With this Election getting very, very hot. I needed something to cool it down. I once again looked towards my sister blog for a distraction and guidance. Well, the hamburger was her preferred method of change. There was also a person holding a cup of coffee and saying something, but that seems to be gone.
So I decided to take something more local.
I could talk about Toffler's rage last night, or I could mention the actress Honis Bonus Tax, or maybe say a word or two about Rose the flip flopper. But instead, today I will. criticize someone I happen to be fond of, our Mayor.
If you got to see last nights Council meeting you would see that our Mayor stood out like a soar thumb in his new brown suit. Matching what looked like an ugly green tie. My suggestion to our Mayor is stick to running our town well and ask for a little advise with the clothing selection. Lucky for you, this blog doesn't judge a book by its cover.
Speaking of books, I have to get back to my Final Accounting by Mrs. Toffler.
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48 comments:
Now that we're back from the time out, who was that guy who had the nerve to stand up and attack Toffler at last nights council meeting? This boob didn't even know who she was. The guy could barely speak English and the sound was muffled, but I think he was trying to read some of the clips from her PBS appearance as printed here.
As the official internet voice of Team Teaneck and good cheer everywhere, do you know if this is just an independent moron or one of the official campaign goons?
i don't see any hamburgers at Teaneck Progress.
The noun is "advice" not "advise". What sort of education did you have?
Are you now going to allow attacks on the color blind?
Thanks for cooling things down. Here's some guidance for you: why not rename your blog "Teaneck Pravda?"
As for the election forum, is there anyone out there who can provide an less biased report on what happened?
Esther-
Are you re-naming yours Izvestia? Or Al Jazeera?
I want to see a flying thumb.
Esther,
The forum was fairly well attended despite the last-minute nature of it andlack of competitive candidates. The discussion of the issues ranged from district policy on suspensions, special education costs, reasons to support the budget, and parent/community involvement. The two incumbents, Ms. Angeli and Mr. Walser, did a good job of outlining the Board policy and process of appealing district decisions, as well as defending the budget and encouraging more people to be involved in our schools. Mr. Cliffe, as a newcomer, outlined his experience as a retired NYC teacher and dean, and seemed very respectful of Board policy, what could be promised within state law and mandates, and not interested as being negative about any specific issues.
It is very revealing that the first anonymous (Mr. Powers perhaps)thinks it is nerve for Good and Welfare at the Council to be used to question the ethical basis for BL Toffler's candidacy for that body.
Sam Ebel may not have been a professor at Harvard but he was an executive at IBM. His English, though accented, is just fine. He may not know BL Toffler personally, but he understood her PBS interview and her moral shortcomings. When he personally was faced with ethical dilemmas, he did not yield to temptation for an extended period of time, as Toffler did, or even for a single second.
So, Sam is an independent Teaneck citizen and far from the moron Powers calls him. The Teaneck Divided group thinks the citizenry of Teaneck are morons who would choose ethically impaired people like BL Toffler for council.
Ebel is an active part of the Team Teaneck fraud machine. To call him independent is another Team Teaneck lie. Typical.
He obviously never attended or watched a council meeting before and showed complete disrespect for what speaking time at these meetings is for. Talk about town issues. Don't stand there monotonously reading the crap you find online, certainly not what you find here.
This election has already been turned into a sick joke with the racism from Team Teaneck supporters in the Jewish Standard rag, sending phony letters to the Suburbanite and now by turning council meetings into the same stupidity as these blogs.
He made a fool of himself and he made Team Teaneck and Elnatan Tax-Fraud Rudolph look like even bigger fools. Fool us once shame on us. We won't get fooled again by these crooks.
Alan Sohn-
Just because Sam Ebel is running against you in the June election is no reason for you to trash his integrity while hiding behind your "anonymous" mask.
Pretending not to know the difference between the Jewish Standard and the Jewish Voice is just a cover for you.
Where, Alan Sohn, is your integrity?
I can't believe that I'm saying this....but I agreed with Monica Honis last night when she said that it was correct to hold the last forum in the Mosque and anyone that had a problem with it should have left.
(NOTE: I'm still not voting for her)
When those wise men the speaker talked about, devised the system, they very specifically stated that:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Everyone focuses on the first part, but attending a mosque or a church or a synogogue does not create an establishment of religion. What it DOES DO is recognize that we are a town made of people from differnt backgrounds and we do not have to shed those differences to coexist.
Resepecting a custom like taking off your shoes or sitting opposite women is not a problem either. It's just as arbitrary as removing your hat inside a building (or not shopping on Sundays). And contrary to the speaker, noone was forced to pray (in any language).
As for Monica herself...she certainly could have done without the vitriol. Her resonse had so much anger in it, I initially thought she might jump down from the dais. If you cannot learn to speak a dissenting opinion in a calm manner in order to coax others into understanding you...then at the very least --
know that it's the reason I'm voting for someone else.
Alan Sohn- Just because Sam Ebel is running against you in the June election is no reason for you to trash his integrity while hiding behind your "anonymous" mask.
I have known Sam for many years and I wish him the best of luck in our County Committee race. I have reached out to Mr. Ebel to try to understand his goals in this election and was confused (to say the least) by the remarks he chose to make last night.
If I have something to say, I will sign my name. I stand behind what I write.
Alan Sohn
That's Dr Toffler, Dr. Toffler, get it right damit
I believe that "moolinyan" is a perjorative term. Can someone please erase that comment?
For the Record, I spoke to Mayor Katz and he said it was not a new suit and will not wear the green tie again
So Mr. Truth, you're idea of a "time out" from the discussion of important and legitimate issues is a stupid wise-crack comment regarding the clothing choice of a man you claim to be fond of? Disrespectful, rude, and simply irrelevant. Didn't your mother ever tell you? ...if you don't have something nice to say...
Some adviCe - stick to the issues. Or at least get a good sense of humor.
This is not an endorsement of Dr. Toffler but a plea for a little bit of fairness.
None of us goes through life without falling short in some way, and very few of us stare down our inevitable ethical dilemmas without blinking at some point or another. The important thing is not that we may have fallen short in some way, but that we find some way to redeem ourselves.
I didn't read the PBS transcript all that carefully, and I'm sure that we can find ways to be cynical about it. But she didn't have to expose herself to that kind of scrutiny, and the fact that she was willing to share her experiences for their cautionary and reformative value is not, in my opinion, a reason to trash the woman. Whatever her mistakes, it appears that she tried to make something right from them.
This doesn't mean I'm going to vote for her; I probably won't. But if I don't it won't be because of her PBS interview, it will be in spite of it. Frankly, remembering back on a certain episode in my career, this quote really resonates:
"...many people will say, "Look, I've got kids in school. I've got aging parents. I've got a mortgage. I've got all kinds of commitments. Who am I to be so cavalier to say, 'I'm sorry. I will not work under these conditions,' and walk out?"
None of us goes through life without falling short in some way, and very few of us stare down our inevitable ethical dilemmas without blinking at some point or another.
Jeff,
I don't think you get it.
None of us goes through life claiming to be an Ethicist either.
Look, if I claim to be ethical, let alone an ethicist, I open myself up to a higher level of scrutiny than anyone else out there.
Noone is saying that she isn't human. Did she do better than anyone else would have under what was obviously a very stressfull environment...maybe! But, if you want to run claiming that you are an Ethicist (which connotes that you are somehow either more ethical than others or at least know something about being more ethical) then you need to do more than falter and learn from your mistakes.
Too bad Jeff that you did not read her interview through. It is a shocker and leaves most people in a position where they would never vote for Toffler.
Ironically, her supporters started the concern about ethics with the attack on Rudolph's ethics when what he did, which he apologized for, was a small nothing of an error, a spur of the moment thing in voting when taking his sickly mom to the polls.
Toffler committed major fraudulent acts while serving as the "ethical cover" for one of the great corporate criminals of this century.
Why would Teaneck United persist in covering itself with the blanket of "ethics" when its members hardly want to peep out to see what they have done in supporting her?
Frankly, I cannot understand why they would not withdraw their endorsement if they wish for credibility.
Now I finally get it!
It was Toffler's craven and sinister supporters who started the concern about ethics with the cowardly and vicious attack on Rudolph's ethics when what he did, which he profusely apologized for, was a wee, tiny, small nothing of an error, a spur of the moment thing (a lark? a trifle?) in voting when nobly helping take his poor crippled and sickly but loving mom to the polls.
Toffler (on the other hand) committed ugly and horrendous major fraudulent and vile acts while serving as the "ethical cover" for one of the most evil and sinister corporate criminals of this or any century in the history of mankind!
The difference couldn't be more stark.
Well Esther-
The mills grind slow but they grind exceeding fine.
If you finally understand, that is a good thing.
Esther,
Your sarcasm aside, the point is this: Mr. Rudolph did not violate any laws nor any ethical precept by voting in one place one year and another in another election after changing his registration. Had he voted in two places on the same day, I would agree with you, but he did not. Ms. Toffler, on the other hand, not only acted despicably but then has the audacity to pretend to be THE ethical choice. She is one who broke the law. Hubris comes with a price. Do you remember Senator Gary Hart? Ms. Toffler should do the ethical thing now and withdraw from the election. Our community does not need such representation.
The most diverse ticket in Teaneck's history gains national recognition. See here at the Council on American-Islamic Relations Elections 2008 page:
http://tinyurl.com/4wapz7
For more information about CAIR, see this NYTimes article from March 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/5oaytr
Speaking of CAIR and attitudes towards diversity, here is the main body of an email that was sent two years ago distributed about Abdul Waheed, a well-deserving Muslim candidate. I received it after Election Day and pass it on here for a somewhat divergent view of CAIR and its mission and policies from the individual who wrote the email.
Alan Sohn
--------------------------------
May 8, 2006
Guys,
I've been doing a lot of traveling the last few months and until yesterday I was totally unaware that a gentleman named Abdul Waheed is running for Teaneck town council.
We may laugh at the name, but this is very serious. Abdul Waheed is a member of CAIR. A few years ago the Waheed's organized a huge CAIR dinner at the Glenn Pointe. For those of you not familiar CAIR is the Council of American Islamic Relations. This organization is anti Israel, very much Pro Hamas and has consistently defended Suicide Bombers as martyrs. This organization is very much anti-Semitic. You can go to Daniel Pipe's or the ADL's website and read all about CAIR. A vote for Waheed is a vote for CAIR.
I did a Google search and found the following posted on "MYSPACE" by Waheed's son. Bold type was added by me.
Thanks and please forward this around so we can defeat this guy in tomorrow's election.
(Signature removed)
I apologize for undermining my own post with the needless statement that I didn't read the PBS transcript all that carefully. I read what was posted on this blog carefully enough. I assume it wasn't the entire transcript and I didn't go to the PBS site to read the whole thing.
Teaneck Resident, your point about her title as an Ethticist (or whatever they called her) is noted. According to the PBS transcript, Arthur Andersen capitalized on a new need for ethical consulting and turned it into a profit center for the company. I imagine that as an academic, Dr. Toffler had no idea what she was getting herself into when she took that job. Is that an excuse? Maybe not. But I understand that she did resign, perhaps not soon enough for those who would sit back and judge. My point is that she didn't have to expose herself to that kind of scrutiny, and she's entitled to the presumption that she was trying to make something right out of her acknowledged mistakes.
Whoever we end up voting for (and as I say, she probably won't be one of my candidates), I just don't think it's fair to be harping on this. Especially since there are other ethical lapses we can look at that are more relevant, in which there's been no acceptance of responsibility whatsoever.
Whether anyone should hire Dr. Toffler to be their ethicist is really a secondary issue at this point. The fact that Toffler believes she can run and win after her intolerant and and divisive comments to the NYT, reinforces the belief of many in the Orthodox that the values of diversity and tolerance are very selectively applied in this town.
The failure of most non-Orthodox in town to condemn her statements in the same manner that they would if her statement would have been directed at any other racial/ethnic/religious group is noteworthy. So instead of being a political pariah, Dr Toffler now gets endorsements for office.
One has to wonder if the reaction would have been the same if Dr. Toffler had said “People worry that there’s a group that wants this to become an [African American] community like some of the ones in [Harlem] . . . . This has always been an incredibly diverse community, and from my perspective, I don’t want it to become any one thing.” (quote directly from the NYT, modified to identify another community, but you could substitute the race/faith/ethnicity of your choice - prejudice is prejudice, regardless of target)
Jeff-
She stayed four years at a high salary "screwing clients (her language)".
Then she tried to make more money off her experience by writing a book about it. That is why she exposed herself to all the media.
Then she tried to make more money off her experience by writing a book about it. That is why she exposed herself to all the media.
Has she ever disclosed how much she made off of the interview / book?
I would imagine that $$ could have been a better motivator than wanting to share her story.
Teaneck Observer said...
... the point is this: Mr. Rudolph did not violate any laws nor any ethical precept by voting in one place one year and another in another election after changing his registration.
elsewhere he said:
New York law does not require sole residency be in New York and allows for dual residency with registration in NY.
Total nonsense you made it up like most of the crap you write under this and other names. There is nothing remotely like dual residency that allows one to vote in one state while living in another.
If Rudolph was a resident of Teaneck for a year prior running for office it was plain and simple illegal to vote in New York. If he was a resident of New York he was not allowed to run for council. That doesn't make it some sinister plot. Even Mr. Rudolph acknowledges it was a mistake.
Why do you find it necessary to make up this moronic crap? Probably the same reason you make up all your crap. Win at all cost politics!
No Cramer, that is your philosophy.
Anon 4:56 PM
1. I do not use any other names, period.
2. you are incorrect in your reading of both statutes.
3. Mind your manners! I do not "make up" anything nor is it "moronic". What is moronic, and sophomoric, is attempting to deflect focus from actual issues with baseless claims of illegal behavior. Mr. Rudolph's apology was for any feelings of betrayal his constituents might have (wrongly) felt after being bamboozled by the assertions made by Mr. Cramer.
4. It is not I, sir, who believe in winning at all costs. Those who knowingly lie are the ones who have the claim to that dubious title.
The information dug up about Mr. Rudolph's voting in NY while living in NJ probably would have influenced my voting in the last election. What's influencing my voting this time has more to do with Mr.Rudolph's assistance towards Teaneck Comes Together, the inclusive playground and new fire engines. I am grateful to him and the other Councilmembers for their efforts towards a zero increase budget.
At this point,Rudolph's got one of my votes, the other two are still up for grabs.
If the truth came out about Rudolph two years ago, I wouldn't have voted for him. The problem is that two years later there are only more problems. Getting a job from the county he wasn't qualified for. Showing Birdsall around town and getting them a nice contract in Teaneck. Claiming credit for the playground and firetruck grants. Using divisive campaign methods to label anyone who disagrees with him as "anti-Orthodox". Balancing a budget by putting off the bills to next year. There are too many serious problems happening too often to even consider voting for him. At this point I crossed Rudolph off my list. I still have three votes up for grabs.
Cramer- Cut it out. That is all BS lies....And you know it.
Anon. 12:20 what makes you qualified to determine that Mr. Rudolph does not have the qualifications to do his job?
Anon 12.20 is Cramer. Nuff said.
Is this Yitz Stern? Elie Katz? Joe Ferriero?
That was the smartest comment yet from Team Teaneck. Put it on your campaign signs.
Anonymous 5.02 is Cramer. He'll say anything to make his enemies look bad.
Governor Corzine broke the law by not wearing his seat belt and by ordering his driver to go 92 mph. Does that mean we should vote against him for re-election even if we know he has done good things as governor and is probably the best option for the job?
There are unpardonable sins for politicians and then there are the ones that cast aspersion on that individual's capacity for serving the people honestly.
You decide how what we know about various candidates fits into the equation before casting your vote. But don't be pushed onto a bandwagon that makes you cut your nose off to spite your face.
oops. Should have said "pardonable sins for politicians".
Corzine didn't wear a seatbelt.
Rudolph wasn't eligible to run for election. Rudolph didn't file fund raising reports that showed he got most of his money from county front organizations. Rudolph created and ran on the least diverse ticket in Teaneck history. Rudolph helped Birdsall the pay-to-play contractor get over $150K of business in Teaneck. Rudolph pushed to pave over a park to help a big county political contributor. Rudolph gets a cushy county job because he showed his hard work to help campaign contributors. All that in just his first few months on the job.
Maybe these sins are pardonable. Maybe he won't be prosecuted. The pattern is clear that Rudolph will do anything to help himself. He and his supporters have shown that he will do anything to win no matter how immoral it is.
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "msg411@aol.com" msg411@aol.com
To: TeaneckShuls@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 1:23:09 PM
Subject: [Teaneck411] Volunteers needed for TeamTeaneck HQ--Do you have any time? We need your help!
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!!!!
Dear Neighbor:
We need your help!
On May 13th there is a crucial Teaneck Council election.
Please help us raise awareness and visibility for our candidates (Team
Teaneck).
We are looking for volunteers to help out in our campaign HQ at 806
Palisades Avenue-Teaneck (corner of Cedar Lane).
If anyone is home from school or can spare a few hours between now and May 13th, it would be greatly appreciated.
Please email or call me at 201-715-5179 and msg411@aol.com.
Thank you,
Elie Y. Katz
msg411@aol.com
Also: Can we place a small lawn sign on the front of your property for TeamTeaneck?
Please reply with your address.
Thank you,
Elie Y. Katz
msg411@aol.com
Anon 10.25 has one and only one true fact in his statement. It is that Corzine did not ear a seat belt. After that all his (and we know it is Cramer saying it) other statements are malicious fabrications.
Il semble que vous soyez un expert dans ce domaine, vos remarques sont tres interessantes, merci.
- Daniel
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