Rod Watson
Rod Watson: Alternative to gang life is about pride
While community groups toil in the streets to reclaim young adults from the guns, drugs and death of Buffalo’s gang life, the larger question is how to make such work less necessary. (Updated: 07/09/09 10:32 AM )
Rod Watson: Going beyond baby steps in school reform
One victim of the State Senate stalemate is the bid to move Buffalo School Board elections to November. (Updated: 07/02/09 7:12 AM )
Rod Watson: Vile e-mails tarnish more than sender
Thank goodness for forthright bigots. In the fashion of Archie Bunker, who never considered himself to be wrong, Lewiston-Porter School Board President Robert Weller saw nothing wrong with forwarding racist and sexist e-mails. (Updated: 06/11/09 8:01 AM )
Rod Watson: Sotomayor’s critics just don’t get it
Optimists see the controversy over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a teachable moment. The challenge is that we have too many slow learners. (Updated: 06/04/09 7:31 AM )
Rod Watson: Letting gays wed is issue of equality
It’s hard to be right and wrong at the same time. Perhaps only those who speak for the Almighty can accomplish such a miraculous contradiction. (Updated: 05/21/09 7:22 AM )
Rod Watson: Wondering about cycle of violence
Javon R. Jackson’s mother came here to watch her successful student graduate from college and, instead, ended up planning his funeral on Mother’s Day. (Updated: 05/14/09 8:11 AM )
Rod Watson: Collins acting like man who would be king
I’m sure I voted in the last Erie County election. But for the life of me, I cannot remember a ballot line marked “czar.” (Updated: 05/07/09 7:40 AM )
Rod Watson: School Board election vital yet neglected
What if they held an election and nobody showed up? It may happen Tuesday—and that’s only a slight exaggeration. Despite all of the rhetoric about the importance of education, the importance of the school system and the importance of children, next week’s Buffalo School Board election will not be important enough for most folks to bother showing up. (Updated: 04/30/09 8:51 AM )
Rod Watson: Democrats rely on voters with amnesia
Give our Democratic state senators credit. The last thing I expected, after the debacle they call the budget, was an effort to give more angry residents the chance to vent at the polls. (Updated: 04/23/09 7:56 AM )
Rod Watson: Red-light cameras are a good start
The folks objecting to Buffalo’s redlight cameras have got to be kidding if their biggest beef is that drivers who suddenly decide to obey the law will be rear-ended by those who don’t. (Updated: 04/16/09 7:55 AM )
Rod Watson: It’s ‘What, me worry?’ in the State Senate
I have the perfect nominee to run State Senate Democrats’ new, expanded office in Buffalo: Rick Wagoner.
Not since the former GM head accompanied his Ford and Chrysler buddies to D. C. on private jets has anyone been so out of touch with angry and financially drained taxpayers. (Updated: 04/09/09 10:20 AM )
Rod Watson: The new tax-free me
So it appears that some lifestyle changes are in order. But don’t call this a midlife crisis. Call it a midyear crisis, since that’s about the time we—and the legislators who support it—will fully understand all the ways the $131.8 billion state budget will empty our pockets. (Updated: 04/02/09 8:47 AM )
Rod Watson: Drug laws lack a crucial factor: sanity
It’s not often that the right thing turns out to be the money-saving thing. But that would be the case if New York politicians find the guts to admit that mandatory sentencing laws for nonviolent drug offenders are a waste of money. (Updated: 03/19/09 7:26 AM )
Rod Watson: Add stupidity to list of anticrime tactics
Maybe it’s just me, but if I were smoking marijuana, ferrying cocaine or driving around with an unregistered handgun under the seat, I’d be very careful about coming to a complete stop at every octagonal sign. (Updated: 03/12/09 7:25 AM )
Rod Watson: Have-nots to Haves: Bring it on
Not since George Armstrong Custer has anyone gone into battle so badly outnumbered. Yet as federal and state efforts to help the little guy and restore tax fairness gain momentum, the minority who might pay more are massing at the country club under the banner of “class warfare.” (Updated: 03/05/09 10:52 AM )
