Posted by Jay Stevens, Urban Times News on January 17, 2004 at 14:13:33:

Urban Times News
By Jay Stevens-email: jstevens@urbantimesnews.com

A SAD DAY

We marked with sadness the passing of Iman Omar Aziz. Besides other things Aziz was an employee of the Hudson County Jail as its Islamic Chaplain. Aziz was also a spiritual leader and a fixture here in this community for many years—an inspiration to many.

We were just as sad that two elected officials only, of all of those in Jersey City, and in the County of Hudson, only two appeared at Aziz’ funeral: Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham, and Ward F Council member Viola Richardson. Where was County Executive Tom DeGise? Where was Council President L. Harvey Smith? And what about the rest of the elected officials in the city and in the county? That is a sad day.

HUDSON COUNTY GRINDS TO A HALT

We could not for the life of us figure out what the holdup was, but for the past coupla weeks, nothing has been working the way it normally does around here. Then it hit us like a bolt from the blue. Matty Burns is not around. The familiar figure most often seen looking harried and hurried, darting in and out of meetings, courtrooms, various offices, with folders and sheaves of paper, was nowhere to be seen. Burns has gone missing. Almost at the same moment, we learned that our good friend, attorney Matty Burns, had been taken to Christ Hospital with congestive heart failure. That explains why things just aint the same: Matty Burns is not here, darting about.

So we naturally called the hospital, real worried. We needn’t have worried. Matty could not tell us when the doctors planned to release him and send him back to the world, but that was about all that he did not tell us. He had been running his normal business from his bed and could not wait to talk local politics, which is what he loves to do the best. Though he claims to be a lawyer, Matty is really a frustrated politician. It was a struggle getting him off the phone. We had just called to allay our fears and tell him that we were concerned and missed him. For a guy that is supposed to be in such bad shape he sure had plenty of energy for his passion, his politics.

Get well and get back here Matty. Do it right away!

NOT SO SECRET SUE

After a long time on shakey ground, one of our reporters had struck up a kind of friendly relationship with Suzanne Mack recently ex-Director of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency. The reporter had mended fences with Mack and was at pains to remain on her good side after getting there only with great effort. You can imagine his shock and horror when there appeared posts of messages on www.getnj.com a local gossip and news and political website, concerning Mack.

The posts were unflattering to Mack and husband Bob Magro, and implied that Mack was involved in some sort of skullduggery, mostly that she had knowledge of some sort of skullduggery which knowledge would tend to implicate and incriminate others affiliated with the County government and the Hudson County Democratic Organization. The posts implied that Mack’s husband, a computer whiz of sorts, had been given a juicy consulting contract with the County government. The messages said that the payments under the contract were intended to buy the continued silence of Sue Mack so she would not spill whatever beans she was supposedly in possession of.

Other posts appeared accusing the reporter of being the one who posted the messages accusing Mack of receiving the payments to remain silent. The reporter would not normally respond to posts on a bulletin board, but this time he did. “Oh My God! She is going to think it was me, and then, and then,” but even before he could finish, he had dashed for the phone trembling in terror of the wrath of Sue.

We could hear him on the phone, voice quivering, “It wasn’t me, I swear, it wasn’t.” He eventually calmed down after listening to whom we supposed was Sue on the phone. He came back much calmer, kind of giggling. “You aint gonna believe this, but Sue Mack says she is unemployed for the first time in more than 25 years and she kind of likes it that way. She says she is thinking about filing for unemployment benefits. Also, by the way she says that stuff about Bob Magro getting a hundred thou a year consulting contract with the County is a lot of hogwash. He has no contract with the County.”

Sue had heard about the posts but gave them no thought, and you could see our reporter was visibly de-stressed. The poor guy has a short fuse. We must admit that it is kind of humorous, the notion of Sue Mack unemployed. This, ladies and gentlepersons is a woman of great ability and vast experience. She will have a job when she wants one. The only reason she is not heading the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency is because of a SNAFU in the renewal of her contract, a political hassle: some doctrinaire bureaucratic wrangling, compounded by lawyers, what else? Otherwise, she would still be heading the agency. We can’t wait to see what Sue does for an encore.

EARL THE HAT AND THE REAL DEAL

The more things change the more they remain the same. Good Ol’ Earl “The Hat” Morgan in his weekly column mentioned Bobby Jackson and Joe Cardwell. Cardwell and Jackson were mentioned in The Hat’s column because they just opened a restaurant on Martin Luther King Drive. Jackson is, coincidentally, the publisher of this newspaper and is usually an intensely private individual. But Jackson consented to a brief interview for this column. “I know that it is highly unusual for an African American businessman to open a business in the African American community, but as a reporter, he should at least be accurate. The address is not 303 Martin Luther King Drive. The correct address is 302 Martin Luther King Drive. And the new library is not across the street from the restaurant but it is two blocks away. I wonder when was the last time he was here. It is a sign of Earl’s advancing age, I guess. He did the same thing with the new doctor in the neighborhood just a few blocks down on MLK at the corner of Atlantic Street. The doctor and his partner open a medical practice, a private practice doctor’s office, and not some kind of clinic. The two doctors open the first doctor’s office to open in the neighborhood in more than a generation and Earl can’t be bothered to show up for the ribbon cutting, though the Mayor thought it was worth the trouble. Guess Earl knows better. Earl could not get the name right. He called it Medical Foundation. It’s Foundation Medical. In Earl’s old age both his body and his mind are failing him, or either his attitude is showing. He can’t be bothered to get it right, not the doctor’s name, not the address or location of the restaurant. Either it’s an attitude problem, or he is just not truthful.”

We asked Mr. Jackson why his new restaurant is called the Real Deal and Jackson explained, “Because that is exactly what it is. That is what we sell, the real deal. It is a barbecue restaurant with a good variety of chicken and ribs and fish and the like, but we also have North Carolina barbecue pork and ham. We bring it directly from North Carolina and it is exactly the “real deal.” North Carolina chopped barbecue. And the ham is also brought here from North Carolina, so I guess you could say it is imported. Mostly, it is the real deal and if you’ve ever had it, either the chopped barbecue or the ham, you would know exactly what I am talking about. And if you haven’t had it, then you should try it because you would probably like. As far as I can find out, there is nothing else like it around here. These things are like sourdough bread and you can’t make them here. You can, but it is never the same. You really just can’t get them around here in this area. I don’t think there is another place anywhere near Northern New Jersey, let alone New York City where you can get the same. You just have to try it.”

THE MARS ROVER VERSUS BRITNEY SPEARS

We were left entirely speechless watching the television network news when the Mars Rover landed on the red planet. It is true that we were awestruck by the achievement and by what that will eventually mean for mankind. It is truly awesome to think about. But what rendered us speechless, struck dumb, was that in the same network newscast, the screen was filled for a longer period of time with the inane image of Britney Spears, the pop singer. Britney chose the day of the Mars landing after doing one of her shows in Las Vegas to get married to some equally inane young man. Hours later the inane couple had the marriage annulled. It seems that it was their idea of a prank or practical joke. Aren’t you just rolling on the floor? You probably hadda be there, you know, one of those. Didn’t we tell you they were inane? Just so you do not think we are inane, we are rambling on about this, because Britney got more air time and time on the screen than what is without a doubt one of the greatest human achievements in all of natural history. That’s right, natural history. It is so monumental that it is evolutionary, not merely revolutionary. We are about to journey to the stars boys and girls and we are about to become another species. Homo sapiens exterran—off earth. Truly bogglesome isn’t it? In early November the first man made object, a satellite launched in 1977, Voyager I left the solar system traveling past the last planetary outpost of our system 8 billion miles from home. Voyager entered interstellar space to boldly go where no gadget has gone before, beginning the journey to the next star. NASA scientists say Voyager I should get there in about 40,000 years barring excessive pit stops.

So why do we sit here and constantly stew and stress and worry about political corruption in Hudson County, and racism in the political machine, and affordable housing? Sometimes we have to look up. Sometimes we have to look ahead. We get so bogged down in worldly worries we sometimes forget that we are all part of bigger whole that is rapidly heading for a greatly improved condition. We believe that the human spirit will always triumph. Just look what is coming at such a high rate of speed. Not only will we be able to leave this world and colonize others, but also there is an orbiting space station now in geosynchronous orbit and it is continuously manned. There have been people in space aboard the space station continuously manned for years now. And those people are of different nations. Nations that were not long ago racing head long for what seemed mutually assured thermonuclear annihilation. Now we are hanging out in space with the Russians. Maybe Cunningham and Menendez and his HCDO crew can patch things up some how after all.

On the near horizon are hydrogen fuel cells. They are already in use and are being perfected rapidly. They completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels. Just think what that means! No more oil! Not from Alaska, the North Sea, Saudi Arabia, not from anywhere. Now tell us that doesn’t reshuffle the geopolitical, geo-economic, and environmental deck of cards. Hydrogen is not abundant, but nearly inexhaustible supply of clean burning nonpolluting energy. It generates exhaust that is mostly fresh clean air and, get this, electricity, after combining hydrogen and oxygen. No more oil, no more smog and other environmental devastation like massive oil spills, no more economic dependence on politically unstable and even hostile trading partners. The cost of living is going to go down.

A little further down the road is nuclear fusion, unlimited energy released by putting atoms together not splitting them apart. Cold fusion, an also inexhaustible supply of very low cost energy may be even better. This one could be the plasma drive powering us past the speed of light—that’s right boys and girls, Warp Speed, Scotty—as we leave our solar system and travel not just to distant planets, but also to other star systems many light years away.

So what do we really care if Bernie Kenny, Jr. is working in a soup kitchen? Well, we do care. It bugs us no end cause we cannot for the life of us figure out what he’s up to. We cannot wait to hear more about this, but I guess we will have to.

Follow Ups:

• Re: "INSIDE COUNTY LINES-YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" Hmmmmm 15:36:20 01/17/04 (2)
  • Re: "INSIDE COUNTY LINES-YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" Just like he did when.... 09:41:57 01/19/04 (1)
    • Re: "INSIDE COUNTY LINES-YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" Etiquette Police 11:13:43 01/19/04 (0)

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