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JerseySmarts.com

Plastic Bags are the Enemy in Red Bank

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The Asbury Park Press ran a story earlier this week talking about how Red Bank’s Mayor Pasquale “Pat” Menna and Councilman Michael R. DuPont are waging a war against plastic bags in their city. Originally, they wanted to outlaw the use of the bags and distribute $100 to $500 fines for any retailer caught using them. Since that resolution didn’t pass the city council, they are now seeking to create a “green” designation for those city retailers who are environmentally friendly. A piece of the article:

Menna said he hopes to name two borough schoolchildren — one from the local public school system and one from the Red Bank Charter School — to a committee to be formed in January. Menna has asked the top school administrator for each for help nominating students.

“I’ll ask for an advisory panel to designate which stores are using the cutting edge of green initiatives,” Menna said. “Kids are on the cutting edge of environmentalism, they can teach us about being stewards of the environment.”

Menna had proposed a “green” designation for local businesses as an alternative to various suggestions about banning plastic bags. “Green” is the popular adjective for people, businesses and other entities that are sensitive to environmental concerns or which promote environmentalism.

I’m not exactly sure what the end game is for the Mayor and Councilman, but I’m glad to see that they are bringing schoolchildren into the legislative process (and especially a child from the Red Bank Charter School).

While banning their use is certainly one way to curb the abundance of plastic bags out there, I think people should be introduced to new forms of eco-friendly shopping gear. I have these “Green Bags” that I bought at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and they’re great! Plus, you can buy reusable canvas bags at most grocery stores and most stores are also including a plastic bag recycling receptacle in their front entrances. All of these items should be encouraged as we move towards a greener, more sustainable society.

More Changes at JerseySmarts.com

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Hello all! As you can tell from looking around – there are some more format changes taking place at JerseySmarts.com. For starters, there is now an additional sidebar located on the left side of the pages. As I was adding more content to the right sidebar in the previous design, I noticed that it was getting a little crowded. There are only two ways to reduce the crowded effect – remove content or create more space.

I opted for the creation of more space by adding a new sidebar! My hope is that I can fully utilize each area of the blog to give you guys the best presentation possible.

Which brings me to my next point – over the next few weeks you’ll be noticing more opportunities for you to investigate some of the products and services that I use. Some might call this an increase in the number of advertisements, but as a guy who has been playing at the internet commerce game for 10 years I can tell you that there is no significant revenue coming from this site! Most of the opportunities that I’ll be integrating into the site are commission-based advertisements which, traditionally, are not big generators of revenue. But I’m not looking for revenue – I’m looking to show you guys what it is that I’m doing on the internet!

So you might see an integrated link talking about how I’ve been listening to my Sirius XM more and more lately.

See what I mean? 🙂

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy some of these changes and I always welcome your comments on additional content that you’d like to see on the site. Thanks!

Happy State Championship Day!

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For my old high school buddies and my cousin who make visits to my blog every once in a while, here’s wishing a Happy State Championship Day to you all! Hard to imagine that it has been ten years since we won Roxbury’s only on-field state championship in school history. Unbelievable how fast time flies.

Make sure you contact Justin about the dinner next week at The Barn. See you guys there!

OPEC Pushes Back a Decision on Oil Output

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How disgusting is OPEC? I know this entry is a few days late in coming, but the word going around is that the cartel wants to set a standard rate of $75 per barrel of oil worldwide. These dummies don’t understand that price controls do not work in the type of worldwide economic downturn that we’re seeing. From the article:

OPEC, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s supply, will next meet in Oran, Algeria, on Dec. 17. In a statement after yesterday’s meeting in Cairo, the group warned demand will be “much lower” than expected a month ago. The cost of crude has continued to slide even after the group agreed last month to lower production by 1.5 million barrels a day.

There shouldn’t be a problem with reducing the amount of oil that is generated by the oil cartel since worldwide demand is decreasing. That’s fine – that’s simple supply and demand: when demand goes down, supplies do not need to be as high. However, to reduce supply of a vital resources to a point where prices skyrocket is unacceptable. The world is taking notice of what OPEC does and its people will respond in turn.

Remember last month when OPEC cut their production by 1.5 million barrels per day? The purpose of the cut was to drive prices higher. Instead, prices sunk a few dollars per barrel on the very same day the cut was announced. Thankfully, the people of the world are beginning to seriously consider alternative energy sources and they are moving in that direction in large numbers. This shift away from a petroleum-based life is what the world needs to cut off some of these middle eastern countries who try to dictate their financial needs upon the world.

Let’s hope that demand continues to decrease as consumers continue to purchase energy efficient vehicles, household items, and renewable/resuable resources.

College Fundraising in a Troubled Economy

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The New York Times ran an article the other day talking about how institutional advancement (i.e. fundraising from alumni) is faring in the current economic climate. There are a few interesting parts of the article which I’ll share below, but I encourage you to read the article linked above if you have the time. From the article:

But for everyone else, this year’s giving season is an exercise in a different sort of asset allocation than the one we’re used to for our retirement accounts. It’s about competing demands, the rising need to pay for basic human services in our communities versus the emotional pull from the educational institutions that helped shape us.

I used this quote from the article to highlight the last sentence regarding how we are shaped by our educational institutions. I hear this line from my undergraduate institution, my graduate institution, and my fraternity time and time again and frankly, it’s insulting. I’m sure that there are some people in the population who go to college as chunks of clay and who are then shaped into whatever artwork their professors can manage, but how prevalent is this type of person in society? I know many more alumni from my undergraduate institution who can’t stand the college than who adore it and thank it for making them who they are today.

In fact, the comment that I hear most often from my fellow alumni is that the school was too expensive to attend and that one or two overbearing professors really left a negative mark on some students. In fact, it gets a little humorous to hear how one or two of the English professors are out of line (and out of the times) with their stance towards educating college students and how their methods are not replicated in the working world at all. Stupid professors…

Plus, what ever happened to the idea of students being their own people and bringing something new to the university? Why is it that some people think these universities and organizations shape individuals? Isn’t it the opposite? Don’t the individuals shape the climate and the culture of the organization? Anyway, the following text is also from the article:

The Amherst endowment, which stood at $1.7 billion at the end of June, lost about a quarter of its value over the next four months. The families of its students suddenly need more financial aid because of the economic downturn. And now the college is turning to its alumni for help, at the very moment that many of them are experiencing their own catastrophic financial losses.

Again, I focus on that last sentence with respect to my experiences with my undergraduate alma mater. At some point in November I received the annual phone call from a Freshman at my old college asking me to donate. The new strategy for these solicitations is to have you talk a little bit about your time as an undergrad and give your suggestions to the student on the phone about how he or she can make the best of their time on campus. It’s all an effort to get you to donate to the university – nothing more, nothing less. Well, after about thirty seconds of my babbling about undergraduate life to a Freshman who wasn’t listening anyway, the girl made the “ask.”

If you haven’t been solicited by the telephone before, the “ask” is when the person on the other end of the phone gets to the point in the script where they need to ask you for a donation. They usually start out high and are willing to go as low as they need to go in order for you to say “yes” to their request. This girl asked me to donate $1,000. I almost fell on the floor! Go back and read the last sentence quoted above – alumni are feeling the financial crunch, too! How dare my undergraduate institution (where I paid nearly $100,000 in tuition) ask me to donate $1,000 in this economic climate!? I told the girl that I was offended by the number and that if the university knew about my current status (which they SHOULD know about – I teach there), then they’d know that the number was out of my range. So she asked me for $500 and I told her that I wasn’t going to donate anything and thanked her for her time.

Up until now, I haven’t asked to be taken off of the solicitation list from my alma mater because I wanted to get the phone call and to consider an annual donation to a cause of my choosing (as stated in the article). However, after the ridiculous ask by the college this year I think I’m going to request to be taken off of their annual solicitation list. I donate my money to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation not because the fraternity “shaped me” in anyway (it did not), but because I know where the money goes and I see the end result with my own two eyes. I would encourage all of you to do the same in terms of researching and understanding where your scarce donation dollars are being spent.