Published Again

In the eyes of the law, Bullock got a fair trial

By Express-Times Letters to the Editor
on August 28, 2015 at 1:08 PM, updated August 28, 2015 at 1:09 PM

In response to Steve Wilson's letter ("Bullock trial should have been handled on state or federal level," Aug. 10), the trial was held in state Superior Court. Sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault are not federal crimes.

So much moral indignation about this case. It is not at all surprising that there are conspiracy theories about "collusion" and "corruption" on the county level because the judge in the case once worked as a prosecutor where the defendant also served as sheriff. The crime, as described, occurred within the jurisdiction of Warren County. Vicinage 13 is very small. Why not call everyone who ever received a favorable verdict in northwest New Jersey a kiddy rapist? Mass hysteria and jumping to conclusions feels good but it hurts victims.    

The jury was tasked with putting an 86-year-old man who requires a wheelchair and breathing tube in jail for 90 years. The accuser had a criminal record, including time in prison in Wisconsin. This case was lost for one reason: First Assistant Prosecutor Michael McDonald put forward not one unimpeachable shred of evidence to support the accuser's case.

In the eyes of the public, Edward Bullock is guilty as sin. Under the law, he got a fair trial. Not guilty does not mean innocent. Please educate yourself about the law before tarring and feathering an actually innocent man next time.

Erik B. Anderson

San Diego, Calif.

Formerly of Independence Township

LETTER: 'He said/she said' scenario frustrating

Published Again: 

LETTER: 'He said/she said' scenario frustrating 
By Express-Times Letters to the Editor
on June 17, 2014 at 12:05 AM, updated June 17, 2014 at 12:06 AM

Reports have emerged that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl walked away from his post. It is rumored that soldiers were killed trying to rescue him. 

Reputedly, Bergdahl was discharged from the Coast Guard for "psychological reasons" before the Army recruited him and sent him to Iraq. Allegedly, the soldiers accusing him of desertion were aware of his instability before he disappeared. It is known that at least some of them are anti-Obama political operatives. 

It has been hypothesized that the prisoners exchanged for Bergdahl were going to be released anyway. Conversely, it has been propagated that the prisoners will commit more terrorism. 

But all of it is theory: speculation, reports. A "he said/she said" scenario. Hearsay. 

Neither Bergdahl nor the Guantanamo prisoners have been afforded a fair, impartial jury trial. 

While you're all out there using your imaginations, I'm imagining what it feels like to be locked in a dark cage for months and years. I'm struggling with the idea that the country that knew he was not well when it hired him to keep us all safe now wants him executed for desertion. 

In the meantime, the next generation of Swift Boat propaganda comes of age.

ERIK B. ANDERSON 

Independence Township

LETTER: Why is ex-sheriff Bullock still getting a pension?

By Express-Times Letters to the Editor 
on March 08, 2014 at 12:59 AM, updated March 08, 2014 at 1:03 AM

 It is encouraging to hear that the state of New Jersey “may reconsider” whether or not to continue dispensing a pension to retired Warren County Sheriff Edward G. Bullock in light of his recent indictment on six counts of child sexual abuse, allegedly committed while on duty as sheriff. Those who vote with an eye toward fiscal issues will be very pleased, I am sure.

 In the sixth paragraph of The Express-Times article about this, however, I was astounded to find that Bullock has yet to turn himself in. The indictment was handed up 10 days ago. Last month.

Any reasonable person would presume he collected another payment on March 1. I do hope that we will not have to wait until after April 1 for an arrest warrant to be issued. That would be the worst kind of joke.

ERIK B. ANDERSON

Independence Township

The People of New Jersey Have Been Warned

Domestic-violence registry a flawed plan
Daily Record - Nov. 30, 2013

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora announced on the radio that he was going to save the women of New Jersey from abusive “husbands and boyfriends” by introducing legislation that would create a registry for those found to have committed domestic violence.

Never mind his gender-biased language. Never mind studies sponsored by the state Department of Corrections, Rutgers and others that have shown sex offender registries have had no effect on sexual offense statistics. Repeat sexual offenses have actually increased slightly because of the climate of fear created by the Scarlet Letter-like list, which gives offenders nothing left to lose. Never mind that restraining orders are handed out in divorce cases like candy by the courts.

No one wants to think, much less talk about the climate of fear these lists would create. The honorable assemblyman scored some points for women. Ostensibly.

It turns out that he did introduce the legislation on Tuesday but made no announcement whatsoever about it. Not even on Wednesday.

In the media, this is called a holiday eve news dump.

Erik B. Anderson
HACKETTSTOWN

LETTER: 'Obama lied' is a smoke screen

By Express-Times Letters to the Editor
on November 20, 2013 at 12:35 AM

The claim is “Obama lied.” He said Americans can keep their insurance plan. He allegedly lied multiple times to pass the loathsome Affordable Care Act. That is the claim: over and over, on and on we hear this shrill claim, ad nauseum. Why now?

In June 2010, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said “health plans ... will lose their grandfather status; Health and Human Services announced “substantial changes in coverage are common;” and The New York Times reported “about half of employer-based health plans will see such changes by the end of 2013 (June 14, 2010).” Way back in November 2009, the Congressional Budget Office explained “relatively few non-group policies would remain grandfathered by 2016.”

Why all this shock and outrage now? Why has the right not played gotcha like this before? Why: to distract from the spectacular bad press of the government shutdown. Did they think we would forget that the House failed to repeal the bill 46 times? The desperation is palpable.

ERIK B. ANDERSON 

Independence Township 

Source

LTTE: Violence Against Women Act steps on due process

By Express-Times Letters to the Editor
on March 07, 2013 at 12:50 AM

The problem is not that the Violence Against Women Act discriminates against men by not “protecting” alleged victims who are men. It’s that it purports to be protecting “victims” against so-called “abusers” without allowing the due process of law to determine exactly who is a victim and who is an abuser.

Since complaints of this nature are now heard in family court instead of criminal court, the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard is replaced by the much less stringent “preponderance of evidence.” Restraining orders and protection-from-abuse orders can be granted without the accused even knowing about the complaint, much less able to defend against it

And what a scandal if anyone objects! After all, if you’re against VAWA, your political opponents can say you are for violence against women!

This is not a free country.

ERIK B. ANDERSON
Independence Township

Source

LTTE: Public officials see ‘threats’ everywhere

Public officials see ‘threats’ everywhere

View full sizeAP Photo | MATT ROURKE

Warren County Sheriff David Gallant essentially says he “can’t tell” what a threat is anymore because of the rise of social media websites (“Threats to judges taken seriously in age of Facebook and Twitter, authorities say,” Feb. 24).

Oh, how easy it is for public officials to blame their own ignorance on some indescribable patina of mystification descending on us all by a strange new mysterious phenomena.

Blah, blah, blah. Bollocks, I say.

There’s no confusion about what a threat is. Look it up. This is a serious issue that needs to be clarified, quick.

Last week a man in Cincinnati was ordered by a judge to post a groveling apology to his wife on Facebook because of a previous post that said “all you need to do is say that you’re scared of your husband or domestic partner and they’ll take (your child) away.”

That’s political speech. A judge ordered a man around for it. Not an isolated incident.

Concerned citizens need to vent, but the Violence Against Women Act ensures an accused man will be punished even if the accusation turns out to be false.

In most cases, judges are immune from prosecution, even if their erroneous decisions profoundly harm families.

And if it’s in family court? The watchdog eye of the media is forbidden to ever know what happened.

This is pure insanity. If we are made to be afraid to vent by easily offended ignorant public officials, it’s time to have them removed from office.

ERIK ANDERSON

Independence Township

Published: Monday, February 27, 2012, 4:21 AM

Son Grateful

click to read

New Jersey needs people to stay, fight

Letter to the Editor - Express-Times Newspaper

An expatriated friend of mine encouraged me to “get out of New Jersey” the other day. That phrase comes up a lot (usually preceded by “dirty jerzy,” corruption, property taxes, “the Soprano state,” etc.) and for the umpteenth time now, it perplexes me. I was always taught the grass is greener on the other side. If I were to leave, where would I go?

I was born in Morristown. Except for a few years of college, I have lived in the Garden State my whole life. I can trace my family tree back to pre-revolutionary New Jersey. I don’t know anything else.

I feel very much trapped here. Many things are beyond frustrating, but what really gets me mad is the knee-jerk reaction so many people have just to flee the state.

How is it patriotic to fight for our country and not for our state? Stay. Fight. Make things better for the next generation. Abandonment is not a solution.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: “A man who hasn’t found something he is willing to die for is not fit to live.”

If staying here and suffering makes me crazy, then I’m crazy, but so was Dr. King.

ERIK B. ANDERSON
Independence Township

This letter is being discussed on HackettstownLife.com.

Published Again - Nov. 7, 2010

Read the letter at the DailyRecord.com.

Man wants to stay and fight for New Jersey

Letters to the Editor
Daily Record - November 7, 2010

An expatriated friend of mine encouraged me to "get out of New Jersey" the other day. That phrase comes up a lot and for the umpteenth time now, it perplexes me. I was always taught the grass is greener on the other side. If I were to leave, where would I go?

I was born in Morristown. Except for a few years of college, I have lived in the Garden State my whole life. I can trace my family tree back to pre-revolutionary New Jersey. I don't know anything else.

I feel very much trapped here. Many things are beyond frustrating; but what really gets me mad is the knee-jerk reaction so many people have just to flee the state. How is it patriotic to fight for our country and not for our state? Stay. Fight. Make things better for the next generation. Abandonement is not a solution.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: "A man who hasn't found something he is willing to die for is not fit to live."

If staying here and suffering makes me crazy, then I'm crazy. But so was King.

Erik B. Anderson

Published Again - September 16, 2010

Express-Times Newspaper - Letters to the Editor- September 16, 2010

Cut through the pretext to uncover real message

A tyrant will always find a pretext for his (or her) tyranny.

A recent letter writer’s is that people find fault with the Taxed Enough Already party’s activities. The TEA critics’ very presence here “indicates that there are now Americans who prefer to become subjects rather than citizens” — so watch your back, people! She believes that people, such as me, audacious enough to criticize her party, are voluntarily making ourselves slaves to the federal government and this is all very “tragic.”

But Nancy Baumgartner is wrong. She does not think Tea Party critics are tragic. She thinks we are stupid: “It is not surprising that a significant number of vocal Tea Party critics know what the acronym even stands for,” she writes. That sentence is the real object of her letter.

What is unsurprising to me is that a militant Tea Party supporter does not know the definition of the word “tragic.” A real tragedy is a contradiction of principles.

ERIK B. ANDERSON
Independence Township

I know this is not my best letter. It has got a lot of abstract concepts in it, like "pretext" and "tragedy" and "contradiction" and "principles". But I am grateful for the opportunity to be heard. I made my point about Nancy Baumgarten's tragically twisted letter of September 6. I just wish the editor who chose the title of the Letters page online could understand that the one who is offbase is Nancy Baumgarten, the one who criticized the Tea Party critics, but I guess I fell into the same conundrum that the movie Inception (or the play Marat/Sade) did.

That's what living with Asperger's is like. you say something, and it makes sense. It objectively makes perfect sense. But expecting other people to understand what I have just said is a whole other thing.

It's like a game of telephone. Just look at my words, not the editors words. Think about it. You are free to think what you want. They will be the same words today, tomorrow and they will still be there, at the Warren County library 50 years from now, assuming another fire doesn't destroy those records too.

If I had to write it over again, I would say: Nancy Baumgartner wants to be Desdemona or Ophelia, but she doesn't understand that tragedy does not mean loss. The fact that tea parties are a bunch of losers who will never get anywhere is not tragic. The fact that Tea Party cricis like me will never go away. Tragedy means a contradiction of principles. She does not belong in one of Shakespeare's tragedies. She belongs in his comedies. Nancy Baumbartner is Katherine.

Warm Regards,

Erik B. Anderson
Independence Township, New Jersey


* * *

"A tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny." is from:

The Wolf and the Lamb
by Aesop

Read the Express-Times Tomorrow! 9/16/10

I wrote a letter to the editor. A response to Nancy Baumgartner's September 9th letter below. I got confirmation that they are going to print it. Check the news stand or http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/.

Tea Party: Limit feds to constitutional powers
Its not surprising that a significant number of vocal TEA Party critics do not even know what the acronym, “TEA” stands for and what the purpose of the movement is. TEA stands for “Taxed Enough Already.” With the average small business already paying more than 40 percent in earnings to state and federal taxes and fees, this is obviously true.

Moreover, TEA participants are here to remind our now-hostile federal government that expanding its power past those enumerated in the U.S. Constitution will not go unchallenged. Our government is to govern, and it has veered into ruling.

Finding a problem with TEA activities indicates that there are now Americans who prefer to become subjects rather than citizens. Tragic.

NANCY BAUMGARTNER
Oxford

UPDATE: Here's my letter:

Fight, don't join, the terrorists

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The tea partiers are consciously trying to induce a public nervous breakdown.

Whether they are sending death threats to a congressman's 5-year-old son in Florida, violently throwing money at a man with Parkinson's disease on an Ohio sidewalk or maliciously shouting the "N" word at African-American representatives at an event in Washington, D.C., the effect is utterly terrifying.

The mass hysteria that is today's Tea Party shows that the majority of us have forgotten we are supposed to be fighting terrorists, not becoming them. Do they really think the end justify the means?

When are we the people going to realize that we are not crazy after all? When will we stand up to all of this bullying? We are not safe in public. We are not safe in our homes. What will the future of our country be like if no one risks stepping out and fighting back?

Erik B. Anderson

Independence Township

Published Again!

Fight, don't join, the terrorists
The Easton Express Times
Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The tea partiers are consciously trying to induce a public nervous breakdown.
Whether they are sending death threats to a congressman's 5-year-old son in Florida, violently throwing money at a man with Parkinson's disease on an Ohio sidewalk or maliciously shouting the "N" word at African-American representatives at an event in Washington, D.C., the effect is utterly terrifying.

The mass hysteria that is today's Tea Party shows that the majority of us have forgotten we are supposed to be fighting terrorists, not becoming them. Do they really think the end justify the means?

When are we the people going to realize that we are not crazy after all? When will we stand up to all of this bullying? We are not safe in public. We are not safe in our homes. What will the future of our country be like if no one risks stepping out and fighting back?

Erik B. Anderson
Independence Township

The King of All NJ Monthly Letters To The Editor

New Jersey Monthly Magazine - February 2010 - On The Stands Now!



Click Here to Read All of Page 12

* * * * * * * * * * * *


Rooooots Bloody Rooooots!

Traffic is a Serious Problem in Hackettstown

Hackettstown sits at the bottom of Schooley's Mountain.  The Musconetcong river turns west towards Philipsburg where the Golden Skillet, which is one of the last privately owned Fast Food restaurants in New Jersey. It's a classic. In fact, it was my father's favorite restaurant, but it also would be nice if we could knock it down and build a road over where it is, so that we could reduce traffic on Mountain Avenue making it not the most dangerous road in New Jersey anymore. Here's a letter I am proud of that I wrote to the Warren Reporter about this issue.


Click on picture to read Erik's letter.


I didn't choose the title "Shame on state". I wasn't trying to blast them. It is just a difficult situation.

Most of the bypass would affect Washington Township (Morris County) but most of the benefit would go to the Town of Hackettstown, so, if the Highlands Council were to permit, it's very much Washington Township's decision to do it or not. But, as you know, in Northwest New Jersey, everybody watches Fox News and listens to Rush Limbaugh (at least all the elected officials do), so there is a slim chance in hell that.

Also, this fight is not even a problem because the Highlands Council has designated all of Washington Township (Morris County) a protected territory, so they aren't developing anything on the other side of the Musconetcong. The Highlands Act and the Highlands Council is very controversial in Northwest New Jersey. Most of the rest of the state gets it's water from up here, and the residents up here don't like it.

Just google "Highlands Act NJ" or "Highlands Council NJ" and you'll see what I mean.

Here are just a few resources you can look at to find out more, if you want:

-New Jersey Highlands Council (Official Website)
-New Jersey Highlands Council - Master Plan
-Environmental Controversy, New Jersey Style: The Highlands Council and the NJ DEP - NJ.com Blog
-Lower affordable-housing quotas by Highlands Council might entice towns to follow its plan - Hunterdon County Democrat
-Landowners looking to take Highlands lawsuit to New Jersey Supreme Court - Express-Times
and the most recent news from my Township:

-Independence Township rejects state Highlands law mandate- Express-Times, Nov. 14, 2009

So I hope that makes you aware of what is perhaps the most pressing issue in Northwest New Jersey. It's all inter-related. If you think of something you can do to help, like go to a meeting and speak out, or write a letter, please do it. We need all the help we can get.

Warm Regards,

Erik B. Anderson
Independence Township, New Jersey
Established 1782

Show compassion for troubled person - LTTE

Letter to the Editor - Express-Times Newspaper  - Tuesday, October 13, 2009

I've been thinking a lot about the man who was arrested for taking a bath in public in Belvidere. He had been living in his car outside the Warren County Courthouse for several months after he lost his house. Finally, The Express-Times reported he had had enough and tried to get the filth off of himself in public because he thought he had nowhere else to go.

I met this man over the summer, just a few weeks before the incident. So I read the article with interest. He had a sign on his car window that said he was running for Warren County surrogate because he didn't like the way Susan Dickey had handled his case after the last of his parents died. He had a genuine tin-foil helmet in his backseat.

I am not writing to continue the ridicule that this man has surely received since his face appeared on the front page of the paper under the headline, "Naked man arrested." I am sorry if this letter has that effect on him. The real intent of this letter is to encourage readers to be more compassionate to him. I certainly hope his accusations are false, but if some of them are true, I hope the officials who made the mistakes will read this and do their jobs in an exemplary manner in the future. With the economy going the way it is going, one thing is certain: We are going to encounter more cases such as this.

ERIK B. ANDERSON
Independence Township