Opinion
The big kerfuffle over the Obama-Jeremiah Wright ad campaign came and went quickly, with the Romney camp and even the ad's intended sponsor disavowing it. But underlying the brief flack is a serious issue, important to America's foreign policy and to the presidential race. The proposed ad campaign would
Opinion
Will this community ever do what it takes to ensure that its poorest children get the education they deserve? I'm not optimistic. We talk a good game, but we don't do much. Every few years, though, we get a chance at a fresh start: a new mayor, a new school superintendent,
Opinion
"We have so many good kids. We have so many good teachers. Yet when you look into the eyes of those students, you cannot help but remember the statistics. Less than half of them will make it to graduation. How could we have come to that? How can
Opinion
What a fragile state we're in right now in our little city. We have a city budget under increasing pressure, a high poverty level, a continuing problem of black-on-black crime, a school district graduating thousands of children poorly equipped for the future.... Not everything is bleak. In fact, in a
Opinion
This year's election campaign is going to be a heck of a thing to watch, right down to the local level. In the Rochester region, much of the attention will be on the race between Louise Slaughter and Maggie Brooks for Slaughter's seat in Congress. But before we get
Opinion
[UPDATED FROM AN EARLIER ARTICLE] The Rochester school board may be nearing the end of its search for a new superintendent. Early this morning, the school board announced that it has narrowed the search to two finalists: the district's current interim superintendent, Bolgen Vargas, and a Houston, Texas, school
Opinion
Last week, as the Supreme Court seemed to be ready to overturn the federal health-care act, some liberal journalists thought they'd found a silver lining. Now, they said, we can get a single-payer, universal health care system. But there's not a bat's chance that'll happen. Harsh right-wingers have taken
Opinion
There are multiple concerns related to the shooting of Trayvon Martin, not the least being gun control and Stand Your Ground laws. RIT criminal justice professor John Klofas cites "incredible shifts in law over the past 10 to 12 years." And, he notes, they've "all gone in the same direction": the
Opinion
In two small villages in Afghanistan's Kandahar province last week, tragedy struck the families of 16 people, most of them women and children. You know the story. A 38-year-old soldier who had served three tours of duty in Iraq before being sent to Afghanistan, is believed to have gone on
Opinion
As our Chris Fien reports, the City of Rochester is preparing to borrow from the state pension fund - so it can pay its escalating pension costs. Mayor Tom Richards says he doesn't want to do it, but he has to come up with the money to meet the city's
Opinion
That we are having a debate about contraception in this day and age is astonishing. That contraception is the focus of a campaign for the presidency of the United States - and that the debate has taken on the tone it has - is appalling. At one level - the intersection of
Opinion
Teachers' unions have been under fire for years, accused of protecting incompetents and caring more about their members than they do about children. Locally, all that got worse on Sunday, with the publication of Tiffany Lankes' blockbuster in the Democrat and Chronicle. Relying on court documents, Lankes laid out a horror
News Articles
UPDATED 3/29/12 at noon to include information classes for venues and participants. Rochester is getting another big festival, this one focusing on the arts. Area arts and community leaders announced the festival - to be called the First Niagara Rochester International Fringe Festival - this morning. Modeled after the original Fringe Festival in
Opinion
The Rochester school district is planning yet another new high school, to try - again - to help students who have done poorly in the schools they're in now. The new school would focus intense attention on its students. The school day would be longer. So would the school year. I'm reading
Opinion
This article has been updated. The foreboding sense that we're headed toward war in Iran keeps returning, like a bad case of the flu. The threat seemed to subside after George Bush left the White House, but now it's back. And the presidential election campaign is adding its own tension
Opinion
Let me say first that this is not a simple issue. I wish the Republican presidential candidates weren't pretending that it is. And let me say, too, that I admire a lot about the Catholic Church. It has been a leader in human rights in many, many areas. Catholics have
Opinion
Newt Gingrich now stands a good chance of being the Republican presidential nominee. I'm not sure politics can get any weirder than this. Gingrich is a long way from sewing up the nomination, obviously. But last week was quite a week. And Gingrich's rise - his win in South Carolina,
Opinion
Our little burg feels like a glass half empty, half full right now, and you can see that reflected in the national focus on us over the past few weeks. On the half-empty side: the threat of a Kodak bankruptcy is still in the air, and the national news media
Opinion
Oh, me. With the national news media hinting at bankruptcy for Kodak, it's a somber time here. So I was hoping our full-speed-ahead governor would announce something big in his State of the State address last week. I was hoping he had exciting ideas for popping up the state's economy -
Opinion
The plan to demolish an old building on the site of Genesee Brewing Company has me conflicted. The building in question is a massive structure. Imposing. A little weird. And it's unique, for sure: in appearance and in location. Brewery officials say that they have no use for it and haven't
