Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on February 7th, 2012
Let me say first that this is not a simple issue. I wish the Republican presidential candidates weren't pretending that it is. And let me say, too, that I admire a lot about the Catholic Church. It has been a leader in human rights in many, many areas. Catholics have
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on January 24th, 2012
Newt Gingrich now stands a good chance of being the Republican presidential nominee. I'm not sure politics can get any weirder than this. Gingrich is a long way from sewing up the nomination, obviously. But last week was quite a week. And Gingrich's rise - his win in South Carolina,
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on January 17th, 2012
Our little burg feels like a glass half empty, half full right now, and you can see that reflected in the national focus on us over the past few weeks. On the half-empty side: the threat of a Kodak bankruptcy is still in the air, and the national news media
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on January 10th, 2012
Oh, me. With the national news media hinting at bankruptcy for Kodak, it's a somber time here. So I was hoping our full-speed-ahead governor would announce something big in his State of the State address last week. I was hoping he had exciting ideas for popping up the state's economy -
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on December 27th, 2011
The plan to demolish an old building on the site of Genesee Brewing Company has me conflicted. The building in question is a massive structure. Imposing. A little weird. And it's unique, for sure: in appearance and in location. Brewery officials say that they have no use for it and haven't
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on December 20th, 2011
In withdrawing combat troops from Iraq, it would be nice to think we had taken a big step toward a more rational defense policy. And yet we are still at war in Afghanistan. And we don't seem to have learned much from the war we've just ended. As the troops headed home last
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on December 13th, 2011
Rochester, and an important field of health care, lost a real giant late last month with the death of Frank Williams. A bright, caring, and exceptionally visionary man, Frank was an expert and a trailblazer in caring for the elderly. His long, distinguished career included serving as medical director of
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on December 13th, 2011
The Republican Party's search for a presidential candidate has been so entertaining that you kinda hope it'll just go on and on. All the show needed was to have Donald Trump jump into the middle of it, preening and puffing and once again promoting Celebrity Apprentice. (New season starts February
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on December 6th, 2011
With great regularity, we come up with new ways to reform education in Rochester: we close schools and open new ones; we create middle schools, then put them back with high schools; we open charter schools, try to enlist 10,000 mentors, give prizes for reading books.... Can't we just cut the
Opinion
Mary Anna Towler on November 30th, 2011
The supercommittee's failure to come up with a debt-reduction plan last week wasn't a surprise, and I'm not mourning the outcome. Frankly, I started rooting for failure a couple of weeks ago, as I listened to a talk by Bill Hartung, an expert on US military
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on February 10th, 2012
So now we wait to see how far President Obama will back down on contraceptive coverage. Many media sources are reporting that the administration will announce some kind of compromise later today. That's a terrible mistake. As I wrote earlier this week, by insisting that its women employees be denied
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on February 9th, 2012
The draw-down of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to be popular with Americans, as well it should be. But apparently that doesn't mean we've learned anything from our involvement there. Nor, apparently, have we learned anything about politicians making up excuses for invading other countries. Many of us are
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on February 8th, 2012
Jiminy Christmas! For anyone hoping for an Obama victory in November, the Republican presidential competition is proving to be an awful lot of fun. Yesterday, everybody seemed to think that Mitt Romney had the nomination locked up. The most the three other candidates could accomplish, everybody thought, was to tarnish
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on February 6th, 2012
The New York Times seems to have a warm spot in its heart for Rochester. In their coverage of the Kodak bankruptcy, Times writers have been careful to note that we've replaced many of the jobs that we've lost with the decline of Kodak. And Friday's Times carried an op-ed
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on February 3rd, 2012
The enormous support shown for Planned Parenthood this past week has been a big, beautiful bright spot in what has been a troubling period of assault on women's rights and women's health. First there's been the conflict between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church over health-care coverage. The administration
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on February 3rd, 2012
For the country, and for President Obama, this morning's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was really good news. The economy added substantially more jobs in January than had been expected, and the unemployment rate has dropped yet again. Predictably, Republicans tried to turn the report into bad news,
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on February 1st, 2012
How much do we need to know about political candidates' personal lives and beliefs? Does it matter whether candidates subscribe to a particular religious faith? And if a candidate is active in a particular religious organization - and is a substantial donor - how much do we need to know
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on January 31st, 2012
Despite the suspense and theatrics since Newt Gingrich won South Carolina, today's Florida primary probably won't tell us much. A week from now, it's likely that four candidates will still be competing for the Republican presidential nomination. Mitt Romney is heavily favored to win, but Gingrich says he'll keep fighting
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on January 26th, 2012
What a ride.... Two days ago, Newt Gingrich had an impressive lead in polls in Florida. This morning, according to Real Clear Politics, Romney's ahead in Florida. And he's eating away at Gingrich's brief lead in national polls. And Romney's lead may get stronger: conservative commentators are going after Gingrich with
News Blog
Mary Anna Towler on January 25th, 2012
President Obama's State of the Union speech last night certainly could have been worse. And it could have been better. Maybe it was the best he could do, given his Republican opponents. Maybe making it better wouldn't have done much except make Republicans even madder than they are. Parts of it
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