Atlantic Highlands Herald - January 29, 2004

RED BANK, NJ — The Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders has approved a $1.1 million contract to completely replace the superstructure of the bridge that takes Front Street over the Swimming River and connects Middletown with Red Bank. The bridge will be closed on or about February 14, 2004 and remain closed for approximately 14 weeks. A Detour Route has been developed in consultation with local officials.Essentially, traffic will be diverted to the Cooper Bridge, Navesink River Road and Hubbard Avenue as a detour. The detour will remain in effect for a maximum of 100 calendar days. Bridge closure notices will be posted along peripheral roadways to allow drivers the maximum opportunities to utilize alternate routes.

ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS, NJ — The Borough Council last night awarded the First Avenue Streetscape contract. Ocean Excavating, Inc. of Toms River, had a bid price of $394,581.10 and was the lowest of three bidders for the job.

The Borough's engineer firm, Birdsall Engineers, will be paid $18,000 to manage the construction project.

Washington, DC. January 22. The spotlight of suspicion found the nefarious dirty trickster, Zarindi, again this week when the Meat and Dairy Cooperative of Wisconsin (MADCOW) accused him of subverting their nationwide efforts to promote beef and dairy products.

MADCOW executives initially charged that Zarindi brought a diseased cow into the USA, from Canada. But the organization’s later statements have retreated from that accusation – claiming, instead, that Zarindi used the Mad Cow Disease scare to undermine the cooperative’s national marketing efforts. (At times reporters had trouble distinguishing MADCOW, the organization, from Mad Cow, the disease.)

MADCOW executives say Zarindi has been retained by rival lobbying firm, WORLDVEG, which has sometimes attacked the meat and dairy industry, including MADCOW.

A MADCOW spokesman refused to speculate on whether the organization planned to change its name.

In a wide-ranging interview, food consultant and political analyst I. B. Toast noted that an international struggle for food supremacy has raged across the American legal and political landscape in recent years.

“The untimely death of natural foods guru Ewell Gibbons was an early setback for the world vegetable movement, of course,” said Dr. Toast. “Vegetarians had touted Mr. Gibbons’ natural foods lifestyle as the key to longevity and avoidance of cancer, heart disease, and other ailments. His unexpected death (from natural causes), in his early sixties, was a major reverse. The entire vegetarian world-domination strategy had to be reformed.

“Later, President Bush (41) did much damage with his tongue-in-cheek denunciation of broccoli. His widely publicized joking about a serious vegetable slowed WORLDVEG’s militant vegetarian, anti-meat, anti-sugar campaign just as it was getting started.”

Dr. Toast pointed out that the Meat Forces have suffered reverses, too – many of them engineered by WORLDVEG. Lawsuits accusing producers of hamburgers, ice cream and other fast-foods of causing obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, impotence, acne, shingles, hemorrhoids, incontinence, sterility, cavities, bad breath and unpopularity (to mention only a few complaints) have been a great concern to the fast-food industry. Litigation is also anticipated against bacon, eggs, butter, cakes, pies, cookies, candy, soft drinks, and other foods popular with the public.

“Any foods that people like to eat – especially those that taste good – will be fair game (so to speak),” said Dr. Toast. “If WORLDVEG prevails, Americans will end up grazing on stuff that tastes like...well, let’s just say it won’t be mom’s apple pie. If munching collard greens, alfalfa and kale – or dining on mashed yeast flambé – tickles your palate, you’ll be in hog heaven once everything good has been sued or legislated to extinction. Vending machines will offer carrots, celery and asparagus. Hot dogs will be declared toxic. Candy bars will go for $10 on the black market.

“Despite these triumphant prospects, WORLDVEG retained Zarindi because they began to see the battle for America’s Stomach slipping away. Late-show comics were cracking wise in their monologues about the ‘tons-a-fun lawsuits’ and the War on Ice Cream. People who crave Big Macs and jumbo-sized fries sensed that their favorite foods might disappear. Several states are debating legislation to protect food sellers and producers from responsibility for consumers’ misuse of their products – including overeating.”

Dr. Toast mentioned that a scientific study, publicized earlier this year – showing butter to be healthier than margarine – was a crushing blow to vegetable ascendancy. Another report revealed that some 13,000 separate studies proved that coffee (consumed daily by over 50 million Americans) retards Type 2 diabetes. And yet another study showed that dark chocolate contains potent antioxidants which gobble up free radicals and prevent high blood pressure. These findings raised a mighty cheer from coffee and chocolate lovers, world-wide, and sent Starbucks and Hershey stocks soaring.

“Those reports were disastrous,” said Dr. Toast. “The long-term WORLDVEG strategy has been to show that the tasty foods people really enjoy are basically unhealthy. The WORLDVEGiacs thought people would readily abandon those foods, since everyone wants to live forever. A few did, but the public has mostly resisted. Now, as tasty foods are actually being proved healthy, the strategy is crumbling.

“Increasingly, the waggish humor, ‘Exercise, eat right, live healthy – die anyway’, is being vindicated. Folks are thinking – what the heck, if I’m going to die anyway, why not live a little in the meantime? Even tobacco sales are increasing as people rediscover an old coffee-break companion.

“An e-mail has circulated, world-wide, claiming that margarine is only one molecule different from plastic. We don’t know if it’s true, but people are laughing about it, and butter consumption is rising. It looks like the Margarine Myth is dead. Soon they’ll be laughing at tofu and flushing the stuff down the disposal.

“Now coffee – with caffeine! – turns out to be good for you. I ask you, what’s next? Smoking makes lab rats sexier? Asparagus causes acne? WORLDVEG people are jumping out of windows here. It’s a nightmare.

“I think the WORLDVEG brain-trust figured, ‘We’ve got to stop this before things go any farther. Let’s counterattack. We need the best...’

“So they brought Zarindi in. His first volley was the Mad Cow disease scare-campaign. Of course, MADCOW’s unfortunate name played right into WORLDVEG’s hands.”

Indeed, the Mad Cow offensive against MADCOW does seem to be running wild. Across the Midwest, hundreds of cows have been found foaming at the mouth. Authorities called in to investigate have identified the foam as Gillette Super Moist shave cream (for extra sensitive skin).

A small town in Iowa was terrorized by 15 cows that leapt and ran amok for most of an afternoon. Veterinarians found that small battery-operated buzzers attached to the cows’ ears caused the animals’ erratic behavior. None of the animals was injured, but one did considerable damage in a local china shop.

In New York, a man received medical treatment after he collapsed, foaming at the mouth, while dining at a famous steakhouse. (Quick-thinking waiters covered the man’s head with a tablecloth and hustled him outside – explaining to other customers that it was a Mafia hit.) Doctors found no medical problem, but authorities later discovered the man was an out-of-work actor hired to feign illness at the restaurant.

Zarindi is suspected of complicity in these incidents, although no direct proof has been offered. An eyewitness to the “cow stampede” saw a stranger in a potato-head disguise driving an empty cattle-truck out of town during the excitement. Reporters from several major news networks admitted that they had received advance notice of the incident.

The NYC actor – now facing “non-union performance” charges from the Theater Police – said an envelope, containing instructions and ten $100 bills, was slipped under the door of his Greenwich Village apartment.

“I owed 4 months’ rent,” he told reporters. “It was like manna from heaven.”

Meanwhile, the Empire of Meat (led by MADCOW) has struck back. A recently released scientific study shows that cauliflower caused impotence (and temporary dementia) in laboratory rats when consumed in quantities of 1 body-weight per month. For the average American adult male, that quantity would be 45 pounds of cauliflower a week. (No volunteers have come forward for a human control group.)

A spokesman for MADCOW met with reporters early this week to discuss the study’s findings. A cauliflower head fashioned grotesquely into a skull sat on the podium from which he spoke.

“This will crush the International Vegetable Conspiracy,” he said. “People have endured so much because of vegetables – badgering from mothers and teachers, stupid articles on vegetarian lifestyles in the newspaper, bogus ads showing beautiful babes eating salad – we don’t believe they actually eat that stuff – even sermons on Sunday. But the stuff still tastes like dung. (He declined to say how he knew this.)

A reporter who asked why risks arising from eating a ton of cauliflower a year should be a concern was shouted down by the MADCOW spokesman:

“It’s not the size of the helping that’s in question here! It’s the principle of the thing! This is the last straw. The public won’t stand for it. Impotence? For rabbit-food? Women will destroy the produce sections of grocery stores. There will be cauliflower-bonfires across the country – if they can get the stuff to burn.”

Shouting imprecations and warnings about vegetable world domination, the spokesman was assisted from the podium by aides.

Meanwhile, authorities continue to seek Zarindi for questioning about the Mad Cow scare. Several fast-food chains have also ordered extra guards for their restaurants.

Former President Bill Clinton – a fancier of Big Macs, Quadruple Cheese Whoppers, and other delicacies – pooh-poohed the beef scare-stories when interviewed in Harlem, where he was hangin’ with the bruthus.

“Be churly stuff, muh man,” said the seriously hip ex-Pres, sporting a dreadlocks “do” and speaking in flawless Ebonics. “Be talkin’ trash, jus’ like ‘bout Moh-neek. Be nuthin’ righteous. An’ anothuh thing – I dinneat no cauliflowuh. Makes yuh impo’tant. I doan need dat – I wuz already impo’tant. Still be…”

Following this exchange, Mr. Clinton narrowly avoided a shot fired from a potato cannon positioned across the street. The missile mashed itself against a nearby building. (Experts identified it as an Idaho 75 mm.)

As this article went to press, Zarindi was still At Large…

Next week New Jersey tax payers will be paying their first quarter real estate taxes. Many taxpayers are losing a battle to increasing property taxes. Property taxes are the product of real estate value and the taxes levied by the municipality, schools and the county. Reevaluation in some towns has created a new battlefront – one’s ability to pay real estate taxes for a home that has appreciated beyond the homeowner’s income. The most vulnerable taxpayers are seniors, the disabled living on fixed income and the unemployed.

If former Governor Tom Kean were still saying that refrain, it's certain that he would honor Freeholder Amy Handlin with it. Amy Handlin, Ph.D., Monmouth County Freeholder, University Professor, author, are all distinguished titles. Now she has earned an outstanding distinction for her county by making Monmouth County the very first county in the State of New Jersey to adopt an ethics policy.

Imagine! We didn't think it could be done. We desperately wanted some leadership in ethics reform and it is Amy Handlin who shone the spotlight of good government on our county. She's in the forefront of good politicians who say, "It is the right thing to do." Don't we wish Governor James McGreevey could think that way? He can't leave the pack of "good ole boys" to perform an honorable action for our state. Let's hope he's been shamed by Handlin's achievement for good government. This is a call to McGreevey and some in New Jersey legislature to begin acting for the good of the people rather than gathering feathers for their own nests.

McGreevey, according to another outstanding editorial in "The Asbury Park Press," responded to the question of promoting ethics reform by saying that he was only the governor. Take notice governor, we don't think Amy Handlin would have responded to that question by saying, "I'm only a freeholder." It's called taking the initiative, governor. You don't have that virtue and Freeholder Handlin does.

Reading Amy Handlin's book, "Whatever Happened to the Year of the Woman," is a fine way to determine her principles, her ethics, and her abilities. She is adroit at fighting uphill battles, yet she is a serene, eminently approachable person with lots of heart. She is, in every sense of the word, a 'keeper.' And she stands in sharp contrast to McGreevey's fakery. We needed a good example and we got one. Monmouth County is proud of you, Freeholder Amy Handlin.

The AH Herald provides this space for community commentary on issues of local importance. The extended format of our Readers Write page will remind many of the Op-Ed pages in print newspapers. We hope you find the information compelling and informative. If you have something to say about a LOCAL issue, send your comments, along with your name, street address and daytime phone number to: editor@ahherald.com

In August of 2003 I had a “letter to the editor” published concerning the proposed development on Sandy Hook. I suggested: “Why doesn’t the government save us a lot of money by just setting the money for the tax credits and perform the work itself—keeping control of the land and buildings where it belongs, with our government.” I am delighted to see that my suggestion in that letter seems to have hit a responsive chord with others.

It is so simple in concept, yet so appropriate. The residents of our country will continue to have full access. No class discrimination by money—where only those with the big bucks would be able to use all the facilities (those conference centers, “upscale” cafes, bars, and “bed and breakfasts” the developer wants to establish).

Personally, I love the wild beauty of Sandy Hook, and resent any incursion masked as “improvement” that does damage to it. There are too few remaining places in New Jersey that are places of refuge for the soul. As the developer has stated in his promotion of Ft. Hancock, one third of all U.S. residents live within a one day auto trip of Sandy Hook.

I feel the publicly funded National Park Service “owes” it to us to maintain this park as a refuge and “getaway” for the residents of the most populated area of the East Coast. To commercialize it would be a total reversal of the reason the land was set aside initially, in 1972.

If you check real estate listings in the general area, particularly those with “water views” you know why the developers salivate over Sandy Hook. Just imagine if you were a developer and you were able to get a lease on this land for 60 years!!!!!

Please don’t let them have their way. Keep Sandy Hook/Ft. Hancock for all of us.