Bird Life
It’s easy to forget we have lots of amazing bird species in Atlantic County, especially if you don’t get out to the Forsythe very often or are perennially distractable like I am. Have you seen my car keys? What is this typer thing doing here. Oh the Press of AC has a cool story about the World Series of Birding, coming to town this Saturday. Dateline: WOODBINE.
Boardwalkers Bewarned
Read Route 40’s take on what happens when you try and go down to the (new) Inlet end of the Boardwalk.
Soak the Rich
The valuable NJ Spotlight reports on a new poll showing 70% of New Jersey voters support a tax increase on households making $1 million per year. Happily for the rich, Steve Sweeney is not one of them.
Marijuana and Social Justice
Politico (paywall) Pro reports that three members of the N.J. Black Legislative Caucus have signed on to sponsor a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, in seeming defiance of Ron Rice, who chairs the caucus and is against legalization.
I went to the NJBLC hearing on legalization staged by Senator Rice a few weeks back at St. James AME, where various authorities had been flown in to do counter-programming to the ‘Big Marijuana’ movement. Most of them were affiliated with Kevin Sabet’s group SAM.
The first speaker was a doctor who’d flown in from San Diego to deliver an evocative speech on “scromiting.” “Scromiting is screaming and vomiting and the hallmark of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.”
There was also Frank Greenagel, a counseler at Rutgers, who took exception to the notion that a Civil Rights argument could be made in favor of legalization.
“I can assure you that this is not a Civil Rights issue, and I strongly believe that calling marijuana a Civil Rights issue is demeaning to that very term.”
This was a little awkward because Kaleem Shabazz, the elder statesman on the City Council, had just called marijuana reform a social justice issue, among other things, not forty minutes earlier. (Greenagel is in favor of decriminalization.)
The highlight for everyone I think though was the guy from DC who came up to recite his poem (“Two is Enough” I think it was called) against legalization, which contained the couplet:
“See as the rate of smoking declines among non-Latino Whites/
Companies know they’ve got to…change their sights…”
I think I heard someone scromit.
For more feats of journalism from across your region, do see below:
PREP’S RHEA, A.C.’S SMITH, EHT’S PRINCZ RACK UP MEDALS AT ATLANTIC COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIPS–BUENA — High school track and field athletes have been charting times, distances and heights for nearly six weeks now, logging on to websites such as nj.milesplit.com to see where they stack up against the competition. Now, it’s time to go out and prove that those measurables are no fluke, and that athletes can replicate them when the pressure is on. glorydaysonline.com
History Notes: West Atlantic City’s Hampton Motel–Bill and Florence Hampton built the Hampton Motel along the Black Horse Pike in West Atlantic City in the 1940s. It no longer stands today. www.shorenewstoday.com
STATE STILL STRUGGLING WITH STORMWATER RUNOFF, CAN NEW BILL HELP?–The state is reviving a decade-old idea to help New Jersey address a $15 billion problem to better manage stormwater runoff, an issue widely recognized as fouling waterways and exacerbating flooding. www.njspotlight.com