Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The "Occupation" Can End

Judge Evelyn Frazee did not grant an injunction to prevent the city from evicting the encampment.   Mayor Richards, we are waiting for our park back. Please make the correct decision soon and ask them to move along. Rochester is the last city in NY to have an "Occupation".   I understand you want more people downtown but I hope that this is not what you are talking about.

The big question now is:  Are the crows going to return?

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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Rottenchester Returns

One of the area's premier bloggers is back in business.   Rottenchester wound up his Fighting 29th blog months back, as New York's 29th congressional district headed toward redistricting oblivion.

Now he's back with Roc25, devoted to analysis and comment on the new Monroecentric 25th Congressional District.   It will be essential reading as the Maggie vs. Louise contest unfolds.

Thank you, Rottenchester.

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Monday, March 19, 2012

Why Brooks Will Run for Congress

Maggie Brooks will run for Congress because there's no reason for her not to.

Run and she has a decent shot at winning.   Lose and she's exactly where she'd be, and no worse off, than if she didn't run:  finishing out her term as Monroe County Executive.

Term limits make this term her last.   So a loss in a congressional race can't tarnish chances for re-election, since there isn't going to be a re-election.

This seems abundantly obvious.

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Thursday, March 8, 2012

Happy Birthday to Us!

This week marks the fifth anniversary for Mustard Street.

I can't improve on Philbrick's sketch of our mission on past anniversaries:

  to focus on Rochester and vicinity;

  to present original analysis;

  to strive for good writing;

  to focus on ideas, expressing them clearly and with a sense of humor;

  to provide information that propagandists posing as journalists want to suppress;

  to expose intellectual dishonesty in policies, politicians and the media.
To all of our readers, thank you for reading Mustard Street.

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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Democrat and Chronicle Paywall

Gannett Co., Inc. plans to place online content on all of its local newspapers behind a paywall in the immediate future.   This means we'll have to pay to read material from the Democrat and Chronicle online.

Gannett is a big, sophisticated corporation, so we have to think that it has a business model showing that paywalling its local papers will work, and ultimately make money for its stockholders.

Still, we have to wonder whether people will pay money to read about how terrible it is when indigent alcoholics who die in flophouses don't get a nice funeral for free.

Gasoline's at $4.00 and going up, crisis is brewing over Iran, the economy's still in the tank -- and this is the D&C's idea of what's important to its readers.

This morning's headline, "Sally Green to Get New Burial," -- about the twelfth story on the subject -- looked more like something out of The Onion than a real newspaper.

And The Onion isn't paywalled.

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Sunday, March 4, 2012

Back to the Blogosphere!

After taking a few months off after the campaign for City Council I find myself urged to get back to writing. The campaign didn’t end the way I would have hoped but it was an experience that I will never regret. So many new friendships and relationships created to my surprise. Plus the 10 pounds I lost walking to all of those doors didn’t hurt either!

What have I been up to you may ask? My wife and I have decided to go into business for ourselves and are in the process of opening a boutique in the City at the corner of Winton Rd and Blossom Rd. My wife, as many of you know, is from Thailand so we are focusing on importing women’s fashion accessories (Sterling silver, silk, handmade products, and a new line of handbags not available today in the US). Check it out at Fahsye.com or on Facebook by searching for “Fahsye”. And tell the ladies in your life!

What really urged me to get back to writing and will be part of the motivation going forward was this weeks passing of Andrew Breitbart. To say that I was a huge fan would be a stretch but I really enjoyed his work when I did catch him. 43 years old and already a huge success in the media industry. He was also a force behind so many other folks success in the industry as well, even those he completely disagreed with. Andrew picked up a torch and marched into the fight without anyone ever having to ask him. He was an inspiration to the younger generations and showed us how to use the tools of the day (social networking, blogs, twitter, etc) to fight the good fight.

So to Andrew, God bless! Know that your passion will continue on here on this earth.

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