The mail
BODY COUNTS
A neighbor of mine keeps a small sign in his front yard with
a running tally of the war dead in Iraq.
It’s now at 2700-plus, of course.
I can’t avoid the sign, but I react to it differently,
depending on my mood. You know how it goes: sometimes the number is a distant abstract, other times annoying, then again
depressing, grieving, frightening….
Maybe it’s only the childishness of the heart that keeps
track of the number in a meaningful way, that knows what the number really
means, what all such numbers really mean.
Maybe it’s the heart that jogs my imagination to picture a
mother somewhere, watching a coffin descend into the earth as young men fire
rifles at the sky. A folded flag sags down in her pale hands.
Tomorrow, as Washington
yaks its way through another day, there will be more numbers on my neighbor’s
sign. Powerful men who haven’t smelled a lot of dead bodies will chase their
visions.
And the mother in my imagination will wake up, and wish she
hadn’t.
Gary Gray, Penfield
KEEPING CONTROL
On September 12, RepublicanMonroeCounty
legislators prevailed in their efforts to push back the county’s budget
submission deadline. The aftermath of this vote, in which two Republicans voted
no to this proposal, was more dramatic than the meeting itself.
Weeks after the meeting, Republican legislators Robert Colby
of Ogden and Ciaran
Hanna of Perinton were stripped of their leadership
roles in their committee assignments. Comments by Republican Majority Leader
Bill Smith reveal that he doesn’t believe individual legislators should
represent the people who put them in office. Instead, Smith admits that
leadership roles are given to legislators who fall in line with the Republican
caucus. In other words, Republican legislators are rewarded if they kiss the
butts of Steve Minarik and Bill Smith but not if they
bravely serve the citizens of MonroeCounty.
Minarik and Smith are grasping for
control that is obviously slipping away from the Republican Party. From the
Bush administration’s highly unpopular occupation of Iraq
to the Mark Foley-Dennis Hastert-Tom Reynolds page sex scandal to mediocre
statewide candidates such as Jeanine Pirro, the
Republican Party is giving voters reasons to vote for Democratic candidates in
November. Maybe the Republican leadership has even given Republican county
legislators reason to change their party affiliation.
I hope constituents of Robert Colby and Ciaran
Hanna thank their legislators for exhibiting courage and voting with their
minds and for not caving in to pressure from the control freaks in their party.
Thomas R. Janowski, Hazelhurst Drive, Gates (Janowski is a member of the
Gates Democratic Committee)
COMEDY CENTRAL
Several years ago my dear friend, Jonathan DelArco, played a character named Hugh in the television
show “Star Trek.” Hugh is one of the Borg, a species that lives on hive
mentality where all share the same thoughts. Among the Borg, it is a sure sign
of blasphemy if individual thought is acknowledged. To be an individual is to
break from the strict commands of the Borg credo. Hugh does just that and
shares his desire to break from the Borg with the support of the Enterprise
crew.
Jonathan made a nice income off Hugh’s character and all of
the paraphernalia it produced. We laugh about it now.
Borgs are no laughing matter when
they control the CountyLegislature.
Not so funny when people are punished for having individual thoughts and the
audacity to act on them.
Legislators Robert Colby of Ogden
and Ciaran Hanna of Perinton
had a bit of Hugh in them and dared to think an
un-caucus thought and vote against their Borg party line. Both of them were
stripped of their positions, and Colby lost out on a few dollars.
The most Borg-like thing about the situation is this quote
from Joseph Spector’s Democrat and Chronicle article:
“But neither Colby nor Hanna seemed angered by the change.” How sad. Colby
chalked it up to, “If you don’t want to play the game, don’t get into
politics.” I was under the impression that CountyLegislators were put there by the
voting members of their constituency. I also thought that legislators were
accountable to those voters and acted on their behalf. When people are punished for having their own ideas and for voting with
their conscience tuned to the voters, this is one big, buzzing beehive. And we
even have a Queen Bee presiding, so the metaphor is complete.
The window into the machinations of the county’s governing
body grows more opaque. I wish we could just change the channel or submit a new
script. I say we need a few more Hughs who act on
their own integrity and are not afraid to admit it. Until then, we all get
stung.
Mary Ellen Blanchard,
Elmore Road, Brighton (Blanchard was a Democratic candidate for the
CountyLegislature
in 2005.)
CAN BATISTE HELP
MOVE THE NATION?
Thank you to City and to Tim Macaluso
for the fine interview with General Batiste (“Prepare for a Long War, Click here for article!)
As a pacifist and a retired United Church of Christ minister, I would never
have thought I’d be commending you on an interview with a general, but this is
the first reasonable criticism of the “war” in Afghanistan
and Iraq that I
have seen.
I was opposed to our entry into Iraq
from the beginning, as were most of the leading religious leaders of our
country, but the objections were not heard by the president and his decision
makers. Although many people were quiet when we moved into Iraq
“preemptively,” many of them are now expressing their opposition.
Since General Batiste is now a resident of the Rochester
community, it seems to me that there might be an opportunity for him to meet
with citizens to discuss ways of moving the country in a better direction.
The general says: “In reality, we are mortgaging our
future. No one is seeing this except military families.” I agree with the
first sentence, but not the second. I am not the only one who has been complaining
about the waste of lives and money, and the fact that our children and
grandchildren will be paying for it. That makes it not only a very long war,
but the longest and stupidest war in the history of our country.
Although I am 84, I would try to join in a citizens’ group
to deal with these questions if that could be organized.
Rev. Bruce S. Dean, Stony Point Road, Spencerport
WRITING TO CITY
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North Goodman Street, Rochester14607.
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often than about once every two months.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2006.
