New Jersey Failing to Snuff Out Smokers’ Addiction

STATE—According to a new report, Helping Smokers Quit: State Cessation Coverage, released in November 2008 by the American Lung Association, just six states provide comprehensive cessation coverage for state employees and New Jersey is not one of them. The six states are: Alabama, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and New Mexico. Beyond that, 38 states cover at least some cessation medications, leaving much room for needed improvement.

“States like New Jersey are missing a big opportunity to help smokers quit and to save themselves money by covering comprehensive tobacco treatments,” said Deborah Brown, vice president of community outreach and advocacy for the American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic. “Millions of dollars and countless lives could be saved each year if more smokers quit.”

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“Doubt” – Casts Compelling Shadows – 3 popcorns

By Michael S. Goldberger, film critic 

You know that boring couple you’ve been promising to double with, but keep putting off for fear of the dead air that might permeate the evening? Call them now. Suggest you see “Doubt.” The film will take up 104 minutes. Following that, either at dinner or the coffee table of choice, even the dullest of dullards should be spurred to conversation.

Writer/director John Patrick Shanley’s supercharged delve into the nooks and crannies of truth, morality and the confounding gray areas that surround said principles is that kind of movie. Posing its what-ifs, maybes and do-you-supposes in a tension-filled opus to uncertainty, “Doubt” has you begging for the proverbial can of warms to be opened.  

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See “A Few Good Men” At UCPAC

RAHWAY—On Friday, Jan. 16, Alliance Repertory Theatre Company will open their stage production of Aaron Sorkin’s ‘A Few Good Men’ at the Union County Performing Arts Center.  The critically acclaimed play will run in Rahway through Saturday, Jan. 31.  Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinee performances are at 2 p.m.

From the creator of the award-winning West Wing series and Oscar-nominated film Charlie Wilson’s War, ‘A Few Good Men’ is the show that launched one of the most dynamic writers of our time, Aaron Sorkin.  It tells the story of deception, honor and courage in a court marshal where the US Marine Corps itself is on trial.   Private Santiago is found dead in Guantanamo Bay: no questions are asked. But when junior grade lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee, who’s never seen the inside of a courtroom begins investigating the case, he finds that all is not as it seems…

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