The end of the line
Although science fiction throughout its history generally deals with such marvelous subjects as robots, space travel, time travel, the future, and our beloved old friends, the bug-eyed monsters (BEMs to the cognoscenti) of the pulp magazines, it also often toys with deeper, darker issues. Investigations of physics often lead to metaphysics; journeys to distant…
Avoiding humans, then blowing them up
Have you heard the one about the dwarf, the clinically depressed artist, and the goofy Cuban? It sounds like the setup for the worst joke imaginable, but under the steady hand of debut writer-director Thomas McCarthy, The Station Agent (opens Friday, November 14, at the Little) becomes a leisurely paced character study about three very…
You’re dead
It’s really no surprise. You knew it was coming all along. Perhaps it got here sooner than you expected, or maybe not soon enough. At least you’re not alone. Roughly 6,500 people die every year in Monroe County. And now you’re one of them. You’re dead.
After the vote: potholes ahead
A week after Maggie Brooks’ victory over Bill Johnson, I’m drawn back to Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” — or national “malaise,” as it became known. Carter was addressing the US “energy crisis” of the moment (apart from his attachment to coal and oil, he mused that solar power would provide 20 percent of the…
Lessons from the Johnson loss
A few weeks before the election, I was talking to a prominent Democrat about the county-executive race. The Democrat was supporting Johnson but didn’t think he was his party’s strongest candidate. Johnson’s biggest handicap, said this Democrat, was the city. The Republicans, he said, would hang the city’s problems — crime, schools — around…
News briefs 11.12.03
It was a cold October day for the dedication of School No. 23’s new sculpture garden.
Reader feedback 11.12.03
The world’s violence, Monroe’s election, WRUR’s changes, the RPO and pipes
Partial truths
The ban on so-called partial-birth abortion is all talk and no teeth. And it has created a weird middle ground in an otherwise polarizing debate. “The devil himself would have signed this bill,” says the Rev. Flip Benham, national director of Operation Save America/Operation Rescue. “This piece of legislation will not save the life…
Dumping on the city
So much for that city-county romance we were promised post election. The county legislature may vote this week on a $972 million budget proposal. Republican county legislators say they are running out of options to close a $42 million chasm in the 2004 budget. The sales tax increase proposed by Jack Doyle is dead…
Making music out of barroom funks
A recent phone call to West London finds David Cousins, the leader of the Strawbs, in a good mood. A new album, Blue Angel, has just been released and Cousins, Dave Lambert, and Brian Willoughby are set to depart the next day to begin their second US tour this year. Since they were here this…
