Angle 2

The Bear

2009-05-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

There had never been a pitcher who'd thrown as hard as her.

Some , including myself, stood right up in the bleachers at Fairport's Lyndon Road Little League Fields, when they realized what they were seeing. She was ten, but she was throwing with the intimidating velocity and drive of a varsity player.  Even her wild misses against the backstop looked l ike they hurt. Her catcher could not catch her.

  Imagine what the Mets were thinking.  

The score in the bottom of the fifth didn't even seem to matter, even though the hometeam Metropolitans were leading the fireballer and her team by two runs. But even the Mets seemed to sense scoring for the evening was over.

The fireballer... Emily was her name.... ripped strikes past a couple of Mets. Then she walked a few. And then to the plate came The Bear.  

Clare had always been known as The Bear not for her ferocity, but, for her cuteness: Clare Bear. She was also what her coach called the Mets "closer." She'd already entered in the top of the fifth as the team's pitcher and struck out the side.

And Clare, like Emily, had been trained in pitching. Eight weeks of Saturday mornings that winter at the Perinton Rec Center learning the mechanics had started Clare on her pitching journey. She pitched half as fast as   Emily, who looked like she'd started that journey years before. She was two years older than Clare.  

And so, Clare took her place in the batter's box. Emily, who as she had been doing all inning, toed a spot on the mound not on the rubber, but four feet behind it. It was a good sport gesture on her part to be fair.   And then....

WHAP!

  Little leaguers not used to standing in against a pitcher who knows how to pitch can dream up a lot of terrible places where a hard thrown ball can hit them. The head. The back. The knee. Thirty-eight years of being around little league and not once have I heard of a kid fearing, or ever actually getting hit, square in the stomach.   Until Clare took her first pitch from Emily.  

The Bear howled in pain and immediately doubled over. Parents on the Mets sideline gasped.

Mom was there by the time she'd reached the bench, surrounded by coaches with ice and water at the ready. Clare's teammates seemed stunned. Alyssa, next up, looked angry. She swung hard at three high pitches to end the inning in an apparent effort to avenge her fallen teammate.

  "I'm going to have a huge bruise on my stomach," said Clare in a half sob, still wincing on the bench. Dad came to the bench and asked: "Clare, do you want to go back into the game and show them how tough you area?" Clare's coach echoed the question and said she could go out and pitch again.  

And so out Clare trotted.   As soon as she began her warmups, she returned to the same broad windup and form that made her a pitcher that caught coaches eyes. Three strikes later, she'd retired her fourth straight batter. A tap back to the mound, and Clare had tossed to first for the second out.   Two batters would reach on walks, including Emily, who'd waited out an 0-2 count. Then Clare dispatched the opponent's last threat on strikes and a cool spring evening came to a close.   

Clare left the dugout with the game ball signed by every teammate and Mets coach. She didn't know it, but she'd enjoyed a night of a lifetime. For how often do any of us get to teach so many people at once life's most important lesson.  

That is, when you're knocked down, get up and keep going.

Your News Now

2009-03-24T21:15:00.000-07:00

9:03PM. March 24, 2009. T-minues 9:57 minutes to launch.

The word comes from an attorney hired by Time Warner Cable to secure the naming rights to the Local News Division's new 24 hour news channel. The brand is ours.

YNN.

Several years ago, a North Carolina businessman copyrighted those three letters as a name for a newsletter he created. About the sock industry. Your News Now. It hadn't been used in that way for years. The newsletter sunset. Its copyright remained.

YNN became the the name of choice for TWC's newest news channel months back. We could not tell people about it until launch day. The Buffalo News actually broke it in a story it ran on the eve of our first newscast.

http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/story/617291.html

In the final days of preparation for this new way to do 'round the clock news, every member of the organization worked as hard as they ever had. By the final hours before launch, keyboards clicked and airchecks sounded in the newsroom, while Chinese food cooled and the clocked rolled to launch day. Buffalo's mayor and Erie County's chief executive will help us cut the ribbon on the operation.

To the 20 people who'll form YNN's first staff. Good luck. And as you know, I'm glad you're here.

So many people to thank. The entire TWC staff at Chicago Street. Thank you for letting us in.

Joe Truncale, Mike Chan, Brad Shapiro and the entire IT/Engineering staff of NY1, EP Jeremy Bitz, Upstate Coordinator Anthony Proia, and the news directors from TWC's New York News Channels: Bernie Han, Gary Holmes, Ron Lombard and, especially, Ed Buttaccio, who's managing the new channel with me. Pat Obermeir and Scott Christiansen, for their creative senses, Maria Hancock, for her dollar sense, Hector Reyes, Byron Folgar and Tara Guttridge, for their sense of people. And for Steve Paulus, for sensing someone who really wanted to do a job for him.

My brothers and their families, and my parents have been constant support during this transition to a new life.

My children: Katie, Clare and Caroline, were willing to let Dad be a kid again and commit to something he believes in.

And for Sara, who's used to carrying me, but never had to carry the family the way she's had to the last 11 weeks. Words can not meet my feelings for the sacrifice you've made. Love you, Do.

So here we go. Launch was a climb. The summit's ahead.

Let's see what we can see.

Meet The Band

2009-03-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

Introducing: The men and women of Time Warner Cable News Buffalo.

Seated from left: Jennifer Bernstein, Reporter; Samantha Lordi, Sports Reporter/Anchor; Nicki Mayo, Reporter, Molly Hirschbeck, Assignment Desk Editor.

Second Row: Josh Borisoff, Operations Supervisor, Kassata Edwards, Anchor, Katie Bogey, Reporter, Anne Lithiluxa, News Assistant, Katie Morse, Reporter/Anchor, Giselle Phelps, Reporter/Anchor, Ben Arnet, Sports Reporter/Anchor; Bill McCarthy, Executive Producer, Jen Markham, Anchor, Jason Carroll, Operations Technician, Jim Aroune, Executive Editor.

Back Row: Jason Torreano, Reporterl; Allison Minto, News Assistant, Doug Ruffin, News Assistant; Kyle Johnson, Senior Assignment Editor;

They'll hit the air at 7 p.m. on March 25, 2009.

Got Your Back

2009-03-01T16:52:00.000-08:00

Five more joined the ranks of the Time Warner Cable's new 24 hour news channel in the final week of February. And in this age of the backpack journalist, some of ours arrived with plenty of backpacking experience

Allison Minto has already backpacked through some of Buffalo's most at-risk neighborhoods to give citizens not used to having a voice the opportunity to explain why things are the way they are where they live.

Another arrived after backpacking up Mount Sinai to see the sun rise. Anchor Jen Markham considered it more of a vacation because.. well.. it was. She returned from Egypt and started a day later in our newsroom.

Still another, Jason Torreano, can tell you stories of his backpacking experience working with children in sub-Africa. that was before he worked as an anchor and reporter in Bismarck, North Dakota.

And with Doug Ruffin, Nicki Mayo, Samantha Lordi and Kassata Edwards, they doubled our staff in a single day. The final members of the news channel in Buffalo arrive in the next week.

We're set for a vigorous three-week crash course in a Dalet newsroom system that will help us get on the air before the end of March. The system delivers A-Z, from assignment to archive, CG to ENG, edit to air. When we're working on delivering the news, it has our back.

As we set the foundation for our news organization; from the completion of the primary anchor set to the gathering of news stories to be aired when we hit the ground running, we are hearing from a lot of folks excited about our arrival.

The intensity of this new endeavor will pick up exponentially in the coming weeks.

Can't wait.

On Board

2009-02-22T18:29:00.000-08:00

In their previous lives, they'd merely been journalists.

Now (from left) Jason Carroll, Josh Borisoff, Katie Bogey, Bill McCarthy and Jenn Bernstein (below) can say they are trailblazers too.

They were the first in the door of Buffalo's new

24 news channel and that meant beginning to build the routines and the systems that would help a new group of people serve a region through electronic news gathering available on Time Warner Cable in Buffalo.

The six will always remember their first weekend together in western New York,

responding to the crash of Continental Flight 3407 in Clarence. By summer, they'll

realize that the first organizational steps they took in the third week of February are the ones that'll help them and the rest of the station's staff succeed.

To be fair, our two Operations guys, Jason and Josh, have been down this road before. Both have helped launch news channels. For Josh, it's the second with Time Warner after helping our Binghamton operation get off the ground.

But every one of the half dozen will be leaders in their own way, reinforcing our methods as the group comes together.

Another half dozen staff members arrive in the final days of February. The rest, the following week. Two-thirds have local roots, like Bill (Angola), Molly (Kenmore) and Katie (Jamestown) One-third are from within the Time Warner Cable news division.

By then, we'll have three weeks of hardcore technical training before we start our news wheel turning at the end of March.

Coming Together

2009-02-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

Sleep had lasted 20 minutes when the call came.

R News' nightside anchor, Amy Young, was on the other line. The plane crash in Buffalo. It was more than first reported. Much more.

In a queasy daze, CNN came on with a fiery orange, Skyped image. "They were gone."

The next call went out to our new Operations Supervisor. "Josh, we have work. A plane's gone down in Clarence... I'll meet you."

Perhaps two hours after this Buffalo News photo was snapped near the crash site of Flight 3407, Josh and I met with Time Warner Cable News' other crew , R News Casey Bortnick and Scott Barstow at the command site for the response, less than a mile away from impact.

With the adrenaline injection you get from covering a lightning bolt story like a plane crash, you learn a lot about who you work with. With Josh, I learned that while he could be industrious at a disaster scene and rugged enough to stand on ice for hours in frigid temperatures on no sleep, he couldn't necessarily stand watching, or listening, to me dry shave in a car.

Three days of coverage later, joined by a half dozen brand-new Buffalo news channel staffers, and R News' regular staff of veteran news people, we'd come together to cover the tragedy. Coordinating with TWC's news division, we delivered all the crucial information on the response.

What a first assignment together. We've only had time in our off hours to absorb the sadness of this happening, and what it means to the community we will serve.

What we learned in that weekend was the job is the job, no matter where you do it. Stay on top of things, be curious, agile relentless. The news channel's first six-pack of workers pushed themselves in ways they'd never done. Videojournalists Katie Bogey and Jenn Bernstein both delivered live updates; Jenn became the first in the division to go live via Skype. Both were introduced to the old fashioned way of remote linear editing. Josh and his partner on our operations end, Jason Carroll, kept the video coming. E.P. Bill McCarthy had covered a lot of news in his career, but never a horror like this. And for Molly Hirschbeck, running the desk for the first time, she learned how to make things work for people in Buffalo and across the state.

And so, between live shots and news conferences and Skype feeds, we came together in a way we'd not expected. In the best of ways, by trusting each other and giving each other opportunities to succeed in a job we want.

None of what we did made air in the market we will serve. Most of the rest of the state saw it, and that's the way it'll be, until we introduce Buffalo to what the news division can do.

They're the boldest colors I've ever seen in a Time Warner Cable building. Whole Wheat, a warm, yellow-based earth tone, which those who study color's effect on people will tell you, brings subtle energy to those around it. Triumph Blue. Stability, calm, according to those same analysts. "It's science," Ron Burgandy would say. WNY'ers would say they're Buffalo Sabres colors too. A bonus. They're what news staffers in Buffalo will see in their office.

The paint's drying as the training begins to heat up, as we approach T-minus five weeks before launch.

The staff is complete. It is experienced in the most important places, and full of energy where it needs it. It's backed by the news division's top people and its statewide staff that in resources, rivals any TV news operation in the Empire State.

The channel has a place. Most will see it on Channel 9, though in the city of Buffalo, it'll spend its first few months on Channel 14.

And the channel has a name.

For that, and the names of those you'll see, you'll have have to wait just a bit longer.

Taking Shape

2009-02-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

Scott Bucholz has been through this before.

The project manager for Time Warner Cable's newest 24-hour news channel in Buffalo helped build master controls and newsrooms in the Local News Division's other ramparts: Texas, Florida, North Carolina.

What's different this time around, in the division's final untapped market in New York State?

"Every one is different in its own way. This one, technically, has the least amount of infrastructure, but nearly as much capacity as the others."

Scott and his crew wrapped up installation and integration in the first days of Febraury. He agrees the Buffalo channel is, in one way, like a nesting doll compared to the larger parts of the set it belongs to across the Empire State. Rochester remains the most independent of the New York channels, Albany, which is the upstate hub for other markets, feeds other markets, as large as Syracuse and as small as Binghamton, Utica and Watertown. Of course, "the mothership," NY1, TWC's original 24 hour news channel, remains the largest in the set.

"The system we're using here (Buffalo) will really be able to do a lot with little." Scott said

A catchphrase that applies to the numbers that will make up the staff of this new channel. The numbers in the Queen City will be backed by the resources of the division's statewide news network. But be sure; this will not be an army. One person in the organization mused it would be more like a sleeper cell.

On the ground, each person in Buffalo will be able to fill any role: anchors become producers, become editors. News assistants will grab a camera to respond to breaking news, or, if they have to, report live from the scene of the story.

The jobs we have in Buffalo offer true security in a turbulent time in our industry, let alone the state of the nation's economy. Both are conditions that do not allow us to blow candidates away with contracts of a lifetime.

We've had the good fortune to meet a lot of media veterans shaken loose by the contracting mainstream media of Western New York. It's been a healthy mix of people with a great deal of experience and others looking toward their second or third markets. After a month of interviews with candidates, we have nearly completed our first staff.

We have been fortunate to find a promising group of emerging journalists. Backpack journalism is all they have known. They embrace it. And by our good fortune, the group may be the most diverse Buffalo television's seen on one news channel.

One-third of the group comes from the Time Warner news group family. Two-thirds of the group is from Buffalo and WNY. Three are from New York State. Another considering joining us knows Buffalo from living in southern Ontario.

They begin arriving this, the second week of February. By month's end, the group will be assembled.

How do you consider hundreds of applicants, interview dozens of them and know you've chosen the right ones to get something new off the ground? My experience has been about listening. Hearing what people want to do, what they believe works.. for them and for television news. Many have said "go with your gut." And maybe looking enough people in the eye helps you know whether they're up for it, or have "it" or even care about the opportunity journalism provides.

Were there close calls? Plenty. Did we find the perfect candidate for any of our jobs? Not one, (including the guy doing the hiring for the place.)

Thank God.

All we found were plenty of people with an entrepreneurial streak capable of checking their egos at the door and working together to get the job done and grow as journalists.

With that, we wrap up the first trimester of this baby. Hope there's no morning sickness with the next.

Building It Right

2009-01-26T20:26:00.000-08:00

Into their second month they move. A team of engineers. Some days, they are six. Other days, ten. Weaving a tapestry of technology through PVC piping hidden above drop ceiling tiles. A nervous system of digital intelligence that will deliver around-the-clock news to Western New York.

Guys like Anthony (above) are part of the reason why Time Warner Cable will be able to deliver on its promise to have news on the air before the end of March. Normally, Anthony rises each day in a home in Hoboken, NJ. Had he not been enjoying the finer, frigid days of a Buffalo winter installing the systems for the news channel during the third week of January, he would have likely had a front row seat to The Miracle on the Hudson. His home looks out on the river. Anthony called home with some of the first eyewitness accounts. He would have been there the day the U.S. Airways jet skimmed its way to safety, leaving 150 people seemingly walking on water.

Anthony was on a ladder with his head through the ceiling grid when Barack Obama was trying to correct Judge John Roberts on the steps of the Capitol; busy wiring what will be Master Control.

Anthony, Frank, Ghun, Brad, Scott and the entire team of specialists are on schedule with their end of the launch effort.

Hiring people as specialized as they are with their craft is a luxury I will not have have in building the news channel's initial staff. There will be talented people joining us. Half a dozen already have. In the age of the videojournalist and multi-tasked media, our search begins with a premium on two qualities in candidates: journalism first and, then, entrepeneurship. So far, we're six for six in that category.

Many have applied for the few jobs we have. Most are already very talented, very knowledgeable media professionals. Some are journalists. Most are broadcasters. Some technicians. Most are on the brink of emerging into the professionals they will become.

And while some on the list are not native to the region, most are; excited to return to their hometown or remain as a contributor to a place they believe in.

Week One: The People That You Meet

2009-01-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

So on the coldest snap of an already burly winter, we begin..

Chicago Street can be found on the brink of downtown, in the city's First Ward, a place known for its Olmstead Botanical Gardens, and Tim Russert. The Ward is a place, like a lot of Buffalo, trying to figure out how to get by or move forward. This is where Time Warner Cable will launch its new 24-hour news station.

It's a place with a few dozen cable company employees already in the building. The division's security staff is one of the groups here. Lucian leads, but the showstoppers are a couple of guys worthy of a regular Saturday Night Live skit. Tim and Stan are former Buffalo Police detectives. They know everyone... EVERYONE... and everything about their hometown. Sip enough coffee in their company, and you'll learn about the "real Buffalo." Johann, the administrator of the office, kindly guided me through first few days of fumbling for a fax machine. Together, they welcomed me into the building like a member of the family on day one. They are as Buffalo as it gets.

Cable dispatchers used to sit in the space where journalists will soon deliver news on cable to Western New York 'round the clock. Joe Truncale's operations staff of TWC's News Division has spent most of January stringing spool upon spool of line through the ceiling and floor of our space. Edit systems arrived this week.

And every hour, practically on the hour, someone who wants to be a part of it has come to Chicago Street, or joined me on the phone. So many talented people. Many are from the Buffalo media market. Many of them have been part of the industry's contraction.

Week one meant double shifting and a week of overnights bunking at my brother's home. And seven mile drives down South Park Avenue, passing childhood haunts and neighborhoods cousins, aunts and uncles used to call home.

It meant learning that Chef's, the landmark restaurant on the next block, is where people go to be seen, but DiTondo's, the restaurant two blocks down Seneca Street from Chicago, is the home of the spaghetti bib, kickin' eggplant and chicken parm and the place where judges, cops, newsmakers and journalists go to get business done while they recharge.

Week two will be a time when the first staff members are hired. A challenging time that will be the initial step in building a resilient team, ready to serve, learn and grow.

A News Channel is Born

2009-01-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

It's been fun sharing this space with you and the political questions so easily raised. Sharing stories that've crossed my path, and memories; whether from Bills games gone by or from my hometown.

But all of that will by synthesizing in a new experience I hope to share in this space. It is a new time in my career, and what better place to keep track of it as it happens.

And so, it begins.

Time Warner Cable's local news division will be launching its newest news channel in a few weeks in Buffalo, NY. The move completes TWC's commitment to serving its subscribers with local news 'round the clock across upstate NY.

And I get to be a part of it.

Last week, TWC's Vice President of News, Steve Paulus, asked me to move from an on-air, supervisory role at R News, the second oldest of Time Warner Cable's 24-hour news channels to a lead role in the news channel in Buffalo. After just short of 19 years at the "R," where so many people helped me to understand the mission of journalism and the power of it in the visual medium, I look forward to the challenge of building something

Something that can help.

We begin Monday, January 12, with a full schedule of candidate interviews. A staff must be assembled, and quickly. Veterans with decades of experience and backpack journalists raring to go have applied. Hundreds. It is not a bad time to be looking for people who believe in what television news can do for a community, and for the journalist. Plenty of quality journalists are shaking free from operations across the media spectrum who are responding to these difficult times.

We can't think of most of the things we'll need to get this off the ground. TWC News' VP of Operations has been steadily bringing the systems we'll need for the venture on line. Help is coming from seemingly every corner of the state, whether it be from the administrative aspects of the project, led by my News Director in Rochester, Ed Buttaccio, or from the division's human resource staff.

This opportunity is the perfect one for my career. Not a dream job, because I had never dreamed about this opportunity. It is more than that.

It is good fortune. The luck of being in the right place, with the right people, building the right experiences, with the right skills.

I've been through the launch of a start up before. Nineteen years ago, Pete Dobrovitz convinced the president of then Greater Rochester Cablevision to start a local news operation. It was more than an underdog. Yet seizing the right opportunities (owning the big story), coming to the office every day giving it a fair day's work... it all paid off. That little engine that could became R News, a news operation that's changed a lot about local news in its market.

But that was before Skype and Twitter and Youtube and the endless possibilities that exist in the Information Age.

Buffalo will be much more difficult.

It is a place that saw a start up rise and quickly fall in recent years. All three local affiliates are experiencing cutbacks to one degree or another. Even The Buffalo News, the region's dominant daily newspaper, wants to drastically reduce its ranks.

All of this at a time when the economy seems destined for even darker days.

So you want to start a news channel, huh?

Yes. For many reasons, which over the course of this ride, I look forward to sharing with you.

Town Hall Time

2009-01-05T19:43:00.000-08:00

Who needs a State of Upstate Address?

The one-and-only such spectacle at Buffalo State last year was Eliot Spitzer's last major speech in the region. Call it bad karma or David Paterson's need to get closer to the voters who seemingly matter the least to New York's power brokers, but the governor's not going to hold a second one.

Instead, as Politics on the Hudson reported Monday, Paterson will hold town hall meetings in upstate.

http://polhudson.lohudblogs.com/

Paterson committed to at least four town-hall meetings across upstate, starting Sunday in Watertown. Other events are tentatively scheduled for Feb. 4 in Binghamton, Feb. 11 in Rochester, Feb. 12 at the state University College at Geneseo and Feb. 18 in Buffalo. Times and locations have not been finalized.

What would you hope to tell Paterson, should you get the chance before the microphone?

Kennedy Meets the Press

2008-12-27T05:42:00.001-08:00

"I think that I have relationships in Washington that I would like to put to work to benefit the people of New York."

Caroline Kennedy is beginning to make her case through the media why she should be New York's next junior U.S. Senator.

She started sitting down for interviews with news organizations Friday. One of the first was with NY1's "Inside City Hall" host Dominic Carter.

In the 30-minute conversation, Kennedy challenged those who believe she's running on her family's name.

"If my last name weren't Kennedy, maybe I would have run for office a long time ago."

What would her mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis make of her daughter being interested in the senate?

“She would roll her eyes about the whole thing,” added Kennedy. “I think she would really be proud that I was doing this”

And her late brother, John F. Kennedy Jr.?

"He would be laughing his head off." Kennedy also talked about how New York Congressman, Gary Ackerman comparing her to a celebrity like Jennifer Lopez. Kennedy takes a liking to J-Lo. "I admire the journey J-Lo has traveled. I've been to a school in the Bronx near the house she grew up in and so I actually have a lot of admiration for her and she looks pretty good but in terms of public policy and as we spend our adult lives and I don't think there is really much we have in common.”

But Kennedy does admit she has made mistakes, like not voting in several elections.

"There isn't a good excuse."

Kennedy does add she's looking forward to the hard grunt work often associated with elected office, saying of the state's senior senator

"I could race Chuck Schumer around all 62 counties and, you know, we'll see who wins.”

Kennedy told the Associated Press Friday she knows she need to prove herself and work twice as hard as others in the Senate to do so.

Is that enough for you? Or David Paterson?

Be The Miracle

2008-12-23T19:30:00.000-08:00

The Four Best Film Moments that capture the Holiday Spirit

"At a boy, Clarence. "Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life.
Who doesn't get flush when everyone George Baily's ever known, and ever helped, comes through?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErrzjGCi3gY

"There it is. The Holy Grail of Christmas gifts."
Who doesn't feel Ralphie's hope? Long live the Red Ryder, 200-shot range rider air rifle in "A Christmas Story"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppOXpyhM2wA&NR=1

"It's a MIRACLE!" Bill Murray in Scrooged.

"What kind of a rat bastard would schedule a live program on Christmas?"
" You would, Frank."

Luckily, Frank Cross gets it, in the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQsughfXBWk

"It's not such a bad little tree." Linus, wrapping his blanket around Charlie Brown's Christmas twig in Charlie Brown Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiBD5Arq34

Peace on Earth.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

2008-12-17T08:11:00.000-08:00

Are you ready for a stranger to western New York to be the next junior U.S. Senator from the Empire State?

Caroline Kennedy began meeting with the mayors of upstate Wednesday. A listening tour, it was called by the Buffalo News. Reported visits planned for Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo means she's at least making symbolic visits to... how did Eliot Spitzer put it... Appalachia, before accepting what appears to be a pending appointment from Governor David Paterson.

Should this region have taken seriously the gov's consideration of upstate candidates when he opened the campaign for Hillary Clinton's soon-to-be vacated Senate seat?

Or should it have recalled who was one of the first people to rise before a divided Democratic electorate in the late winter and declare that Barack Obama, not Clinton, should be the party's presidential nominee.? That would be Kennedy. That has to be worth something, right, especially when your choice gets the keys to the White House?

Kennedy's qualifications are sure to be challenged. Some may even come from New York City, where Kennedy's candidacy was born. Will she be able to stand up to it? Or will it arrive in time to give New Yorkers a chance to validate the contempt shown for political dynasties the last eight years?

Jauron-a-go

2008-12-15T05:12:00.000-08:00

It feels like the same old thing. It doesn't have to.

Marshawn Lynch's dejection, a perfect snapshot of the Buffalo Bills 2008 season captured by the Buffalo News, may say all there is to say about the Bills' latest heartbreaking loss; latest heartbreaking season.

Can it all be a good thing?

As we prepared to enjoy a Bills upset against the New York Jets Sunday, my parents and my brother and I started reeling off the successes of the afternoon: beastly running game, stingy second half defense, dynamic special teams.

And then we realized. "Wait. Seven wins. That could just keep Dick Jauron in town."

For while the guy had proven a reliable caretaker and upstanding representative of the organization, his track record as a mediocre game day coach had also been demonstrated for three season.

And then came the nail in Jauron's head coaching coffin. He (and his staff) put their least reliable player in a position to lose a game the Bills had every right winning. And when J.P. Losman failed as he's done his entire career to feel backside pressure, and the Jets scooped up his fumble and scored the winning TD, it should not have felt like a blindsiding. Just a conclusive, 10-second review of the organization's shortcomings: unreliable quarterbacking and unsatisfactory head coaching.

So instead of a heartbreaking defeat, opportunity presents itself. Jauron will leave and the Bills will roll the dice again. Doesn't matter whether they hire Bill Cowher or Bill Coward, everytime a coach is named, no matter the pedigree, success and failure is a crap shot. Ask Cleveland fans about Bill Bellichek. Ask Falcons fans about Mike Smith.

But at least Bills Nation gets the chance. Yes, there's no championship this year, but keep in mind, before the 5-1 September start, had anyone banked on one? Yes, the playoffs remain the goal. This may be the most wide-open NFL in 30 years. Same for the AFC East. Would have been nice. But if you don't have coaching or quarterbacking you can count on, you don't get to dream those dreams.

We think this because western New Yorkers who want to paint themselves as being cursed or victimized by Ralph Wilson or Jauron or Losman or Scott Norwood or Ronnie Harmon, feel comfortable stewing in those juices; just another thing to keep Buffalo down.

Don't waste a minute.

This is a region proud to tell you it can take a punch and keep coming at you. Not only because it's taken plenty, but because it's made that way. Another meltdown in the Meadowlands is no reason to spend a second pining for the title that's yet to arrive. You can't miss what you've never had.

So instead of losing faith, find it in the renewal of the season. New coaches, players, managers. And don't get turned upside down in feeling the Bills are running out of time here. They're not going anywhere. We have billionaires. They'll take care of business.

And allow for the four-month autumn festival the region calls Bill season to unify us.

From Byron to Bubba

2008-12-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

There are no usual suspects in David Paterson's U.S. Senate deliberation.

You could name the third former president to serve in Congress. Could Bill Clinton ever really leave the world stage to take his wife's job? Is the job of junior U.S. Senator too small?

Could a Queens native, and the first black elected to New York's State Senate (north of NYC) and the Mayor's Office in Buffalo be a powerful enough candidate to roll call in the U.S. Senate to three African Americans (should Barack Obama's seat not be offered to a black candidate.)

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=67322&rnews_story_type=18&category=10

My colleagues across the state believe Brown to be a sound upstate candidate, but only that. That he wants the job, but for Paterson, it would make little political sense for a black governor to name a black mayor to the post, upstate or not.

That the ever-racially aware Paterson does not want to be seen as advancing a black agenda, even with the positives Brown brings to the table.

And perhaps most important, that while Brown would bring Buffalo in a re-election bid, the rest of GOP-based upstate would not be a lock.

In the end, all of the head turning cast for this political passion play: Clinton, Brown, the Kennedys. They may be nothing more than window dressing to distract We The People while Paterson sets his strategy and locks in on a sure-fire successor to HRC.

Would you be able to draw parallels to an Andrew Cuomo appointment with President-elect Obama's selection of Hillary to Secretary of State?

Keep your friends close. Your.......

Who Will Fill Hillary's Seat?

2008-11-28T06:46:00.000-08:00

It won't be David Paterson, but New York's governor will be the one to announce who will be the next junior U.S. Senator from New York.

But in its latest entry, Politics on the Hudson measured the governor's intentions for a Hillary Clinton successor, should she be named Barack Obama's Secretary of State.

According to Paterson, there is a diverse group of talented, sensitive and hard-working people, including women, minorities and upstate residents, who could step in for Clinton.

Paterson also noted that there is no one in statewide office who is from upstate or is Hispanic, and if Hillary Clinton’s replacement isn’t a woman, New York wouldn’t have a woman in statewide office

Which cross section of New York do you believe will be chosen to represent?

“What I think that’s true about New York is we have a number of people who would be great senators, and you’re going to have to be great because filling the shoes of our senator, Hillary Clinton, should she move on, is going to be very difficult. I’m glad it’s not me, because I’m not appointing myself,” he said.

When asked if he would appoint a screening panel or any kind of process to review potential replacements, Paterson said he’s learned that the process can become more of a problem than the selection. His administration will be consulting with people who have served in the Senate before, people who care about the state and are civic minded, and “just regular citizens.”

Where's that leave the odds on a western New Yorker (Brian Higgins) being seriously considered for the opportunity?

$2B Or Not $2B

2008-11-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

And now, for something completely different.

With apologies to Monty Python, Tuesday's special economic session of the state legislature seemed to be anything but. Instead of three men in a room, it was five men at a table, live on TV across the Empire State, showing us that, even in a time of economic crisis, the people who lead New York's government will lock up into pure partisanship.

David Paterson blamed Dean Skelos. Skelos blamed Malcolm Smith. Sheldon Silver blamed Skelos. Jim Tedisco blamed Silver. The Albany Philharmonic Legislature in harmonic covergence.

And in the end, the $2 billion in mid-year budget cuts the governor proposed were never even introduced for legislators to consider.

Here's why, according to people in the know.

Paterson has projected bold leadership in calling for the cuts and looking New York straight in the face and telling us: "we're in big trouble." Three out of four New Yorkers claimed to be ready to suck it up.

When no one (Silver, Skelos) helped him come up with ways to shave $2B from this year's budget, he came up with his own; unpopular reductions to things like education and health care (Rochester hospitals would have lost $45 million in Paterson's plan.) Where else could a budget be cut but in its largest expenditures?

But what good Democrat could support those sorts of things. Republicans couldn't either.

Paterson saw this, especially in his party's newly minted majority in the senate, where Smith, the leader to be of that house of government, could see his coalition shredded even before hands go on bibles in January. During the 90 minute conversation amongst the five men, Skelos challenged Smith on whether he even had the votes to consider all of the cuts.

The governor had called for simple "yes/no" votes on his proposal. But he knew he could never get it done?

In the end, it may be why legislators never held Paterson's cuts in their hands. And it's why, for the first time in the gathering of a special legislative session, not a single vote was cast.

All this to the cost of $75,000 to $100,000.

So where's it leave New York State? Waiting for Paterson's '09-'10 budget proposal in December. The GOP asked for it, to understand the larger context of the state's new spending agenda. It'll be arriving in a rush with plenty of rough edges to it. And it'll need to cut more than double what Paterson asked for this time around.

Sounds like a no-win situation. The kind that could motivate someone; someone who'd always seen Washington, not the governor's mansion as his next step, begin checking the packing of a parachute. The kind that can land you in a vacant U.S. Senate seat, should its current occupant be called up to, says, the office of Secretary of State.

Talk about political bailout.

Paterson never asked for this in the first place. Eight months after being thrust into the assignment of rescuing the executive branch's credibility from scandal, perhaps it's not impossible to think that, with partisanship about ready to tear state government apart, his skills may be better used on Capitol Hill. Would he call his own number should Hillary Clinton get the news from B.O.?

Either way, New York State is no closer to pulling itself out of its own stranglehold.

And what's different about that?

A Time to Chill

2008-11-13T05:10:00.000-08:00

It's still out there. If anything, the cynicism that pervades our political conscience has cranked it up a few notches.

Folks waiting for the New World Order to begin playing out in the appointment of an Obama administration and the execution of a radical agenda by the President-elect. It's gotten to the point where parody may be the only way to hold a mirror up to it.

So we present the folks from Get Your War On, a PG-13 point of view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcvQGeDqKHg

Had any conversations like this?

From Conservative columnists preparing us for the socialist lean of a leader already hearing the chirping from the extreme left of his party, to the rants of the talk radio set recognizing this may be their moment (their last chance?) to grab an audience to live off of before their genre goes the way of the variety show.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/the_road_to_serfdom.html

As we watch Senator Obama make his choices, there will be the need to read between the lines.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/168626/output/print

Let's let him write them first before we burn the manuscript.

Blindsided

2008-11-07T13:51:00.001-08:00

The GOP wasted little time in demonstrating it learned nothing from Tuesday's election.

At its nadir (not Nader) the Republican party's showing it'll need a while before figuring out what to do next.

For all those hoping the Conservative base of the party will step in and bring sanity to the Right, sorry.

The demonizing of Sarah Palin is in full swing. From the "going Rogue" press leaks to the Shopping Gate fiasco Republican insiders seem prepared to hand out the sticks and keep the Palin-ata swinging.

Are there party leaders (Palin herself) who believe Governor Pit Bull could become the pop-star to unite a humbled minority party? You betcha.

Still, the world's most famous hockey mom probably feels like the actress hired to portray her in the funniest post-election video on the web. "Office Linebacker" Terry Tate knocks Palin out of her Jimmy Choos during her interview with Katie Couric.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1884754

Would you put it past Karl Rove to send a blitzing linebacker on an unsuspecting candidate?

After you're done laughing at the video, ask yourself, just for the sheer sake of political balance: who will bring sanity back to the Right?

A Nightmare As Simple as A-B-C

2008-11-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

She'd arrived a few minutes late, after the red carpet entourage had already swept inside the theater, with the local television crews in tow.

Michelle Walkowicz was a bundle of nerves. Her sister had insisted she show up to the Pittsford Cinema and register the family's protest of the latest media attempt to recapture the horror and fear that framed their youngest years.

So Michelle had driven her truck to Pittsford Plaza, where the stars and director of "Alphabet Killer" had turned out for its premier. The independent, modern-day murder thriller is based loosely on the deaths of Michelle's sister, Wanda Walkowicz (right side of picture) and two other Rochester girls, Carmen Colon and Michelle Maenza.

http://www.alphabetkiller.com/

All three little girls were nearly the same age in the early 1970's when they were abducted from their neighborhoods, sexually attacked and strangled. Each girl's first and last name began with the same letter. Police later found their bodies in towns with that same letter: Carmen, killed first, in Churchville, Wanda, in Webster and later, Michelle, in Macedon, Wayne County.

The Double Initial Murders, as they came to be known, changed Rochester. Fear was palpable across the community Authorities considered it at one time to be the work of a serial predator.

The case has never gone cold.

Investigators from the State Police, Rochester Police Department and both the Monroe and Wayne County Sheriff's Offices receive tips all the time. Most dry up quickly. Some don't. The hottest lead followed was the exhumation of the remains of a young Rochester firefighter. He was considered a suspect at the time of the killings. DNA tests proved he could not be linked to the girls killings.

That lead came in 2006 at the same time that the makers of "Alphabet Killer" were wrapping up filming.

And still the leads come in. The most recent came in on Election Day, someone who believed they knew something about Michelle Maenza's disappearance. The Wayne County Sheriff's Office is following up.

Another involved a woman who told police she believed her late father killed all three girls. DNA tests from the family led to a dead end. But a new twist in that lead keeps it alive.

Michelle Walkowicz needs to know. Who was it? And was it one person, as was first thought when the killings were terrorizing her hometown. Or, as others have deducted, were they coincidental killings committed by separate people.

Her family, and the family of Carmen Colon remain in Rochester, occasionaly receiving updates from investigators fielding leads. The updates come less frequently.

But the movie brings it all back for Michelle. Even if the names and the time period aren't the same. She and her sister remain angry at the portrayal of their family in an A&E program on the killings. They're angry the film will do worse.

A Vote Like No Other

2008-11-05T08:01:00.000-08:00

As they exchanged the tallies at the end of the night, volunteers at the Dome Arena in Henrietta, one of the many polling stations in Monroe County Election Night, a trend was clearly defined.

Votes had been cast for the Presidential race and none of the others on the ballot.

Inspectors had seen it coming when they had witnessed more first-time voters (many of whom were of lesser means) and more young voters than ever before.

At one point, nine developmentally disabled young adults were shepherded to the poll. One man led them to the registration desk, and then, one-by-one, to the ballot. A single lever was pulled each time. All ten people were African-American.

In a record turnout day for voting across the country, some of the 100 million who cast their ballot learned how to vote for the first time.

Lines in battleground states wound around buildings. In the Rochester area, lines formed, but never led to more than a half-hour or 45 minute wait. And most started in the pre-dawn hours.

At the Dome Center, 100 lined up at 5 a.m. Business was steady through the dinner hour and then, in the normally hectic span of 7-9 p.m., the torrent turned to a trickle.

Four million more people voted for Barack Obama than John McCain, but more people voted for McCain than most any other presidential candidate in American history.

What may be debated for a while is how long the Obama coattails truly were for non-Republican candidates who'd hoped to see their levers pulled by an energized electorate.

Yes, We Did

2008-11-04T22:23:00.000-08:00

Where were you when it happened?

Barack Obama's electoral landslide triggered Democratic gains at nearly every level of government. The U.S. Senate picked up five seats. The House padded its lead. New York's legislature united behind the Donkey to give Dem's all of state government for the first time since the Great Depression.

Beyond W.'s obvious affect on the vote, anyone else stop and think: How did we get here?

"The road ahead will be long," the president-elect told an enormous crowd at Chicago's Grant Park. "Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there."

And on the decisive day of the longest campaign for the American presidency, with a nation apprehensive about votes that wouldn't count and machines that wouldn't work and lines that would be too long and supposed schemes to Schlock the Vote, the system rose to the moment; lean and calm and focused.

Just like the man it elected.

Great Expectations

2008-11-04T17:04:00.001-08:00

Bill Johnson said he had to give in Tuesday night.

Rochester's former mayor had planned to find his favorite living room chair in his city home and, in blissful isolation, watch history unfold, legal pad and pen in hand, recording the moment in the way only a trailblazer can.

Instead, Johnson figured it wouldn't be all bad to share the unbelievable moment of the presidential election with a few friends.

Before he hosted his small Election gathering, Johnson joined R News' Decision 2008 coverage, shared his enthusiasm for the probable history Barack Obama was on the verge of making, and said for all those who believe Obama can make sweeping cultural change by his mere presence as the nation's first black president: "I think people should just chill out."

Johnson knows how great expectations can be. As Rochester's first black mayor , people believed his being black would help solve what some saw as problems that threatened the city's African-American neighborhoods.

"I soon learned that you needed consensus, and approval. Those are the same things he will need, should he be elected," Johnson said.

Trail's End

2008-11-03T07:39:00.001-08:00

And so we've arrived.

At the close of the longest American presidential campaign, are we better for it?

You hear the same sorts of dissatisfaction in people's voices; with the candidates, the process, the choices. Perhaps it is why, with all of the polling and all of the media coverage, so many still don't know what they'll do Tuesday.

Has it all led us to declare an inflated value to the vote? Yes, history will be made by the election of either the first African-American or the first 70-something president, or the first woman vice president.

And maybe the nation feels as if it's gone deaf with all of the noise made by media-ocracy and the web-ocracy (the blog-ocracy) that've seized the moment to declare their constitutional rights.

But that's freedom folks.

More people have been exposed to more freedom (0f thought) in this election than at any time. Is it disorienting? Confusing ? As Alaska's governor would say, "you betcha." It's not easy. But thank goodness. `Hard' is what makes it great.

But how many grade schoolers do you know rising in the morning to listen to the political talk on the cable news channels. I have two. They have conversations about the race in their classroom.. with no teacher involved. No photo op education program here (though those are fine.) That's just an example of the engagement this country's seen in places it's not used to seeing.

Now, there are people who fear the outcome of Tuesday's vote. Of the winner. Of votes not being counted. Of three-hour lines after work to actually cast a ballot. Fear, like I've never heard in my lifetime. And that's O.K. Fear may or may not be the highest form of motivation, but no one questions its power. And that will move more people than ever to give us a true read of what we're all about.

Whether that puts us fewer than a million votes apart on who we want to be president, or 100 electoral votes, we will know, and move on and peacefully transfer power, as we always have. And that will be good.

After this nation's rough start to the millennium, it may be just what the nation needed. Affirmation of why we do what we do.

Robach, Dollinger Debate Tonight on R News

2008-10-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

Two men who've represented the same area of the Rochester area in New York's State Senate debate the issues of the campaign for the 56th State Senate District tonight on R News.

Republican incumbent Joe Robach and Democratic challenger Rick Dollinger will answer the questions of R News' Jim Aroune in a live debate that begins at 7 p.m.

Dollinger had served in the state senate for 10 years before his district was reshaped by the Republican majority in state government. Dollinger left the seat in 2002. Robach, a one-time Democrat, changed parties and won the seat as a Republican.

Will They Seal The Deal?

2008-10-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

Democrats are banking on Bill & Hill making it rain in tight state and federal election races down the stretch.

On Wednesday, October 29, Senator Clinton will campaign for Democrats throughout New York.

In the morning, Senator Clinton will endorse the re-election of Congressman Mike Arcuri in Utica, NY.

Later in the morning, she will attend an Erie County Democrats Rally with local Democrats in Buffalo, NY.

In the afternoon, Senator Clinton will participate in a GOTV Rally for Eric Massa, Dan Maffei Alice Kryzan and local Democrats in Rochester, NY.

Wednesday evening, Senator Clinton will attend the Monroe County Democrats Dinner in Rochester NY.

In the coming week, Senator Clinton will travel to Ohio, Florida, and Virginia on behalf of the Obama-Biden ticket.

She will also be making stops in Kentucky for Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford.President Bill Clinton will also be crisscrossing the country for Obama-Biden.

On Wednesday, President Clinton will make stops in Pennsylvania and Florida, attending a joint rally with Senator Obama in Orlando.

Few question whether the media will respond to their every campaign stop. How about voters?

Sure You Want The Job?

2008-10-27T18:50:00.001-07:00

Once history's made November 4, then comes the hard part.

Council on Foreign Relations chief Richard Haas puts the daunting task ahead for the 44th President into perspective in a letter to Newsweek.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/165648/output/print

Does it change how you feel about your choice for the White House?

Alesi, Nachbar Debate on R News Tonight

2008-10-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

The candidates for New York's 55th State Senate seat debate the issues of the 2008 campaign on R News.

Republican incumbent Jim Alesi and former Bausch & Lomb executive, Democrat David Nachbar, will make their case for the job live on R News at 7 p.m.

R News anchor Jim Aroune moderates the debate.

Following the live telecast, the debate will be available on R News on Demand, Time Warner Digital Cable Channel 108.

"We Gotta Beat These People"

2008-10-23T08:10:00.001-07:00

The Dolphins don't matter any more.

Hear that from a lot of Bills fans these days. Buffalo's rivalry with Miami has lost its luster. "They're dead in the water. We're on the rise."

Rivalries can't be felt by the uninitiated. They have to be taught, whether it's within the Bills locker room, or in the fans themselves. A date in Toronto in December seems to be the latest expression of minimizing what had grown over two generations to be the franchise's most bitter rivalry.

Don't tell Lou Saban the Dolphins don't matter. Listen in the clip below to his anguish in the middle of the 0-20 imprisonment the Bills endured in the 1970's and you understand why Buffalo fans born before Y2K understand what's at stake when it's time to Squish the Fish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_0wGYt_4Ck&feature=related

Or ask anyone who stormed the field at Rich Stadium in September of 1980 when Joe Cribbs, Joe Ferguson and Roosevelt Leaks helped break the decade-long hex Don Shula held over the Bills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBETnH4rB_Y&feature=related

So if rivalries must be taught, here are the basics. Shula's teams won 20 straight games over the Bills, some by the most excruciating and even questionable of manners. Old-timers will note Shula was on the NFL competition committee and argue he had the refs in his pocket?

Even after the Bills won a few in the 1980s, Miami's mastery resumed with the arrival of Dan Marino. Then came Marv Levy and Jim Kelly and the balance of the rivalry headed north. The Bills owned the Dolphins through the 90s and three playoff games.

Through this decade, both teams have been marginalized, and so has the rivalry. But that should by no means lead to its demise.

Rivals see intrinsic contrasts in each other. Look at the regions: South Florida vs. Western New York. It's perfect. And so, it should be preserved.

So let's continue our education, with bests and worst moments.

Worst:
5. 1999. Dolphin Stadium. Trace Armstrong sacks Doug Flutie on the last play of the AFC playoff game in Miami. Eric Moulds had torched the Dolphin secondary all day long, but Marino and company held the lead late. Flutie had driven the Bills to the Miami 10 for the tie, but couldn't pull of another miracle.

4. 1978. Rich Stadium. Could have used replay. The Bills had taken a late one-point lead and were ready to break the streak, but Bob Griese still had one last pass. His long throw down the hash marks to tight end Andre Tillman clearly hit the ground, but the refs ruled it catch at the Buffalo 33. Garo Yepremium kicks a 50-yard field goal to win it as time expires.

3. 1974. Orange Bowl. The Phantom Flag. First place Bills steal the momentum early as Tony Greene steps in front of a Griese throw and goes 105 yards for a TD. Flag thrown after the pick. Holding. Ball reverts to the Fish. They score.

2. 1974. Orange Bowl. Same game, the one that nearly killed Saban. Bills get two late TD throws from backup Gary Marangi, including one with :56 left. Still time though. Dolphins move ball to midfield, but Mercury Morris fumbles. Pat Toomay brushes ref after recovery. Flagged for personal foul. Dolphins retain possession. Don Nottingham runs for the winning TD on next play. You can still hear Saban: "God almighty, why do we do that!"

1. 1979. Rich Stadium. Charles Romes returns blocked kick for a TD. Bills D shuts out Miami for three quarters of the season opener. Then the skies opened. Larry Czonka bulls for the go-ahead score. But there's hope. Punt returner Keith Moody sets the Bills up at the Dolphin 20 in the waning moments. Enter Tom Dempsey, who kicked fans in the gut one more time when he shanked the winning kick (by the way, it was wide right.)

As a 13-year old first-time season ticket-holding witness to that one, I remember sitting in Section J4, Row 13, Seat 11 with my parents just letting the rain soak me and wondering, so this is what it means to be a Bills fan?

Ah, but the next year, the tide changed.

Best:
5. 1993. Joe Robbie Stadium. Cornelius Bennett sacks and strips Dan Marino, then picks up the fumble and prances the remaining ten yards for a score that propelled the Bills over the Fish in a Monday Night Football Massacre.

4. 2002. Ralph Wilson Stadium. After Ricky Williams plowed through the Bills for 200 yards and two long TD runs, but Drew Bledsoe and company throttled Miami in a snow game that turned the Ralph into a snow globe. Long TD catches to Peerless Price and Eric Moulds amidst choruses of "Let It Snow" became the signature image of the Dolphins futility of playing Buffalo here in December.

3. 1990. Rich Stadium. Take your pick. Frank Reich's understudy performance in a 24-7 victory that clinched an AFC East title. Or Thurman Thomas' catch against his helmet on the opening play of the Bills playoff victory over Marino. Kelly had just returned from injury to lead the Bills to their first Super Bowl date.

2. 1989. Joe Robbie Stadium. Jim Kelly dives across the goal line on the game's final play to overcome a 12-point fourth quarter deficit. (Trivia: who caught the TD pass the Bills needed before Kelly's sneak? The answer below)

1. 1980. Rich Stadium. Jeff Nixon intercepts Griese three times. Fergie throws to Roosevelt Leaks for the go-ahead score and Joe Cribbs dives over for the clincher. The field is stormed. The goal posts come down. One's fed to Ralph Wilson's owner box. The other goes over the rim of the stadium. a 17-7 opening day victory snaps the 20-game streak. Still have a slice of turf and some netting from that one. Talkin' Proud, as a theme for the city and the Chuck Knox Bills, takes off.

Just the tip of the iceberg for Bills fans who've seen Jeff Wright sack Marino and Fergie light up the 'Fins for 31 first half points on Monday Night Football. Even Trent Edwards, with his 4 TD passes last December in his first Miami game, has started to write his role in the rivalry.

And as the chapters grow, from Flip Johnson (there's your trivia answer) to Travis Henry and his botched halfback option pass, there will be plenty of bit players. For every Bryan Cox hand gesture, there's Thomas, Darick Holmes and Tim Tindale running the Finnies out of the Ralph, and Shula out of the game for good. But remember, O.J. Simpson and Joe D. never beat the Dolphins as Bills in the 70s. Donte Whitner and Marshawn Lynch have never lost to them.

So Miami Week, as hardcore fans still like to call it, remains something Bills followers should come to recognize as more than just another game on the schedule. Doing so is as important as wearing the red and the blue.

What are your Miami memories?

Has Anyone Seen The Deputy Mayor?

2008-10-23T05:50:00.001-07:00

At an Ibero American Action League dinner last Friday, the Master of Ceremony introduced Darryl Porter, the Special Assistant to Rochester Mayor Bob Duffy. Duffy was out of town. Porter represented in his place.

But during the introduction, the M.C. noted that, with the mayor out of town, he'd been told Porter was the person in charge of the City Hall for the moment.

Porter's no Alexander Haig. But doesn't the chain of command in the mayor's absence click down to the Deputy Mayor?

Patty Malgieri would be that person. And whether or not the M.C. misspoke or was unaware of that chain of command, it has not been easy finding Malgieri lately.

We're learning that perhaps there's a reason for that.

Sources are making reference to Duffy's circle of trust on Church Street closing and Malgieri, someone who recruited the former police chief for the job, being outside of it.

We're trying to reach Malgieri for clarification.

The place where we've learned about this also tells us that the member of the mayor's senior administrative staff who has Duffy's ear more than anyone else is Communications Director Gary Walker.

Walker's adamant that no one in the media gets to speak with the mayor unless they go through him. That's his job. But we also understand Walker addresses other political leaders with the same expectation.

Is this perception built on the mayor's manic public schedule and Walker's need to manage it or is it something else?

Let's find out.

Mesi, Ranzenhofer Debate Tonight on R News

2008-10-21T06:56:00.001-07:00

The candidates for the 61st State Senate seat debate the issues live tonight on R News, Time Warner Cable's 24 hour news channel in Rochester.

Democrat Joe Mesi and Republican Michael Ranzenhofer meet for a live, one-hour debate at the R News studios in Rochester. R News anchor Jim Aroune will moderate.

The debate begins at 7 p.m. It can be seen on Time Warner channel 9 in Monroe County and Time Warner channel 14 throughout the rest of the TW Rochester cable system.

It's the first first of four live debates R News will host before the November 4th election.

What He's All About

2008-10-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, Barack Obama can't help himself.

When approached by an Ohio small businessman (left), the Democratic presidential nominee, and leader in the polls over John McCain in the race for the White House, tipped his hand on what can only be considered a socialist plan to redistribute the wealth.

Robin Hood in rolled up, starched sleeves.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10152008/news/politics/obama_fires_a_robin_hood_warning_shot_133685.htm

Dayton businessman Joe Wurzelbacher told Obama he planned to become the owner of a small plumbing business that will take in more than the $250,000 amount at which Obama plans to begin raising tax rates.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the blue-collar worker asked.

After Obama responded that it would, Wurzelbacher continued: "I've worked hard . . . I work 10 to 12 hours a day and I'm buying this company and I'm going to continue working that way. I'm getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream."

Obama told him: "It's not that I want to punish your success. I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too."

We're sure to hear about it during the debate at Hofstra University, the final one before the vote.

The question: is this still what America wants, especially in the wake of the economic crisis?

Let's Not Talk About It

2008-10-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, the power of incumbency... and the polls.

Senator Dale Volker must feel comfortable in both.

With very little explanation, the 36-year incumbent Buffalo Republican has backed out of a scheduled debate with Democratic opponent Kathy Konst scheduled for October 22nd on R News, Time Warner Cable's 24-hour news channel out of Rochester.

The explanation from Volker's campaign:

"Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict that we did not catch until today while going through our schedule, Senator Volker will be unable to attend the October 22nd R News debate. We are extremely sorry for this inconvenience," writes Volker campaign representative Mary Bechtel.

The Volker campaign offered no date for rescheduling the event.

According to the Konst campaign, it is merely the latest example of the incumbent calling off planned public appearances that involved both candidates for the 59th State Senate District.

Family, in the Finger Lakes

2008-10-09T16:43:00.000-07:00

She'd wanted to ride a horse as long as she'd been able to say so. And then, when one showed up last weekend, it nearly scared her to tears.

And just as Mom and Dad figured Caroline would have to pass this ride up, their friend Jen Constantino took the bridle, conquered her own uneasiness in the saddle and away they went.

Jen's a teacher, a colleague of Mom, so the mount came pretty naturally.

Just one of the snapshots from a Sunday in the Finger Lakes where a family that's grown up always living "family" opened up its tradition again to friends .

The Constantinos bake cookies together. They play softball (they have their own diamond in the backyard, complete with backstop and base paths) and reinforce a family bond in so many creative ways. Fun ways. Rick and Jane's kids are all adults now, and their traditions may be evolving, but what remains the same is that they plan time together.

All the time, not just holidays.

And, they share their bond with others by welcoming friends and their children to an incredible home.

Not ostentatious, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" incredible (though it is a most breathtaking property.) Incredible in that, while it has three hilltops, including one where you can spot Rochester, and a seven acre lake full of Canadian geese, it is first and foremost, a home.

The kind where you instantly feel comfortable.

Rick and Jane make sure it's that way. Jane's Mother's Day gift was a backyard pirate's ship Rick had custom made. Jane wanted it for the grandchildren (there only one, now.)

Rick drives the tractor that takes ten families on a wagon ride through the Constantino hillside. And when he asks for riders to sing a song from "The Sound of Music," my daughters, Caroline and Clare, and many of the other children on board didn't hesitate to break into Do-Ra-Me.

Clare got her turn on the horse too. And all of the guests revelled in picking the pumpkins and gourds Rick and Jane had planted at the base of one of their ridges.

How often are we fortunate enough to be warmly welcomed to take part in another family's tradition?

Sunday, on a hilltop in the Finger Lakes, my family did. And we're better for it.

Private Matters?

2008-09-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

Is Yolanda Vega getting a new boss?

Governor David A. Paterson will sign an executive order on Thursday establishing the New York State Commission on State Asset Maximization to study potential public-private partnerships for the State of New York.

Among the organizations up sure to be up for consideration: the state lottery and the Thruway Authority.

So could a plan to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge downstate and add a new commuter rail line that travels across it.

http://polhudson.lohudblogs.com/2008/09/30/news-state-panel-to-look-at-privatizings/

Below, you'll find the rest of the governor's release on the study of privatizing state assets.

This act is a step towards more efficient leveraging of the State’s physical and human capital resources to better serve its citizens.

Public-private partnerships offer an opportunity for the State to more effectively make long-term capital investments, even in periods of economic distress.

The executive order will establish an eleven-member Commission, chaired by Charlotte Hitchcock, the Governor’s Deputy Secretary for Labor and Financial Regulation.

The Commission will be required to submit a preliminary report of their recommendations to the Governor and Legislature within 90 days, and a final report will be due within 180 days.

“Creating this Commission is another important step my Administration is taking to ensure that New York continues to make the crucial long-term investments we need to sustain economic growth and secure a valuable quality of life for our citizens,” said Governor Paterson. “Public-private partnerships are not the only answer, but we need to honestly assess whether they can be part of the solution. I believe the private sector can be a source of innovation, allowing us to increase the value, efficiency and safety of assets like our aging infrastructure system, and I look forward to receiving the Commission’s recommendations.”

The administration is not considering selling any assets. With commodity prices spiking to historic highs –asphalt is up 183 percent per ton over the past three years and steel is up 42 percent over the past two years – identifying new ways by which the State finances and delivers infrastructure projects is paramount. In compiling its final report, the Commission will examine the role of public-private partnerships, domestically and internationally, and then consider whether this model can benefit New York State.

In exploring the uses of public-private partnerships, the Commission will consider whether any specific New York State assets are suitable candidates for such partnerships.

The recommendations should also directly address ways to ensure adequate government oversight, performance standards, protection of public employees and regulation of user fees; use of non-compete clauses; and prevailing wage and labor standards.State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said: “There’s a lot to do to fix New York State’s infrastructure, but there’s not a lot of money to do it with. New York needs to craft new strategies to address our capital needs, and we need to get everyone involved – labor, business, the public sector and the private sector. Governor Paterson has taken a strong first step toward ensuring New York can rebuild our infrastructure.”Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos said.

The Commission will consist of eleven members to be appointed by the Governor: one on the recommendation of the Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, one on the recommendation of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one on the recommendation of the New York State Comptroller DiNapoli, one on the recommendation of the Attorney General, and seven without prior recommendation, one of whom will be a representative of organized labor.

Ms Hitchcock, the Commission’s Chairman, currently serves as the Governor’s Deputy Secretary of Labor and Financial Regulation, a position she has held since May, 2008. Prior to joining the Paterson Administration, Ms. Hitchcock was the Deputy Counsel to New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Before that, she was a Senior Staff Attorney with the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan for 15 years.

Ms. Hitchcock received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Yale University and a law degree from New York University.

The Governor has also appointed Samara Barend as the Commission’s Executive Director. Ms. Barend is the Vice President and Government Affairs Director for STV Incorporated, a nationally recognized engineering and architectural firm. And after she served as a steering committee member for the NYS Transportation Bond Act Campaign and was the initiator and leader of the Interstate-86 campaign, she made an unsuccessful bid for Congress, losing in 2004 to Republican Randy Kuhl.

"Call It"

2008-09-26T19:59:00.000-07:00

Javier Bardem's infamous villain, Anton Chigurh, flipped a coin in "No Country for Old Men." Heads you win. Tails you lose.. everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0kVdEGklkc

Is Congress making the same sort of call on the financial crisis this weekend?

Steven Pearlstein's straight talk lays it out as simply as possible in his latest column.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092504311.html

Now let me tell you something very simple and very important: You can try
to prevent a financial meltdown or you can teach Wall Street a lesson, but you can't do both at the same time.
So which will it be?

Call it.

Is the "Broken Glass" Half Empty?

2008-09-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

As you try to make sense of what the Bush Administration
is prescribing to save the American financial system,
consider Treasury Secretary Paulson's "Break the Glass"
plan.

It's what he asked aides to draw up earlier this year when the ground beneath Wall Street began to give way.

You may also want to consider Paulson, the legendary Wall Street dealmaker, and his progression of public assessments of the very industry he's now trying to save over the last 12 months; so cogently chronicled by The Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122229650055473043.html

Consider that the Paulson/Bernanke plan attempting to scare us (and our Capitol Hill representatives) into immediate action began with enough golden parachutes to allow the 82nd Airborne to make daily jumps into Lower Manhattan for the rest of the decade. Love that?

Democrats, seeing Republicans turn their noses at the initial plan, have worked to have those CEO security blankets stricken from the bailout. But they continue to tread timidly into a plan that, if it fails, will become their Scarlet Letter.

Can you trust any of it?

Or is it what America gets for hiring an administration that's put the very catalysts of this potential cataclysm in charge of finding the antidote to what's poisoned the markets?

Knockout Punch?

2008-09-24T12:18:00.001-07:00

Could a former heavyweight boxer deliver the decisive blow in the Democratic party's fight to take control of New York's State Senate?

The latest Siena College Research Institute poll found Democrat Joe Mesi leading Republican Erie County legislator Michael Ranzenhofer by two points in the race for the 61st State Senate seat.

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/446975.html

The GOP has held a marginal enrollment lead in the district. It's also been represented for years by Republican Mary Lou Rath, who is retiring.

R News will host Mesi and Ranzenhofer in a live televised debate Tuesday, October 21 at 7 p.m..

Tragic Tailgating Tale

2008-09-23T07:11:00.001-07:00

In the football euphoria that is the Buffalo Bills best start in 16 Septembers comes the sobering story that will make a lot of fans think: "I've been down that road before."

The road takes friends into Orchard Park for a rip-roaring tailgate party, that continues inside Ralph Wilson Stadium, that pushes on in the parking lot after a Bills win. And then, it hits the road.

http://www.wivb.com/Global/story.asp?S=9053285

A young man stands accused of DWI in a Niagara County crash that killed a friend and injured two others who had been traveling in his car. All four had enjoyed themselves in an all-too familiar way at the Bills-Raiders game Sunday.

Police are policing gameday drunks better in Orchard Park. More arrests are reported. But even authorities say the problem isn't getting worse. There's just a brighter light on it. It shined first last autumn when Bryant Gumbel and HBO's Real Sports exposed drunken, puking football fans at the Ralph, and elsewhere around the NFL.

The Niagara County crash brings it all home: that while a good party may be part of the Sunday experience for western New York football fans, it doesn't have to be the end-all.

Cagey A.G.

2008-09-23T05:48:00.001-07:00

What did you think of Andrew Cuomo's response Monday to John McCain's advances?

The Republican presidential nominee told CBS' 60 Minutes he believes New York's Attorney General would be just the person to give the Securities and Exchange Commission the credibility it needs to assert itself at a time of an international economic crisis.

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=65171&rnews_story_type=18

The best Cuomo, an avowed supporter of Barack Obama, could deliver was: “Are you trying to get rid of me as attorney general?”

Cuomo would never leave New York for a Republican. Not when an Obama cabinet position remains a possibility. Let alone the family's commitment to returning the Cuomo name to the governor's mansion.

Which is why it was so interesting to hear New York governor David Paterson respond to the McCain comment with: " we in New York want Andrew right here and not in DC.”

Sure about that?

Responsible (NY) Choice?

2008-09-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

Tom Golisano is considering whether or not to file a lawsuit against Warren Buffett.

Legal action is one choice the founder of Responsible New York will size up in response to a Buffalo News article that quoted a Sam Hoyt campaign worker who believes he can make a case RNY committed felony crimes by coordinating its efforts with those of political campaigns, including the campaign of Hoyt's unsuccessful challenger in his district's Democratic primary, Barbara Kavanaugh.

“They keep using the word felony and indictment in my name," Golisano said in Rochester Friday.

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=65092&rnews_story_type=18&category=10

The claims, by Hoyt campaign worker Jeremy Toth, led to an article in The Buffalo News in which Toth said he would seek an investigation into Responsible New York.

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/436307.html

“No one has brought forth one iota, one shred of information that would indicate that this is happening. It's purely a political thing that has come out of the Buffalo world. We think that is bad and we're going to do something about it," said Golisano.

That's Debateable

2008-09-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

You'll get a chance to see and hear the candidates seeking western New York's most hotly contested federal and state office seats in November. They will make their case for the job in a series of televised debates next month.

R News, Time Warner Cable's 24-hour local news channel will host six debates in the final two weeks of October. Each one hour debate will air live at 7 p.m. They can be seen on Cable Channel 9 in Monroe County, Channel 14 across the rest of the region served by TW's Rochester cable division.

I will be serving as moderator of each debate at the R News studios.

Each debate will also be available on demand on Time Warner Digital Cable Channel 108, R News on Demand.

Here's the schedule:

Oct. 21

61^st State Senate District: Joe Mesi (D) and Michael Ranzenhofer (R)

Oct. 22

59^th State Senate District: Kathy Konst (D) and Dale Volker (R)

Oct. 27

55^th State Senate District: David Nachbar (D) and Jim Alesi (R)

Oct. 28

29^th Congressional District : Eric Massa (D) and J. Randy Kuhl (R)

Oct. 29

56h State Senate District: Rick Dollinger (D) and Joe Robach (R)

If you have questions for the candidates, send them along.

Hope Falls Eternal

2008-09-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

Are they going to do it again?

Western New York's football team begins hypnotizing its loyal fans again this weekend.

Buffalo's Bills are built on hope. They provide more of it for the region than Niagara Falls provides hydro-power. It is their premise. And as Tim Robbins' character Andy Dufrain proved in "Shawshank Redemption:" "Hope is a good thing."

As long as you don't live and die by it, as the vast majority of the hypnotized do.

Ralph Wilson's team has handed out hope the way a candidate for office pitches campaign buttons and, just like the candidates hocking their buttons, they've left the people wanting.

It's become a successful business model. How else do you explain a mediocre team nearly breaking a record for season ticket sales?

As they prepare to host Seattle for the regular season opener, they seem to have their ducks in a row again. Young talent on the brink of breaking out. Minimal injuries. Soft schedule. Even their best blocker, Jason Peters, ended his holdout two days before the opener.

http://buffalobills.com/

I used to be one of the mesmerized. Tough to be around on game day, I remained largely an optimist, especially in the first week of September.

But something happened last year. Sitting in the Ralph, watching the Bills play an incredible game and still lose to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football, I realized maybe all the talk about small market team, and the NFL passing Buffalo by, may be true.

How else can to explain the sustained mediocrity, whether it be in the head coach (check the record,) or the defense, or a decade without double digit victory totals.

Can the Bills break our heart in a new way? Or will they make the Autumn of '08 something to Bill-ieve in?

I hope.

The Pit Bull With Lipstick?

2008-09-03T19:55:00.001-07:00

Did the self-proclaimed "Hockey Mom" do it?

Sarah Palin made history by taking the state in St. Paul Wednesday. Did her glib punchlines open her up to even greater scrutiny? Did her challenging of "The Nominee Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken" do more than goose delegates at the Democratic National Convention?

Alaska's governor came off spunky, understated; like a hockey mom shooting the bull, waiting in the rink food court for her kids to emerge from their latest game.

You can expect her to undergo even more intense vetting from the national, and citizen media.

But as she pledged to the convention after accepting her party's nomination, she's ready for the fight.

You get the sense the country is about to learn how effective a politician she can be.

Prelude To 2012?

2008-09-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

They'd come to hear Sarah Palin.

But delegates in attendance at Wednesday's Republican National Convention may have heard the speech of the week from the leader Conservatives originally wanted speaking on the convention's final night.

Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee wove a speech so humble and so powerful in its point that it could only have Neo-cons and those who don't believe in McCain-Palin thinking ahead to 2012.

As much as I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight, I really was originally hoping for the slot on Thursday called the acceptance speech. But I am delighted to speak on behalf of my 2nd choice for the Republican nomination for President, John McCain -- a man with the character and stubborn kind of integrity that I want in a President.

I grew up at a time and in a place where the civil rights movement was fought. I witnessed first hand the shameful evil of racism. I saw how ignorance and prejudice caused people to do the unthinkable to people of color not so many years ago.

So, I say with sincerity that I have great respect for Senator Obama's historic achievement to become his party's nominee -- not because of his color, but with indifference to it. Party or politics aside, we celebrate this milestone because it elevates our country.

But the Presidency is not a symbolic job, and I don't believe his preparation or his plans will lift America up.

Obama was right when he said this election is not about him, it's about YOU.
When gasoline costs $4 a gallon, it makes it tough if you're a single mom to get to your job each day in the used car you drive. You want something to change.

If you're a flight attendant or baggage handler and you're asked to take a pay cut to keep your job, you want something to change.

If you're a young couple losing your house, your credit rating, and your American dream, you want something to change.

John McCain offers specific ideas to respond to this need for change. But there are some things we never want to change -- freedom, security, and the opportunity to prosper.

Barack Obama's excellent adventure to Europe took his campaign for change to hundreds of thousands of people who don't even vote or pay taxes here.
It's not what he took there that concerns me. It's what he brought back. Lots of ideas from Europe he'd like to see imported here.

Centralized governments may care for you from cradle to grave, but they also control you. Most Americans don't want MORE government -- they want a lot less.
Abraham Lincoln reminded us that a government that can do everything FOR us can also take everything FROM us.

I really tire of hearing how the Democrats care about the working guy as if all Republicans grew up with silk stockings and silver spoons. In my little hometown of Hope, Arkansas, the 3 sacred heroes were Jesus, Elvis, and FDR, not necessarily in that order.

My own father held down two jobs, barely affording the little rented house I grew up in. My Dad worked hard, lifted heavy things, and got his hands dirty. The only soap we had at my house was Lava.
Heck, I was in college before I found out it wasn't supposed to hurt to take a shower.
I'm not a Republican because I grew up rich, but because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me.

John McCain doesn't want the kind of change that allows the government to reach deeper into your paycheck and pick your doctor, your child's school, or even the kind of car you drive or how much you inflate the tires.

He doesn't want to change the very definition of marriage from what it has always meant throughout recorded human history. It is not above John McCain's pay grade to grasp the simple fact that human life begins at conception, and he is committed to protecting it.

Maybe the most dangerous threat of an Obama presidency is that he would continue to give madmen the benefit of the doubt. If he's wrong just once, we will pay a heavy price.

John McCain will follow the fanatics to their caves in Pakistan or to the gates of hell.
What Obama wants to do is give them a place setting at the table.

John McCain is by far the most prepared, experienced, and tested Presidential candidate. Thoroughly tested.

When John McCain received his country's call to service, he didn't hesitate, and he didn't choose the easy path. He sat alone in the cockpit, taking off from an aircraft carrier to fly in unfriendly skies, knowing he might not make it back.

And one day, he didn't make it back. He was shot down and captured. He was brutally tortured.
He could have eased his own pain and even cut short his imprisonment by uttering a few simple words renouncing his country. But he loved his country and knew that to return with honor later was better than to return without it now.

Most of us can lift our arms high in the air to signify that we want something. His arms can't even lift to shoulder level, a constant reminder that his life is marked not by what he wants to receive, but by what he's already given.

Allow me to tell you about someone who understands this type of sacrifice better than anyone.
On the first day of school in 2005, Martha Cothren, a teacher at Joe T. Robinson High School in Little Rock, was determined that her students would not take their education or their privilege as
Americans for granted. With the principal's permission, she removed all the desks from her classroom.

The students entered the empty room and asked, "Mrs. Cothren, where are our desks?" "You get a desk when you tell me how you earn it," she replied.
"Making good grades?" asked one student.
"You ought to make good grades, but that won't get you a desk," Martha responded.
"I guess we have to behave," offered another.
"You WILL behave in my class," Mrs. Cothren retorted, "but that won't get you a desk either."
No one in first period guessed right. Same for second period.

By lunch, the buzz was all over campus... Mrs. Cothren had flipped out ....wouldn't let her students have a desk. Kids had used their cell phones and called their parents. By early afternoon, all 4 of the local network TV affiliates had camera crews at the school to report on the teacher who wouldn't let her students have a desk unless they could tell her how they earned it. By the final period, no one had guessed correctly.

As the students filed in, Martha Cothren said, "Well, I didn't think you would figure it out, so I'll have to tell you."
Martha opened the door of her classroom. In walked 27 veterans, some wearing uniforms from years gone by, but each one carrying a school desk.

As they carefully and quietly arranged the desks in neat rows, Martha said, "You don't have to earn your desks...these guys already did.
They went halfway around the world, giving up their education and interrupting their careers and families so you could have the freedom you have.
No one charged you for your desk. But it wasn't really free. These guys bought it for you. And I hope you never forget it. "

I wish we all would remember that being American is not just about the freedom we have. It's about those who gave it to us.
Ladies and Gentlemen, John McCain is one of those people who helped buy the freedom that we enjoy and the school desks we had.
It's my honor to do what I can to help him have a desk that he has earned one in the Oval Office.

It wasn't perfect, as some bloggers were right to point out.

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/huckabee_errata.html

But could the speech have been for Huckabee what Obama's 2004 DNC speech was for the Democratic nominee?

Contract for Generation Text

2008-09-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

My wife and I were... those parents.

One of the few couples keeping our teenager away from what we believed was the bane of her existence; as big a threat as poor body image, binge drinking and sexual encounters.

We're talking about the cell phone.

These teen toys keep young people from learning the important life lesson of how to be alone. Which, as Dr. Seuss teaches us in "Oh, the Places You'll Go," is "something that you'll be a lot."

http://www.safekids.com/cellphone.htm

More than anything, we didn't want to immerse our oldest daughter in a culture we saw as amplifying the idle, too-often destructive chatter that is the mean girl culture of teen America. We saw phones as a virus girls and the packs they run with could not shake. Constantly clicking on their phones in the middle of crowds and conversations seemed like no way to teach a young person how to be social "in the moment."

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/otherparentingissues/i/kids_cellphones.htm

And then, we realized that this is a way kids communicate. Generation Text can be more efficient in their exchanges. "Maybe, our daughter can lead, and not follow the anti-social behaviors of GT?"

So how do parents mold the behaviors of something they'll rarely be present to oversee?

The old fashioned way; with a contract.

What you'll find below is the document my daughter signed onto to earn her first cell phone PRIVILEGES. That's right, it's not a kid's right to have a phone. Most kids don't know that.

As our oldest daughter, and teenager, we believe you have shown enough respect to your parents, your sisters and those around you, and have grown in your role in our family to earn the privilege of having your own phone.

To be clear, this is a privilege, not a right of being a teen. And so with that privilege will come a set of rules by which you may maintain your phone privileges.

You will be free to use this phone for personal use and for when you need to communicate with others.

You will abide by the telephone contract established by us with the service provider. We will provide for basic phone and text message service. If there is a need for more service, you will be held responsible for paying for it.

Failure to do so when monthly fees are due can result in the suspension or termination of your phone privileges.

You will also be responsible for maintaining the phone in a safe way. Its security is our family's security. Do no lose it. If you do, you can be held liable for paying for it and any costs that come with the need to establish a new account for the phone.

There are also rules we expect you to follow in accordance with phone privileges. They are as follows:

You will hand over your phone to your parents at 10:00 p.m. each day. When your parent is
not present, you will stop using your phone at 10:00 p.m. Your parents can monitor your phone calls and the times you make them. Please adhere to this policy.

You will not use your phone during class time or anytime school prohibits phone use.
*No use during meals.
*No use during church.
*No use when guests are at our home.
*No use during conversations with others, unless the phone is being used to obtain information for use during the conversation.
*No indecent or inappropriate use of your phone by you or anyone who uses it. You will be held responsible for either.
*You will phone your father once a day.

Failure to adhere to the rules listed, or any other aspect of this agreement can lead to suspension or termination of phone privileges.

Like the part about calling Dad, too. One way to get her to stay in touch, heh?

Will she run into some of the contract's terms? She's a responsible kid. We'll see. But if anything, it sets the expectation that phones aren't just a social status toy. This is not a pair of Uggs or an outfit from Abercrombie. Phones are tools.

It's her dime.

A New Frontier

2008-08-25T16:00:00.001-07:00

Buffalo. Insert negative or self-deprecating comment.

For all of the flack the Queen City takes on, New York State's second largest city remains, if anything, proud of what it is. Even if, to outsiders, that means the second poorest city in America (which it is) or a severe weather outpost (which it can be.)

Natives (count me) know it can be a lot more than that.

Most times they struggle to define it to the uninitiated, often getting lost in niceties like "friendly," "neighbourly" or "small town."

But a New York article on the city may actually nail it; a definition of Buffalo that does not come up short or canned or market-tested. And from all points of view, it comes from those who see Buffalo as a place where they can find the sort of dream most never find in... are you ready... New York City.

http://nymag.com/realestate/features/49491/

In articulating the hope and spirit of the region, it also puts into perspective what can be seen amidst the run-down Rust Belt that Buffalo people see from both a distance and next door: a new frontier.

A place where people can leave their mark.

Port of Bad Call?

2008-08-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

Rochester business leaders got a sneak preview Thursday of what the city has planned for the still slumbering Port of Rochester terminal.

The facility, outside of a few eateries on its first floor, has remained dormant since the fast ferry headed east. It's a spectacular address with no magnetic vision. Rochester's responded by going back to the future and getting back into the nightclub business.

A high end bistro will open on the port's second floor, complete with indoor and outdoor seating and entertainment.

"If we're going to make progresss, we have to take that step forward," said Duffy administration economic development chief Carlos Carballada during the event held for members of the Rochester Business Alliance.

But didn't this sort of idea fail once before in another part of Roc City?

When the city tried to make High Falls a destination, it opened the Centers at High Falls. A few generations of private partners later, it's an empty shell and High Falls remains a place the public thinks is interesting, but rarely seeks out.

"I think what we have to do is seek private investment and make is palpable for people," mayor Bob Duffy said 19 months ago after the last major entertainment developer pulled out of High Falls.

What will Rochester do differently this time? Or have we seen this ship sail before?

Bills `Falls Back' Plan

2008-08-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight's Bills exhibition game in Toronto can sure make even the most optimistic WNY football fan fear the "Bills-to-Toronto-for-good scenario" isn't a matter of if, but when.

Then, you get another example of the grit Bills in Buffalo backers truly have. As if record season ticket sales for a 7-9 team weren't enough.

But this time, it comes from the franchise's most prominent legend.

They likened Jim Kelly to Joe Namath when he arrived here 22 years ago. Kelly never got to offer a guarantee as a player, but he's done so as an alum: that he'll ensure the team will never leave Buffalo.

Kelly's latest example of the lengths he, and others would be willing to go: a new stadium in Niagara Falls, demonstrate once again the fight that awaits any group that tries to extract the franchise, post Ralph Wilson.

http://www.torontosun.com/Sports/Football/2008/08/14/6444776-sun.html

Rogers Communications, the host for tonight's exhibition and all eight of the Bills Toronto games, will always portray the Bills eight games in five years as more than just cozying up to the NFL. Reading Phil Lind's comments in the link below make it sound like Ted Rogers is already working on a renaming contest for the franchise.

http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=721513

Yet even with Toronto casting this shadow over the Bills, there is the possibility that, even as a business decision, Rogers and his empire may have overplayed their hand; committing to the Bills series and maybe, shutting itself out of consideration should Wilson's team, or any other become available.

Or perhaps, as was mentioned on the Bills Radio Network pregame show Thursday, what should be recognized is that the NFL, in signing off on the Toronto series, conceded the continent's fifth largest media market to Wilson and his team. No expansion franchise fee. And only the ability to keep one of the smallest market franchises in the league viable, as Wilson has so publicly argued to do.

Demolition Man

2008-08-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

With apologies to The Police, David Paterson's kept his promise as a Demolition Man.

That sigh of relief you just heard came from Rochester City Hall, after the Duffy administration learned state funding to clear the Midtown Plaza site will survive the governor's $2.6 billion budget purge.

"http://www.mpnnow.com/news/x282404130/Midtown-Plaza-escapes-governors-proposed-cuts

"The Midtown Plaza project will not be impacted by these cost-saving measures," said Matt Anderson, a spokesperson with the state Division of the Budget. "Even in the midst of our current fiscal difficulties, Governor Paterson believes we still need to move on critical economic development projects that will create jobs for New Yorkers."

Next comes PAETEC's second quarter report. In it, and the company's response to adjusted earnings, we expect to hear where the telecom stands on its pledge to build its headquarters downtown and whether it'll be the Roc City landscape's new focal point.

City Hall will be waiting to exhale.. again.

PAETEC-ulation

2008-08-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

As PAETEC recalibrates its second quarter performance and prepares to announce the details this week, questions keep percolating about the telecom's ability to keep its promise to build Rochester's tallest building.

The stock hit absorbed by Arnuas Chesonis' company keeps people watching PAET like the price of a barrel of oil.

A couple of places make it their business to keep track of this sort of thing. Not only what the share price is, but also, who's buying.

http://www.mffais.com/newsarticles/2008-08-07/2507932-125305.html

PAETEC's ability to deliver its end of the Midtown deal isn't the only question rising in Midtown. How about the Duffy administration's ability to respond should bad news arrive? And will New York State's commitment to the project survive the budget bloodletting expected from this month's special legislative session with Governor David Paterson.

http://monroerising.com/2008/08/08/mayor-duffy-rochesters-golden-boy-who-has-to-have-his-way/

The mayor's speaking about a Plan B already. Will it include a plan to provide regular updates and answers to questions about the viability of the PAETEC HQ project?

Who Wants to be a Millionaire Candidate?

2008-08-06T20:49:00.000-07:00

Tom Golisano's out with the questions he'll use to sew his seeds of influence in the upcoming New York State legislature elections. The top-ranked prospects get a seven digit bump in their warchests.

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=63804&rnews_story_type=18

Would you rate a mill? Take the challenge yourself. And see if the questions the Rochester billionaire poses will help you make your vote in November?

See Through. Thank You

2008-07-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

You remember those X-Ray glasses advertised in the back of comic books. "Can See Through Anything!"

The conservative think tank Empire Center for New York State Policy is out with what's being heralded as the most comprehensive data base of government spending in the Empire State ever compiled for the public.

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/403990.html

It may not come with cardboard glasses that have red circles in the lenses. But maybe it'll project those red circles as bullseyes on the people spending the state into oblivion.

Perhaps Governor Paterson and the legislature could bring it up on their laptops at the August 19 jamboree in Albany.

There Will Be Thud

2008-07-29T18:13:00.000-07:00

David Paterson is as much "Albany" as anyone doing business in the capital. His father raised him on it. His Assembly service confirms his has always been the "Albany" way.

So now, with the state on the brink of its greatest fiscal meltdown in 30 years, Governor Paterson is calling on New York to cut up its credit cards and "learn to do more with less."

What would make us believe Paterson can flip an entire culture on its side? A $6.4 billion dollar budget that grew nearly a billion and a half dollars faster than projected? It is quite a thud. But is it enough?

http://www.rnews.com/TopStory_2004.cfm?cmd=top&rnews_story_type=18

The alarm he sounded in a statewide address from New York City may mean the deepest government cuts in years. Or perhaps, just a callback on the favors doled out in the latest budget cycle.

But have the "days of wine and roses" Hugh Carey told us were over ever really ended?

Legislators and the governor have a month to define New York's redefining before the real heavy lifting begins.

Paterson told us "there will be action." Let's see how much of it really improves the economic fortunes of the state for the long haul.

Staying Long?

2008-07-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

Why is it that anytime someone asks"will the Buffalo Bills stay after Ralph Wilson?", the players in the game always have a "don't worry" response?

It happened again Monday at St. John Fisher College after U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Wilson gathered behind closed doors at Bills training camp.

It may have been just a photo-op. Goodell told reporters again how the league wants the Bills to stay in western New York and how the games scheduled for Toronto turn the itsy-bitsy Buffalo market into a regional super-market that ranks with the Washingtons and Bostons.

“When Ralph and the commissioner and I get together we talk about how we can further strengthen the Bills,” Schumer said. “We’ve had good luck so far and we’re going to keep working and working at it.

Schumer bristled when asked about the Bills post-Wilson. "Disrespectful" is what the senior senator said about discussing such a thing. Then Schumer gave that Capitol Hill smile and said, "Don't worry... I am confident in the Bills’ future because of these two leaders. Our goal is to make the Bills in Buffalo as strong as possible so they will stay here a very long time.’’

http://www.buffalobills.com/news/news.jsp?news_id=6285

Whether it's Schumer, or Bills legend Jim Kelly constantly reassuring everyone the Bills will stay in Buffalo, or Goodell fielding questions about potential Bills buyers like Mario Cuomo and another legendary Bills QB, Jack Kemp, there is a growing a body of evidence that suggests all of the closed door meetings Wilson has these days have more to do with some unspoken agreement to maintain the franchise in this corner of the NFL map.

Even the region's heavyweight sports owners, Tom Golisano, Jeremy Jacobs and Bob Rich, spread the "don't worry" message.

Keep in mind, if you're Ralph Wilson, and you're on record saying that, when you leave us, you'll sell to the highest bidder, it wouldn't be good business to put restrictions on it. Restrictions like the team has to stay in Buffalo. So you say nothing. That gets fans worried about places like Toronto, or Los Angeles.

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=63479&rnews_story_type=18

But then again, you have had opportunities in the past to move before. And you haven't. And even though California or Canadian dollars could bring your family riches, there just may be something to legacy that'll make you do things, behind close doors, to ensure it.

So you invite the Commish and the Senator to breakfast in Pittsford. And you have them spread the message. And you say nothing, as Wilson did Monday.

And you thought Three Men in a Room only happened in Albany?

Live It or Leave It

2008-07-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

Bob Duffy's going for it.

Rochester's mayor will demand more of his city workforce live within the city limits. The former chief of Rochester's police force believes beyond the economic advantage of having hundreds more professionals contributing to a declining tax base, it works in neighborhoods to have their government servants as neighbors.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080727/NEWS01/807270362/1002/NEWS

Duffy believes this will work best with city cops. A vast majority live outside the city, some even beyond the county line.

Those who choose not to will be asked to work elsewhere. Can it backfire? The D&C reports it's already restricted the candidate pool for those seeking advancement within the RPD.

No word yet as to whether there will be push back from City Council.

So for now, Duffy's sent the message about working for Rochester: live it or leave it.

Camped Out?

2008-07-24T06:22:00.000-07:00

We'd waited all summer to see them. Finally, Dad has some time off to take my brother and me to see the Buffalo Bills at training camp.

It was August, 1972, the final days of camp that summer at Niagara University.

We thought we had arrived in time, but as fate would have it, Lou Saban had broken the last workout early. The field was empty, except for a few players straggling back to the locker room.

My father got us out of the car and led us to the door of the locker room (you could get that close then) so we could catch up with the one guy we'd come to see.

O.J. Simpson chatted with Dad. He signed our autographs. Shook my hand. It was one minute. But it made my summer.

The picture above is not mine, but it seemed like it. It's Simpson at the '72 camp. It looks like "our minute." Same white sky and snow fence. Simpson carrying his helmet in hand with muttonchops and mussed hair.)

It's in contrast to what has been Bills training camp at St. John Fisher College the past nine years. The team returns today for a new season and there is a difference.

When Ralph Wilson followed the advice of his then-new marketing director (now COO) and Fisher alum Russ Brandon, he did more than expand his fan base. He moved training camp into the 21st century, complete with a family experience that made a visit to Fisher with the kids like a day spent at Sea Breeze Amusement Park.

http://www.buffalobills.com/blog/index.jsp?blogger_id=1

Crowds swelled. Night practices became the summer version of Monday Night Football.

But over the last two years, while those night sessions continue to draw big, the day-to-day has become much more routine. Crowds appear to be at least a third smaller than they were. Diehards still come because it is a pleasant experience, but as with most things, the public gets used to it.

Is there more the team can do to jazz it up? This is training camp.

Even though the newness has worn off, it would be hard to say Bills fans, whether from the Rochester area or from across the region are camped out. The team just sold 54,000 season tickets, more than any year since the Super Bowl seasons. All for a team that hasn't made the playoffs since arriving at Fisher.

Still, whether the lines at the fence after practice are five or ten deep, or the bleachers are holding just a scattered few, there will always be an opportunity to share camp moments. Like the one my brother, father and I shared 36 summers ago.

Super Duper?

2008-07-24T05:48:00.000-07:00

What is it with schools this week?

Days after we learned about Rochester's schools tricking their students into believing they were best prepared to prove what they learned on final exams, we get the story of the Medina school superintendent who claimed he was a state trooper.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080724/NEWS01/807240365

Mr. Galante's staring at a felony count for his claim.

Sometimes educators teach students lessons the hard way.

Tip of the Iceberg?

2008-07-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

In a summer when the Rochester school district should be celebrating higher test scores, a shadow has been cast.

After reports from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle exposed social studies test preps for students that, at the least, can be considered questionable, that shadow's looks like it could be coming from the tip of an iceberg.

Rochester's school board, led by Malik Evans, Tom Brennan and Van White moved district officials to respond accordingly, after they learned 7th and 8th grade students were studying for their end of the year social studies exam by seeing the questions exactly as they appeared on the test they took.

"The problem with that response is that even the scrambling of questions and answers doesn't ensure that our children are anything but good memorizers," White said. "I want reassurances going forward that everyone views these tests, high-stakes or low-stakes, as being honest."

Some board members expressed concern that the district's initial apparent indifference to the matter suggested that similar forms of test preparation are ubiquitous.

"My concern is whether this is more widespread and what it says about the cultural malaise that the district suffers from," said Brennan.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080722/NEWS01/807220330

Prep School

2008-07-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

The honeymoon may be about to end for the honeymooning superintendent of Rochester's schools.

With Jean-Claude Brizard out of town celebrating his marriage, his leadership team will begin investigating how thousands of Rochester middle school students became fortunate enough to have been able to prepare for June social studies exams with the exact questions that appeared on those tests.

As the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle first reported, RCSD's director of social studies produced review materials for students that included the dozens of multiple choice questions and their answers.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080721/NEWS01/80721035&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

A full investigation is underway. Both a deputy superintendent and the head of the Rochester school board want to get to the bottom of it.

Abby's Olympic Dream Snapped

2008-07-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

She'd never suffered a serious injury.

Then early in the US Women's National Soccer Team's match with Brazil Wednesday at the University of San Diego, the best woman soccer player in the United States could not rise from the pitch.

http://www.rnews.com/TopStory_2004.cfm?cmd=top&rnews_story_type=18

Abby Wambach knew immediately. While crossing the field in full sprint, she'd collided with an opponent. Their legs tangled. Wambach, the Rochester native and iconic soccer figure in these parts, crashed to the turf.

The double fracture of her left leg will take three months to heal. By that time, even the analysis of her team's performance in the Beijing Olympics will be old news. Talk of her absence from the team may be the only echo that keeps traveling.

Wambach's not the first star athlete to see her dream of Olympic gold fall to injury. But her response to it, and the response of her team, could be a new lesson for all of us.http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2008-07-17-735475524_x.htm

Save Us, JibJab

2008-07-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

What each presumptive presidential nominee plans to do if elected is pretty important stuff.

John McCain

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/strategy_for_victory_in_afghan.html

and Barack Obama

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/a_new_strategy_for_a_new_world.html

may or may not have the best way to deal with America's war.

And as you search for the answers, perhaps a little levity.

Nobody brings that on the web like Jibjab. Days after the New Yorker's satire momentarily distracted the electorate, some good ol' fashion cartooning returns, courtesy of the guys we first met at the beginning of the W years.

Be sure to wait for the encore at the end of this latest ditty. O' yu'll be tuhmunated.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jibjab?ob=1

Some Sunset

2008-07-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

Joe Bruno said he would leave New York's State Senate seat sooner than later.

Sooner is Friday.

http://polhudson.lohudblogs.com/2008/07/15/bruno-riding-off-into-the-sunset/

His ride into the sunset includes a stop home today. Bruno will announce $16 million in funding for a long-planned expansion of the convention hall’s exhibit and banquet space at the Saratoga Springs City Center.

Still, one can't help but wonder about the timing of it all. Bruno's departure comes as the Republicans limp into a statewide election where they appear more and more likely to lose Bruno's beloved senate majority, the one he reigned over for a political generation. The one he served for 32 years.

Still no word from authorities investigating Bruno's business dealings. The last time that part of the story was raised, Bruno responded to a reporter's question by saying "You always take one more question than you should."

GOP VP?

2008-07-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

He's already conquered the Democratic party using grassroots internet campaigning and once-in-a-generation presence before a crowd.

He's defeated the supposed next president from New York and, oh, in the process, become the first African-American to claim a major party's presumptive presidential nomination.

Next, Barack Obama appears prepared to consider a Republican running mate.

How's Obama/Hagel sound? Democrats may shudder, but Independents may see it as just enough to move them away from considering John McCain, he of the just relaunched campaign under new management.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

And you thought the summer would be about nothing more than policy statements.

Cha-ching

2008-07-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

That would be the sound of other people's money helping Ontario County grow the way it wants.

Its Board of Supervisors approved the largest sales tax increase in nearly 50 years Thursday. What's one-third of a penny on every dollar anyway? Harmless, right?

“The lesser of two evils to me is the sales tax,” said Rocky LaRocca, D-city of Geneva.

http://www.mpnnow.com/towns/canandaigua/x390629291/Ontario-County-board-OKs-sales-tax-hike

The money raised would pay for Ontario's largest-ever capital improvement project; $160 million worth for things like expansion at Finger Lakes Community College. Who could argue?

And even by raising its sales tax to 7.5 percent, Ontario's remains half a penny less than neighboring counties, including Monroe.

http://www.rnews.com/TopStory_2004.cfm?cmd=top&rnews_story_type=18

It's become such an easy solution. Lawmakers don't have to raise the taxes of property owners. Just those people coming into the community looking to do business.

“It’s very easy for us to sit here and spend other people’s money," said Lloyd Kinnear, R-town of Canandaigua, one of three board members to vote against the sales tax hike. "The county needs to work more as a business and less as a political spending machine.”

Should the state legislature sign off on the sales tax hike (likely) and there are no modifications made to the capital plan at a July 31st vote, Ontario County will have its bounty.

You'll hear it every time you shop there.

Passing Gas

2008-07-10T20:03:00.001-07:00

That Jack Davis.

The western New York congressional candidate who fashions himself a Straight Talk Express pulled into a Greece filling station Thursday. He may have pulled off the most eye-catching campaign photo-op the region's seen in years.

Letting voters enjoy a gas holiday with $1.50 gallons for an afternoon will get any pump-weary consumer pumped up. Davis worked with the retailer to pick up the difference per gallon; an estimated $2.75/gallon. The three-time Democratic candidate for New York's 26th Congressional District seat figures it cost him about $35,000; something more easily done when you're a self-made millionaire.

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=62929&rnews_story_type=18

Davis' opponent, Republican newcomer Jon Powers, will also tell you that sort of political passing of gas can be done when you make the sort of money in petroleum trading Davis has made.

http://thebatavian.com/blogs/philipanselmo/powers-campaign-asks-jack-davis-answer-questions-about-his-millions-oil-and-big-

Did Davis get his message across? Or was it merely more political wind broken?

Tower Struggle?

2008-07-03T19:08:00.001-07:00

Leveling six city blocks costs a lot. Usually, a lot more than first projected.

Has the ambitious plan to clear the Midtown Plaza area to make way for PAETEC's new world headquarters run into fiscal reality? A question easily asked with word of plans to maintain the Midtown Tower in the heart of downtown Rochester.

Original plans had called for the PAETEC building to rise on the site of the Midtown Tower. Now, an option is being considered to place what will be Rochester's tallest building at the northwest corner of the property at Main and Clinton.

Sure, the underground parking ramp beneath Midtown could be saved. And the tower may have a future as a place for housing. But does the truth lie in the cold bottom line of the cost of clearing the entire Midtown site.

The $60 million commitment from New York State sure sounded like it would be enough when Eliot Spitzer stood by Arunas Chesonis and vowed to see it through.

But those who know development have a hard time making the math work on clearing that much debris and asbestos from that large of a site in that tight a downtown corridor.

Could closing the deal take some private help? Perhaps from one of the exhisting property owners in the Midtown Block? Christa, one of the Rochester area's most influential developers, owns the property at Main and Clinton. Could an exchange be in the works to benefit both Christa and those who wish to see Rochester's skyline redefined?

And for those thinking: turning Midtown Tower into housing; what a great idea? Know what a commercial real estate source told me. Before the city took over the property, its previous owner, Black Acre, already had a plan put together to redevelop the tower, including literally skinning the facade of the facility.

http://rochacha-rant.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

When you add up the cost of asbestos removal and the questionable need for that much housing space in downtown Rochester, you don't have to be a developer to see why the tower still sits empty today.

Should this cast doubt on the city and PAETEC's ability to make this remaking of "Roc City," as Chesonis likes to call it, a reality? The players will dismiss that sort of negativity.
Neither the city, nor PAETEC, will confirm the reprieve for Midtown Tower yet, only that it's an option. If they choose it, it would cut into the cost of making the site shovel ready for PAETEC and subsequent development around the new skyscraper.

It won't be long before they'll have to level with us about what will be leveled.

Musical Chairs

2008-07-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

Wonder how Bill Reilich emerging as the favorite to be the Monroe County Republican Committee chairman sits with Jim Alesi?

Alesi had stood on crutches in the middle of the R News newsroom just five days earlier. The state senator is still recovering from a fall from a ladder.

Alesi had just finished an on-air interview in which he reacted to the resignation of committee chair Steve Minarik. As he casually fielded questions from R News staffers, Alesi was asked if he wanted the job.

"We don't do things that way?" Alesi said, in reference to the Monroe GOP's record of never installing an incumbent legislator in the role of chairman. "Creates too many conflicts."

Talk about conflicting signals.

Maggie Brooks appeared to send them by announcing that, in her search for new leadership for the committee, she would endorse Reilich, a three-term Assemblyman, former county legislator and current Greece Republican committee chair.

"Bill will offer exactly the kind of leadership we need to move our great party forward in a positive direction," Brooks said in a statement. "He understands that we must begin a new era of inclusiveness and collaboration, and set a new tone that will make divisiveness a thing of the past."

Reilich called it an honor. "In my role as State Assemblyman, serving in the minority party, I understand what it takes to get things done by building relationships with people who may not always agree with me politically. I know first-hand that collaboration is a powerful means for achieving our goals."

Part of Brooks' plan to back Reilich comes with the qualifier that four vice chairs be appointed as well. We don't know who they will be, but bet on their "inclusive" skills rising to the top, the way the county executive said Reilich's did.

Meanwhile, Reilich says he'll reach out to party leadership to support his bid for the chairmanship. Look for more conflict from interested party members, like Alesi.

Or maybe it will be another fall from a ladder.

http://www.rnews.com/TopStory_2004.cfm?cmd=top&rnews_story_type=18

Good Grief

2008-06-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

The familiar orange and red glow that accompanies an impromptu candlelight vigil filled a corner of Victor Monday night.

Patti Duprey organized it. She said Shane Borgus was the love of her life. She spoke about giving all of the people who knew the 27-year old Victor man a place to come and celebrate Shane's life, not mourn him. And they did; dozens of young people, some old, came to share the moment.

Shane Borgus was a passenger in an SUV that rolled over in Farmington the night before. The driver, a 19-year old friend, is charged with DWI.

Patti smiled as she told the TV news crews how she was Shane's special friend and how he loved the San Francisco 49'ers and was an incredible cook, and how the night was an overwhelming success because of all the people who turned out.

Meanwhile, another of Shane's friends stood just behind her. Watch the TV footage and you couldn't help but notice him. He was staring at Patti. Maybe he was just sad about the recount of their friend, Shane.

Or was he wondering: "why is she smiling? Is she enjoying this?"

The candlelight vigil's becoming like another chain store opening at the mall. They're everywhere.

Besides the ones held for EVERY SINGLE victim of violence in Rochester, and beyond, there are now the ones for every other occasion.

The vigil to end them all lasted more than a week in Fairport a year ago, when five cheerleaders and newly minted graduates died in a crash. A hillside behind the high school became the place to gather. The school renamed it in their honor.

Which begs the question: why all the public wakes? Last I knew, the family of the deceased hosted them so that those closest could pay their respects.

Now, we have vigils where people who are most often not family, upstage the wakes in the name of publicly recognizing the deceased. To remember, they say. To celebrate.

Trouble is, these events (and they've now become that. Just ask newsrooms planners) don't allow people to grieve.

Instead they "celebrate" the deceased. Or maybe, just come together to be seen supporting the sadness.

Do they bring people together? The dozens who turned out in Victor Monday answer that question, just like the thousands who turned out in Fairport last year did.

But what's learned? And whose vigil is it? Not the family's.

It's the organizers who want to pay tribute; to light up the night to show people who their friend was. To show what they can do for their friend.

Perhaps, instead of distracting themselves with event planning, the healthiest thing for folks to do is to stop and reflect on the loss on their own. It's part of life. It needs to be dealt with.

Grieving is good. And it doesn't have to be public.

Which Straw Broke The Elephant's Back?

2008-06-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

Political party chairmen are likes coaches, Steve Minarik once told me. They're hired to be fired. And the only thing that keeps them in a job is winning.

Minarik won plenty. Some, his peers said, he had no business winning.

But he'll win no more as chairman for Monroe County's GOP. County Executive Maggie Brooks asked for his resignation Friday and got it.

A change in style is what Brooks wanted. "No one thing led to the request," the county executive said.

Over 16 years as the county GOP chairman, Minarik became as close to a dynasty leader as could be found in Rochester-area politics. He assumed the mantel of leadership as Democrats took the White House, but ushered in a Republican Revolution two years before it arrived in Washington. Republicans haven't relinquished either the county legislature majority or the county executive's office since Minarik's arrival in 1992.

"A worthy adversary," is what Democratic chair and state assemblyman Joe Morelle added.

Conservative Party chair Tom Cook called him a political giant. "As influential a political leader as Monroe County saw in the last 100 years." Together, the two made a lot of kings. And enemies. Minarik never had a problem with that. "You do what you think is right for the people you're serving, the people of Monroe County."

So what was the straw that broke the elephant's back? Minarik's at-times coarse ways didn't play well with plenty of people, even those in the brass knuckle world of politics. Even those who benefited from them.

Did Minarik's bullying ways lead to the GOP losing Mike Green to the Democratic party as Green prepared to succeed his boss, Howard Relin in the D.A.'s office?

Some believe this spring's stalemated search for a new MCC president did it. Two long-time GOP lieutenants were pushed onto the finalists' list. Both were viewed as Minarik placements. Faculty, staff and students protested. Trustees deadlocked. No president was chosen. Brooks called the search outrageous and unacceptable.

All of that came after the prickly public defender search and the F.A.I.R. plan controversy. And let's not forget the Renaissance Square spectacular; announced days after Brooks entered office and now, on life-support, in need of substantial bi-partisan support just so ground can be broken.

Minarik's two years as State GOP chair may have made Minarik vulnerable. He backed William Weld for governor, a candidate who never even made it out of the party's convention. With anti-Republican sentiment roaring from Washington to Albany, the GOP lost the governor's mansion.

With State senate majority leader Joe Bruno, and now Minarik, stepping aside at the start and finish of the business week, the GOP's fortunes will be in new hands.

Even Minarik, who valued loyalty nearly as much as victory, had to feel his visit with Brooks Monday was a tollbooth moment.

Who drove him there? Only his favorite find, Brooks; a former TV anchorwoman he helped get into county office, who starred as county clerk, then became the warm, familiar face of his party. Maggie is as popular a government official as has ever served Monroe.

Ain't politics a grand ol' party?

A Risk Worth Taking

2008-06-25T05:25:00.001-07:00

What was he thinking?

What could the man who opened the door to the biggest scandal in Rochester at this moment have been considering when he chose to act.

Former Monroe County legislator and Irondequoit town councilman Bill Bastuk stands accused of raping a teenage girl during a party at the Rochester Yacht Club last September. The girl's statement to police was released during Bastuk's court appearance Tuesday. Bastuk has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=62452&rnews_story_type=18

If the allegations are true, the weakness with which Bastuk acted would be made obvious.

Contrast that against the strength demonstrated in this case by another man. For, in her statement, Bastuk's accuser reveals we wouldn't know any of this had her father not read her diary.

Imagine encroaching on your daughter's most personal thoughts, the ones she's supposed to be growing on her own. The ones that're supposed to help her become an independent-thinking person.

The relationship between a father and teen daughter is one I'm learning to grow.

Meg Meeker, M.D., and her book "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know" are helping. Meeker writes about a father's need to be her daughter's hero and the space Dad should maintain through his little girl's rough-and-tumble teenage years and beyond.

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780345499394.html

Establishing the right distance (which Meeker advises can never be too far away) no doubt helped the father move on his instincts to investigate his daughter's behavior and move toward her diary.

Did he think he was violating her privacy and jeopordizing his relationship with her? Was being the over-protective father worth moving through her personal thoughts? The discovery answers the question, but what if he had found only musings of adolescence, stuff one would expect to find.

Even if it was an impulsive act on his part, it surely saved his littler girl in many ways.

Hopefully, it opened conversations about what is in bounds and what is not when it comes to the privacy a child should expect from her or his parents.

And move parents to consider whether they're close enough to their teenagers' lives.

Mother & Child Reunion

2008-06-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

Laura Benjamin figured she'd give blogging a try.

The Colorado Springs, CO mother of three and professional communicator and coach took a liking to it. As any good blogger would do, she focused her efforts on one thing. Laura developed a blog network for her now-defunct high school alma mater, Rochester, NY's Cardinal Mooney High.

Laura started with an alum page. Slowly, the feedback trickled in. One of the early messages came from Matt Marquardt, who still lives in the Rochester area and worked at a local telecom, PAETEC. Matt wrote, looking for his birth mother, who he believed had been a Mooney grad in the early 70's.

A Mooney alum from the era quickly alerted Laura of the potential birth mom's whereabouts. Next thing she knew, Laura was arranging for the two to meet. The joyful reunion was a powerful experience for all involved and another transcendent moment in the blogosphere.

http://laurabenjamin.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/how-blogging-connected-birth-mom-and-adopted-child/

Guilty Plea Enough to Get Bills Lynch?

2008-06-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

Marshawn Lynch's impending plea deal to being behind the wheel of his SUV when it struck a Canadian woman may sound like the end of the a police blotter nightmare for Buffalo Bills fans.

Could it just be the start of the real trouble?

The NFL doesn't like its players hurting the citizenry, not since Roger Goodell started wearing the star. It's moved decisively for less with Goodell in the commissioner's office.

Lynch's record may be merely pinged by the infraction he'll plead guilty to in Traffic Court Wednesday or Thursday. And it may be an agreed upon charge that the Erie County D.A. and defense attorney for the injured woman may have signed off on.

But a civil case will raise conflicting witness accounts detailed by the Buffalo News. Did Lynch stop, realize what he'd done, then drive off, or merely motor away because he'd been distracted by another pedestrian?

Only then will we begin to know if the NFL intends to keep Lynch off the Buffalo sidelines this fall.

http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/375141.html

Hit and Rahn

2008-06-18T18:36:00.001-07:00

What we know about a Greece police sergeant's connection to a hit and run accident on a Greece expressway leaves us asking more questions.

We know that, according to authorities, Sgt. Nicholas Joseph was off-duty, driving down Interstate 390 in the early morning of June 7 when he suddenly encountered two vehicles. Joseph evaded one that had swerved out of the way to avoid a stalled car on the side of the highway. Investigators say Joseph did not avoid the stalled vehicle. His vehicle rear-ended that car.

Its driver, a pregnant woman, was rushed to Strong Memorial Hospital where she had to prematurely deliver her child.

Joseph, according to authorities, left the scene. Greece police officers, who responded to the accident, did not proceed with any form of criminal investigation.

We know that Joseph is on what authorities called sick leave. He was apparently injured in the crash. However, Joseph, according to authorities, was not taken to a hospital at the time of the accident. Had he sought care, Joseph would have been able to legally leave the scene of the crash.

While New York State Police investigate what Greece police never did, Greece's police chief ordered an internal investigation into the matter.

Chief Merritt Rahn told a Rochester TV station he was embarrassed by his department's handling of the hit and run and that it didn't look good. Rahn told News10NBC he should have been notified and that mistakes were made.

Rahn would not return our calls for comment Wednesday evening. When he does, here are the questions he'll hear us ask:

When did you learn about the accident? What was your first response? What did your officers do when they arrived at the scene of the accident? Why didn't Sgt. Joseph go directly to the hospital? When he went, who took him?

Rahn may be as powerful a public servant as there is in the Rochester area. As Greece's police chief for 17 years, little happens without him knowing about it, especially when it happens within his police force of more than 90 officers.

This could be a major story with long-term negative impact for Greece's police department. The civil implications of not only Joseph's alleged actions, but those of the Greece police department, could be just the start of it.

Another part of the story sure to evolve in the coming days; Rahn's relationship with Joseph. The two are close. Rahn's a family friend . He worked with Joseph's father, Lt. Al Joseph, when the two served together in the Rochester police force.

The senior Joseph's renowned for his book "We Get Confessions," which teaches interviewing and interrogation techniques. Could come in handy for Rahn in his department's review of the case.

And reporters covering the story.

First Offendant Rights

2008-06-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

Could it have exposed him?

The radio rant that's landed Bob Lonsberry in the buzz around Rochester this week is fairly pedestrian for the WHAM midday host.

Lonsberry turned to the cranky persona that most often gets him into hot water and slammed the YWCA's Young Parents Support Services program and the Urban League's Black Scholars programs . He took exception with a newspaper story on the former with language the YWCA criticized as graphic and intolerable. Here's a portion of the commentary:

"You will have a school where there will be 50 girls who graduate with honors and there will be 5 girls who get pregnant. Who do we have the special program for? Who do we give the certificate to? Who do we put stories about in the paper telling how proud we are? Little sister ‘take your pants off and spread your legs,’ that’s who gets the certificate. You have people who do what’s right, who work hard, and achieve and excel and set a good example and they don’t make the paper, they don’t make anything. There’s no special program for you."

Lonsberry then threw gasoline on a fire already raging. He called the Black Scholars program a racist endeavor that lowers the bar for those it honors:

"If you’re white and you have a B, you’re average. If you’re black and have a B, you get your picture in the paper. What’s that message, right there, huh? Any time you endorse and reward failure and mediocrity, you only have more failure and mediocrity."

The YWCA and the United Church Ministries both spoke out about Lonsberry's commentary, several days after it aired. They were joined by Rochester's school superintendent, who called for WHAM to take Lonsberry off the air.

Jean-Claude Brizard is a brilliant guy. In his first six months, he's already done smart things for the city schools, like teaming with the city to link classroom achievement to his students' eligibility to use Rochester's recreation centers. But if you were to ask 100 parents in his district today what they know about him, most would now respond: "He called for Lonsberry's head."

The talk show host gave him an easy target. Lonsberry used offensive language, making reference to students in the Young Parents program like:

"We could just tell them they should have left their frickin' pants on, right? Keep your legs together, Sweet Cheeks, everything will be OK..... Who do we put stories about in the paper telling how proud we are? Little sister `take your pants off and spread your legs,' That's who gets the certificate."

"What he said was unfortunate and shows his understanding of the problem," said Brizard, apparently unaware that during the commentary, Lonsberry, as he has done in the past on his program, shared the fact he was the son of a single, teenage mom.

"I don't think he has the right to spew that negativity on the radio. There's gotta be accountability everywhere, right?"

Yet beyond the lack of class in Lonsberry's rant, did Brizard address the challenge asserted in the host's comments about mediocrity? No, he didn't. He chose to challenge the speech rights of a talk show host. He dismissed, with his lack of response, what some would say are questions about standards and accountability. Brizard did so standing with leaders of the UCM, a group that's often responded to the negativity of speech.

In responding to the comments, Brizard had an opportunity to take more than the leadership role his title provides. And what do leaders do in a volatile moment: they see the heart of the matter, calm the masses and move everyone forward.

The door was open to talk about education's penchant for recognizing achievement in all forms. Not just by teen moms or B students in city schools, but in suburban and rural districts too where PTA's believe every pinch pot, popsicle stick project and book report deserves a ribbon, whether it be blue, red or pink.

Instead, the superintendent sounded like just another voice in the chorus. A chorus that's sang this song before and done little to change things across the community.

WHAM stands by its host and his First Offendant Rights. It's invited the offended to join Lonsberry on the air to continue the conversation.

Perhaps another opportunity for Brizard to move us forward.

The Gift That Kept on Giving

2008-06-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

Anybody else check in with Dad Sunday, and again Monday when Tiger Woods gave golf fans a Father's Day double treat at the U.S. Open?

"I'll tell you son. He's unbelievable," said the man my brothers and I have just recently started to call "Curly," as in the tough-as-nails Jack Palance character in the film "City Slickers."

Curly compares Tiger to Joe Louis and Jim Brown. Their excellence, unquestionable, their affect, transcendent.

And still there are those who'd rather see him fail. There was my brother-in-law on Father's Day evening, shouting Woods down like a gallery kibitzer; the kind that makes Woods step away from his shot a couple times a round. "He's ruining the game," he said, just before cheering a missed Woods putt.

But beyond the Godzilla drives and miraculous shots that come with a Woods championship, there is that mental toughness. It's the stuff Nike captured so powerfully in the voice of Woods' late-father in the ads NBC seemed to play every other break during the Open. Think Rocco Mediate was hearing the ghost of Earl Woods affirm: "Tiger, you'll never meet anyone as mentally tough as you. And he hasn't, and he never will."

I wasn't the only one to mist up a bit when Nike drove home its Father's Day message, just as tens of thousands of dads found themselves jumping out of their chairs when Woods performed deja' vu with breathtaking birdie putts to send the tournament to playoffs on both Sunday and Monday.

The sports moment that was Woods' 14th major title is for golf, the game, to celebrate. But what drove Woods this weekend, and in every other tournament he plays, is a gift between father and son.

It's what keeps fathers and sons watching.

Left In His Wake

2008-06-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

In South Buffalo, most wakes are Irish wakes. Lines form at the funeral home. Just enough laughter mixes with the tears and wonder of a life lost. Glasses are raised at night, often earlier.

As the major news networks canonized Tim Russert following his sudden passing, I feared the man's true meaning would be washed away in whatever earnest efforts were made to hold a broadcast version of a South Buffalo wake. That's usually how it works when media celebrities leave us. The ad nauseum reflections of every other media celebrity can only dull the record.

Russert's passing affected me like no death outside my family. Never met the man, but he did come from the same part of the world my family had. As the lead national embassador for my hometown, Russert had, in the minds of proud Buffalonians, become the standard bearer for all that natives of the Queen City aspired to be; certainly those who believed in his "keep your nose to the grindstone and remember where you came from" outlook.

He was as trustworthy a journalist as the medium in which he worked gives us. And in a world where the gatekeeper holds an even more crucial role, Russert rose to be a most reliable guide.

One of the parks dedicated in his name in West Seneca, the inner-ring suburb of Buffalo where Russert and his family lived, sits around the corner from the homes of my grandmother and aunts. A candlelight vigil there Sunday brought people together. They mourned the loss of someone who taught them politics and represented them in every big interview. Little Russ was the example of what could be; prominence, faith, good nature, all backed by a strong family, hard work and smarts.

As I searched for the reason why word of his death made me crouch on my back deck Friday as if I'd just taken a tire iron to the gut, it came to me that, in his passion for the work and his love of home and family, he had echoed the things that are so easily lost, even discarded by the industry and sadly, by a growing culture evolving around us. Things I'd always valued and fight every day to hold up for my family.

The sorts of things you make small talk about at an Irish wake in South Buffalo.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2008/06/lessons-of-the.html

Tribunal Response

2008-06-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

Well, Bob Duffy is a Tribune.

Rochester's mayor graduated more than 30 years ago as a Monroe Community College Tribune (the name of the school's sports teams.) But just as a Roman magistrate from the plebian order would do, Duffy is also protecting the people who put him in City Hall from arbitrary actions.

Like the travesty that was the search for his alma mater's next president.

Duffy fumed before the media about Monroe Community College's clunker of an effort to choose the college's next leader, one that collapsed under what the mayor calls "exactly the type of infighting that makes me sick."

The stalemate involving MCC's one Conservative and nine Republican trustees exposed a sloppiness in the execution of what, for the GOP, was expected to be an otherwise routine patronage assignment. Even amid the protests of students and faculty who saw the late addition of two "hometown favorites" as a corruption of the process, Monroe County still gets to make the call. Monroe is still being run by a Republican majority.

Instead, the board split on former legislature majority leader Bill Smith and restauranteur and Republican stalwart Dennis Kessler. We're still waiting to learn exactly why. Business (GOP) leaders in the community demanded Kessler get the job in a revote. County Executive Maggie Brooks called for the resignation of any MCC trustee "who couldn't commit to a non-political, thorough search for a new president."

And then the Tribune sounded.

Duffy had heard Kessler could not swing a majority on the board because he's too closely linked.... to Duffy, who once upon a time before the prospect of the mayor's job moved him to switch party's in Democrat-dominated Rochester was... a Republican.

"This is the kind of politics that has strangled Rochester and Monroe County and prevents it from growing," said the mayor.

Strangulation by stalemate. It has made Duffy mad enough to threaten to pull his support from the local GOP's prized (Trojan horse?) Renaissance Square. The mayor plans to get Governor Paterson involved in moving their party (the one that runs New York State) to ensure a cleaner presidential search at MCC.

"If Renaissance Square is in any way going to erode into a partisan project, then people know very quickly what my position will be on that one."

The Tribune has spoken; against "personal and political manipulation," and in favor of openness for the community's sake. It comes at a time when his party has political stature to affect the matter.

Yet those who served under him in Rochester's police department will tell you Bob Duffy has long been a fan of the stalemate.

In overseeing the administration of the city's largest department, he would frequently draw out investigations and research into subject matter and incidents until an "appropriate" outcome arrived. These are things spoken to me by people who identified the delays as Duffy's way of controlling the situation and moving the answers to the questions before him in his favor. It is a transparent management style that rarely sees the light of day; the sort the record shows to be thorough and even. What some would call brilliantly political.

It fulfills the definition of tribune and elevates that person in the eye of those he serves as sacrosanct. It allows Duffy to make the sort of political threat he made Thursday and receive head-nodding approval. What is expected from leadership.

Then again, anyone who attacked the tribune could also be put to death.

Everything Personal, Just Business

2008-06-12T05:51:00.000-07:00

David Dey can see him through curtains of the restaurant windows across the street; a tall, thin man who probably is wondering what this new place before him is doing in the middle of his neighborhood; on his drug turf in Rochester's 19th Ward.

"That business just falls on them," Dey says. "They grow up, Dad's no where to be found; maybe Mom is, maybe not. Someone different's taking care of them all the time and then, when they grow up and it's time to need money, the business is just there for them. It's what they know, and it's easy."

Dey believes that one day soon, the man will cross that street and at least ask "what's goin' on?" When he does, Dey says he'll strike up a conversation with him when he does, and invite him in for some Louisianna-style food at The French Quarter, one of the businesses now up and running inside what is a first-of-its kind place in the United States.

The restaurant, a coffee shop, a document center and a small retail space all are doing business out of the corner space of a 100-year old block property on Arnett Boulevard. It's called Risego. It's Dey's vision for ending the cycle that's turned once-robust urban neighborhoods into declining, violent, crime-riddled 'hoods.

At the heart of it is what appears to be an altruistic economic development strategy called social entrepeneurship. Strategic Business Intelligence Group (SBIG ) defines it as an emerging business paradigm spanning non profit and for profit business models with principles that've defined what entrepreneurs do. A PBS special on social entrepeneurs called those who pursue it "The New Heroes."

For Dey, it means teaching people, mostly young people, who've never considered before just how they can be entrepeneurs. Dey worked a stint in the city of Rochester's economic development operation. He knows why things don't work in neighborhoods, what resources are needed. More importantly, he knows how and why things..really work .. in the at-risk parts of the city. After launching an institute for sustainability at Roberts Wesleyan College (with funding from Rochester billionaire Tom Golisano), Dey struck out on his own to respond to what he called his mid-life crisis.

On the sidewalk in front of Risego, he redefines working the street. Handsome, friendly and quick to smile, Dey will spend a few minutes when he can greeting passersby. When he can, he'll invite them in to learn more about what's happening; a one-man grassroots campaign.

Among those who come to Risego to learn are participants in Rochester City Court's Drug Court, where mostly young people convicted of crimes involving illegal drugs are expected to be clean for a year, complete a chemical dependency program, have a high school degree, a GED or higher education, and be employed full time or be in college full time. Some are now being guided to Risego.

"John" arrived from drug court in late May, the kind of young person who needs to learn the fundamentals. As he shows him around the place, Dey coaches him on how to confidently greet a stranger, how to engage in a conversation, how to listen, why it's important to show up for work on time and how to do it.

Bigger ideas are weeks, maybe months away, if "John" stays with it. Between now and then, Dey will help "John" explore what he likes to do; where his talents lie. Yet, when asked for his outlook on life, "John" says: "good guys finish last."

"It's all he's known," Dey says. "Rome wasn't built in a day. Will he make it? It will be up to him."

Drug court participants may arrive from city court, but it's about all the help Risego gets from government. No grants here. Risego is a private venture. Dey left his career and bought the Arnett property with his family's money (he thanks his parents every day.) There have been bountiful donations of time and money , from friends, community members... and those who believe in his entrepeneurial vision. Golisano provided seed money. Dey asked another prominent Rochester businessman, John "Dutch" Summers, to help him finance the construction of the kitchen for Risego's restaurant space. Dey and his network of contacts put in the sweat equity to bring the building to life. All of this without drawing a paycheck.

"This has not been comfortable for us, but we; my wife, my family, we believe in this," Dey says.

So does the 19th Ward family that opened its first family business in Risego's copier center. And a retired suburban couple. They drive half an hour in each day from Monroe County's west side to sell quality handmade goods from third world countries made by women receiving a fair wage. They had no plan for a brick and mortar operation, until they met Dey and his plan to demonstrate entrepeneurship in a place in desperate need of it.

Oil paintings of Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong and Sonny Rollins hang on the wall in The French Quarter and play off its Big Easy riff. They're the work of a man working to put the life that led him to prison farther and farther behind him. And most days, Dey holds education sessions at Risego's conference room just off the main space. Sometimes, it's one-on-ones with people like "John." Other times, he hosts groups like math teachers from the Rochester school district, interested in curriculum options that would get kids thinking business other than what's available on the streets.

Is Risego a miracle, or just another well-intentioned idea? It's Dey's plan to grow more Risego's in other sections of Rochester and eventually, across the country. Can anyone be a business person? Can shining the light of financial independence for those who most need it be enough?

Dey sees the answer through the window of the French Quarter as he takes another look across the street at the drug dealer scouting out his turf. "You know, if it were me, I'd be doing it too. It's so easy. But that's our job here. To show them there's more. A lot more."

http://www.pbs.org/opb/thenewheroes/whatis/resources.html

Why Should He?

2008-06-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

Now the hard part begins for Barack Obama.

Not the general election.

As the Obama braintrust basks in its historic moment, it’s had a two-month head start on the most prolific challenge ever faced by a newly-minted major party nominee: what to do about the vanquished.

There’s never been a runner-up like the junior senator from New York. Not LBJ. Not Reagan. Not Teddy.

And just as seemingly easy as it would be for an Obama/Clinton ticket to blossom in the afterglow of the greatest (by all measures) campaign in American political history, could Barack be sipping on these questions as he toasts victory:

“Is Hillary `Change’?” Should sixteen months of “Change We Can Believe In” end in an invitation to a candidate your campaign lumped in with the Washington establishment? Compromise is one thing, but would Obama just as quickly lose the one thing people still believe makes him different from McCain?

Does she help? 18 million votes, more than any other primary candidate, makes this seem obvious. So do her swing state victories. But are those only her victories, or any Democrat’s to win in a year when primary vote count tripled that of the GOP? Is she still the polarizing figure that would move Republicans who’d conceded ‘08 back to the polls?

Would it be 2 and a half presidents? Can a Change champ move through his political adolescence in a household with two domineering parents? And just who settles the ties? Would 18 million votes speak softly when things get uncomfortable?

Would she eclipse him? Name the VP who’s been as big, if not bigger, than Prez? (How’s the Cheney-Bush arrangement worked for you?)

Does he need her? For a guy who’s failed to rally middle-America in the last three months, Obama’s hardly a mortal lock and he’ll need to do something he’s yet to do in the campaign: improve, but is his liberal record enough for him to fail against John McCain and eight years of W?

Can she turn on him? Harder now than ever before, after vowing to see her party into the White House. Is every Clintonite prepared to sit this one out in the name of four more years of GOP leadership in the White House? Vote McCain? Really? And as for party unity; the great overhyped, meaningless talking point of the punditry, there is no Ross Perot or Ralph Nader option.

How Obama traverses the Hill ahead could be the measure of the candidate. Can he? Yes.