The following article comes courtesy of the folks at New York Jersey Boys Tickets.

Sandwiched between Pennsylvania and New York, the state of New Jersey also known as the garden state has often been likened to a tapered barrel open at both ends. Overshadowed by the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, New Jersey is often not given its due by visitors, though it is a wonderland in its own right. Coasts, mountains, national parks, the arts, sports, Theatres, amusement parks and casinos, New Jersey has them all.

Home to approximately 40 museums on themes as diverse as arts, aviation, military, children, agriculture, golf, mining and what not, New Jersey does not disappoint a knowledge crawler. Add to this, the 15 major theatre companies and concert halls that compete with the theatrical magnificence of Broadway across the bay and have over the years held fort. Evita, Cats and Annie are all there for the culturally inclined.

42 Parks, 11 forests, 3 recreation areas and over 50 historic sites and districts are enough to satiate your activity urge and keep you away from home and your nagging wife / husband long enough. New Jersey was a hotbed of revolutionary unrest during the American civil war days and there are many well preserved historical sights of American importance.

Keeping up to its promise of something for everybody, the state packs about 10 amusement parks including Fantasy Island, Clementon, Hurricane Harbor and the land of the make believe. Camden waterfront, sky lands and Cape May all add up to one big family adventure. Roll up your fishing rods; dig out your camping gear and get the RV ready for that long promised trip with the kids.

But any mention of NJ entertainment is incomplete without the mention of Atlantic City, which truly lives up to its slogan of “always turned on”. Atlantic City is much more than just a humongous Casino; it is NJ’s answer to Vegas. With events, nightlife, spas, golf, fishing and water sports vying with slot machines and roulette tables, it is a fantasy land, a “must experience” in any NJ entertainment plan. It’s a place where the high and mighty shake a leg with the wannabes, where dreams are born and hopes shattered at casino tables. Where the gambler and the rationalist in you shamelessly expose the multiple personalities we all have inside us. Bally’s, Trump Plaza and the famously infamous Trump Taj Mahal are all inviting you to roll the dice, coaxing you to stake, ready to seduce you with its glamour.

And towering above all this is the grand lady, the symbol of America to the rest of the world, the famous Statue of Liberty. Entertaining in its own ways with the loads of trivia surrounding it, for example, how many of us Americans are aware that the statue was made in France? And gift from the republic of France to the great new hope called America? Now that is entertaining, isn’t it?

Al is the author and webmaster of a New York Jersey Boys resource website.

Unless you live under a rock or you don’t follow politics to any great degree, then you know that the new buzzword in the Presidential campaigns is “change.” The Iowa caucuses and the national polling data all indicate that the people want change from their government. I agree - I want change from my government, too. So far in the campaign the term “change” has largely benefited Senator Barack Obama, though the Republicans and Senator Hillary Clinton are trying to put the concept of change to work for their campaigns.

But I hope someone who is working for their individual campaigns is telling these candidates that winning the Presidency on the concept of “change” is not the best way to win the hearts and minds of the populace in the long-term. Why, you ask? Simple. What does change mean to you?

Think about it. What does change mean to you? Change, to me, means that I won’t be stuck in a position where roughly 35% of my income goes towards paying student loans when I was a straight A student all throughout my academic career. My change means that my desire to trade in my current gas-guzzling SUV for a hybrid car would become a reality in short order (my finances say otherwise). For me, change means that we stop spending hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars on other countries and we redirect that money back into America and American technology. I consider change no longer hearing the right/left bickering in America and, instead, seeing a strong third party or even a third and fourth party rise to break the grip that this double-headed monster has on American politics.

I could go on and talk about how change should mean more tax dollars directed towards upgrading America’s physical infrastructure (roads and bridges) and how change means that local police forces will be mandated to truly serve and protect and not act as a fundraiser for local governments. I would say that change means taking care of unfinished business: i.e. making the accepted language for the last 400 years in the American settlements, colonies, and states the official language of this country. Change should mean that if the United Nations is going to be a feasible world-body, then it should be equitably funded by ALL member countries and it should be corruption free. My concept of “change” means that we - as a nation - will respect every last letter in the Constitution and if that means that the majority of America rules over the minority, then that’s what it means (it’s what it’s supposed to mean!).

There’s so much more that “change” means to me, but this is exactly my point. Any Presidential candidate who embodies change (and Obama embodies it the most right now) will need to have a clearly defined agenda during the second half of this Presidential campaign. Saying “change” will win primaries today and it may win an election tomorrow, but when the American people do NOT see things changing around them, then things can start to get very, very ugly.

What does change mean to you? I’d be interested to know.

After listening to Governor Mike Huckabee make a great comment during the ABC News Presidential debates tonight, I had to quote him here. When asked about illegal immigration and what he would do, Governor Huckabee said a bunch of things, but one quote caught my mind:

“When people live in the United States, they ought to have their head up - they ought not to live in fear. Everytime they see a police car, they shouldn’t run and hide. Nobody ought to live like that in this country.”

Ha ha ha ha!!! Governor Huckabee!

I like Governor Huckabee - I really don’t have any major gripe against him, but at this point in the campaign I really don’t have a desire to learn much more about where he stands on each issue (remember, as an independent I can’t vote in New Jersey’s primaries without declaring a party - which I won’t do). But let me make this comment about Governor Huckabee’s quote up there…

As a person with a larger-than-normal degree of empathy, I can appreciate the fact that illegal immigrants are forced to live in a manner that many of us find abhorrent. Yet while I find the Governor’s statement to be a great political quote and one worthy of repeating, I wonder when a candidate will step up and make the same, truthful comparison about the good old boy system that has ravaged New Jersey and many other areas of this country.

In other words, I lived through some of the worst abuses of civil liberties that I’ve ever seen when I was a college student renting a home in Ocean Township, New Jersey. Police officers sat outside of our house, they routinely followed my roommates into the driveway of our home and questioned them at all hours of the day (and night), they would open up the front door of our house at 2am and walk through and tell us they were “just checking” even when only 2 people were home. It was a disgusting abuse of power that took place 6 - 8 years ago and to this day my roommates and I have a great disgust for the Ocean Township law enforcement and a much greater disgust for the anti-college student feeling in Ocean Township.

We ARE the people who see police cars with “Ocean Township” on the side of them and we attempt to run and hide because we know that in this town you can be arrested (or at least given a big money ticket) for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s happened to my former roommates, it’s happened to our friends, and it’s happened to me damn it. And I don’t buy the crap that we were “rowdy college students living in family neighborhoods.” Bullshit on that! We weren’t nearly as rowdy as the “family” that lived two doors down from us with the high school-aged daughter who was selling drugs to half of the town. Our rent (our very HIGH rent, I might add) paid the same taxes the rest of the town paid. And, we added a great deal to the local economy.

So I love Governor Huckabee’s comment that no one in America should live in fear of the police. But what happens when the local police (or an entire state’s police system) has turned into nothing more than a civil liberties abusing fundraising arm of the politicians? It’s disgusting and if America really wants “change” then we all need to start by no longer permitting the vast abuses of power that we see at the local level.

Right now? Yes! One of my favorite blogs to visit, Riehl World View, put a post up this morning that said the following:

Funny, everyone will say Romney is done for coming in second, but Hillary is fine with third? I’ll make this short, because Iowa only proved one thing - the Republicans are in big trouble.

The energy and participation is off the charts on the Dem side. It went up on the Republican side due to the Evangelical vote. That’s great, but it isn’t enough to win a general election.

The fact is, as things stand, the Republicans don’t have a candidate that can win nationally in 2008.

This is dead on target. Obama is going to turn a lot of the established Democratic heads with the amount of younger support and independent excitement that he brings to the table in this Presidential race. And as a guy who generally does not vote for the Democrats, I’m even excited about something new coming from Barack Obama - though I’m not quite sure what his exact policies are and how they would have a direct effect (if any) on me.

It seems that the Riehl World View post is correct and that Republicans are lacking both excitement and new participation. There really is no, “Oh my God, I have to go vote for this person,” candidate on the Republican side. The only one that comes close is Ron Paul and he’s more of an old school, late 1800’s/early 1900’s conservative (we call them Libertarians today) than he is a modern-day Republican.

While on this topic, I also want to comment that if you’re paying attention and watching the Republican race you can see that the voters WANT someone to be excited about and someone to be jumping up and down over. The majority of voters were disenfranchised with Rudy Giuliani going into the race and then they discovered Mitt Romney and you saw some excitement. Then the voters learned more about Romney and how he’s more of a return to politics as usual and you saw the excitement transfer to Mike Huckabee. Now you’re seeing some of that excitement transfer to John McCain in New Hampshire, but the fact still remains that Obama is bringing new and younger voters out to voice their opinions. No one else is doing that in either party, period.

Last night’s Iowa caucuses weren’t overly surprising (except Clinton taking third for the Democrats). Huckabee felt his “huck-a-boom” continue (I hate that phrase) and it appears that Obama was able to mobilize enough young voters and get enough second choice caucus-goers to move in his direction to take a big lead over Edwards and Clinton. And in case you haven’t heard, both Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden have bowed out of the Presidential race. If a Democrat ultimately becomes President, though, I hope that Joe Biden is kept in mind for a Cabinet post - he’s a decent guy. Dodd? Eh, I was never too hot on his bid.

In an odd circumstance, it appears that the story coming out of Iowa is all about New Hampshire. Given the close time frame between the two contests, all of the candidates spent last night in Iowa (except McCain and Giuliani) and woke up this morning in New Hampshire. For the Republicans, I think we’re in for a tough fight between McCain and Romney in New Hampshire and there is always the possibility of having the Huckabee surge continue and overtake either of the front runners. If Huckabee places a close second to McCain or wins, I think it’ll signal the end for the Romney campaign. The x factor here is whether or not the New Hampshire voters are swayed by Iowa and the inevitability of Romney going big-time negative with his campaigning.

For the Democrats, I think we’ve got an interesting situation going on. Clinton is not one to take losing in Iowa lightly, so the x factor for the Republican race carries over to the Democratic race, too. It is almost inevitable that the Clinton war machine will fire up and start throwing some attacks at Obama and Edwards now that she’s in 3rd place. How the New Hampshire voters respond to this will set the stage for the primary vote. And I think everyone needs to keep an eye on Bill Richardson. Governor Richardson claimed this morning that entrance polls showed him at 10% going into the caucuses last night. If this is true (and it seems true) and the Biden, Dodd, and disenfranchised supporters go to Richardson, then he could possibly poll at 13% - 15% going into the primary elections in the Western states, where he is expected to do well. Richardson taking a strong third place finish behind Obama and Clinton after Super Tuesday is over isn’t out of the question by any means.

And finally, there is the independent factor in these races, which I think benefits only Ron Paul. When I say independent, I’m talking about those people who are apolitical or those who despise Republicans and Democrats equally. Congressman Paul has made a small impact on the Republican race and I think that if he plays his cards right he can make a much bigger one in the Presidential race. He’s obviously not going to win the nomination, but he has the support and now he has the name recognition to drop out of the race some time in April and join with Michael Bloomberg and his band of independent, bipartisan thinkers. If this happens (and it seems somewhat unlikely), then I would bet a Ron Paul independent run could pull as much as 25% of the national vote, if not more.

But that’s the pipe dream stance in the overall picture. Now, add Richardson to the Bloomberg/Paul scenario and I believe you’ve got a bipartisan Presidential winner in 2008.

One of the bigger (and more useless) debates going on in New Jersey right now is whether or not the state should officially recognize the evils of early American slavery and then apologize for slavery. This seems like a nice gesture and I guess there is no material harm done by issuing an official, “My bad,” for slavery. I do wonder, however, the relevancy of such an apology given that it’s 2008 and the slaves were freed in 1863…145 years ago.

Not only was no one who is currently alive on this earth alive back in 1863, but many people in America (especially the Northeast) are second and third generation families of immigrants. My grandparents on my Father’s side only came to America in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s! And, being of Italian descent living in New York City, they were subject to many types of racial and ethnic discrimination. Of course you never hear about the American-Italians asking for apologies or reparations…

So I don’t have an ideological problem with New Jersey saying sorry, but I certainly would not add my voice to that chorus. I have no reason to be sorry because my family wasn’t here during that time period and further, my “people” were discriminated against in their own way (I’m Irish and Italian - my “people” got beaten up in many different ways!). I am, however, somewhat sad to hear that this is what New Jersey legislators are debating. You would think lowering the state’s expenses, finding a way to equitably fund schools, saving the thousands of New Jersey homeowners who are stuck in bad subprime positions, and ensuring that suburban sprawl is minimized while smart growth is maximized would be at the top of the agenda. I guess not…

The Daily Record ran a story this morning about the Headquarters Plaza Fitness Club abruptly shutting down in Morristown. This echoes the same out-of-the-blue closing of the Ocean Fitness Company - both gyms were owned by The Fitness Company, a group out of Holmdel.

There is something up with The Fitness Company organization. They aren’t returning phone calls and they aren’t refunding membership fees even if you joined an expensive plan the day before they closed up shop. It would appear that a bunch of greedy punks are running the show over there - or at least a bunch of greedy punks took over the company and are now running it into the ground. This is a shame for many reasons, not the least of which is the community aspect of health clubs. The Ocean Fitness Company was more of a place-based company than it was a branch of the The Fitness Company. In fact, two years ago it changed its name from “The Fitness Company” to “Ocean Fitness” to reflect that fact.

The same is true of all gyms and health clubs. The people who go to these places form friendships and expand their personal networks. To see such innate community building torn apart because of some person’s greed is a shame, yet par for the course in New Jersey.

Here’s hoping that someone investigates the sudden closing of these clubs and that those who have been screwed out of a great deal of money join together and sue those who took that money.