Jack mentioned this 2013 incident to me today (2019) in discussing how indifferent the Asburians are to our current problems including Wesley Lake pollution and the invasion of the Asburian body snatchers (zombies) who snatch our parking spaces, especially at the North End.—Paul @Blogfinger January 15, 2019.
Click on the word “Blogfinger” beneath this sentence.
As reported by us before, members of the Asbury Park Council have expressed negativity towards Ocean Grove in a way that was surprising and inappropriate in the context of our struggle to rebuild the OG boardwalk. While considering a resolution to support Ocean Grove in its bid for a FEMA appeal, members of the AP Council attacked Ocean Grove regarding matters that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. So, instead of a solid expression of support, we got irrelevant tirades having to do with gay rights and locked bridges. They refused to support the Grove by one vote.
Later they reversed their decision on the resolution, but…
*Stephen Sondheim: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Raise the curtain at the Neptune Theater of the Absurd. The stage is set for a tragedy:
Jack Bredin attended the Township Comedy’s meeting last night, and his conclusion is, “Ocean Grove is being sold down the river.”
After hearing OG’s Carol Rizzo, the 2019 Neptune Township Mayor, effusively praise the “new” North End Plan, Jack sank down in his chair—He says that all hope seems to be lost as this show unfolds with its final acts waiting in the wings.
This drama about the historic town of Ocean Grove is now positioned to move forward in a direction that will be accepted by all the power players, leaving the residents of the Grove hung out to dry. Once the contractors trucks begin to stir up the dust and clog our respiratory tracts, while creating a nightmare of congestion, and a cacophony of noise, we will wind up with a large scale version of the Greek Temple on Main Avenue—a variation on a theme as the promise of historic small town OG will forever be lost.
And, along with it will be the hopes for a pristine Wesley Lake, now known by all concerned as a “retention/detention basin.”
Let’s consider the players in this Greek tragedy known as “The North End Revelopment Plan.” We have the main actors at Neptune Township along with the Chorus consisting of the Home Groaners, the Camp Meeting, the Chamber of Commercials, the Historic Preservation Commission, the Planning Board, and The Wesley Lake Commission.
And, providing the backdrop and script for this scandalous performance, there is the main villain of the piece—secretive local developers lurking off stage while pulling on the puppets’ strings. Here is the cast of characters:
a. The Neptune Township Committee: Mayor Rizzo of Ocean Grove, who has swallowed the Kool Aid, will lead those Neptuner sheep to unanimously approve the new plan. She has appointed Committeeman Michael Brantley to take her place as the “Class one” member of the Planning Board. She has abdicated her key role as the protector of the people at the PB. Brantley is a Neptuner through and through, and he will order the PB to approve the new plan unanimously.
Once upon a time there was a Committeewoman who favored single family zoning at the North End. Mary Beth Jahn stuck her neck out for the best interests of the people and the town, and she was beheaded by the Monmouth County and Neptune Democratic Party.
The Neptune Committee is indifferent to the people of Ocean Grove, and one party rule prevents any chance of changing the ending of this tragedy.
b. The Rule of Law: Normal procedures regarding land use law have been routinely violated in Neptune, but that crowd, along with their OG allies, does whatever it pleases. And they are aided and abetted by favoritism offered by key unelected bureaucrats at Town Hall.
c. OG Home Owners Ass. We don’t know their motives, but this group of turncoats continues to back the developers and Neptuners regarding the North End. Ken Buckley who is on the HOA Board and the HPC told Jack that they are “backing the Plan.”
d. Developers: (OGNED) Most of these people are connected to OG, but despite that, they conspire, whenever possible, to exploit the people of OG for profit. They are favored at the Mother Ship with zoning manipulations including those that increase congestion and ugliness in town: Condos, Greek Temple, Mary’s Place, parking torture, etc.
e. Camp Meeting Association. They have removed themselves as Redevelopers,but that is just cosmetic. The President of the the CMA told us publicly that his organization has been involved in negotiations to move the NERP forward. They have control as the land owners, so they are focused on making money. They seem to have little interest in the OG residents community or the historical designation of the town.
f. Chamber of Commerce: In many US towns the CC is community minded. But this crew only cares about two things: profits and tourists. They never get involved with community issues such as the North End. For them, the commercialized North End Plan will increase their membership as they continue to close Main Avenue for mindless tourist events and crowds.
g. Historic Preservation Commission: When they are not hiding under their beds, they are busy being hypocrites and they have stood by while the Neptuners seek to take over their guidelines on behalf of developers and contractors.
h. Wesley Lake Commission, representing both sides, has stopped trying to clean the Lake and instead they support the Retention/Detention re-naming in order to allow the Lake to be used to receive increasing amounts of filthy ground water, thus saving the developers a huge amount of money to fix the ecology of the former “Wesley Lake”
i. The Residents of OG-–Those who envision our historic town as a lovely place with its Victorian architecture, parks, clean Lakes, parking for those who live here, reduction in tourist glut, solving the Asburian invasion, keeping our streets open, nurturing of the community with its kids, families, retirees, diversification, etc. will be the big losers in the North End project.
“Representative government” has failed here, and apathy reigns. Only a major law suit in Superior Court or an investigation by the NJ Attorney General could close this show down.
Once the curtain closes on all this, the corruption in OG/Neptune will continue. Blogfinger will keep reporting the news, but we don’t see an alternative ending to this drama. Jack says, “Ocean Grove is a door mat; we’re sunk.”
By Jack Bredin and Paul Goldfinger: Blogfinger.net. January 15, 2019. Ocean Grove, New Jersey.
In the January 3 issue of the Coaster we see a full page ad paid for by “Jack Green Realty” It consists of two sentences:
“Thank you to all of our customers and community for an amazing year from the staff of Jack Green Realty.
“We would like to wish everyone a healthy and Happy New Year.”
No one has personally signed this greeting/promotion ad, and at the bottom are the 3 addresses of JGR including Neptune City, Ocean Grove and Spring Lake.
So, at Blogfinger we are interested in the use of language, and we have our eyes open to examples where the public is presented with mindless gibberish. In an age of fake news and manipulative use of language in advertising, it’s interesting to see how we can be fooled, either intentionally or carelessly.
That is the case with this advertisement/greeting card. Of course we often run into gibberish around the Grove , especially from the Township Committee, the CMA, The Home Groaners , OGU, Chamber of Commercials, and others. And we at Blogfinger probably fall off the wagon ourselves once in a while. But this full page Coaster ad from Jack Green Realty is vulnerable and helps us make some points:
a. So JGR had an “amazing year.” Why should anyone but them care? And they credit their customers for their “amazing year.” But do any of their customers want to take credit and do any of their customers care if JGR had “an amazing year?”
b. They also thank the “community” for that amazing year. Really? Which community is JGR referring to? “Community” is one of those words that is often misused in and around Ocean Grove. One big offender that misuses this word is the Camp Meeting Association which never defines that word when they use it.
And the residents in town have pretty much ignored the word even though they probably have a good idea of what it should mean where they are concerned.
c. Realtors sell homes in our town. But what could be more important to a home buyer than the nature of the town that they will call home? Most of us want to live in a “community” of neighborly residents. That is essential for piece of mind for new home buyers.
But in this ad, the word “community” is just tossed out there without definition as if it were another of those aimless words/expressions such as “whatever!”
d. And how about that wish for “health and happiness” for “everyone?” Who is “everyone?”
e. Last month in New York City, at the “Gallery for Fine Photography” Josephine Sacabo used her photography to complain about the misuse of language as directed toward women:
She says, ” Walking the graffiti gauntlet from my house to my studio I am confronted by a lexicon of rampant misogyny, violence and sexual insults. The messages may be verbal but their effects are visceral. We are being ‘TAGGED’ – as hos, bitches, and worse, but I am not that woman.
“Why have women become the targets of the rage and frustration expressed? Why are women bearing the consequences for injustices they have not committed? Where are the graffiti messages by women meant for men?
“I do not have the answers to these questions, all I have are these images of what it feels like to be a woman walking these streets. And in this I know I am not alone.”
– Josephine Sacabo
f. This post is not meant to criticize JGR specifically , but they stuck their neck out with their Coaster ad, and therefore they became the object of our rant about the annoying misuse of language in the public space.
And if some of you find this editorial to be annoying, I can understand that. But for those who pay attention to the use of language, it might be of interest.
Probably the most viewed Blogfinger article over the years is one regarding the use of language written in 2012 by Charles Layton called “The Blogfinger Grammarian: Don’t be a Honey Badger” It is read every day. You can search for it above right.
From Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger, “Mr. Annoying Man,” and, in the best tradition of Barack Obama, a Community Organizer.
In the 19th century, the town of Micanopy, Fla. prospered with agriculture; then, in sequence came cane sugar, cotton, vegetables, oranges and lumber.
In 1836 there was a battle with the local Seminole Indians. The US Army showed up to rescue the town, and a fort was built. There were settlers and some slaves in the town. But later, the town’s founder Moses Levy, a Jewish immigrant from Morocco, encouraged schools and opposed slavery.
These days (December, 2018) it is a tourist town on the National Historic Register. Antiques used to be big in Micanopy, but now millennials hate that old stuff. It is a fine place to visit and explore for a couple of hours.
Last year I bought a T shirt, but this year they were sold out. The town panhandler hit me up, and a young couple were posing for a professional wedding photographer. I snapped a couple of frames from a distance; the groom looked at me and gave me a grin and a thumbs up.
A guitarist was playing outside some shops. He said that he has made some country recordings. A hat on the ground collected some change and bills. Christmas decorations were scattered about.
Micanopy is near Gainesville (U. of Florida) and had a population of 600 in the last Census.
I met Tim Whelan in the 1990’s when we were taking a George Tice printing course at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport. He was a modest and friendly guy who often shared fascinating photographic insights. Tim was well equipped to do that; I was blown away when he told me that he was Paul Caponigro’s lab assistant. Caponigro is one of America’s finest photographers.
Tim’s photographs reflect some of his idols and mentors including Ansel Adams and George Tice. His photographs were classical black and white images which he printed himself in Caponigro’s dark room. But Tim had another interest: photography books, and he opened a small bookshop in Rockport where he sold books and prints. Master photographers who taught at the Workshops would meet and hang out in his store. A few years ago when Tim sold his store, after 18 years, The NY Times wrote about him and how his unique photo book business was world famous. (Tim Whelan link )
I liked Tim Whelan’s photography very much and I bought a portfolio of some of his works. He also gave me a set of photo-cards containing his photograph (above from Portfolio #1) called “Freedom, California.”
If you study the image you will see more than just a scene in the woods. You will see emotional and dramatic lighting and a surprise sign of children in the form of a swing. The scene is glorious and foreboding at the same time, but mostly I see happiness.
Tim took our small class to visit Caponigro in his Rockport studio. Paul greeted us warmly. He is not only a photographer, but a poet as well. He signed a small book of poems for me.
Tim confided that for his work in Caponigro’s darkroom, he would often get paid in prints rather than dollars. In the end, I’m sure he did OK with that collection. And I had the chance to buy a Caponigro print of Stonehenge from Tim. If any of you are eager to see that sometime, let me know. I also began my photography book collection with Tim Whelan’s help.
FARAH ALVIN (recorded this when she performed with the Marvelous Wonderettes:)
By Alex Merto, NY Times, to illustrate this article below.
By Paul Goldfinger, MD, FACC. (I wrote this piece in 2014 but it could have been written yesterday.)
Since 2014, the damage being done to quality care is becoming much more clear. By now most of you have gotten a taste of what the ACA has wrought. Yet there has been no discernible public outcry, but just speak privately to nurses, doctors and patients.
I do realize that as long as patients have insurance, they will put up with almost anything.
When someone I know was recently (2018) in a horrible car crash and wound up at Jersey Shore hospital with serious injuries, he was tended to by a “trauma team” but no physician saw him until the next day; and mistakes were made.
Here is the 2014 post:
In our Blogfinger series about the Affordable Care Act, I said that practice guidelines without flexibility for physicians to make individual decisions for patients would compromise quality. But since the details of how medicine would be practiced under the ACA was not available, I predicted that once care was actually provided under the new system, we would begin to see the worrisome truth.
Now, in an opinion piece published yesterday (2014) in the New York Times*, and written by two doctors from the Harvard Medical School faculty, we find out that “financial forces largely hidden from the public are beginning to corrupt care and undermine the bond of trust between doctors and patients. Insurers, hospital networks, and regulatory groups have put in place both rewards and punishments that can powerfully influence your doctors decisions.”
This quote (above) is from the article written by Drs. Pamela Hartzband and Jerome Groopman, both well known authors on the subject of what’s right in the care of patients.
When I was learning to become a competent practicing physician, I was taught that patients should be viewed as individuals. In fact, it is those individual differences that make the practice of medicine so fascinating and demanding. For example, consider hypertension (high blood pressure.) Between the different causes, complicating factors, various manifestations, and the myriad of drug combinations and interactions, each patient poses a unique challenge.
High blood pressure, a extremely common condition, cannot possibly be reduced to guidelines that are suitable for the group as a whole. Doctors must be able to treat each case individually, and, their professionalism must be trusted to make the right decisions. What is the point of spending about 10 years of one’s life becoming a doctor if bureaucrats turn the profession into a mindless field governed by mandatory robotic rules, financial priorities, and staffed by unsupervised non-physicians?
It is now becoming apparent that the new health plan is providing regulations and incentives that compromise the doctor-patient relationship. Physicians have a moral imperative to place the patient’s best interests first. That is one of the prime values for the practice of medicine. But to adhere to that imperative is becoming more difficult.
The cat is now out of the bag. The public must pay heed to what their doctors are saying about this situation. My own doctors, almost uniformly, say to me, “You got out just in time.” Many have become employees of large corporations.
According to Drs. Groopman and Hartzband, “The power now belongs, not to physicians, but to insurers and regulators that control payment” In other words, the bottom line is becoming the top line.
To help patients understand what conflicts of interest may be occurring in their care, the authors say, “We propose a …..public website to reveal the hidden coercive forces that may specify treatments and limit choices through pressures on the doctor.”
The Times opinion piece concludes by saying, “Medical care is not just another marketplace commodity. Physicians should never have an incentive to override the best interest of their patients.”
This image was originally posted on Blogfinger in the summer of 2016. And now, while we are on the subject of revealing bathing suits, let’s take a close look at this photo.
Sure the yellow suit is interesting, but it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be. No this image also tells us something about the broad-minded folks in A. Park.
Maybe we can borrow some mojo from the A.Park crowd and let’s nag the CMA until they grow some wider boundaries and offer a dog park or a dog beach in the Grove. Sure you can take your dog on the beach in the winter, but it is in the prime season that we have huge numbers of dogs–resident and tourist owned.
And here is a musical tribute to the lovely woman in that yellow bathing suit:
Asbury Park Boardwalk, May 2012, just north of the Casino, close to the border with Ocean Grove. This image is from our “Asbury Connection” series—a positive view of our northerly neighbor. Paul Goldfinger photo © 
