Thinking frustrates me!

FRUSTRATION!

This past Tuesday I “flamed” NY Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Police Commissioner Kelly because of what I perceived as a pitiful degree of accomplishment following the September 11^th. attacks on New York City. How can these things that are so important to our security – take so long?

I stand by that “flaming.” But it’s not just the Mayor and the Commissioner that have me nuts. It’s a compilation & conglomeration of a lot of things. National Security & anti-terrorism is just the tip of the ice berg/burg for me. Every day around where I live stuff just frustrates the hell out of me! Let me give you a few examples. (and I can never remember whether to use berg or burg – is it Pittsberg or Pittsburg – neither looks correct! Very frustrating!)

Most of the frustration starts with things we all heard as kids – and these are examples endemic to “Jersey” kids in the 50’s. Two examples particularly leap to mind.

The Garden State Parkway - I can remember my parents and other parents talking excitedly about how great it was going to be to have the Garden State Parkway (GSP) completed. How we were going to be able to get “down the shore” faster than taking “the old road”, (Route 9), and that Trenton promised that the tollbooths would be removed in a year or two! (See, that’s how the Government at the time got us to approve it, by telling us the GSP would be a “freeway” and all we’d have to do was pay a quarter at the tolls for a couple a years!) Call it “JJH.” (“JJH” = just Jersey Horseshit!)

NJ State Lottery to fund the best college system in the country! – Back in November 1969, New Jersey became only the 3^rd state behind New Hampshire & New York to vote overwhelmingly for a state lottery. Much of the hype & hysteria behind getting it approved by an unbelievable 81% of voters was the promise that much, if not all of the lottery proceeds would go into funding NJ colleges – giving Jersey the best college system/environment in the country! It cost the State $1.5 million to establish the lottery and the estimates were that during the first year sales would probably be around $30 million. In fact, gross sales in 1972 (the inaugural year) exceeded $137 million – more than four times the estimate – and it’s been growing ever since. In 1991, sales were $1.2 BILLION – and 2002 was the first $2 BILLION dollar sales year. So, you’re thinkin’, geez, Jersey’s colleges and schools must be getting a lot of funding from the lottery?

The State Lottery Commission takes a great deal of satisfaction telling us that .36 cents of every dollar in lottery sales goes “to support State-sponsored programs.” Quick math: that’s approximately 36% of $2 billion = $720,000,000 million! Here’s a list of the beneficiaries of the lottery sales; http://www.state.nj.us/lottery/money/3-4_beneficiaries.htm . Pretty good huh?

Well, not so fast bucko … that also means that .64 cents of every dollar is not going to support State sponsored programs! And you don’t have to walk across too many NJ State or community college campuses to see that things are in pretty S-H-I-T condition! Dorms and buildings are dirty, graffiti laden, and gloomy. But that’s not my point… sure $720 million a year is a pretty good chunk a green for our State and Community colleges to look so crappy, but my bigger point is where does the remaining ANNUAL $1.280 BILLION go? Anybody ever tell you? Me thinks it’s just more “JJH.”

Another thing that has always frosted me about New Jersey is that we have absolutely the WORST roads anywhere in the United States, maybe the world. (I know the $1.280 billion ain’t going to the roads in New Jersey. Guaran-dam-teed on that one!) I thought maybe it was just me, but now you can look this one up! New Jersey was just voted as having the worst roads in the entire United States.

YEA NEW JERSEY, National Champs of shit roads!! Woo – woo - woo!

I really can’t see how this is possible! You’d think some part of that one billion, two hundred eighty million dollars left over from the Lottery sales has to go to buying blacktop – right? And I see signs all over saying “YOUR HIGHWAY TAXES AT WORK!” Well, where’s all that highway tax money going? And if that’s the case, shouldn’t all the tolls collected on the GSP translate into the NJ Garden State Parkway being the Autobahn of America? And what about all the revenues that Trenton gets from “Las Vegas on the Atlantic?” No Atlantic City casino money gets into NJ road improvement? Somebody’s gotta be getting the money? Every county, every municipality, every backwater town and borough and township I drive through and visit has their own Road Department! You know, those fast-moving dynamo’s we see along the roadsides holding the SLOW and STOP signs - filling in potholes. (I wonder if there’s ever a brawl between the municipal road crews, the county road crews, and the State road crews, over who’s going to get to fill that stretch of potholed road? Ever wonder about that?)

Just some more Jersey Horseshit! Seriously, I chipped a tooth once in a Jersey pothole! In any other State they call them “stream beds” or “ravine’s.” In New Jersey it’s called “rough road,” or “uneven shoulder.” I swear there should be big signs at every entrance point onto any New Jersey road that says, “Unimproved road surfaces State-wide. Travel at own risk!” ‘Cause honest New Jerseyeans will tell you, our roads SUCK!

The next frustration I gotta tell you about is New Jersey Property Taxes. This is another national election that New Jersey Homeowners win! LUCKY freakin’ us! I can’t think of one NJ homeowner that has anything good to say about how their individual communities tax their property.

The fact of the matter is, if you improve your property in NJ your taxes are going to go up; if you don’t improve your property, in NJ your taxes will go up. If you change the color of your roof shingles they TRY to raise your taxes – No lie, I caught them on this though! If your town puts in sewers and town water but you’re still on well water and septic, your taxes are going up. They raise your taxes to buy new municipal equipment, but it takes them 3 days to plow your street after a snowfall – and then many times the town contracts with a private snow mover! (So, why’d you need 10 more snowplows then Rufus?) You and your wife may be over 60 years old, and may have “paid” into the tax system with 2,3,or 4 children over the years, but in NJ you’ll still get your taxes raised every time some town planning board official wants a new school built! (In my township, my wife and I are getting our taxes raised because a planning board official was walking through a development one night and heard some moaning and heavy breathing – the next day the planning board guru put in for a new elementary school!)

Yup, in our township in northern New Jersey property taxes keep going up. The township is currently building the 103^rd & 104^th elementary schools on the town! They figure to start the 66^th & 67^th middle and high schools in about another 5 years or so. Each elementary school has a Principal, a Vice-Principal, 34 schoolteachers K through 6^th grade, 25 teachers’ aids, 14 custodians, and 20 yellow buses. Each school has roughly 98 students.

But every school board member and township official has a school or two named after him or her, and they all drive Jaguar’s or Bentleys! Maybe an ‘Escalade’ thrown in here and there.

Finally… both Sue and I read a lot. So, she made me get a library card even though she has one. I don’t go to the Library, too quiet, Sue picks up the books and DVD’s. Anyway, when Sue reserves something the library has an automated notification system that calls and tells us her reserved items are there. So, I called one time and asked what was waiting, because I figured it might be one of my Clive Cussler or Dale Brown novels – maybe I’d run over and pick things up. THEY WOULDN’T TELL ME! The head-Librarian (funny jobtitle), told me, “Oh no, we can’t tell you what it is, that’s confidential information!” Are you serious? Since when has “doctor/patient privilege” applied to the freakin’ Library?

New Jersey’s a great place … you just shouldn’t think about all this stuff … or you go nuts!

“First … kill all the lawyers!” - William Shakespeare ‘Henry VI’