Comment Archives: stories: News & Opinion: Feedback
Re: “Feedback 1/23”
"Henrik Ibsen observed (in "An Enemy of the People") that "a minority may be right; a majority is always wrong."
Mr Fass - So what you're saying is, had the alternative slate of candidates for the RPO Board been permitted on the ballot and received a majority of the votes, those electing them would have been wrong?
Re: “Feedback 1/23: From RPO musicians”
Cellist Ingrid Bock's letter is eloquent in its description of musical excellence found and lost. Finally! An RPO musician speaking about musical values! This is what over 1300 petition signers are talking about - the music, which is the point.
Re: “Feedback 1/23: From RPO musicians”
A response to Doug Prosser (originally posted in response to his post on the RPO Facebook page)
Mr. Prosser,
The “trust me, if you knew what I knew, you’d agree with me” attitude of your letter does not present information that is helpful in making an informed opinion, and presents the same patronizing tone that the management has consistently used in its statements. Where is the evidence on which we can build our reasoning?
However, you will recall that you and I spoke at great length on Dec. 23, 2012. You told me details which you are reluctant to reveal in your letter. I was able to investigate several of problematic situations that you recounted in our conversation, and was able to find sources of information that contradict your views.
You will recall that one statement you made was that Betty Strasenburgh’s boyfriend is Remmereit’s attorney. Well, I set you right on that one then and there.
Another statement you made is that there were never problems with the staff until Remmereit became music director (Board member Mark Siwiec has made the same statement). That statement can be contradicted – Stuart Low in the D & C and Gil French in _Musical America_ have observed the flight of unhappy staff, coinciding with Charlie Owens’ installment as CEO in 2007. And these former RPO staff members are themselves eager to talk about the serious and painful problems of Charlie Owens’ management style – but fearing retribution (or having been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements), they will only do so off record. As Attorney Eileen Buholtz said in the Jan. 10 meeting, (about 40 minutes in) there are some things that really need to be known, but it will take litigation, discovery, subpoena power, and even court orders to bring those materials to light.
Further, some anti-Remmereit rumors have been propagated by management (presumably at the instigation of Owens) specifically to undermine Remmereit’s relationship with the orchestra.
For instance at one point Remmereit gave the musicians' Personnel Manager a list of several musicians who Remmereit wished to meet with individually in order to discuss aspects of their technique that he felt needed improvement. This is entirely within the union regulations and also accepted convention. Remmereit can meet individually with a musician and the musician can have both the Personnel Manager and the Musicians Union rep. there at the meeting; the Music Director has every right to do this to try to try and improve the level of musicianship among the players. But the Personnel Manager did not keep Remmereit's wishes confidential, and the story somehow was twisted and spread by management into the claim that Remmereit had a “hit-list”, a list of 15 musicians that Remmereit wanted fired. That version of the story (which, I heard from you, Mr. Prosser) of course created great anxiety and hostility among the musicians and defensiveness from the section leaders. Not only is the story wrong, but it also assumes that Remmereit is stupid and doesn't know how the Union works! *I* know how the Union works and *I* have never been a professional musician -- you can't just fire anyone!!
So here is an instance of Remmereit doing everything correctly, of wanting to work with the musicians individually to build the orchestra into a stronger ensemble; instead his actions were distorted and used against him, used to destroy the loyalty of the musicians.
If management was on Remmereit’s side, working with him instead of trying to subvert his vision, the occasional and inevitable conflicts with the musicians could be worked out instead of being inflamed or even created. As Betty Strasenburg has repeatedly stated, Charlie Owens was out to fire Remmereit before he ever picked up the baton as Music Director. Owens is the source of the problems, and there will continue to be problems of this nature as long as he is in power. Sincerely, Liane Curtis
(Ph.D., Musicology, and President of Women's Philharmonic Advocacy, who presented Arild Remmereit and the RPO with the AMY Award on May 31, 2013. http://www.wophil.org/2012/more-on-the-pre… )
Re: “Feedback 1/16”
“Justice deferred is justice denied,” wrote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963. As we examine Dr. King’s legacy, can we claim that his beloved dream of justice has come true?
• Segregation: By many measures, America is more segregated now that it was Dr. King’s day. Shameful economic discrimination and income inequality have replaced legal Jim Crow. Here in our region, Buffalo and Syracuse have been in the top 10 most segregated cities by neighborhood in the country, and Rochester itself was ranked number 23 in 2009. Monroe County’s population is about 27% people of color, and yet the Rochester City School District is over 50% African-American, Latino, Asian and Native American.
• Economic injustice: Dr. King fought not only for integration, but also for jobs and housing justice for the poor, working class, and especially for people of color. Yet today less than 50% of African-Americans or Latinos are homeowners, as compared to over 70% of European-Americans. In December 2012, 14% of African-Americans and 10% of Latinos were jobless, as compared to 7% of European-Americans. In 2011, 37% of African-American children and 34% of Latino children lived in poverty; 12% of European-Americans are poor. And as the Occupy movement has highlighted, the gap between rich and poor has widened into a gulf in recent decades while the middle class continues to shrink.
• Peace and violence: Dr. King spoke out in 1967 against the “madness” of war in Vietnam, and urged the country to choose “nonviolent coexistence [over] violent co-annihilation.” Today, nearly five decades later, America’s ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have racked up charges of more than $1 trillion, not to mention claiming the lives of thousands of our brave soldiers and countless innocent children, women and men. Domestically, we reel from 61 mass shootings in the last 20 years, mourning our children murdered in schools, our friends and families gunned down in movie theaters, shopping malls, and on college campuses.
What else can we conclude but that Dr. King’s dream is still merely a dream?
--Tucker Ruderman
Rochester
Re: “Feedback 1/02”
@BILL AND SALLY MCCOY: "I earned every benefit I get and then some. "
No, you did not. For that statement to be remotely true for the average recipient, we'd have to cut benefits immediately by at least 80%.
If you're really willing to live with the benefits actually funded by your own personal contributions, we could solve our fiscal problems overnight — problems that are all too real, notwithstanding your head-in-sand denials. (Thanks!!!)
And no, the answer is NOT to demonize the most productive members of society and concentrate even more power in the hands of useless politicians and bureaucrats — not in this America, pal.
Re: “Feedback 12/19”
Check this out below:
"This is one of the most powerful statements you will read about the lack of national, particularly presidential, outcry and pain when the children butchered are non-white Americans. Read and weep for the Black and Brown children who are slaughtered daily all over the world."
DHS
Dohugh@aol.com
----------------------
"There will never be an appropriate time to say that this nation only stands at attention when the majority of victims are white Americans, as was the case at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut, so I might as well say it today." --- December 17, 2012 , Kirsten West Savali.
Race and Violence In America: We Are All Newtown.
December 17, 2012 by Kirsten West Savali.
http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2012/12/rac…
Re: “Feedback 12/19”
I guess I am the only person in the universe who is not shocked or surprised by what happened in Newtown. It was clear many years ago that this country had a serious problem with violence, yet guns remain freely available, "entertainment" grows even more horrific, mental health is entirely ignored, and we continue to express our complete disdain for life by making health care a profit-making endeavor. Our government is representative of whatever corporations or individuals can finance political campaigns that are run via television ads and is therefore composed by a group of immature self-serving people who appear completely unable to delay gratification. So when someone whose frightened family has been unable to obtain any help picks up a freely available assult weapons and mows down those who are incapable of any defense at all and who cannot be motivated by a desire to remain alive, I frankly don't see why no one expected it.
Re: “Feedback 12/19”
Rochester Musician - please indicate where you see me , "trumpeting decisions (I) agree with (which are not even closely supported by anything in the constitution)".
Should I counter by pointing out that those who celebrate the Court's misinterpretation of an amendment specifically and exclusively written to protect the right to carry arms within the context of a militia are the same who whine that the Supreme Court was wrong in their approval of Obamacare?
Re: “Feedback 12/19”
It's interesting that the left gripes about the Supreme Court ruling that the 2nd amendment does in fact state that people can bear arms, while totally accepting the Supreme Court decision that abortions cannot be made illegal. Find THAT in the constitution, please ....
And by the way -- I'm not a gun owner and expect never to be, and I'm in favor of keeping abortion legal. Just please don't whine about Supreme Court decisions that you don't agree with (even though it's not a real stretch to find it supported by the constitution), while trumpeting decisions you agree with (which are not even closely supported by anything in the constitution).
Re: “Feedback 12/19”
" We determined that the Constitution permits unlimited access to guns to protect our freedoms. "
Mr, Seager - No "WE" did not make this determination. It was made for us by a handful of Right Wing supreme court justices who intentionally misread the Second Amendment and ignored the fact that, like the right to own slaves, the amendment's original purpose has long since been rendered irrelevant, anti-social, and a national disgrace.
If any private firearm owner wants to know who was responsible for Newtown, Aurora, Columbine, U of VA or Binghamton, all they need do is look in the nearest mirror.
Re: “Feedback 12/12”
Been There - Humbug ! Rude is understandable? Perhaps at a hockey game. But at the Eastman? Never, never and never ! Such boorish behavior merely erodes the moral high ground which the Remmereit cultists claim they occupy.
Re: “Feedback 12/12”
Oh no Chaim DeLoye! Don't desecrate the memory of Alastair Sims!
Not appropriate - rude is never appropriate, just understandable.
Re: “Feedback 12/12”
Been There - My original comment was somehow transmogrified. What I wrote was...
So are you trying to claim that the actions of the "boo-ers" was appropriate"?
Re: “Feedback 12/12”
Been There - So are you trying to claim that the actions of the "boo-ers" was appropriate"? If not then I fail to see the point.
Re: “Feedback 12/12”
Before Saturday night's Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concert, President and CEO Charles Owens came onto the stage to make brief remarks about the Newtown, CT tragedy.
As he stepped before the microphone he was greeted with silence,then a loud "Boo" from the upper levels, and two more smaller boos. He made his remarks over total silence, dedicating the performance to those who had died in Newtown. When he finished, there was polite applause.
I doubt he will be foolish enough to mount the stage at Kodak Hall again, until the current controversy about Music Director Arild Remmereit's tenure has been decided.
Been There
Rochester, NY
Re: “Feedback 12/5”
Jim Blatt - Well stated ! Those who attempt to cloak the modern GOP with the mantle of the original Republican Party are fooling only themselves.
Re: “Feedback 11/28”
j.a.m - Apparently you believe that the Party of Jefferson became the Party of Jefferson Davis and then became the Party of Barack Obama without any change in ideology. .And interesting how that party of "over-privileged white liberals " garnered 70% + of both the black and Latino vote. Oh, I forgot... that must be the fruits of keeping the populace as dumb and dependent on government as possible.
Re: “Feedback 12/5”
Mike Gilbert - As a point of information your statement that, "it was predominately southern Democrats who fought viciously against the passage of the Amendment to abolish slavery. The blatant omission of this fact reeks of intent to deceive the reader." is about as far wrong as it's possible for a statement to be. Thus the only deception appears to be on your end.
Perhaps you've forgotten that those "southern Democrats" (let's call them by their more politically accurate name, "conservatives") left the House of Representative when their states seceded in 1860/1861. The 38th. Congress which ultimately approved the passage of the 13th. Amendment contained not a single southern Democratic House member. Thus it would have been a bit difficult for those southern Democrats to fight viciously against the passage of the Amendment during the 1864 and early 1865 debates when none of them were sitting in the House.
Care to try again?
Re: “Feedback 11/28”
@Chaim: Your description of the contemporary Democrat party is so generous. May we most respectfully suggest that it would be more aptly described as a motley crew of communists; atheists; eugenicists; abortionists; pornographers; blame-America-firsters; third-rate academics; guilt-tripping over-privileged white liberals (many of them expensively educated way beyond their native intelligence); tree-huggers; and assorted hippies, stoners, slackers and lunatics.
Interesting to note, too, that areas such as New York City have remained solid blue historically even while you claim the party's ideology has "radically altered over time".
Re: “Feedback 2/13”
Mr Perlman:
Since the self-styled RPO Community Supporters group censors any poster to its website who dares to suggest that supporting the RPO does not necessitate supporting Remmereit, or who asks embarrassing questions, perhaps you can supply a verifiable headcount of Supporters so that the public can determine for itself whether that membership is large or small.
On the topic of "representative democracy", we know that the RPO board was elected by a majority of the ballots cast by eligible voters to represent the competing interests of their constituency, i.e. all RPO members. As someone once said, “that’s how representative democracy works".
What we do NOT know is just what constituency elected the RPO Community Supporters to represent them and how that election took place. Again, any information you can provide that sheds light on the validity of the RPO Community Supporters’ claim to represent anyone other than themselves will be most welcome.