Body count
To honor the war dead and fill an information gap in US mass media, City Newspaper will run weekly lists of American/”Coalition” soldiers and Iraqi citizens killed during the ongoing occupation of Iraq. The totals: 715 American soldiers, 104 “Coalition” soldiers, and approximately 9,000 Iraqi soldiers and 10,750 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq…
Fuzzing up the math
County Executive Maggie Brooks wants to straighten out the county budget, but to do so she will have to take a closer look at some of the figures she’s using. If not, she may find herself wondering why an estimated $500 million in state savings never materialized. Hoping to bolster state coffers through Medicaid…
Whose Renaissance?
After nearly 10 years of costly studies and deliberations, the Performing Arts Center project is no longer a city-county venture. Since it’s now being discussed as part of the whole Renaissance Square concept, the PAC falls under the oversight of the Renaissance Square Corp., a subsidiary of the Rochester-Genesee Regional Transit Authority. RGRTA Director Mark…
Just business, nothing personal…
The Town of Brighton’s public works committee held an informal meeting with several businessmen who would like to fast-track an application to redraw the town’s Empire Zone boundaries to include an abandoned office building on 200 Canal View. The building, which contains 59,000 square feet of office space, has been vacant for four years,…
Family valued
‘All is Well in the Kingdom of Nice’ Imagine if most thirteen-year-olds were told by their parents, “Work is not nice, homework’s a waste of time, and here’s $10,000!” Chances are they’d experience the same cycle that accompanies eating a bag full of Baby Ruths: a soaring euphoria, a sickening comedown, and finally, the lingering…
‘Blue’ is definitely golden
Geva Theatre Center is presenting an absolutely thrilling production of Charles Randolph-Wright and Nona Hendryx’s Blue, an oddity, but a brilliant one. Randolph-Wright’s script is so loaded with genuine comedy and human emotions that I’m sorry to note that it is also predictable and often trite, like a sitcom. But I don’t care. If it…
Third time is not a charm
I was sure that the Shelagh Stephenson was Irish, but she isn’t. She was born in Northumberland, where her play Ancient Lightstakes place. That may be significant, since an Irish novelist in the play turns out to be English, from Hull, a port city that I think is in Northumberland. Indeed, almost all the characters…
We suffer much
I’m standing in the back of a camioneta with 15 Mexicans, heading to remote mountain villages in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, when a thought as clear as any I’ve ever had grabs my attention: “What in the hell am I doing here?” I’m in the back of that camioneta because I’d written about…
Coffee shared in harmony
The paths to restaurant ownership are many. For Atilla Dilek, owner of The Mediterranean Cuisine, the path started in his home of Malatya, Turkey, famous for its apricots. There, he learned shoe-making and repair, and later became a dental technician. He also worked in restaurants in Istanbul before coming to Rochester in 1995, where he…
Gathering home the harvest
It’s about dirt. That’s what some people will tell you. “There’s something therapeutic about sticking your hand in the freshly turned earth,” says one member of Genesee Valley Organic Community Supported Agriculture, the largest community supported agriculture collective in our area. It’s also about produce picked in the morning and on the table that…
Profiting from patriotism
War, terrorism, and catastrophic events are good for the US sports business. The industry willingly serves as the diversion to destruction and willingly supports any military campaign. But criticizing those marketing approaches would be un-American. Consequently, the industry can infallibly promote itself without fear of backlash. There apparently can never be enough patriotism. …
Bloody revenge in Mexico
In his somewhat uneven record of achievement in cinema, the English director Tony Scott exhibits a certain faith in the tried and the true, especially if he is the one who did the trying. His earliest big success, Top Gun (1986), for example, starred Tom Cruise as a hot dog jet pilot who grows…
Also playing: failed suicides and class wars
Lone Scherfig’s first foray into filmmaking, the darkly sweet comedy Italian for Beginners, was one of the most enjoyable foreign films of this young century despite being made under the rigid guidelines of the Danish cinema movement Dogme 95. The “Vow of Chastity,” as cooked up by filmmakers Lars von Trier (The Idiots) and…
Sophie B. Hawkins
If it weren’t for the warm, husky seduction in Sophie B. Hawkins voice, you’d swear you were talking to a child. Hawkins eagerly leaps at questions and insightfully discusses her life and music. In the background, Spearhead leaks in from the tape deck. We chat via cell phone as she and her band wind their…
Cool ship!
The Spirit of Ontario, Rochester’s zippy new link to Toronto, pulled into the Genesee right on schedule Tuesday morning, and this is one big babe. Towering over everything in sight, Spirit is now docked on the river’s west side in Charlotte, waiting for final inspections. Ignoring naysayers and showers, thousands of area residents lined both…
Readers feedback 4.28.04
Main Street plans, Wegmans’ expansion, Nader’s role, Wease and Spezzano
