CITY publishes “Picking up the slack”

Posted by [email protected] | Dec 20, 2019 | Talker of the Town | 0 |

CITY, December 11th, 2019

The official seal from the Wonderland Dead Letter Office appropriately picturing the extinct dodo bird.

Last week Talker answered the CITY‘s call to submit a FEEDBACK letter, hoping to encourage other Letter to the Editor writers. Today, the CITY kindly printed “Picking up the slack.”

Actually, for years Talker has lamented the decline in popularity — for both readers and writers — of a the venerable form that have has been part of printed newspapers for centuries.

The 2016 Is Public Input to the D&C a Dead Letter? bemoans the diminished presence — online and print — on the pages of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

As alluded to in my letter, the 2019 Saying goodbye to the weekday print edition of the Democrat and Chronicle chastises the D & C for its shortsighted reduction of the Opinion page to a mere two days a week. [UPDATE, THIS WEEKEND, 1/19-20, THE D & C DROPPED THE SATURDAY OPINION PAGE. SUNDAY IS THE SOLE SURVIVOR.]

Since 2012, CITY has allowed me to express opinions in its public forum five times, each of which became incorporated into a Talker article. (below)

David Kramer holding the ever vanishing Speaking Out section of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 1/5/19. From The D & C does not publish our letter on its sexist use of language

Saying goodbye to the weekday print edition of the Democrat and Chronicle

9/26/18. Photo: Jonathon who was playing Pokémon at the time.

On Michael J. Nighan’s letter to the CITY Otterness and MAG

CITY, February 10 – 16, 2016

The City spreads the word about the Jim Crow Museum’s offer. Before it’s too late.

CITY, October 24th, 2012

Substitute teachers in the RCSD are a rich and untapped resource

Moving forward after school at Northeast; Wegmans stays the course

CITY, January 9th, 2013

We Are Orlando. And 25 years ago when the RCSD led the nation against discrimination towards gay students

Photo provided by Tom Feyer showing the sheer volume of letters he receives (and reads).

For you, Talker buys the D & C digital archives. And Noam Chomsky

(l-r) David Kramer, Valeria Chomsky, Noam Chomsky at the Eisenberg Rotunda, Schlegel Hall, University of Rochester [Photo: Leslie Kramer 4/21/16]

About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.