daily along with the other papers and (201) magazine from the Borg family.
Calling themselves The Record Guild, they said they formed a union along with the staffs of two other newspapers, but that apparently has given them little muscle.
They refer to The Record, where I worked for more than 30 years, by the antiquated name of "The Bergen Record."
The daily newspaper also was called "The Wretched" by many critics.
Sold for $40M in cash
In the years before the July 2016 sale, then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg executed the biggest downsizing in The Record's history, moved the staff to Woodland Park, froze raises in the newsroom and then laughed all the way to the bank with the nearly $40 million in cash handed over by Gannett.
Borg became a partner in the construction of hundreds of luxury apartments being built along River Street after tearing down The Record's landmark Hackensack headquarters and a diner.
"OK, so where are our raises?" The Record Guild tweeted the other day in response to word Gannett is making progress in growing digital subscriptions -- more than 1.5 million across the chain, according to Poynter.org.
My advice to the dwindling number of staffers at The Record: "Suckers, don't hold your breath."
And those who formed a union -- notably Columnist Mike Kelly -- clearly waited much too long before doing so -- like 3 years too long.
