Where's Joan Whitlow?

[Miss Tam-Tam]

I haven't seen Joan's byline in the Ledger lately. On Joan's page at the Ledger website, the last story she filed was in August.

[Doofus1]

I was wondering that myself. The Campos-McCarthy feud and the state's $45mm handout with conditions would have made good food for her columns.

[BrickCitiesBest]

Joan Whitlow, Frank Hurtz and Donna Jackson are busy raising money to run for city council in 2010. I recently saw Donna, Mamie and Joan jogging in Weequahic Park. Mamie had to stop because her wig fell off, but they all looked well.

[newarksbravest]

She did an article on Friday, September 26. I missed it in the paper but found it on NJ.com after doing a search. Here's the link:
www.nj.com/newark/joanwhitlow/index.ssf/2008/09/a_fireside_chat_about_hooks_an.html
Sorry but I have no idea how to clip, drag or anything else. Hope the link works.

Her article is about the firehouse on Bergen and Lehigh finally re-opening, response times and the lack of a firehouse in the downtown area.

[Diamond]

Joan Whitlow, Frank Hurtz and Donna Jackson are busy raising money to run for city council in 2010. I recently saw Donna, Mamie and Joan jogging in Weequahic Park. Mamie had to stop because her wig fell off, but they all looked well.



This ain't right!:D :D :D

[teardrop1971]

Who's leaving the Star-Ledger?
By Wally Edge

Among the Star-Ledger reporters who have accepted the buyout and will be leaving the newspaper: Jeff Whelan and his wife, Kate Coscarelli; John Martin, who covers the U.S. Attorney's office; Trenton reporters Dunstan McNicholl, Joe Donohue, Tom Hester, and Robert Schwaneberg; columnists Fran Wood, John Farmer and Joan Whitlow; Middlesex County reporter Diane Walsh; editorial page editor Fran Dauth; Washington, D.C. reporter Robert Cohen; and Ron Marsico, who covers the Port Authority and is likely to wind up there as a staffer.

from http://www.politickernj.com/

[karimah]

I wasn't going to let the cat out the bag, but I spoke to Joan yesterday at a meeting she and I was both attended. I told her Newarkspeaks was wondering why she hadn't wrote a column in the past few weeks. Yes she did mention this to me. We are not going to have anyone from Newark, covering Newark. The paper just needs to fold.At least the admistration would be happy, they wont have anybody to follow up on stories or breaking news about them.


Joan is hopeful that she will still continue to do the editorial column.

[Doofus1]

The newspapers are all but insuring their demise by this practice of reducing pages and content. You cannot contain less and less information and expect to survive in the internet age. Cutting content is suicide.

[5Reasons]

Who's leaving the Star-Ledger?
By Wally Edge

Among the Star-Ledger reporters who have accepted the buyout and will be leaving the newspaper: Jeff Whelan and his wife, Kate Coscarelli; John Martin, who covers the U.S. Attorney's office; Trenton reporters Dunstan McNicholl, Joe Donohue, Tom Hester, and Robert Schwaneberg; columnists Fran Wood, John Farmer and Joan Whitlow; Middlesex County reporter Diane Walsh; editorial page editor Fran Dauth; Washington, D.C. reporter Robert Cohen; and Ron Marsico, who covers the Port Authority and is likely to wind up there as a staffer.

from http://www.politickernj.com/

This paper is done. The thieves are going to really show their fangs now. Without the press, the bums will have nothing to stop them.

[newarknewbbie]

Katie Wang, she's out too.

[JoefromPGH]

Joan's leaving the SL will be a big loss for Newark. I guess this makes NewarkSpeaks potentially even more valuable.

[brotherderek]

he did not like being called up.for not living in new jersey or the rest of the crap..

[Doofus1]

Booker helped he did not like being called up.for not living in new jersey or the rest of the crap..

I also heard that it was Booker that was the second gunman on the Grassy Knoll and it was Booker that erased the 18 minutes on the Watergate Tapes. Some also suspect that it was Booker that murdered Thomas Beckett and Booker was the Centurion that drove the spear into Jesus's side on Calvary. There is a new movie coming out called The Booker Code, claiming he is Jesus's third Cousin on his mother's side which is sure to lead to the downfall of the Catholic Church.

[Caballero De Newark]

I also heard that it was Booker that was the second gunman on the Grassy Knoll and it was Booker that erased the 18 minutes on the Watergate Tapes. Some also suspect that it was Booker that murdered Thomas Beckett and Booker was the Centurion that drove the spear into Jesus's side on Calvary. There is a new movie coming out called The Booker Code, claiming he is Jesus's third Cousin on his mother's side which is sure to lead to the downfall of the Catholic Church.

Whether we agree or not, this was funny!

[Mark J.]

I also heard that it was Booker that was the second gunman on the Grassy Knoll and it was Booker that erased the 18 minutes on the Watergate Tapes. Some also suspect that it was Booker that murdered Thomas Beckett and Booker was the Centurion that drove the spear into Jesus's side on Calvary. There is a new movie coming out called The Booker Code, claiming he is Jesus's third Cousin on his mother's side which is sure to lead to the downfall of the Catholic Church.


Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name
but what's puzzling you is just the nature of my game...

[Poet]

Is there any possibility that Newark Speaks turns into a local "PolitickerNJ"? I'm sure there's enough folks on the inside that could contribute... Newark Speaks usually scoops the Ledger anyway...

Hey, maybe Joan can write for us!

[sjsweetheart]

Obama victory is one all can celebrate

http://blog.nj.com/newark/2008/11/small_joan.jpg

Barely two generations removed from the time when dogs and fire hoses were turned on black people trying to secure the right to vote in the South, just decades from the days -- up North in Cleveland -- when my mother used to warn that a "Negro" child like me was not welcomed everywhere, an African-American is going to the Oval Office.

I realize that the event that has invigorated so many is upsetting and infuriating others. Even so, I feel sorry for those who can't put aside partisanship, doubt, fear, the audacity of their hate or whatever else may be holding them back from joining the celebration.

Hey, Condoleezza Rice got teary-eyed. John McCain, in the hour of his defeat, gave proper honor to the setting of a new American milestone. People danced in the street here and abroad.

It is a great day for African-Americans. I hear that a lot. It reminds me of when a co-worker told me that Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday was "my" holiday, not hers. It's a national holiday that belongs to every one of us. So does this moment.

There is no way, I think, to fully explain to others what Barack Obama's victory means to African-Americans. Rice's reaction may help some begin to understand. It is a great day.

Yet this is a historical event with long arms that embrace the full spectrum of what the United States of America is.

Take a look at the crowd that stood before McCain when he made his concession speech. It looked as if a lot of folks weren't invited to that party.

Compare that scene with the balance of gender and the great variety of color, age, celebrity and just plain folks standing before Obama when he gave his victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park. I bet there were plumbers in the crowd, maybe even one named Joe.

That doesn't mean that the Democratic Party has always been as enlightened as it should be. Nor does what happened Tuesday and the accompanying joy mean that the country has finally shed all its old prejudices or fully dismantled the instruments of overt and subtle discrimination. The enmity often directed against immigrants of color and the animosity easily stirred up against Arab-Americans show that our nation is all too capable of adding new insults to the old ones.

But look at what we have done, and that "we" is big and bursting with all of what the Constitution claims -- promises that are just beginning to dance to a song that has been playing for a while.

People like King and the other civil rights leaders and a long list of black politicians -- some of whom acquitted themselves better than others -- made this day possible. Include Condoleezza Rice on that list. Consider how the presence of Colin Powell on the national scene set the stage for Obama's election.

Some of you have doubts about Obama's experience. What truly prepares anyone for the job? Where would the country be if someone had asked the same experience questions about the guy who has the job now?

Those who were supposed to have experience hitched themselves to a pack of lies and dragged this country into war. Those who were supposed to have experience just bankrupted the firms that were supposed to know how to work the economy. Those folks just dragged the country over a cliff.

There was, however, another man from Illinois, a guy who had just one term in Congress and was not even in office when he won the presidency. He presided over a country so divided that it did in fact tear itself apart. He had no credentials that would have convinced today's pundits he was prepared to be commander in chief during the Civil War, but Abraham Lincoln always makes the "best presidents" list.

If Obama can manage the country as well as he did his campaign, if he can attract people as good and capable and dedicated and get them to work as hard in thinking up new ways of solving old problems, if he can deliver that level of leadership -- and oh, do we need a leader right now -- there will be more reason to dance in the streets.

In Newark, we know a lot about great expectations after a landslide election that was motivated as much by the desire to get rid of the old as to take on the new. I think most Newarkers understood that better was not going to come easily or quickly. Change is, however, the necessary first step to get something better.

What lies ahead won't be easy. But then, neither was what just happened.

As for me, I'm feeling mighty good right now.

God bless the United States of America.