Go figure. New Jersey once again has bragging rights as the richest state, but we still have two of our biggest cities registering as among the poorest in the country.
There’s the McMansioned suburbs like Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset and Burlington, boasting the lowest poverty rates in the country and some of the highest-incomes. Then there’s Camden with 44 percent of its residents living in poverty and the highest poverty rate in the country.
And if that discrepancy wasn√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t disturbing enough, NJ’s children (both rich and poor) are sitting inside scorning veggies (you know those mushy, yucky things without cool packages) working on their MySpace pages or watching reruns of The Brady Bunch 24-7 and getting fatter:
About 20 percent of New Jersey√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s sixth-graders are obese and 18 percent are overweight, according to a study of 2,393 student records from 40 randomly selected public schools.”
Is this the NJ version of the apocryphal Marie Antoinette line, “Let Them Eat (poly-unsaturated, multi-manipulated, trans-fatty, artificially-sweetened, Red Dye #2-infused and otherwise enhanced to preserve flavor and lengthen shelf-life) Cake”?
Except in Montclair of course, where the cake would be described as…(give us your best shot here)
baked. (with a special ingredient)
Thank you!
get the kiddies those spongebob clementines
Now Domino’s Pizza is offering free brownies with fudge dipping sauce. (Of course, why anyone in New Jersey, given our plethora of authentic pizza parlors, would eat a Domino’s Pizza is beyond me. Personally, I’d sooner eat the box.)
It all makes me wonder if the real long term threat to our country is not terrorism, global warming, energy shortages, or errant asteroids, but piggish overindulgence. This nation is going to eat itself into oblivion.
Perhaps we should change the last line of the national anthem to “O’er the land of fat, and the home of the lazy.”
Newsday contextually wrote:
Camden ranks as the poorest place in the country with a population over 65,000 and Newark is among the poorest cities … Despite that, Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset and Burlington counties are all among those with the lowest poverty rate …
And Deirdre confusingly wrote:
There’s the McMansioned suburbs like Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset and Burlington … Then there’s Camden …
If I didn’t bother to follow the link to the Newsday story, I’d easily be mislead or confused as to whether the citations where counties or cities. Indeed, the writing here is getting a little lax, of late.
how easily mislead are you Jim? It seems pretty clear to anyone with half a brain. You seem to have a problem with complex sentences.
Who appointed Jim as grammarian and literary critic. His own brief shot could have used some proofreading.
Besides, he missed Dierdre’s use of the singular “There’s” to refer to the plural counties.
Not being critical, however, cause Dierdre’s writing is quite good.
on some blogs the commenters race to be the first, often using cute words or phrases known only to insiders — it is sometimes highschoolish, sometimes clubby (in a fun way).
I propose “Spot the Typo” for Deirdre’s posts.
First to “Spot the Typo” receives a Shot of Self-Esteem from the Joy in Pointing Out the Mistakes of Others.
There’s gotta be a German word for that…
… and “Schadenfreude” is that word.
Shouldn’t that be “Spot the Typos?”
Back to the challenge…
Let them eat (organic, whole grain, wheat free, sweetened only with sugar cane juice crystals) Cake (only 395 calories per 4 oz portion, on special today at $4.25 a slice)
Its because the Census doesn’t control for cost of living. Of ocurse, New Jersey is the righest state. Because you have to have a pretty ridiculous salary to live here anyways. Income has been inflated because it costs half a million to buy a semi decent 3 bedroom house. And then you have to pay the highest property taxes in the nation. If COL was factored in, NJ would look alot more average.
I wouldn’t exactly go point to McMansions in places like Morris County. Most of the houses there are pretty much estates that have been around for a long time. Parsippany shouldn’t be the baseline.
Hunterdon is not a “McMansioned suburb” (implies town) but rather a county of towns and not all of them are upscale (there are still modest farms and rural ranches out there). Within Huntderon county, Tewksbury is a McMansioned suburb but Lebanon is quite middle class.
On the other hand, Camden is both a city and county, and the context of Deirdre’s sentence implies “all of Camden” but you wouldn’t affix that label to Cherry Hill, an affluent town within Camden County.
Maybe you should tell it to the census bureau. You can see in the original article that these towns and counties are called “places.” Seems to me that you just like to find the bad in everything.
What is the geographic coverage of Baristaville anayway?….I’m moving to Bloomfield in a few weeks.
Belvezet, oh you are still welcome, by all means. But those of us who live in Upper Baristaville will look down our noses at you.
I believe everyone here read the news about NJ somewhere other than here… why get on the messenger? Don’t we all know chapter and verse of the current state of affairs here in lovely NJ from our life in and around Baristaville?
To be more specific: What’s bugging Jim?
I for one am getting cheesed because the Fullerton Deck has been closed all week for repaving, there are peculiar new No Parking Zones along the west side of North Fullerton, a section of Union Ave. has been closed for repaving, Orange Road was closed for a full day on Tuesday, etc., and there has been no mention of any of this on B-net!
Where’s the hyperlocality?