Wednesday, July 05, 2006
I have mixed feelings about the Jersey budget crisis & government shutdown. I'm with the casino employees, not the crabby 65 year old slot addicts. It's terrible that Jersey's state parks are closed - those places are budget vacations for many thousands of people with modest incomes. Twin Lights State Historic Site overlooking Sandy Hook is a centerpiece of a great bargain date - there's no admission fee to the Lighthouse & the view is nonpareil. Island Beach State Park is an unspoiled stretch of barrier beach in Jersey. Campers who had reserved sites & cabins in parks & forests a year in advance for this week had to pack up & go home. I'm against a one cent sales tax increase, & especially against dedicating any part of that tax to property tax rebates - because I'm against rebates, which was a bad idea to begin with. But I am for Gov. Corzine's blunt attitude about state finances, & I want him to somehow prevail in his battle with South Jersey boss George Norcross III, who is not a nice man even by the rather forgiving standards we've historically applied to many of our political bosses.
Slogging through the humidity on a rare journey to downtown Elizabeth to see my lawyer (remarkably, I have a lawyer, tho not for criminal defense). For all the cheap crap offered for sale downtown, there is expensive crap that is always available in the latest, the hippest styles: sneakers. At one emporium, $49 is the low end & the moment a young man-about-town walks through the door the pestiferous sales staff moves in to steer the youthful customer toward the irresistable $80 & up selection. One might wear expensive baggy jeans with the designer label hidden beneath a simple XXL white tee shirt, all the better to disguise one's identity while in the company of other street dealers, gang members, foul-mouth bullies, & assorted early adolescent wannabes, but the sneakers - they must be seen. There is no hiding a pair of $29.99 K Mart variety footwear. It is amusing to watch a white tee shirt guy walking quickly along the sidewalk, & as soon as he's within 25 yards of his pals on the corner, he slows to half-speed & shifts into his personal saunter, presumably a trademarked gait, which must include crossing the street when a car is approaching. Sometimes they look like claymation figures. By contrast, the drug delivery boys on their small bicycles are downscale - oversized clothing is impractical. If you think this is only in the city, you're not very observant.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Slogging through the humidity on a rare journey to downtown Elizabeth to see my lawyer (remarkably, I have a lawyer, tho not for criminal defense). For all the cheap crap offered for sale downtown, there is expensive crap that is always available in the latest, the hippest styles: sneakers. At one emporium, $49 is the low end & the moment a young man-about-town walks through the door the pestiferous sales staff moves in to steer the youthful customer toward the irresistable $80 & up selection. One might wear expensive baggy jeans with the designer label hidden beneath a simple XXL white tee shirt, all the better to disguise one's identity while in the company of other street dealers, gang members, foul-mouth bullies, & assorted early adolescent wannabes, but the sneakers - they must be seen. There is no hiding a pair of $29.99 K Mart variety footwear. It is amusing to watch a white tee shirt guy walking quickly along the sidewalk, & as soon as he's within 25 yards of his pals on the corner, he slows to half-speed & shifts into his personal saunter, presumably a trademarked gait, which must include crossing the street when a car is approaching. Sometimes they look like claymation figures. By contrast, the drug delivery boys on their small bicycles are downscale - oversized clothing is impractical. If you think this is only in the city, you're not very observant.
