As if one “Powell Doctrine” weren’t enough: On June 2, the prevaricating Secretary of State’s son Michael, joined by two other Republicans on the five-member board of the Federal Communications Commission, dropped the Big One on media diversity. Michael Powell, the FCC chair, never left any doubt of his intentions. In interviews and speeches […]
Jack Bradigan Spula
Posted inNews & Opinion
The bridge at the edge of town
Going west from Kodak Park these days, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Traffic on Ridge Road, now in the destruction phase of a multi-million-dollar rebuilding project, moves fitfully. Within the city limits, a shallow trench runs down the south side of a rocky road. Across the way, debris and dust throw down […]
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GM gives the village of Honeoye Falls some vehicular zip.
It’s no insult to say the village of Honeoye Falls is “off the beaten path.” In fact, that’s the phrase Mayor Steve Gustin uses to describe his hometown. A quick look at the map confirms the description. The village — well known for Victorian homes, businesses, and restored mills along Honeoye Creek — has profited […]
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Strong minus Stein
Almost exactly two years ago, Dr. Jay Stein, CEO of the University of Rochester Medical Center, joined a group of notables on the Hochstein Music School stage to discuss socioeconomic change in Rochester. Under the baton of visiting National Public Radio host Juan Williams, Stein said “the key” to our future “is academic institutions.” […]
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Tax cuts? Don’t make me cry
The US Senate has been known as a “millionaires’ club” for years. So many years, in fact, that the nickname needs a “multi” or “centi” to stay current. When ABC news listed “America’s 10 richest politicians” last year, four were US senators: Jon Corzine (NJ), John Kerry (MA), Herb Kohl (WI), and Jay Rockefeller […]
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Gates: a gateway for canal development?
True or false? Gates is a Canal Town. Trick question: T and F are both correct. Not that the bedroom-and-strip-mall township just outside the city limits is a Canal Town in the Realtor’s sense. Gates will never be taken for Fairport, Brockport, or others that have highly developed commercial zones right on the Erie […]
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Hooked on organics
Genesee County’s northern tier, a zone of rich soils well-positioned between the Lake Ontario plains and the hill country to the south, has that touch of bigness. Open fields stretch hundreds or thousands of yards back from the road. A Montana-style “Big Sky” draws the eyes to infinity. “Big” weather rolls in day and night, […]
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Victor’s last stand
You’d expect a town named Victor to be a “winner.” And the Ontario County community certainly is one, by ordinary standards. Overwhelmingly rural a generation ago, the town had 9,977 residents in 2000. It “grew by 36.4 percent between 1960 and 1970, 18.4 percent between 1970 and 1980, 43 percent between 1980 and 1990, […]
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Parallel curves
Part two of a two-part series. It’s the flip side of pop singer George Michael’s arrest for “lewd conduct.” And it has odd analogies with bathroom humor. But the following news item means serious political business. In mid-January, while many New Yorkers were celebrating the enactment of the state’s Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, the American […]
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Path of the rainbow
Part one of a two-part series. It’s April 9, and there’s an uncustomary rumbling at the Atlantic-University neighborhood’s less up-and-coming eastern edge. Two-dozen men and women are making some commotion. But their cheers and jeers, punctuated by the heavy beat from a dance studio across the way, are not at all disturbing. […]
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Homeless in the countryside
“I had a fire, and I had an accident,” says the man on the phone. He’s not telling the half of it. He and his wife and two pre-school boys are newly homeless — and holed up in a room-by-the-week motel in the northern Finger Lakes. The family’s story is a classic “one thing […]
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No war on our watch
Right now you may be thinking it’s over. The neo-cons who’ve long wanted the US to smash Iraq, only the first act in their global tragedy and domestic farce, have won the day. The Telepromptee, sounding like the Lyndon Johnson of “Come, let us reason together,” has uttered the fatal words. It doesn’t seem […]
