Greetings Route 40 Readers!
Welcome to our rebooted newsletter. We know you have missed us.
Our goal this year is to put these emails out when we have a critical mass of our own content to share with you.
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This edition brings us two original stories. The first is from Michael Mallen, PhD., a psychologist who is the brother of Al Mallen, an Atlantic City fireman and famous quarterback at Holy Spirit back in the 1980s.
In his day job, Michael counsels veterans, and he asks some tough, and I think profound, questions about the way we raise our children, particularly our masculine children, raising a parallel between sports and warring. A lot of vets ask versions of the same question, ““What if the best, most meaningful and exciting moments of my life happened when I was 18?”
Story two, from Elinor, addresses those tax-credit programs that are supposed to bring so many jobs to our apparently blighted and jobless municipality. Follow along as we walk in the footsteps of a $32 million “tax credit award” from the NJ EDA. It begins life (or does it?) when a union official frets the use of offshore call centers. A wide-ranging lawsuit is filed! An “award” is granted, used to secure a loan and then reduced by 95%. At the end of the rainbow are 80 employees who get paid $11 an hour and some subs brought in from Gloucester County. Many lucrative tasks are inspired, if that’s the word, through these tax-reduction programs. They’re just not the call-center jobs that the program was supposed to be about.
And in other news this week, we have this list of stuff you might have missed from recent Atlantic City meetings and public documents.
Our friend Dave wrote this awesome piece about an Atlantic City Renegade:
Also, if you haven’t already, watch this music video: