Tea and Vitriol

 Michael Scott Jr, 22, was sentenced on Tuesday in NY State Supreme Court in Rochester to 30 years in prison for two separate deadly shootings, occurring a year apart. Scott pleaded guilty to manslaughter in both cases, not homicide, though I never knew a corpse that asked about the difference between the two. This was obviously a plea deal, which is how most of our justice system in the US functions, sparing everyone the time, stress and expense of an actual trial. This is supposed to make everyone happy, except maybe the families and friends of the victims. If they complain, they are looked at as spoilsports and told that the courts have provided them with that meaningless word "closure" and that they should get on with their lives. After all, justice WAS done, wasn't it? Without plea deals, our already overbooked courts would grind to a halt. That's because our legal system allows for a multitude of frivolous lawsuits to clog our courts. "Sue 'em" has...

 A recurring theme among the dying cities of the "Rust Belt" is that redeveloping their dead downtown areas will revitalize them. That this "renaissance" will "save" their cities. It has really never worked in the long run. This is largely because the proponents for such plans have chosen to ignore the history of the cities in question, of the organic growth that led to making their downtowns vibrant. They have also chosen to forget that times have changed. Such is the case of our own fair city, Rochester, New York, where downtown redevelopment has been a stunning failure Rochester reached its zenith in the 1950's. With a population of 350,000 souls, its downtown was crammed with all kinds of retail establishments, restaurants, nightclubs and movie theatres. Downtown Rochester was so congested with people and traffic that the Inner Loop was built to allow people to avoid the crowds. At the same time, changes had occurred in America that would produce t...