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Beauty’s eroding in Corbett’s Glen
As a child I played in Corbett’s Glen. As an adult I worked to help it become a public park. Now, 15 years later, I see heartbreakingly rapid soil erosion. Why? The park is a popular place for dogs and free swimming. People and unleashed dogs climb up and down the banks, to and from the water. No doubt some of the people coming to the glen are true nature lovers, yet bottles, food wrappers, and bags of dog excrement are left by careless, thoughtless park visitors. I still live on Glen Road. To keep the area around our homes attractive, nine mornings out of ten trash must be picked up on the street. With poorly maintained and badly faded parking signs and confusing, outdated, and poorly enforced parking regulations, illegal parking is rampant on our once quiet country road. This, too, is disheartening. It looks as though no one cares about Glen Road. My family, my neighbors, and I were all enthusiastic workers in the long effort to help Corbett’s Glen become a Town of Brighton nature park. I wish we had understood then the many ways in which the natural beauty of the glen would be impacted. ELLEN BEERS ADAMS
Ferguson’s just tip of the iceberg
In response to “The Ferguson Warning” (Urban Journal): The six-minute cellphone video of the August 19 police shooting in St. Louis, along with the running monologue by the videographer and the hundreds of subsequent viewer comments, should win a prize for Hip Pocket Photojournalism. The video, apparently intended to simply capture the 2 CITY
SEPTEMBER 3-9, 2014
aimless wandering of Kajieme Powell, ultimately captures the before, during, and after of his deadly shooting by two white St. Louis cops. The 90 seconds of video preceding the shooting suggests that Powell has mental health or intoxication issues. He’s big; if he punched you, you’d go down. But he appears, in his state, virtually harmless. One viewer commented (I paraphrase), “How were the police supposed to know that?” Another viewer responded, “Maybe if they’d waited longer than 13 seconds before shooting him they might have figured it out.” The cops shoot him seven times. As he’s lying on the sidewalk one cop shoots him two more times. They then turn his lifeless body face down and cuff him. In her Urban Journal written after the similar, earlier shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, Mary Anna Towler wondered about progress made between blacks and whites in the 50 years since the Rochester riots. She might have asked about progress since the Emancipation. Or in the 400 years since we began herding blacks here from Africa like farm animals. Or in the 2000 years since the phenomenon of Christ. For many of those years, the Bible was the de facto operating manual for Christians. Whether or not one believed the Holy Bible, it was the guideline. American Indians were not mentioned in the Bible, nor blacks to any degree. That’s why when the Spaniards first landed here, they hit the ground raping and murdering. These darkerskinned folks weren’t in the Bible; therefore the Europeans had the right to define their position in life. We’ve faithfully passed the figurative torch, however subtly, for two millennia. The St. Louis cops may not have been well-enough trained in anger management, risk assessment, or mental health issues, but if Kajieme Powell were white, he’d surely be alive. The shooting is the tip of an iceberg, a three-second window into too many years of inert human social evolution. We put cops on the street, DA’s in office, and judges on the bench. Competent or not,
Southern or Northern, they’re our representatives. We’re supposed to be the highest form of life, yet it is we who have stalled evolution. “We,” being you, me, and those who represent us. RICH GARDNER
Our endorsement of Teachout
Or how about Cuomo dodging home improvement permits so that his assessment wouldn’t go up? The guy truly believes he’s above the law. I hope the US Attorney puts him in handcuffs. Shame on NY Democrats if Cuomo wins the primary. J
“If Democrats don’t lead the fight on issues like corruption, campaign finance reform, equitable taxation, wealth disparity, and aid to cities, who will?” The answer to this question is Howie Hawkins and the Green Party. TOM JANOWSKI
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Oh wait, that’s rain. It comes and goes. That is the nature of the editorial comment of this paper. Politics is a roughand-tumble business. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. People want results. Albany has been full of excuses for decades. I don’t like Cuomo’s methods and I despise him personally. What most people will care about is four on-time budgets, universal pre-K, the right to marry your partner of the same-sex and a slowly (MUCH too slowly) strengthening economy. That is why people will re-elect Cuomo. Of course he hasn’t laid out a vision for four more years. But neither has Astorino. All he’s done is yipped at Cuomo’s heels like the annoying little terrier he is. If the New York Republican Committee was serious about electing him, they would put more money in the race. They’re too busy struggling to retain their tentative toehold in the state Senate, courtesy of a corrupt backroom bargain by five socalled “Independent Democrats.” Go Cuomo! SEAN
News. Music. Life. Greater Rochester’s Alternative Newsweekly September 3-9, 2014 Vol 43 No 52 250 North Goodman Street Rochester, New York 14607-1199 themail@rochester-citynews.com phone (585) 244-3329 fax (585) 244-1126 rochestercitynewspaper.com facebook.com/CityNewspaper twitter.com/roccitynews On the cover: Patrick Fisher. Photo by Mark Chamberlin Publishers: William and Mary Anna Towler Editor: Mary Anna Towler Asst. to the publishers: Matt Walsh Editorial department themail@rochester-citynews.com Arts & entertainment editor: Jake Clapp News editor: Christine Carrie Fien Staff writers: Tim Louis Macaluso, Jeremy Moule Arts & entertainment staff writer: Rebecca Rafferty Music writer: Frank De Blase Calendar editor: Antoinette Ena Johnson Contributing writers: Casey Carlsen, Roman Divezur, George Grella, Laura Rebecca Kenyon, Andy Klingenberger, Dave LaBarge, Kathy Laluk, Adam Lubitow, Nicole Milano, Ron Netsky, Suzan Pero, David Raymond, 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 Advertising department ads@rochester-citynews.com Sales operations: Matt Walsh New sales development: Betsy Matthews Account executives: Nancy Burkhardt, Tom Decker, Christine Kubarycz, 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 each 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). Address changes: City, 250 North Goodman Street, Rochester, NY 14607. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the New York Press Association. Annual subscriptions: $35 ($30 senior citizens); add $10 for out-of-state subscriptions. Refunds for fewer than ten months cannot be issued. Copyright by WMT Publications Inc., 2014 - 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.