Steve Kalafer: His Imprint on a Community

 

Occasionally, if a community is lucky, it is graced with a person like Steve Kalafer, a man who measured his success not merely as to how he built his wealth from scratch, but who saw himself as responsible for employing his substantial resources to support benevolent organizations, and a host of people less fortunate in life.

One of Kalafer’s principal legacies to Somerset County, NJ reflects his love for baseball; namely, TD Bank Ballpark, the stadium that he built in Bridgewater and the team to go with it:  the Somerset Patriots, now a Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. 

Some might think that Steve missed the opportunity to see the first pitch thrown for the 2021 season, but others will think of him and say that he will be cheering his team to victory from a higher vantage point.

The Center of “Excellence” (?) – A Done Deal?

October 26, 2019

On Monday, September 23, I attended a public hearing of Bridgewater’s Planning Board about a proposal for a major mixed-use development project on the site of the property vacated by Sanofi-Aventis on Route 202/206 South, after the company moved its research and development activities to Cambridge, Massachusetts, upon the acquisition of Genzyme, a major leader in the biotech industry.


This plan is highly contentious and disruptive to the character, demographics, and traffic issues of the area, while also disregarding the impact upon the small, historic village of Pluckemin, our neighbor very close by to the north on Route 202/206.

As a result, it has spawned a flood of opposition from a Bridgewater community that feels itself largely, if not wholly left out of the process.


I concur with the logic and claims of Preserve Bridgewater, a large, significantly meaningful group of Bridgewater Township citizens which has banded together to make its case against what it perceives as runaway development.


The Process:  The procedures in place at the October 23 Planning Board meeting were heavily skewed in favor of the site’s owner, Advance Properties which pushed its agenda forward on steroids that evening.

The Center has Collapsed

If there are two things that I don’t like, they are these: 

Hypocrisy and mendacity – two nefariously complementary characteristics which have been on full display in the Senate hearings of Brett Cavanaugh for appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.


I’m not going into preferences here, but I will go into the behavior of the Senate Judiciary Committee and its overly sycophantic supporters of whatever persuasion.

McCarrick: Zenith of Perfidy and Hypocrisy

So much has been written in recent days about Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.,  a man who once held one of the most powerful and influential positions in the American Catholic Church, that it is almost redundant to revisit the ugly details.

What seems more pertinent to me at this moment is to share a few words which symptomatically describe the behavior of this man. 

Several days ago, I came across an ancient, highly appropriate source that fits this man’s conduct, and have adapted it to the current situation while preserving its intent:

There was no fear of God in his twinkling eyes . . .

Because, in the morning, in the mirror, he flattered himself too much to detect his own sin . . .

During the day, cunning words of deceit spilled from his mouth as he rejected goodness and wisdom . . .

Even when he lay in his bed at night, he plotted the next day’s evil . . .

. . . To which he committed himself while rejecting what is wrong.

Simple, isn’t it?

The preceding excerpt reflects my situational adaptation of the first few verses of Psalm 36, which I came upon in one of my early morning readings. 

The sages who penned the original sentiments nearly three millennia ago were right on point in properly describing the never-ending human perfidy and hypocrisy housed in the mind of some humans.

Preserving National Memory

On a late morning, on July 25, 2012, while visiting family, we found ourselves in Arlington National Cemetery, paying respect to the brave souls who gave their lives for our American republic.

As we walked these sacred grounds among seemingly endless grave markers, we came across the ceremony of a solder being laid to rest with full honors.

Memorial Day is about remembrance -- the price of freedom. We may not be a perfect country, but it beats the alternatives.