In November many American citizens exercise their most important right. I’m not talking about elections; I’m talking about the one thing we can all agree on: TV. November is sweeps month. That’s when TV shows put on the dog and thousands of people — including my family this year — are asked by Nielsen, the […]
Jennifer Loviglio
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX Files
In light of Florida 2000, and given how close this year’s presidential race is, the Monroe County Board of Elections isn’t taking any chances. Instead of training a third of its 2,300 election inspectors, as it normally would during an election year, it’s training everyone. Last week I took the election inspector class with 100 […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX Files
When the foul ball came screaming toward me at an end-of-season Red Wings game, I wasn’t paying attention. I hadn’t liked the way the game was going, so I had turned away. Rather than root for my team and risk being disappointed, I watched people frolicking in the hot tub out beyond right field. This […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX Files
Security Moms? They’ve got to be kidding. What mother isn’t a Security Mom? Long before Bush and Kerry started targeting this “demographic,” trying to prove who is better suited to protect our children, we mothers were already out here on security detail for our families. Pundits claim Security Moms — a group, they say, of […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Failure is so possible
Fall arrives in Rochester with a flurry of colorful brochures announcing dance, music, and theater events. It’s an exciting time of year for arts lovers — authors start arriving, film festivals hit town, and art exhibitions open. But for some, all is not well in the cultural calendar. For creative types who haven’t met their […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX files
You fit together like a hand in a glove. Corny, but you and your husband have been together so long the expression seems appropriate. Sweet. He curves around you, your limbs entwine. Hand in glove. You start to make your moves. C’mon baby, it’s time to exchange bodily fluids. He pulls away. “Not tonight,” he […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX files
Shit, I have to stop swearing. I’ve been trying to quit since I had my first child a decade ago. But it’s so hard. Even before George Carlin got in trouble for his shtick about the seven words you can’t say on the air, I started swearing. When I first heard curses on the bus […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX files
We were standing in the center of Munich last month watching the mechanical dancers swirl to the glockenspiel’s music when we saw it: a crowd bristling with anti-American signs rolling like a dark storm cloud toward my family. This was exactly what I had feared. My husband and I had started planning this spring-break […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX files
I don’t care how fast the frickin’ ferry is — it can’t be fast enough for me. LakeOntario is a killer. I’ve developed a fear of it since learning about the thousands of ships that have sunk in the Great Lakes. And that’s if the thing makes it safely out of port. Last week’s accident […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The xx files
Bakari Kitwana, hip-hop expert and former editor of The Source, came to Nazareth College last fall and announced hip-hop is becoming a political movement. I was more than a bit skeptical. It’s a seductive idea — tethering good causes to pop-culture phenoms — but does it work? More often than not, the so-called do-gooders […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
A mother’s not-so-perfect life?
It’s no secret that mothering young children can be isolating, exhausting, and demoralizing. Mothers have been (guiltily) exploring these feelings since the women’s movement first shed light on them decades ago. And for all the advances women have made since the feminist revolution, not much has changed in the parenting department. Society still places […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX files
In November’s County Executive election, I was an elections inspector. I lasted one hour. You can learn a lot about America in one hour. You learn that from 11 a.m. to noon on Election Day only 10 people from a 900-voter district will come in to vote. You learn that Republicans and Democrats alike […]
