Tea and Vitriol

  The name "Daniel Prude" should not be unknown to anyone between the ages of eight and eighty who has lived in the dying City of Rochester for the last two and a half years. He was the out of towner who came to visit his brother, Joe Prude, at the end of March 2020. Within 24 hours of his arrival, he was subjected to a mental hygiene arrest, released, able to purchase illegal drugs (how he knew where to find them when he had just arrived in town is anyone's guess), ran naked into the streets on a cold night, was subdued by officers of the Rochester Police Department and died in their custody. Prude's death led to a cover-up by ex-Mayor Lovely Warren, her then police chief LaRon Singletary and a host of other members of her administration as well as the silence of City Counselor Mary Lupien, who later claimed that she had kept silent for the sake of Prude's family. When the information became public in September 2020, Free the People ROC organized riots, demanded

The old saying goes: "Be careful what you wish for. You might get it." In 2021, a large percentage of voters wanted to remove Lovely Warren from the mayoral throne and were not particularly fussy about the character of the person who would succeed her. They got their wish and elected Malik (Mahweak) Evans as mayor. Despite the media blitz to create a positive persona in order to sell the public on Mahweak, it never really took off because the reality of his political history was pretty dismal and too many people knew it to be taken in by all of the hype that now surrounded him. Still, enough people came to believe that their "creation" had the answers to all of their questions and the solutions to Rochester's serious problem of crime, poverty and a failing school system. Only it soon became evident that Evans really had no solutions to anything, which quickly produced a sense of "buyers' remorse" among people who were once his cheerleaders. My only

  Well, I'm back in Rochester. God alone knows why. I spent two of the last three months visiting my mother-in-law in Germany. Anyone who knows her can tell you it wasn't a vacation. But that isn't the issue here. While I was there, some friends and new acquaintances were curious about the United States in general and my hometown in particular. They have been familiar with my less than glowing reports about Rochester and were really surprised about what I had to say about our city. I encouraged them to Google anything that they really wanted to know about Rochester. They did and were shocked. They couldn't believe that I would choose to live in such a violent dangerous city, complete with a scandalous mayor, ex police chief and a more incompetent and uncaring than usual city council. Even more shocking and amusing to them was the violence in our schools, the dangers faced by teachers and students alike from feral urban humanoids there and the terminal assholism exhibite

Flashback to the late 16th century. Mary, Queen of Scots, is beheaded on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. A quatrain by an anonymous author, describing the event, was circulated throughout England, frightening the Virgin Queen. It served as an explicit example of the dangers facing political leaders everywhere. "The noble, famous queen, who lost her head of late Is proof that kings as well as clowns are bound to Fortune's fate. And that no earthly prince may so secure his crown That Fortune, with her spinning wheel, hath power to pull him down." Fast forward to 2021: Rochester's Democratic Mayoral Primary. Mayor Lovely Warren was defeated in her bid for a third term in office by a "landslide," although barely 25% of Rochester's registered Democrats bothered to vote at all. It was the worst defeat an incumbent mayor ever suffered since Rochester began to elect its mayors by popular vote forty years ago. Her opponent, Malik Evans, won sole