Body count 5.18.05
The totals: 1,618 American soldiers, 180 Coalition soldiers, and approximately 21,523 to 24,415 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq from the beginning of the war and occupation to May 13. American soldiers killed from May 8-13: Corporal Dustin A. Derga, 24; Columbus, Ohio | Sergeant Michael A. Marzano, 28; Greenville, Pennsylvania | Staff Sergeant…
The big-tent blues
Democrats — especially in this town — have a reputation for fighting one another, and last weekend’s countywide convention was no exception. The convention’s purpose was to designate candidates for several key races. Councilmember Wade Norwood won the mayoral designation convincingly, but retired Police Chief Bob Duffy and Councilmember Tim Mains will challenge Norwood in…
Pursuing a peaceful path in conflicts
It was a senseless, brutal attack: a teenager storming up to a New York City teacher, swinging a baseball bat, clubbing him in the head until he lost consciousness, and leaving him to die. The teacher lived, and for the next several years, he grappled not only with the trauma of the violence but with…
Family valued 5.18.05
Hit the road with a toad You gotta love a play that opens with the universal theme of bailing out on spring cleaning to go on a road trip with a driver wholly lacking in impulse control. This weekend, the Rochester Children’s Theatre presents The Wind in the Willows. It’s Kenneth Grahame’s timeless story of…
Fiz 5.18.05
Get a room | What went wrong?
Onstage
I’m getting uncomfortable seeing lively revivals of Shaw plays that the audience loves but I’m pretty sure George Bernard Shaw would really dislike. In the Shaw Festival’s gaudy production of the charming comedy You Never Can Tell, director Morris Panych has turned what Shaw regarded as a comedy of manners into vaudeville. It’s wild looking,…
Life songs
The afternoon sun streams through Carmen’s window and colors everything a bright yellow. Her room is cheerfully and simply decorated. A comfy chair sits in the corner. Fresh flowers adorn the TV. If it weren’t for the hospital bed and the get-well cards on the wall, it would look like an ordinary bedroom. But this…
Inbox
Remarkable correspondence from the consistently unremarkable world of email
A major-league pipe dream?
Ridge Mahoney has been watching the development of Major League Soccer since its inception in 1996. As the senior editor of Soccer America magazine, he’s seen teams come into the league and succeed, and he’s seen other expansion teams suffer major flame-outs. So what does he think about Rochester’s chances of landing an MLS franchise?…
The end of the saga, finally
After dazzling a generation of audiences, creating perhaps the most famous motion picture franchise in the history of the medium, influencing a great many other filmmakers, adding numerous catch phrases and iconic figures to the culture, and of course after immeasurable quantities of hype and hope, George Lucas has finally concluded the Star Wars saga.…
A love of violence can only take you so far
This may come as a shock, but I don’t attend Jet Li’s English-language movies so I can learn more about the human experience. What I want to watch is Li gracefully coaxing blood out of people from places where they didn’t previously have holes. What I hope to hear is the revolting yet satisfying crunch…
Good Charlotte is just a rock band
Good Charlotte is not a punk band. They’ll be the first to tell you, too. “I don’t listen to punk music,” says guitarist Billy Martin. “I’ve never been into punk music.” But when Good Charlotte exploded out of Waldorf, Maryland in 1996 they were almost immediately labeled “punk” by a media that’s still shocked by…
Music reviews 5.18.05
Josephine Foster Hazel Eyes I Will Lead You Locust Music Hazel Eyes I Will Lead You is Foster’s first official full-length solo album, after some very limited-release bedroom recordings and various stints in groups like Born Heller, Children’s Hour, and The Supposed. It comes as a welcome revelation, a chance to finally witness Foster’s full…
Coulda, shoulda …
Well, that got the blood boiling, didn’t it? We thought we’d gotten rid of the guys who teased us with the ferry and then shut it down. But no. Here they are again, running the ferry terminal building and making money off of it. I swear, every person I’ve run into since the D&C story…
Paper pushing
The only show of its kind between Hartford and Chicago, the Antique Paper Show is a paper dealer’s exposition in HoneoyeFalls. For one day each year, the village high school’s gymnasium fills with shuffling collectors flipping through stacks of old postcards and coffee-sipping dealers chirruping over the prices of their most treasured items. It’s like…
Reader feedback 5.18.05
BOTTOM LINED “Dollars or Sense,” the headline on City’s article about the Democrat and Chronicle, May 4) caught precisely the issue that is dominating the local Gannett daily. Though the D&C has for decades been one of the community’s most precious and powerful instruments, its recent decision making and news policies have now been exposed…
