TODAY'S NEWS

To loosely paraphrase Will Rogers, "I know nothing until I read the newspapers". Today is a good example.

From the Star Ledger I learned that Don Davis lost the election as a result of campaign material from Machiavella Olive Lynch. Also that Gibson 's defeat was due to the fact that "his "detractors" may have lumped the two men together because both received the endorsement of the local Democratic Committee".

There may be a lesson learned, only time will tell. The problem though is that Plainfield is a one party town, and we are now saddled with 7 months of lame duck Council members, whose accountability has been reduced to zero.

The Courier's today's contribution to my font of knowledge is twofold; The first in the news is the information that Jerry Green's Task force has arranged for the Health Center's maternity patients to be cared for at Trinitas Hospital, Elizabeth. Fortunately that is only at least a 30 minute drive under ideal traffic conditions. Way to go , Jerry.

Equally informative is the full page advertisement Solaris placed in the paper in which they finally gave answers to at least 3 questions raised about their CN request. Or did they?

The first answer about the extraordinary rise in debt from 2006 to 2007 does not explain why there was a drop in the number of patients using the hospital. Was it equally across the board, or only those with good insurance? Could there have been some form of diversion by transferring services? The rest of that answer is just unsupported words. As to other hospitals closing, what has that to do with the price of oranges?

The second answer about $8.8 mil. purchases over the past 10 years, includes 7 million in 2006 for the new Schools of Nursing and Allied Technical Sciences ( the name may not be correct) Building. What does that have to do with the hospital's operation. $1.8 million over ten years is $180,000 per year, less than McGee received in compensation from MRMC in 2006.

Finally the third regarding Maternity Service is equally informative. In order to be rid of the responsibility of providing this care to the Health Center's patients, Solaris will "provide grant funding" to the Health Center and Trinitas. Bravo, how much and could this be from Muhlenberg's state grants. Also Solaris thanks Jerry Green for his efforts.

I don 't think my brain was overwhelmed by today's news. I still know nothing worthwhile.