COLUMNIST
Governor Christie has built the most formidable stable of scapegoats and political piñatas in New Jersey history.
It's a lonely and unforgiving place for late-career patronage hires, late-career school officials and a former governor who spent $100 million sorting out a mid-life career crisis. He has branded them as selfish or cowardly caretakers of the public weal. They are beyond redemption.
Trotting them out for a news-cycle slam has its pitfalls. Christie can be sloppy, diving into diatribes without always having his facts in order, as we learned in the "Race to the Top" fiasco in August. And some targets are singled out more for being Democrats, while Republican offenders are treated with kid gloves.
Here is a look at three Christie piñatas and how the attack narrative is often an incomplete, inconsistent story.
Leroy Seitz, Parsippany-Troy Hills superintendent of schools.
Seitz earned entry into Christie's Land of the Unforgiven last week after neg
On a recent afternoon Jonathan Caflun, a sophomore at Ridgewood High School, raced home after school with two friends, not to play video games, but to make vanilla crepes.
The teens had recently learned in their family and consumer sciences course (once known as home economics) how to make the delicate French pancakes and were excited to test the recipe at home. "We were hungry and said, 'Let's do it tonight,' " said Caflun, a strawberry blond, shaggy-haired teen who is vice president of his school's food club.
Growing up on a steady diet of Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentiis, and generous portions of nail-biting cooking competitions, kids are becoming more and more passionate about food. The mass popularization of food culture has trickled down to these impressionable junior foodies, who are increasingly interested in cooking, nutrition and understanding how the food system fits into their communities.