Ailing in Upstate
It’s no secret that Upstate New York has seen better days. Our population is aging, and its growth is all but stagnant. Manufacturing jobs that once drove the nation’s economy have been leaving for a generation now. The Information Age opportunities that were supposed to follow them haven’t materialized, or at least not in the…
Picking apart the county
When Maggie Brooks released her first-ever county budget proposal, its contents were a pleasant surprise to many. At first glance, it appeared balanced, and essentially kept her promise to maintain services, albeit with an increase in the tax levy. Now the honeymoon period is over, and groups on all sides are beginning to make rumblings…
Blinding us with science
Hey kids! Nothing says “science is cool” like blowing stuff up, right? At the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s Outdoor Science Extravaganza you can see the experiments they dare not show you inside. On Saturday, October 30, from noon until 2 p.m., six local scientists will be wowing the audience with such crowd-pleasers as an…
Desiring the everyday
“The Ceramics Program is vital because at its center are dynamic faculty who embody the integrity and core values we associate with expertly handcrafted objects,” writes Michael Rogers, chair of the School for American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology. The faculty Rogers refers to are Rick Hirsch and Julia Galloway, whose work is the…
Irish, Jewish, or Texan, it’s all comedy
One reward from Geva’s artistic director Mark Cuddy’s sabbatical year in Ireland is a new season richly flavored with Irish plays. There will be exciting new ones, but the first, now playing, is 100 years old. And, in every sense of the phrase, it’s a tough choice. No masterpiece, John Bull’s Other Island is talky…
In a time of great challenge: Kerry for president
Three years after the terrorists’ attacks of 9/11, the United States is a divided country, and an angry one. And, rightly or wrongly, it is a fearful one. In less than a week, the country will select the president who will lead us, and will serve as the leader of the world’s most powerful…
Sylvia’s Southern Italian style
One test of a restaurant is whether you can do better at home without killing yourself. In regard to pasta and sauce, my answer is usually an emphatic “yes.” Making a slow-cooked sauce isn’t hard. A fresher sauce — what some might call a “marinara” — is even simpler. There are good brands of pasta…
What in the world?
If the Boston Red Sox win the World Series, they will have solved the Curse of the Bambino. And they will be world champions for the first time since 1918. Think about that: The tiny little city of Boston, the 563rd largest city on Earth, champions of the world! It would be an even greater…
It’s the movie with a heart
The makers of the new movie I Heart Huckabees describe their work as “an existential comedy.” Apparently, that translates as a film that pretends to examine something like the meaning of life and the structure of the universe, with laughs thrown in. The picture, which features a well known and mostly distinguished cast, occasionally provides…
Nunchucks bump ’n’ grind
Seeing Seattle’s The Makers two weeks ago squeeze their big rock into the little Bug Jar made me dislike The Mooney Suzuki even more. When MS played here last they pranced around like arrogant pricks, even after The Datsuns mopped the stage with ’em. All these bands owe a lot to The Makers, who, on…
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…
IOLA facelift
Faced with a massive budget crunch in 2003, Monroe County got creative with its revenue streams. It started selling naming rights to parks and portions of its IOLA campus at East Henrietta and Westfall roads. And it was roundly criticized for giving up the store for what were considered one-shot revenue enhancements. But it appears…
Reader feedback 10.27.04
Vietnam reminders, Bush and science, downtown shopping
Body count 10.27.04
To honor the war dead and fill an information gap in US mass media, City Newspaper will run weekly lists of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed during the occupation of Iraq. The totals: 1104 American soldiers, 140 Coalition soldiers, and approximately 13,908 to 16,033 Iraqicivilians have been killed in Iraq from the beginning of…
