Lots going on in Baristaville this weekend; check out Thrills and plan your calendar accordingly. Meanwhile, it’s grapes in Glen Ridge tonight as the high school football parents are hosting (drumroll please)

THE GLEN RIDGE WINE TASTING EXPERIENCE
From 8pm- 11pm, at the historic Glen Ridge Train Station, Ridgewood Avenue, indulge yourself with a wonderful sampling of expertly selected red and white wines with fine cheeses to complement! $40.00 per person donation.

Hungry?

We could be feeding you soon. To win, go to Food.

Come see the famous Sopranos cup and see what else the denizens of Hamilton Road in Glen Ridge are trying to get rid of. Block-wide yard sale to benefit Katrina victims tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 1) from 9 am to 3 pm.

Football players in Caldwell just wanna have fun, and part of that fun is doing tomahawk chops before the big game. That may or may not change, depending on whether Superintendent Daniel Gerardi gets his way. From the Star Ledger:

"The war chants, the tomahawk chop, are not respectful or responsible," Gerardi said yesterday. "We don’t feel that’s appropriate."

Gerardi added that school cheerleaders would no longer use "the reservation cheer," which ends with the words, "Beat those tom-toms, boom, boom, boom."

Parents in the high school booster club, known as the Gridiron Club, are starting a petition to have the decision rescinded, said Kim Sirvan, president of the club. Sirvan said besides disagreeing with the decision, parents and students are angry they weren’t consulted before the cheers and songs were taken away.

"Why wasn’t this brought to us as a town?" she asked. "Why wasn’t it brought to the kids?"

Some parents are so upset, she said, they have threatened to protest the decision by wearing Native American costumes to tomorrow’s home game against Montville and by playing the Florida State Seminoles’ theme music from the bleachers.

Now that might be worth a trip over to Caldwell. Meanwhile — what’s your take — is it harmless or harmful?

If you haven’t caught up with the slightly DeLay-ed Montclair Times, you’re probably all caught up anyway. There’s the story you read here about the disinvestiture controversy over at Central Presbyterian Church. There’s also the announcement of the Junior League Showhouse, also announced here, (which for some odd reason is the same house — radio personality Patty Steele’s house — previously used as the 2000 showhouse. Isn’t part of the draw for folks to go and see a house they haven’t been to before?).

There’s also the cop memoirs story you read here. But do skip ahead to the letters from readers, where you can read these two strange missives. One, smacking of hate mail, complains of gays and potholes in Montclair, the other, takes on the paper’s "unabashed liberal slant."

Cory Booker, founder of Newark Now and former candidate for mayor of Newark, will speak tonight (Friday, Sept. 30) at Temple Bnai Abraham in Livingston. His speech will follow 8 pm services.  More information here.

A little wine, a little cheese, paintings a little over our price range (ok, "Divers," left, at $8,500 is a lot over our price range). Add to that a convivial crowd, a perfect early autumn evening and you had the opening night of Artfull Living, which married artists with local businesses and turned all of downtown Montclair into an art gallery. The cheese is gone but the art will remain on display, and for sale, through November.

And we’re not talking about our rabid posters.

Dogs will be vaccinated tonight from 6:00-6:45 and cats from 6:45-7:30 at the Harrison Ave. Firehouse in Montclair. This health department program, open to all, will save pet-owners $74.

ROC and cathar, regular posters, seem to have deserted our site. JMo’s personal integrity was attacked. This thread (99 comments at this count) is so full of bile and mud-throwing, it’s really hard to read.

We’re not saying that we all have to join hands and sing "Kumbaya." We throw punches too. And there’s some good pungent commentary here on a regular basis.

If you want to attack the editors of Barista, fine, we can defend ourselves. But please refrain from outright nastiness to your fellow posters. We’re running a little business here, and we work hard to bring you lots of local news, humor and listings. Please refrain from scaring the clientele.

We don’t want to have to vet comments, ban commenters or make users register, but we will if we have to. No shirt, no shoes, no service.

Our apologies to JMo for the uncalled-for attack on his character.

When somebody insults the honor of the state of New Jersey, even on Fox TV, Congressman Bill Pascrell rises to the bait is ready at our defense.

From today’s Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, coverage of yesterday’s TV duel between Pascrell and the yappy Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.

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