DOES SEX HURT? Are you between 18 and 50 years of age and have pain with intercourse and tampon insertion? The University of Rochester is conducting a double-blind placebo-controlled research study sponsored by the National Institute of Health to determine the effectiveness of Gabapentin compared to placebo in reducing intercourse pain. Participants will receive Gabapentin one half of the time and placebo (inactive treatment) one half of the time, study-related care at no cost, and $50 per visit, or a total of $300 if all six visits are completed.
Call Linda Leoni at 585-275-3160 or email linda_leoni@urmc.rochester.edu.
Even more than sushi!
$5 Off your $25 Purchase (One Coupon per Table) exp. 8/20/2013 Valid at Genesee location ONLY
910 Genesee St. | 585.271.0979
Rumi’s M E DITE R RAN EAN G R I LL
STARTING THIS WEEK Come in for our Chicken Shawarma and try our Maryland Crab Cakes!
Taking Reservations!
Feedback We welcome your comments. Send them to themail@rochester-citynews. com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. For our print edition, we select comments from all three sources; those of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit those selections. We don’t publish comments sent to other media.
a comedian such as Bill Maher as offering some sort of wisdom (“Bill Maher’s Funny Fury”). He claims to simply “inform,” but his slander of those who hold opposing points of view as “really … racially motivated” reveals his ignorance. Name-calling is a retreat from reason, a lazy refuge from having to argue, an abandonment of the respect for others that binds the social contact.
Fracking is ‘lunacy’
FRANK HOWARD
I read Victor Poleshuck’s stunning suggestion that fracking would be good for US foreign policy (“Fracking and Foreign Affairs,” Feedback). What is so difficult to understand about the fact that poisoned water and exposure to radium and radon kill people? It beats me that someone would gloss over this in favor of improved foreign policy. Perhaps it’s the difficulty of getting your mind around the magnitude of water involved. If all 200,000 wells proposed for New York are fracked just once at 5 million gallons per well, that comes to 1 trillion gallons of poisoned water. That is more water than is contained in nine of the 11 Finger Lakes combined. Two hundred billion to 400 billion gallons of that water returns to the surface radioactive. This lethal liquid must be shipped or stored somewhere and kept away from people, animals, wildlife, and whatever clean drinking water remains, with no accidents or spills. It is ludicrous to pretend that this can be done. People will be hurt and killed. Large areas of land will be unlivable, and our drinking water, the bedrock of life, will be ruined. What I struggle to get my mind around is why we are even considering such lunacy except for the enrichment of a few powerful investors. Fracking is insane. It’s work that would make a terrorist proud. JOHN KASTNER
2735 Monroe Ave. | Rochester, NY
585.242.7864 Mon-Thu: 11-9pm • Fri: 11-10pm Sat: 10-10pm • Sun: 10-9pm
RUMISGRILLCAFE.COM 2 CITY
JUNE 26 - JULY 2, 2013
Maher’s ‘lazy refuge’
It is a sad statement of our civilization’s state that we uphold
Crosswalk dangers
Recently a new crosswalk was painted on East Main Street between the YMCA and a city parking garage. I parked in that garage and was in the crosswalk as cars coming from the west approached me. They didn’t look like they were going to stop; however, I stood my ground rather than run back to the sidewalk, since a state law says they are supposed to stop. The lady driving in my lane almost came to a full stop but then went around me by going into the parking lane. As she passed me, I yelled to her that she was supposed to stop. She looked at me as if I was from Mars. After she passed me I started to continue across the street, and at that moment a car in the inside lane heading east ran into me and then continued down the street. Some employees of the YMCA witnessed the accident and called both an ambulance and the police. When the policeman arrived I mentioned that I would like to see one of those signs placed on the crosswalk, saying it’s a state law that you’re supposed to stop. He suggested I make a big stink in regards to the sign and commented that no one stops for people in crosswalks. What’s the use of having a crosswalk if people still have to wait for all the cars to pass before crossing a street? It was probably safer to let people cross the street without the crosswalk than to give a false sense of security with the crosswalk. I realize that in Rochester, much of our Police
Department’s efforts are spent preventing crime and solving crimes. We seem to rely heavily on red-light cameras to enforce traffic violations. But it’s about time to put forth some effort enforcing the state law regarding crosswalks. CHARLIE PETERSON
Why students don’t graduate
Why is the graduation rate so low? (Rochester’s Grad Rate Dips,” News Blog) In part because kids enter ninth grade incapable of doing work even at a sixth-grade level. Social promotion is a major reason for these numbers. In the school I’m working at this year, not a single seventh- or eighth-grader was held back. This includes one student of mine who earned a 0 percent for one marking period and less than 5 percent for at least two others. (He wasn’t the only one.) The high schools that are receiving the eighth graders from my school are receiving a cohort where 7 percent of them were reading at grade level last year. Far more than half of those students simply cannot graduate in four years due to the Regents requirements. My school is not the only one committing this. High schools can only do so much against the rushing tide of failed students headed their way every year. There’s only so much students can advance over and above the one year’s worth they are expected to advance (especially when they start out six or seven years behind their suburban cohort). These numbers skew the blame game away from the designers of this failed policy (administration) and the failed family and social systems endemic in the impoverished regions of the city and onto the backs of the highschool teachers who are trying their damnedest to create silk purses out of sows’ ears. Until students are promoted based on achievement and not birthday, the graduation rate will not improve. Period. YUGOBOY
News. Music. Life. Greater Rochester’s Alternative Newsweekly June 26 - July 2, 2013 Vol 42 No 42 250 North Goodman Street Rochester, New York 14607-1199 themail@rochester-citynews.com phone (585) 244-3329 fax (585) 244-1126 rochestercitynewspaper.com Publishers: William and Mary Anna Towler Editor: Mary Anna Towler Asst. to the publishers: Matt Walsh Editorial department themail@rochester-citynews.com Features editor: Eric Rezsnyak News editor: Christine Carrie Fien Staff writers: Tim Louis Macaluso, Jeremy Moule Music editor: Willie Clark Music writer: Frank De Blase Calendar editor: Rebecca Rafferty Contributing writers: Paloma Capanna, Casey Carlsen, Roman Divezur, George Grella, Susie Hume, Andy Klingenberger, Dave LaBarge, Kathy Laluk, Michael Lasser, Adam Lubitow, Ron Netsky, Dayna Papaleo, Suzan Pero, Rebecca Rafferty, Deb Schleede, David Yockel Jr. Art department artdept@rochester-citynews.com Art director/production manager: Matt DeTurck Designers: Aubrey Berardini, Mark Chamberlin Photographers: Mark Chamberlin, Frank De Blase, Michael Hanlon Advertising department ads@rochester-citynews.com Advertising sales manager: Betsy Matthews Account executives: Nancy Burkhardt, Tom Decker, William Towler Classified sales representatives: Christine Kubarycz, Tracey Mykins Operations/Circulation kstathis@rochester-citynews.com Circulation manager: Katherine Stathis Distribution: Andy DiCiaccio, David Riccioni, Northstar Delivery, Wolfe News City Newspaper is available free of charge. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1, payable in advance at the City Newspaper office. City Newspaper may be distributed only by authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of City Newspaper, take more than one copy of each weekly issue. City (ISSN 1551-3262) is published weekly by WMT Publications, Inc. Periodical postage paid at Rochester, NY (USPS 022-138). Send address changes to City, 250 North Goodman Street, Rochester, NY 14607. City is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the New York Press Association. Subscriptions: $35.00 ($30.00 for senior citizens) for one year. Add $10 yearly for out-of-state subscriptions: add $30 yearly for foreign subscriptions. Due to the initial high cost of establishing new subscriptions, refunds for fewer than ten months cannot be issued. Copyright by WMT Publications Inc., 2013 - all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording or by any information storage retrieval system without permission of the copyright owner.