In light of this sobering episode, what good, I wonder, would an incompetent like New Jersey Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. , do if elected to the Senate of the United States, an institution for years already dysfunctional while under Republican control?
Earlier this year I was about to discard a stack of papers stemming from a longtime correspondence I had had with former New Jersey Assemblyman--later Senator-- Richard Bagger. These papers concerned the need to emend New Jersey's statutes so that human blood and body tissue, removed during embalming, would be disposed of in the same careful manner as is medical waste--not, as is still the case, directly into sanitary-sewer systems.
In New Jersey's municipalities, sanitary and storm sewers sometimes have proximate breaks such that the contents of the former find their way into the latter. These latter, the storm sewers, often emerge above ground as brooks.
The Rahway River Robinson's Branch flowing through my property in Westfield is one such aboveground storm sewer. It runs past a Board of Education athletic field, the Edison Middle School, the Tamaques Elementary School, feeds into a sizeable pond in Tamaques Park and empties, ultimately, into the Robinson Branch Reservoir in Clark (which, to make matters worse, the Middlesex Water Company may access if needed).
The Rahway River Robinson Branch runs sporadically afowl with human excrement, toilet paper, fuel oil-like substances and anything else, like embalming waste, which may reside in the sanitary sewers. Robinson Branch is, alas, a favorite play site. At almost any moment I can see children in the waterway from some vantage point on my property.
Rather than simply discard my fulsome correspondence with former state Senator Richard Bagger regarding the proper disposal of embalming waste, I thought I might be a good citizen and pass these materials on to sitting state Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. (R), who now is running for a seat in the Senate of the United States.
I was flabbergasted to receive, not long after, a letter signed by Senator Kean, Assemblyman Jon M. Bramnick (R) and Assemblyman Eric Munoz, M.D. (R)--all three representatives from New Jersey Legislative District 21, one of them a physician to boot--advising me that the state legislature had not acted on this matter in the past because it represented no threat to public health.
I phoned Senator Kean's office for elucidation of his response and I was promised I would receive further feedback. No particulars were ever proferred.
In light of this sobering episode, what good, I wonder, would an incompetent like New Jersey Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. , do if elected to the Senate of the United States, an institution for years already dysfunctional while under Republican control?
Senator Kean has conspired with a convicted felon to smear his opponent for the seat in Washington he is seeking. He contends he would have voted to invade Iraq and believes the United States should stay the course there. He believes, too, that Social Security need be privatized.
Will New Jersey and Senator Thomas Kean, Jr., be . . . well, "perfect together"? I think not.