There are plans made well in advance for storms, and the Governor generally doesn’t run a plow.  Technology allows the governor to be in constant communication.

For us, it was just a pretty snowstorm, but for others, there is good reason for upset as their streets were not plowed for days, and emergency vehicles cannot get to homes during times like this.  But does this mean someone has to be blamed?

I hope some of you out there are enjoying the snow, that none of you were harmed by it (share your story in a comment if so), and wish you all a Happy New Year.

Here is a time-line, so to speak, of the movement here in New Jersey:

1776 – It was Abagail Adams that wrote to her husband, John Adams, asking that woman not be forgotten in the new laws of our new Nation. In the constitution, all “inhabitants” of the land, without distinction of sex or race were given the right to vote…but in New Jersey (and perhaps elsewhere) the voters were to be property owners. If a woman was married, her husband was the property owner, so if my history is correct, only woman who were single and widows were permitted to vote.

Another source states that woman who possessed $250 were permitted to vote.

1787 – Women in all states except New Jersey lost their right to vote when the US Constitutional Convention gave States the right to set their own qualifications.

1807 – New Jersey joined the other States by revoking the right of women to vote – as well as aliens, and persons of color (Negros). Only white males were permitted to vote, the claim being that it would simplify things and help to eliminate fraud.

It was in 1920 that women throughout the United States won the right to vote through an amendment to the Constitution…ratified in 1920. You can find complete Women’s Suffrage time-lines at the following links:

100 Years Toward Suffrage

Votes for Women State by State

Womens Suffrage Events Timeline

Women’s Rights Timeline

What he is doing in our State is so very different from what the President is doing in our Nation…he is making everyone share the challenge of cutting back, something I wish was happening in our Nation.

I guess in my simplistic way I see this as a kind of experiment….what will be the outcome of what our Governor is doing in our State as opposed to what our President and his administration is doing to our Nation.

I don’t know if the experiment will work, because of concern about how what is being done on the National level will affect what happens to each State.

Time will tell, but I’m pleased for the most part with what Governor Christie is doing, even if sometimes it hurts.

I rarely share political opinions on here, but I’m just sayin….

Jon Corzine’s Compassionate Conservatism

By: Stuart Nachbar

Here in New Jersey, the Garden State, we have a governor who has just proposed to make $500 million in permanent spending cuts, refinance state debt, reduce municipal aid, eliminate two cabinet departments, and introduce tougher standards in math and science education.

These are proposals that you might expect from a Republican, but Jon Corzine is a fiscally conservative, moderate to liberal social issues Democrat. Corzine, a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, one of the oldest white shoe Wall Street investment firms, governs New Jersey as if he doesn’t need the job. He’s taken his budget on the road to the voters; for the most part the media has shown that they have a tough time swallowing the bitter pill, but they are willing to listen. New Jersey does not have the best reputation for honest politics; two journalists just came out with a book calling Jersey the Sopranos State, but Corzine may be just the man to turn that image around.

There is a difference between Jon Corzine and the so called compassionate conservatives who try to sell tax and spending cuts, as well as standards, and hope things all work out before the next election.

The debate in New Jersey is not over what government should give up, but on what it should do well. Garden Staters north and south place a premium on environmental protection, toll roads and public transportation, given New Jersey is sandwiched between New York City and Philadelphia. We are also a state with over 570 municipal governments and over 600 school districts; local control is sacrament in education more than any other public service.

Corzine is not trying to force feed draconian cuts or impose values on others; he’s raised a debate to tell the legislature and the voters that the state can’t afford to be business as usual. His own proposals are a challenge to Democrats — who control the legislature and Republicans to put up or shut up and come up with a plan. There are services that every state government must perform for its citizens: law enforcement and public safety, judiciary, Medicaid disbursement, K 12 and higher education, maintain state highways, negotiating compacts with other states on transportation and environmental issues, being examples. Then there’s the rest of the budget.

For instance, on the surface, Corzine’s proposals to eliminate the departments of Agriculture and Personnel make more sense than other cuts. Agriculture is but one sector of our state’s economy; it makes no sense to give a cabinet level position to a single industry. We don’t have a secretary of technology or pharmacy. Agriculture is but one plank on an economic development platform in any state government. There’s no need for a state department of personnel when each and every state agency has their own human resource professionals who can align their work, jobs and wages to their agency’s mission. There’s no need for another set of bureaucratic hoops.

When this was proposed I had to wonder: why didn’t a previous governor think of it before? This makes perfect sense.

It’s the kind of creative thinking we need in our state.

(Originally published at Educated Quest blog and reprinted with permission of the author, Stuart Nachbar).

Author Resource:-> Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.

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• He was born in the West Indies, an illegitimate child to Rachel Fawcett Lavien and James Hamilton.
• He came to America around 1772 and lived in NY
• His guardian hoped to enroll him in College of New Jersey, but he ended up attending what would become Columbia University in New York
• He enlisted in the militia, his skills caught the eye of George Washington who commissioned him as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Army
• He lead a regiment in the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.
• He was an elected member of the Continental Congress
• and his accomplishments go on, including being the first Secretary of Treasury

But the part of his life that capture the imagination, as if all the above isn’t enough, is how his life ended. After leaving the government, Hamilton returned to law. He did not support the leader of the nation at that time, President John Adams, and was against his re-election in 1800. He also did not like Aaron Burr who was running for the Presidency, hoping to win over Thomas Jefferson. Now Hamilton didn’t like Jefferson or his policies, but he decided to support Jefferson over Burr because he didn’t think Burr was a man of principle.

This angered Burr, and he challenged Hamilton to a duel…I thought these were things that you just saw in movies, or Westerns, not actions that were carried out by civilized men, but I am obviously wrong, because Hamilton took Burr up on his challenge. On July 11th of 1804 the two men met in Weehawken, NJ. From accounts that I have read, Hamilton shot his gun into the air, perhaps not wanting to actually do harm, and with his military training and skills, I’m sure he could easily have hit his mark. However, Burr aimed directly at his opponent, and Hamilton died the next day of his wound. He is buried in New York City at Trinity Church Yard.

What surprised me is that the man who was the first Secretary of the Treasury for our country left his wife and his 7 children with a large number of debts that they could not pay, but those debts were paid by friends who appreciated his service our Nation.