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JerseySmarts.com

Another Reason to Love Ocean Township…

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Some of you may remember last summer when I was repeatedly posting all of the bad things that happen in Ocean Township, New Jersey. My purpose was to constantly spin these “bad” news stories against the completely horrific manner in which Ocean Township singles out and goes after college students. Monmouth University students are – by and large – a credit to the community. They engage in mandatory community service for many of their on-campus organizations as well as bolster the economy by living in what would other be vacant housing. I’ve got news for all of the pompous homeowners that hate these rental houses…vacant housing doesn’t pay the property tax bill and the less property taxes that are collected, the more YOU have to pay to make up for it.

In any event, I digress. Another story popped up in my favorite local paper the other day, The Coaster. Seems that TWENTY-TWO underage kids were arrested at a “drinking party” during the last week or so of August. Now, I don’t condemn the kids as much as I condemn the parents in these situations. I do, however, think that there is an alarming situation in Ocean Township.

That is, I think it is absolutely crazy that these types of stories are looked at with wonder and amazement by the local adults. What? You guys were never kids? You never gathered at a friend’s house and got drunk when you were in high school? Okay, I submit that kids today are much stupider and generally more likely to drink and do experimental drugs than ten, twenty, and maybe even 30 years ago. I’ll give anyone that in the argument.

What I won’t give is that these kids are doing what kids do. Again, I’m no genius, but there has got to be a level of comfort between parents and their kids where the kids can hang out and begin to feel a degree of freedom, but are still safe in the process. I don’t have kids so I have little room to talk about what that level of comfort might entail.

I have, however, suffered through going to college while renting a house in Ocean Township and I have to make this point…

Maybe if the police and township officials and nosy neighbors didn’t spend September through May going after generally harmless (and of age) college students, they wouldn’t have a huge underage drinking problem with their “locals.” Just something to consider…

What Does NJ’s Ethics Commission DO?

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Yesterday, a story went across America about the corruption in New Jersey’s political arena. In case you missed it, 11 New Jersey officials were arrested in a statewide corruption probe by the feds. Now, this certainly is worthy of a lot of discussion and aggravation on the part of New Jersey citizens. For my part, there is another story that I’d like to talk about (briefly) using the knowledge that most of our state’s government institutions are corrupt.

The first pertains to our state Ethics Commission. This is a commission that is charged with finding out the type of crap that the feds are finding out. You may think to yourself, “Well, if the feds found these 11 bad guys, imagine how many more must be at the mercy of the Ethics Commission!” Not so, my friends. The Ethics Commission finds nothing to the extent that the feds find. Nothing. Do you know what the Ethics Commission concerns themselves with?

In New Jersey we have a group called the Highlands Council that deals with preserving much of the beautiful open space and forest area up in North and Northwest New Jersey. The folks who serve on this council are unpaid volunteers; this is one of the few quasi-government jobs in New Jersey where there really isn’t much in terms of a financial incentive. The people who serve on this council serve because they love the look and feel of the Highlands (and I can’t blame them – it’s beautiful up in that part of the state).

So what did the Ethics Commission do to one of the councilmen? They fined him $50 because even though some paperwork he submitted was postmarked correctly, they received it a day later. THIS IS WHAT OUR ETHICS COMMISSION DOES IN NEW JERSEY!!!

To the Councilman’s credit, he paid the fine in all pennies, just to prove a point. My point is that we have the feds breaking their tails to root out the corruption in this state (they’ve arrested over 100 public officials in the last few years) and in the mean time, our Ethics Commission is fining a volunteer for sending in paperwork a day late.

Welcome to New Jersey – where things just don’t make sense most of the time!

On Being an Adjunct Political Science Professor

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This week marked my first week back in the university classroom. The difference this time around, though, is that now I’m serving as a humble Adjunct Professor and not a student. I’m only teaching one class called American National Government and I’ve only been at it for one week so far, but I really like teaching!

I am attempting to make this class a combination of all the good things that I experienced as an undergraduate. The class is not writing intensive as there are only a total of 11 total pages to be written throughout the semester (yes, they are double-spaced). It is a lecture-based course and I plan on fully utilizing the internet and PowerPoint presentations in order to bring the information to the students. Last night I had my first class where I taught using a PowerPoint presentation and I think the students enjoyed it (no one fell asleep!).

Believe it or not, one of the most surprising parts of teaching is evaluating the textbooks that we use in class. Given the speed in which I was asked to fill this role, I was not able to totally evaluate the texts that are required for the course. The main textbook (which costs a whopping $100!) has poor definitions of conservative and liberal, casting each in a light that is not entirely fair to either party. The second assigned book contains nothing but selections of various political readings and it’s great – definitely something I will keep in the syllabus for the next time I teach this course. Yes – I’m done with the first of fourteen weeks of teaching for this semester and I’m already thinking about the next time I teach this course!

In any event, the students all seem like great folks and we’ve had some good questions come out of the presentations so far. This is a job assignment that I’m glad I took up when the offer was made. I think I’m going to have a lot of fun teaching these kids about our government and all of its inner workings! Obviously for reasons of employment and privacy, I can’t say too much about the course other than what’s in this post, but if something occurs that is able to be put out there in the public domain, I’ll be sure to post something up.

Movie Review: Superbad

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Absolutely friggin’ hilarious! I don’t know what it is about Seth Rogen’s movies, but they are unbelievably funny – better than any other brand of comedy out there today. If you’ve seen the movie, the entire “McLovin” character is worth the price of admission and you know what I’m talking about! Here is a kid, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who has never been in a movie, commercial, or even a short film before. He’s not a celebrity and he’s not a multi-million dollar actor. He’s just a nerdy looking young kid who played a character that leaves a lasting impression that is easily on par with Napoleon Dynamite. Mintz-Plasse was awesome!

And it wasn’t just McLovin that lit up the screen. Young actors Jonah Hill and Michael Cera are equally as great at their respective parts as soon-to-be high school graduates who are struggling with the fact that they are virgins. Now, don’t think that this is one of those wimpy teen movies where you’ve got some stupid drama storyline about the guy getting the girl and then a lame teen love song pops up in the background. Superbad is FAR from that type of boring, repetitive type of teen drama. FAR from it.

I have to give it to Michael Cera. His character on the too-soon canceled FOX series, Arrested Development, was classic. His constant self-guessing and self-unassurance (that might not be a real world) made his character (George Michael Bluth) one that you wanted to watch over and over and over again. And if you don’t believe me, go grab the first season of Arrested Development on DVD and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. Cera brings that hilarious, not-quite-sure of himself character to full force in Superbad.

On the other hand, the already widely known Jonah Hill reprises a type of character that he’s good at already; namely the loudmouth jerk friend. Hill and Seth Rogen (who plays a police officer along with Bill Hader) bring that same feel that you get in Knocked Up and the 40-Year Old Virgin to this movie.

A few months ago I said that Knocked Up would be one of the rare movies that I buy on DVD. Well, this summer has now seen two rare hits with Superbad right up there on the funny scale. I recommend this movie and – now that it has been out in the theaters for a while – you might be able to catch it playing without a large crowd or without a bunch of annoying people ruining the movie. I caution this, though: pay attention to the movie because you’ll miss tons of hilarious comments if you’re not focused on what’s happening!

Enjoy!

Rutgers Football IS That Good!

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Listening to some of the losers on sports talk radio this week, you’d think that Rutgers Football is experiencing some type of flash in the pan with the success that they had last year and early this year. Hopefully their dominating victory against Navy tonight helps to prove that Ray Rice, Mike Teel, Tiquan Underwood, Eric Foster, and Coach Schiano are no joke. These guys are in it to win it and there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in the New Jersey metro area that are pulling for these guys to bring home a lot of hardware come the end of the season.

Great game tonight against Navy. It was one of those games that Rutgers should have won convincingly and they did just that. The same goes for last week’s game against Buffalo and next week’s game against Norfolk State (who the hell is Norfolk State? seriously – I’ve never heard of them).

Rutgers isn’t here to play games – just like the rest of this state. One of the interesting things about college football in New Jersey is that you have the Monmouth University Hawks, the TCNJ Lions, the William Paterson Pioneers, and a whole host of other decent football programs who all obviously want to win each week. But all of these teams at our smaller schools still root on Rutgers since they’re the flagship program in the state. And, in turn, the Rutgers crowd is always pulling for New Jersey’s smaller schools to win. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship in New Jersey – sort of like we’re all in this thing together!

Anyway, a great game by Rutgers tonight and a great effort by a decent Navy team. Can’t wait for next week!