It was a long time ago — in emotional distance more than in years. On June 7, 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette stopped in downtown Rochester aboard an Erie Canal barge. An “estimated ten thousand cheering citizens” for the “Nation’s Honored Guest” were “double the town’s population,” write historians Blake McKelvey and Ruth Rosenberg-Naparsteck. […]
Jack Bradigan Spula
Posted inNews & Opinion
Sacred architecture: The church’s one foundation, or two
Talk about retro. When you read the religious tracts about planned renovations at Sacred Heart Cathedral — the Bishop of Rochester’s home church on Flower City Park — you have to wrap your tongue around some Latin. Like domus Dei and domus ecclesia, seemingly esoteric phrases that define the debate over Sacred Heart. […]
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The struggle for arts and minds
There’s no time like wartime for looking at the equation between the arts and society. If you read the equation one way, it says art is our social critic and conscience. The other way around, the equation says society must conscientiously support the arts so our humanity, sensitivity, and generosity can stay alive. […]
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Organics and the law: the purity pureed
Many people don’t care what goes in one end of the hen or out the other. But some recent legislative chickenshit should make everyone pay attention. Earlier this month the US Congress passed a nearly $400 billion omnibus spending bill. The measure funded vital federal programs from A-Z, but in line with past practice, […]
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Graves’s gravity
There’s no middle ground: You love or hate the Rev. Raymond L. Graves. And you suspect the veteran agitator and prophetic voice prefers it that way. During his 40 years in Rochester — most of that time as pastor of New Bethel C.M.E. Church on Scio Street, overlooking the Inner Loop — Graves has […]
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State budget hits parks: fees, fie, foe, fum
Crunched accordion-like under pressing deficits, the state budget process is making a lot of interest groups wheeze. Governor George Pataki insists he won’t raise taxes as the state faces a $12 billion shortfall next fiscal year, and he’s committed to tax cuts already scheduled; the promise or threat will soon constrict things like the public […]
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Peacemaking: pick your role
The worldwide peace movement is on a roll, in national capitals and communities like Rochester. Geopolitical matters dominate — witness the transoceanic court battle, Bush v. Europe, et al. But people are becoming peacemakers for visceral and moral reasons. They’re confronting things like the “shock and awe” strategy propounded by Harlan K. Ullman of […]
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It’s a stretch: Elmwood Avenue’s growing pains
Like all the recent construction nearby, Strong Hospital’s new main entrance gives symbolic weight to plans for Rochester’s economic future. There’s a symbolic turnaround, too. Strong used to put its face more toward Crittenden Boulevard; now it faces Elmwood Avenue. This is painfully evident at rush hour, when Strong and the nearby University of Rochester […]
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Old and new: abortion issues never die
It’s tempting to cram the many-sided Roe v. Wade controversy into a 30-year frame, 1973 to the present.
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Crime: the means and the ends
A bullet has a life of its own. Sometimes even enough to drive journalists to lyricism. Take this word-portrait by Los Angeles Times reporter Paul Dean: “The bullet left the heart, went into the left lung and exited… [The] slug stretched and displaced for milliseconds the heart muscles, valves, and chambers, forming what trauma […]
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Details, details: the philosophy of joint-policing
Americans didn’t much notice the death of philosopher Ivan Illich in Germany December 2. A priestly soul with the long view, Illich was a connoisseur of internal contradiction. In Deschooling Society, for example, he wrote that traditional schools teach people “to confuse process and substance” and to assume that “the more treatment there is, […]
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Follow the money
I’ve been hoping for years that Swillburg, to mention only one city neighborhood on my list, would get substantial “targeted investment” from higher levels of government. And lo and behold, as the season of good tidings peaked, the government took out its checkbook, wrote a big one ($25 million), and presented it in Swillburg. […]
