It was standing room only at the Unity Awards reception sponsored by Not in Our Town — an inspiring afternoon.
Category Archives: Around Town
To Publicity Chairmen: Make it Easy
Today I had a delightful lunch with the Kiwanis Club of Trenton at Leonardo’s II. The program chairman asked me to offer tips that would help this nearly 90-year-old chapter publicize the Times-Kiwanis Camp Fund, founded in 1955 in partnership with the then Trenton Times.
My 10-minutes talk focused on war stories, PR successes and failures, everything from the New Jersey State Button Society show to a Congo mission trip by Princeton United Methodist Church on behalf of UFAR. Titled “Make it Easy: Ask ‘How High,'” the talk focused on how to encourage donors to give, editors to print press releases, and individuals to leverage their connections.
Does anyone else want these tips? Have talk, will travel.
Debtors Prisons Here?
Debtors prisons in the U.S.? Surely not.
Yet investigations by NPR say that courts nationwide are sending the indigent to prison because they can’t pay court fines. Click here for a story by NPR’s Joseph Shapiro.
Surely not in Princeton.
But I saw how it might possibly, just maybe, happen. Last year I went to traffic court and watched people present their sad stories to the judge. “Pay your fine before the end of the day,” was the threat, “or you go to jail.” No money? no credit card? “Call some friends,” was the advice.
I didn’t stick around until the end of the day to see if anybody ended up in the hoosegow. And traffic court judges probably do need to use harsh threats for deadbeats. They are within their rights to do that. According to NPR, it is left up to the judge to figure out who has the money to pay and who is just crying poor.
So small a matter as a speeding ticket or a parking ticket is no problem for me, but could be a very big problem for someone struggling to pay rent. If you could pay your parking ticket right away, your court costs didn’t double. If you could pay a lawyer, you might get the traffic ticket charges reduced. If you couldn’t, you might lose your job because you can’t drive.
A judge in a Philadelphia suburb, according to WHYY Newsworks reporter Emma Jacobs, is unfairly targeting the poor , sending people directly to jail without the opportunity to get a lawyer. Click here for the story.
I don’t know whether our local judges — in Princeton, in Mercer County, in New Jersey — are sending vast numbers of people to jail for their inability to pay traffic court costs. I don’t know that any of our judges are making prejudiced decisions. (Full disclosure: Through Not in Our Town Princeton, I support the Princeton/Trenton campaign against what was labeled The New Jim Crow by Michele Alexander. Statistics show that black people go to jail for offenses for which whites go free.)
I do know that on that day in traffic court, the drivers of color were the ones having trouble paying the fines. The judge was not going easier on the white drivers — it was a classic case of the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer. ”
At least New Jersey does not charge its inmates for room and board. Click here for a state by state survey of fees.
NPR continues its coverage this week in Morning Edition and All Thing Considered.
(Image: mid-Victorian depiction of the debtors prison at St Briavel Castle courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)
Ponder on the N-Word: May 23 and 24
“Our dysfunction around race, racism and the N-word not only reflects our inability to collectively deal with nuance, it also shows how our creative energies are diminished because of this fiction called race.” 
So says Rhinold L
amar Ponder, who has a two-day exhibition of art, poetry, rap, and music, The Rise and Fall of the N-word: Beyond Black and White, at the Carl Fields Center next weekend, Friday and Saturday, May 23 and 24. In addition to Ponder’s paintings, the show includes poetry, rap, a DJ — and logos he commissioned from artists around the world, pictured above.
For details click here.
Ponder says this world needs a public language and environment to honestly and productively discuss the issues of race.
Such an environment does exist in Princeton, I believe. Cosponsored by Not In Out Town and the Princeton Public Library, a forum called Continuing Conversations on Race and White Privilege is held on first Mondays at 7 p.m. at the library, October through June. These forums offer a friendly and confidential place to talk about important but often controversial subjects. The next Continuing Conversation is June 2.
Small Treasures and Where to Find Them
Have talk, will travel. Current fave topic: the world’s smallest antique, buttons.
Carol Meszaros and I will talk about button collecting at the Lawrence Library on Thursday, May 8, at 7 p.m. Everybody will have a “hands-on experience” and get to take some buttons home.
Another chance to learn about, and acquire button treasures, is at the New Jersey State Button Society show and sale to be held this Saturday, May 10, 9 to 4. It is at the Union Fire Company on River Road in Titusville, admission $2.
Carol, on
the left in this picture, is looking through the button jars of Nancy Briggs Moser and Alice Cruser, who attended a talk we gave at Kuser Farm Mansion last month.
For the Thursday talk, the headquarters branch of the Mercer County Library system is just off Business Route 1 on Darrah Lane. You can also get there from Princeton Pike.
If you have always wondered about your grandmother’s button jar, join us!
Eisgruber Bleeds Orange?
Christian Eisgruber, the new president of Princeton University, speaks at the Princeton Regional Chamber lunch on Thursday, May 8, at the Forrestal Marriott.
Raised Catholic, he recently discovered that he has Jewish heritage, and now describes himself as a non-theist Jew.
Another intriguing factoid: he used to teach a seminar on the Supreme Court and I’ll bet he has a strong opinion about the Court’s ruling on affirmative action. One of his missions as provost was to increase diversity on campus.
He’s the first president in 25 years to be an alumnus of the university: he is Class of 1989.
It was Jo Butler versus Bernie Miller and Sue Nemeth in the Democratic primary debate for Princeton Council, staged by the League of Women Voters. Click here to see and hear the dialogue.
My neighbor, Shane Farrell, emailed me about events showcasing Andrew Zwicker, running for Rush Holt’s Congressional seat. Fortunately, today’s issue of U.S. 1 tells me what I need to know about him. Click here.
Tonight, Wednesday, April 30, at 7:30 p.m. he will be at Princeton University’s Whig Hall Senate Chamber speaking with the Princeton College Democrats and the American Whig-Cliosophic Society of Princeton.
Tomorrow, Thursday, May 1, 7 p.m. he will be one of the candidates at ACLU primary debate at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton. Registration is encouraged: Click here.
Other events are mentioned in the U.S. 1 story.
Zwicker’s opponents include two formidable women: Linda Greenstein and Bonnie Watson Coleman. But — like Holt, he is a product of Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. He is indeed a rocket scientist.
if you live here, you’d know
The mark of a true Princetonian.
Surging Seas: Predictions for the Jersey Shore
Surging Seas, a new website, lets you forecast how rising tides will affect your waterfront property on the Jersey shore.
An article in USA Today, just in time for Earth Day, tells about this database compiled by the not-for-profit Climate Central, based at Palmer Square.
Princeton Comment 