Let me be Systems Analyst for a day. As I see things, the health-care, financial system, and energy systems are like Tinker Toys. Stick the pieces together and hope they stay stuck. Controlled chaos masquerades as policy. It’s so crazy, it just might work. Then comes the wake-up. We’re seeing this now […]
Columns
Posted inNews & Opinion
‘Don’t rely on suburbs’
Mary Anna Towler is furious about tactics Republican leaders are using in Maggie Brooks’ campaign against Bill Johnson for county executive (“Campaigning on Fear,” August 6). Republicans are perpetuating the idea that Johnson plans to consolidate Monroe County’s towns and villages into a single metropolitan government, and merge the city and suburban school districts into […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Beating the HEAP
It’s a cool million (plus) in grant money — and a few county legislators and advocates for the poor are searching through a procedural haystack for it. The grant in question is $1.5 million in federal funds that Monroe County recently received (via Albany) for the Housing Energy Assistance Program. HEAP is a federal-state-local […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Campaigning on fear
This year’s county-executive campaign could have been about ideas, issues, and vision. It will not be. Steve Minarik’s Republican machine has seen to that. To boost Maggie Brooks’ chances against Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson, the Minarik machine has launched a campaign of fear, divisiveness, and hate. And a passel of Republican elected officials has fallen […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Hard truths
Part two of a two-part article. When the revered novelist Chester Himes read The Man Who Cried I Am by relative newcomer John A. Williams in 1969, he could not contain himself. In a letter to Williams dated June 13, he wrote: “But for my money, The Man Who Cried I Am is the […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Free speech at stake in FCC broadcast ruling
So what if the first and most far-reaching guarantee in the Bill of Rights is a prohibition against government curtailment of free speech? On the airwaves starting 40 years ago, the Republicans discovered how to evade it — even while they were aware, in addition to the Constitutional guarantee, that federal law holds that […]
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Let the games begin
It was an interesting chain of events. Last Monday, July 7, City Newspaper received a press release from the Maggie Brooks for County Executive campaign committee. A press conference was scheduled for Tuesday, at which the county clerk and representatives from the Rochester Broadway Theater League would make “an important announcement about a community project […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Pucker up, piggie
I’m picturing County Executive Jack Doyle sitting at his kitchen table, preparing to write his final State of the County address. It’s late on a hot summer night, and Doyle is sweating through his cotton pajamas, his favorite pair, the ones with the little golfers on them (sorry to put that visual in your […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Doyle versus the city
Although the county-executive election is only four months away, this super-important race is getting off to a quiet start. We have, however, already seen the themes of the Republican campaign: crime, taxes, and fear of the residents and the problems of the city. Outgoing County Exec Jack Doyle laid it all out for us […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The test tyranny
I’ve been hearing the term “high-stakes testing” for several years, but my brain had just filed it away with a ton of other education jargon. Made little sense. Had little relevance. Then I read about the Regents math test, and I got it. And just retched. One of our children — now grown […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX Files
I confess to feeling more than just a little freaked out by all these stories lately about violence against women. I’m not alone; a recent poll shows that the top priority of women, over abortion and equal pay, is finding a solution to domestic violence. When they’re not abducting or raping, men seem to […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Concentrated dilution
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 […]
