When I was eleven, way back in 1965, my family was invited for Thanksgiving to my cousins’ cousins, a Jewish-Italian family who lived in the southern part of Staten Island. This was the other side of the world to us if you lived in Brooklyn -- but, now, with the completion of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge just a year earlier, Staten Island was more accessible by car. And off we went in the family car, our white 1954 Buick Special.
 
My mother spent a good portion of the trip, while we sat in traffic on the Belt Parkway, explaining to us why the cousins, Anthony and Dominick Arcamone, of my cousins, Lenny and Robert Novick, were not our cousins, but only cousins to Lenny and Robert -- way on the other side their family. “The Arcamones are only cousins to Lenny and Robert, but not to you,” she told me.

Whenever I get the chance to visit my parents in Florida when working a comedy gig down there, it’s like living in a “Seinfeld” episode. They keep the condo thermostat at 74 degrees, and yell at me not to touch it “because you will break it.” My father even put a piece of scotch tape over the dial, so no one else would touch it. The same piece of tape has been there for twenty years. My parents typify the typical Floridians -- like Billy Crystal says, “They eat dinner at 4:30, lunch at 11:00, and breakfast the night before.”
 
And so, when my parents were worried about ‘identity theft’, [as if anyone in their right minds would want to be mistaken for them], they signed up for a senior citizen “A Dozen ID Theft Tips for Seniors.” My father took notes during the seminar to write down all the tips. “Don’t lend your driver’s license to anyone.” “Don't ever tell anyone other than the government your social security number.” “Shred all documents you no longer need.”
 
It was this last ‘tip’ that got my father all upset.
 
“We don’t have a shredder, and we need one. And we have old papers we need to shred,” he told my mother.

Well, the presidential campaign season is finally over, and now it's that time of the year when we have our very special feature -- the NJ Politics Unusual mailbag. This is where we get to answer questions generated from our scores and scores of regular readers, passionate fans, soulful admirers, aficionados, devotees, follower, groupies, detractors, critics, and anonymous stalkers. We get so many emails, IMs, text messages, and posts it's hard to keep up. But, we do the best we can to respond to the minions of loyal readers of every shape and size -- whether they are real or imaginary or praising or attacking. Either way, it's nice to know they find the readings interesting enough to surf to at their computer desk.
 
So here goes.

AP Newswire:  

In a scam that falls under the category of "turnabout is fair play" [or maybe ‘se retourner est jouer franc jeu’ in French], today French President Nicolas Sarkozy called former Saturday Night Live head writer Tina Fey, and pranked her into thinking he was two Canadian radio comedians from Montreal. “Boy, he sounded just like a French Opie & Anthony. Two different voices and everything. I really had no idea he was actually the president of France.”

Perhaps she should have realized that something was not kosher when he said, “We love to watch all the funny shows on NBC, especially ‘My Name is Earl’.” Ms. Fey was on the set of her show, “30 Rock” when she took the call. “I thought that it was actually Canadian comedian Marc-Antoine Audette wanting to get my help as part of a prank call to President Sarkozy, in response to his call to the real Sarah Palin. It is all very confusing.”

From the AP Newswire
 
RealClearPolitics shows Senator John McCain down by more than 7 points. Internal polls in the McCain camp show him losing ground every day because many Republican voters are disappointed at his being less and less a ‘maverick.' And so, in order to show how much of a ‘maverick’ he really is, McCain today made a truly startling announcement at a campaign rally in St. Louis, Missouri.
 
“My friends, I very much appreciate your support. And you know, my friends, that Governor Palin and I are both true mavericks. We’ve reached across to the other side of the aisle over and over again. We have both taken on our own Republican Party time and time again. I did it in the Senate, and Governor Palin did it in her own state of Alaska. Since the Republican National Convention in August, we have shown what we are made of. We are independent mavericks and cannot be bought, my friends.”

AP Newswire
 
It seemed like a natural phrase for a new, inspirational presidential campaign: Yes, We Can. But, as it turns out, it has been the trademarked slogan for the National Center for Home Food Preservation and Canning -- the trade association folks in DC who advocate for the many ‘canning’ companies around the nation.
 
“It’s outrageous,” declared Homer “Deacon” Jones Jr., the president and grandson of the founder of the Intercourse Canning Company of Intercourse, Pennsylvania. “Over the years, we have suffered enough from the ‘Intercourse’ jokes. My father, Homer Sr, and his father, Malcolm before him, just took it all in stride. But when someone takes our prideful slogan, ‘Yes, We Can!’ and usurps it for political purposes, well, that makes my blood boil. That slogan is known all over the country for just one thing: Canning.” The Intercourse Canning Company is known for canning beets, pickles and tomatoes. Mr. Jones was the President of the National Center for Home Food Preservation and Canning from 1996 to 2002.

Via AP Newswire
 
The McCain Campaign finally released its long-awaited Economic Stimulus Plan today at a campaign event in Boston, Massachusetts -- a state where the Arizona Senator trails Senator Barack Obama by more than 17 points, according to the latest Rasmussen polling data. “My friends, the fundamentals of our campaign in the Bay State are sound,” declared McCain. “And our economic plan will take a hatchet to budget earmarks. Maverick. Maverick. And you will know their names…Maverick.”

According to a Fairleigh Dickinson poll, Senator Frank Lautenberg leads Lobbyist Dick Zimmer by 16 points, 50-34 percent. Fourteen percent say they’re undecided.

So, if Lobbyist Zimmer by some amazing miracle can still somehow muster a coalition between his “Zimmer Supporters” and “The Undecideds” -- he will still be behind Frank Lautenberg 50-48. Where is the other 2 percent here? Where do they stand? Are they the Silent Minority? I am waiting for the poll folks at Fairleigh Dickenson to explain. I don't know.

However, there are more bad numbers for Lobbyist Zimmer: More than two-thirds of New Jersey’s most likely voters (71 percent) have no idea who Lobbyist Zimmer is. Have no opinion of him. More people have been to the Vince Lombardi Service Area, than know who Lobbyist Zimmer is. Tough to run in NJ if people have no idea who you are.

"Union ratifies new contract with Star-Ledger."
AP Newswire
 
"New Jersey cannot lose its' only paper!", cry readers. This, according to news stories in the Bergen Record, Courier News, Asbury Park Press, the Press of Atlantic City and the New Jersey section of The New York Times.

Teamsters Local 1100, which represents 400 Star-Ledger mailers [or it might be Teamsters Local 400 representing 1100 Star-Ledger mailers, I can never remember], voted on a contract ratification. One-hundred eighty-three voted for the ratification, 18 voted to oppose and 75 abstained.

So, the federal government will bail out Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and give $700 billion bucks for failed mortgages. With so much of New Jersey tied in to the New York City financial markets, you know we're gonna get socked you know where. Someone's gonna suggest that we dump our long held idea of "home rule" -- if we have any homes left -- and save money by merging communities.  
 
We have 566 local governments, "Home rule" can be very expensive, indeed. So, maybe some of our towns near and far will attempt mergers. And merging would require new names for the new emergent town. But some towns, should be cautioned about their new town names.
 
For example, if Wayne in Passaic County and Newton in Sussex County merged, the town could be called Wayne-Newton. The residents will certainly chant "Danke Shoen" for that plan!