The Rochester Dissident

Kudos for the Omnium

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:06:00 GMT

All of Rochester owes the good folks at Full Moon Vista a big round of applause and a few high-fives. The Rochester Omnium, sponsored by the downtown bike shop and steered to victory by FMV owner Scott Page, has already become a local tradition - and...(read more)

Plowing through the Farm Bill: much more than empty calories

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Whoever first said that "the more you watch the news, the less you know" must have been thinking of how the media treat the Farm Bill. But now that we're safely past the latest chapter of this ongoing story - a couple months back, Congress...(read more)

Notes from Italy

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:17:13 GMT

It seems like I've been away from my blog for a long time - and yes, it's been more than a couple weeks since I even checked in. But my absence was for a good cause: a trip to Italy, with lots of biking there (I brought my Dahon folder, which...(read more)

My archive: articles from 2000-2004

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:44:16 GMT

Some of you may have noticed that the articles and columns I wrote for City Newspaper (ending in spring 2004) are not retrievable on the paper's "improved" website by author search. This is the result of what was originally a technical glitch...(read more)

The Renaissance squares

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:47:37 GMT

I made the mistake of going to the Renaissance Square dog-and-pony show this week. The organizers - the seemingly unbreakable coalition of downtown business interests, county government lickspittles, and engineering and construction firms - did a good...(read more)

Straighten those priorities

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:09:43 GMT

At this moment, while results from the Indiana and North Carolina Democratic primaries roll in, we're a bit closer to knowing which pair of warmongers will duke it out for the presidency. John "Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain may ultimately...(read more)

Go figure - MLK's "greatest purveyor of violence" by the numbers

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:52:00 GMT

Like so many communities today, the Rochester area is being hit with a fiscal three-fer: the city's looming annual budget deficit (on top of deficits and liabilities past), the county deficit (in part the effect of long-term regressive tax policy...(read more)

A deplorable state of affairs

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:23:16 GMT

"State of..." speeches are supposed to be taken as grand civic convocations, celebrations of unity and shared purpose, but they're really no more than elites talking to one another - just like most other aspects of very small "d"...(read more)

A poem to help commemorate National Poetry Month

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:56:00 GMT

Campbell’s Ledge From across the Susquehanna The striated ledge looks Like a bundle of taut springs Capable of lobbing a Volley of boulders Smack into the floodplain, crumpling The rail depot Like a broken toy. I come the long way around To be safe...(read more)

Five years... and 95 to go?

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:44:13 GMT

postamble();Five years and counting... you all know the meaning of the numbers. A million Iraqi dead; countless other Iraqis maimed or terrorized. This on top of a million or more Iraqis who died or whose lives were shattered by the 1990s Sanctions of...(read more)

War, by the numbers

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:40:19 GMT

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:51:45 GMT

postamble();Here's a poem from my reading the other night. (Thanks again to Frank Judge, Ed Downey and the Free Speech Zone poetry series at The Mez.) Bridge out -Jack Bradigan Spula Upland, a piddling rain gathered All night, then sought the open...(read more)

Poetry reading Thurs. March 20

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:26:31 GMT

Though I've got many thoughts rumbling through my brain about the fifth anniversary of the US war against Iraq, and also about comparative trivia like l'affaire Spitzer, I've been concentrating lately on getting my poems together for a reading...(read more)

Gandhi revisited

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:39:36 GMT

New chapters are being added to the Arun Gandhi story. It’s mostly Gandhi’s critics who are writing these chapters; the defense has mostly fallen silent. But I believe Gandhi has once again shot himself in the foot, to use an expression quite...(read more)

The health of the state?

The Rochester DISSIDENT: news, views, and poems from JACK BRADIGAN SPULA — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:48:15 GMT

Like many of you, I’ve been watching with dismay as the remaining Democratic candidates, those with enough cash to be contenders in an ultimate World Series, attack each other’s health plans. It’s not the attacks that bother me, though...(read more)