City Belt

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: SUMMER HAS ENDED

Although it doesn't quite feel like it outside, this photo, "Summer Has Ended," shows us that the fall is creeping, slowly killing flowers and bringing us shorter days. Pat Marella graces us with another wonderful shot.

We know more of you are out there, taking pictures of New Jersey. We want to feature you here -- so in Flickr or SmugMug, tag your NJ photos with CityBelt -- or you can just e-mail them to us. If you do either, you might be next week's Photo of the Week.

On the Web:
Pat Marella's Flickr page
City Belt's Flickr page

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POEM: GENUFLECTION

Into details I go, after hours, craving lateness
Overdue, I am overridden; suspense gives up
I knock, in code. I only get speakeasy access
Even then action looks closed for renovation

Stories hold me up, not delaying, but robbing
I hand over everything, turn, and count to ten
The gunman*plot*knows I can wait longer
Deadline: deliver me from mistaken ambition

-- Daniel Morris

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THE AGENDA: EXECUTIVE ORDER

For full calendar listings, check The Agenda. To have your event listed, please e-mail the editors.

Friday | 9.29.06
Concert.
It’s taken a few years, but Todd Abramson has finally brought a big rock show back to Jersey City. The last time the Maxwell’s honcho put on a show in JC, Bright Eyes successfully packed the Loew’s Jersey Theater. Tonight, Hoboken’s most famous rockers, Yo La Tengo, are playing at the same historic theater in Journal Square. They’ve got an amazing new album out, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, but, as usual, you can expect the band to pull out lots of their old favorites and maybe throw in some classic covers as well. Why? opens, and the show starts at 7 pm. The PATH train runs all night, so don’t worry about getting stranded in the Square. It's not like it's Kansas, folks.

DAY JOB: WILLIAM STAMOS

A Reminder from Your Friendly Editors: Don't forget, the Day Job music showcase series begins next Wednesday, Oct. 4 at Maxwell's at 8:30 pm. Admission is $6. Lismore, Tris McCall, and Kate Sikora will be performing, so be sure to check it out. Without further ado, on to this week's column:

William Stamos makes art that is most certainly surreal, and at times fantastical – some of his paintings look like they could be the cover of a weird, tripped-out underground sci-fi book. The 53-year-old artist from Jersey City says his goal is “to blur the boundaries between ‘inner’ space and ‘outer’ space,” and he does, as his work seems to simultaneously take you to around the cosmos and through the inner depths of your psyche.

HOW THEY VOTED: USING THE LAW TO SUBVERT THE LAW

The Bill: HR 6166 (The Military Commissions Act)

Date Passed: Sept. 27, 4:45 p.m.

About: Back in June, the US Supreme Court struck down the Bush administration's post-9/11 setup of military commissions to "try" suspected al-Qaeda members being held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This poked a large hole in the administration's legal strategy (or non-strategy) in prosecuting suspected terrorists.

It's easy to see that the reason the administration preferred this non-strategy, as opposed to actually prosecuting actual terrorists, was that they are trying to decimate terrorism through warfare. With war being innately chaotic and hellish, the administration just sort of had to say, "Fuck It," and round up all "terror suspects," be they goat herders, merchants, or farmers. Since they preferred to use military might, they then lacked the clarity with which to successfully prosecute actual perpetrators of terrorism.

With the Supreme Court ruling, then, what's a forceful and blunt world power to do?

DIFFICULT DECISIONS

Nurses strike leaves patients with tough choices
Guest Commentary
By Hank Kalet

Pulling past the entrance to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, it was impossible not to notice the dozen or so men and women camped out along the street.

It was a sunny early September weekend, and my wife and I were driving down Somerset Street to the hospital where my sister-in-law had just given birth to her first daughter (she and my brother already had two sons). The baby was a little more than a month early and was still in the Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), where she would stay for about a week.

As we passed the entrance and the men and women denouncing hospital management and demanding better working conditions and wages, I felt a pang of guilt. Visiting the hospital meant crossing a picket line, something I have always made it a point to avoid doing.

MEET THE CANDIDATES: CAROL GAY

Congressional candidate Carol Gay, who is running against Republican incumbent Chris Smith to represent  New Jersey's 4th District, is the first to complete the City Belt candidate questionnaire. Read on to learn about Gay’s views on universal healthcare, her lowest paying job, leaving Iraq and who she wishes would endorse her candidacy.

DO THEY LOVE A 'PARADE'?

Vague wording in a Flemington ordinance leads to constitutional challenge after vigil arrest
By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

Bob Flisser just might be feeling special, unique even. On Aug. 17, 2005, 1,500 vigils were held all over the country to remember soldiers who died in the Iraq War.

“Across the country, 200,000 or so people participated, and there was only one arrest,” said Bob Flisser, a leader in New Jersey for Democracy. Flisser lives in Branchburg and has worked in Flemington for years.

“And that was you?” I asked.

“Thank you very much,” he replied, in the irreverent, laughing tone he carried throughout our conversation.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: BOB GOES BOWLING

Jerry Casciano took this photo of Sen. Bob Menendez at a bowling alley in East Brunswick last Saturday. He was there for an annual fundraising bowl-a-thon for the group Democrats 2000. We like the photo because if you didn't know who Menendez was, it would just look like he was serving up some fries or getting ready to spray some shoes. He was in the process of challenging his opponent, Tom Kean Jr., to a bowling match. We're told that he was a pretty decent bowler. Plus he's got some sweet bowling threads.

We know more of you are out there, taking pictures of New Jersey. We want to feature you here -- so in Flickr or SmugMug, tag your NJ photos with CityBelt -- or you can just e-mail them to us. If you do either, you might be next week's Photo of the Week.

On the Web:
City Belt's Flickr page

MORE PHOTO OF THE WEEK
 

 

E-mail the editors

POEM: SATURDAY AT THE CAR WASH

six Spanish guys
in blue caps and t-shirts
attack the car
                            with rags
in haste
such alacrity that the
wet droplets can't
dry in the wind
or slide
                arcing downward in
gravity's pull

Talking no talking
looking on with suspicion
murmured Spanish
a distant hum that
stops
            when I approach
voices hushed in
ragged fragments
                                        obscene and
angry
eyes spearing the fat white guy
who barks orders
like he's reprimanding a
caged dog.

-- Hank Kalet

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