Hold the concert in the Bowl
I support the Lilac Committee’s decision to have a concert
in the Highland Bowl during the Lilac Festival. The Lilac Festival comes after
a long, hard winter. It symbolizes the beginning of the outdoor summer
festivals. It is a time to get outside and enjoy our beautiful Highland Park, a
time to take in the gorgeous lilacs and (hopefully) soak up the sun while
listening to some good music. I’m sure many of us were excited by the proposed
music lineup for the festival. And then, the dreaded “Highland Park
Neighbors” came along to whine and complain.
A
1998 informal agreement made by County Legislator Kevin Murray to end the
Highland Bowl shows should never have happened. Instead, these few people should
have been strongly reminded that they do not own Highland Park just because
they have homes in the vicinity. This is a public park, and we have a right to
enjoy it. Visitors come from all over the United States and several foreign
countries to see the lilacs and enjoy the entertainment. They should not have
to tiptoe silently through the tulips lest they disturb the neighbors.
I am
tired of everyone kowtowing to people who choose to live near a public park and
then demand that the parks be operated around what they want. They know there
is a Lilac Festival every year, so deal with it. They can walk over and enjoy
the festival, or they can arrange to go on vacation, or plan a day trip on the
day of the concert, or they can sit at home and pout. But they cannot demand
that the Lilac Festival be done their way and only their way. Please let the
concert and all other events go on as planned, and don’t cave to the demands of
those few people.
S. J. Farrell, Rochester
Complicated porn
I suspect that City’s article on pornography at the University of Rochester sparked a never-ending
debate. And the back-and-forth bickering will, no doubt, continue indefinitely.
I could not, however, resist the temptation to respond to Therese O’Connor’s
remarks (The Mail, April 16).
Like
the characters in Friends that she
cites, Ms. O’Connor should not rely on her favorite sitcom for information
about the real world. The preconception that feminism necessarily equals
anti-porn is an unsubstantiated fallacy. Unlike Ms. O’Connor, I do not presume
to speak for the Women’s Studies department at the U of R (as though the
department is of a singular consciousness). My suspicion about the faculty’s
silence is that the issue of pornography is much more complicated and far from
as black and white as Ms. O’Connor views it.
The
lack of comment could also be due to factors as practical as lack of time —
we academics are a busy lot.
More
to the point, Ms. O’Connor’s reaction (and I’m sure she isn’t alone in her
response) rests on rather tenuous assumptions. Not all (and probably not even
most) pornography privileges male (heterosexual) fantasy or even male
(heterosexual) dominance. Consider pornography made by and for homosexual men
and women. What about S&M porn in which a woman is the top and a man is the
bottom? Do these forms of pornography simply appeal to male fantasies of being
dominated or can women take pleasure in the fantasy of dominating men?
Even
within the realm of more-or-less vanilla forms of pornography, industry
veterans such as Annie Sprinkle and Nina Hartley, who consider themselves
feminists, believe that when conceived and produced properly, pornography can
be healthy, educational, and liberating for women. And numerous feminist
theorists agree.
But
what does “feminist” mean, anyway? As for the position that “the
female viewer needs to be a good sport to enjoy it,” does that mean that
lesbians who enjoy watching pornography are not real women? I know plenty of
women who enjoy watching not only straight porn, but a group of former female
neighbors of mine once became ecstatic at the spectacle of two men having sex
with one another.
Joseph Cameron, Rosewood Terrace
Supporting GAGV
There’s no group out to destroy the Gay Alliance (“Path of
the Rainbow,” April 16). Quite to the contrary, the people who’ve spoken up are
passionately in support of the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley and are
grateful for the services offered through the years.
The
GAGV has been a leader in the Rochester community, providing training and
education in the ongoing effort to eradicate homophobia, and we look forward to
an even brighter future. But some members have concerns about issues the board
seems to want to ignore. The Alliance for Accountability wants to allow those
people a voice and a way to get their message to our community.
You
can read for yourself the statements at www.groups.yahoo.com/group/allianceforaccountability
or follow the links from GayRochester.com.
Bunny Kramer, Shay Road, Naples
On to the parade!
Let us all rejoice that the American invasion of Iraq is
over, that the carnage and killing have stopped, that it was a relatively short
war.
And
now that our magnificent military forces — with the best-equipped soldiers
the world has ever known, backed up by aircraft carriers and other naval
forces, operating from well-stocked forward bases, with an air force capable of
dropping soldiers anywhere and bombing any target essentially without
opposition day and night, using the latest weapons of mass destruction such as
3,000 pound bombs and cluster bombs — have triumphed over the rag-tag forces
of a third-world country further impoverished by 10 years of sanctions, let us
rejoice and make plans for an appropriate victory celebration.
First,
there could be a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue, after which the
celebration could shift to Washington for a parade down Constitution Avenue,
where scantily clad virgins would strew rose petals before a tank bearing our
glorious leaders, Bush, Rumsfeld, Chaney, Perle, Wolfowitz, and the others who
have pulled the president’s strings.
Next
could come tanks and platoons of fully armed soldiers, followed by a line of
Iraqi soldiers on foot and in chains including, if possible, Saddam Hussein and
his sons. Lastly: military vehicles pulling trailers on which stand replica oil
derricks, symbols of the spoils.
The
route would then be to the Supreme Court building, where the Republican
majority would place a laurel wreath on George Bush’s head and proclaim him
Caesar.
Douglas Demetrios Lyttle, Downing Drive,
Pittsford
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2003.
