Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 11

DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE, ROCHESTER. N.Y.. SUNDAY. JUNE 27. 1993 1 1 U3 READER ESSAY ove living on 'the North Coast' By Peter Lovenheim captivated by the idea.

I feel like that character in a Moliere play who, when told the definition of prose, exclaimed, "Good heavens! For forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it!" Why is it so thrilling to discover we live on a coast? I think it's because the idea of coast suggests all the things people do on coasts: They stand there and dream of far-away places, mysterious lands, new beginnings. They keep watch for seafaring travelers from other lands. They stand guard in thick morning fog, vigilantly protecting the nation. A coast is where one's own culture meets the rest of the world. To live on a coast means continually to be exposed to foreign ways, different cultures, new ideas.

A coast is frontier it is messages 0' LJ -mmnirttfiiir I write this, I am sitting on a bench at Charlotte Beach, facing the lake. Over the years, I've sat here dozens of times, reading, watching my children ride the Dent-zel Carousel, enjoying an Abbott's custard. On any of those occasions, if you had asked me where exactly I was, I might have said, "at the lake," or "at Charlotte." But now, thanks to a new radio station in town, I cheerfully would answer, "I'm on the North Coast!" North Coast Radio, WJZR 105.9 FM, began broadcasting in Roches ter in January. I began listening about a month ago. The north coast of the United States, explains station owner Lee Rust, runs through the Great Lakes and up the St.

Lawrence Seaway. Clevelanders have been calling themselves "North Coasters" for some time. says Rust. "At first, 'North Coast' was just going to be the name of the company that owned the new radio station," explains Rust, "but people liked it so much we decided to call the station itself 'North Coast' instead of just using call letters. It makes Rochester sound more attractive, not Wow we can go to Atlantic City and say were bi- coastal just a cold, nondescript place." So about 20 times an hour, listeners to the radio station's mix of jazz, rock, folk and blues hear: "You're listening to North Coast Radio and "North Coast weather calls for partly sunny skies" and "that was Wynton Marsalis on North Coast 105.9." I'm a native of Rochester and always thought I lived in upstate New York.

Now I discover I live on the North Coast and I'm totally On library expansion Those who read architect Alfred Pardi's letter (June 5) criticizing the current plan for expanding the Central Library, should reread the letter by Rochester architect Thomas Castelein in the May 21, 1991 Democrat and Chronicle. Castelein criticized the previous plan that would have expanded the library into the river, just the solution that Pardi would seem to favor. It appears that we could have as many opinions on the library design as we have architects. That is why a panel of community and business leaders was assembled last year to review all expansion options. That group selected the current solution because it best meets the needs of the community and the library.

Alternatives for expanding the library have been studied for almost 25 years. Meanwhile, we are struggling to meet increasing demand for library services with a thoroughly inadequate, inefficient facility. Our resources are at risk because we have no fire suppression system. The building design prevents us from fully utilizing computer technology and serves as a barrier to delivering new and innovative informational services to the community. The library expansion project has received more than its share of study and review.

The time has come to move the project off the architect's drawing board and into the implementation phase. Richard Panz Director, Rochester Public Library Monroe County Library System Injustice to all I am appalled that St. Lawrence County District Attorney Richard V. Manning offered reduced charges to the five men who raped an unconscious woman at a restaurant in Gouverneur. This is not only an injustice to the victim but to all of society.

Rape is not an act of sex but an act of violence expressed sexually. The violent men who committed rape continue to exist freely in society with our mothers, daughters, grandmothers and friends. in bottles, refugees in overcrowded boats; it exotic foods, foreign tongues, new music and colorful clothes; it's submarines, sailors in dress whites, pillboxes, and a hint of sabotage; it's volunteers Dassin? hot Lovenheim coffee to sentries keeping silent watch over fog-shrouded beaches; it's surfers, horizons, long walks and lovers. Coasts are so classy, they inspire cultural elitism. There's the story about two Hollywood movie moguls studying a map of the U.S.

One sweeps his hand across the Midwest. "Who ore all those people out there?" he asks. The other replies, "Oh, those are the people we fly over." But thanks to WJZR, Rochester-ians don't have to take that East Coast-West Coast snobbery anymore. Now, simply by spending a weekend in Atlantic City, we can all be bi-coastal! And the North Coast can hold its own against the East Coast or West W.C. Elwell: Great weather William C.

Elwell got sick of people complaining about Rochester's weather, so he decided to do something about it. He wrote a letter to the editor that was published June 16 and read, in part: Rochesterians' penchant for complaining about the weather is an accepted phenomenon. But it is winter that really gets to us. Most of us agree that spring is rather nice in our part of the country and that autumn is usually splendid. We also agree that winter in Rochester can be brutal.

It is summer that is most disappointing: much too short and the weather is often too cool and lacking in sufficient sunshine. I propose that we adopt the Southern Hemisphere seasonal names. Beginning on June 21, we in Rochester will begin to Prosecution of the rapist is a community responsibility and the community relies on the district attorney to act on the victim's behalf. Michelle B. Dobrotki Rochester Where were the needy? I was touched by the 10 young people who were pictured and quoted as a sampling of responses to your question, "What can community leaders do to make kids' lives better?" (Speaking Out, May 15).

Then I went to the Summit on Children that morning. Part of the summit was a conversation between Carol Ritter and a group of adults and children speaking about their fears and aspirations. However, the background for the conference and questionnaire was the Report on the State of a Greater Rochester, which told us that we live in two distinct and different communities. The quality of life, value structure, power and economy are vastly different for those living in the city at poverty levels than for V) i Jorg Silva Staff tna "North Coast." The dictionary de-fines a "coast" as "the land next to the sea." A sea, not a lake. Oh, but it's all too wonderful to let the dictionary spoil it.

Maybe since the St Lawrence Seaway connects the Great Lakes to the sea we can stretch the definition just a little. I hope so. Then I can stay in Rochester all July and August and still tell out-of-town friends I spent the summer on the coast! Lawyer Lovenheim, president of Empire Mediation and Arbitration Inc. in Penfield, Hues on the North Coast. ing our generosity? Public education is far from under-funded.

It is, however, more on par with government, making it one of the most expensive and least efficient systems money can buy. Learning is a function of discipline and effort, not lavish spending man- On top of all that, taxpayers are forced to pick up the slack for irresponsible parents and unmotivated students. Why should it be any surprise that the people who pay for it all aren't very happy? Donald Morris Rochester Pass out condoms We are students at Franklin High School. We feel that condoms should be passed out. We believe it -is because of the media's exaggera- tion about condoms that the issue has been blown out of proportion.

By using condoms, students show responsibility. We feel that it is better for us to distribute condoms than for another teen-ager to con-. tract a deadly disease. We agree with the students at Penfield High who passed out the condoms. They should not have been suspended.

They should have been rewarded for showing responsibility. Mozell Adams, Tina Leslie, Rosa Perez, Lekisha Smith Rochester TalkBack We welcome your comments. WRITE us at Letters to the Editor. Democrat and Chronicle, Editorial Page, 55 Exchange Blvd. Rochester, AT 14614.

FAX us at 258-2487. Please limit your letter to 200 words. Include your address and daytime phone number for verification. PHOSEyour one-minute letter to recorded TalkBack line, 258 2401. Again, include your address and duytime phone number for verification.

If you prefer to try one of the lunger Speaking Out essays, phone first You can reach Speaking Out editor Richard Prince at 258-245L We edit for space, clarity and fuir play. American Pie, closed with the sad couplet, "The Father, Son and the Holy GhostThey caught the last train for the coast" he could have meant Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited arriving in Rochester at 3:32 a.m. How much did we pay the Convention and Visitors Bureau to come up with "the World's Imaging Centre?" If we'd just hired the advertising genius at WJZR, by now Rochester could be known as "The Jewel of the North Coast!" What I find most interesting about use of the term "North Coast" is not that it makes Rochester seem attractive by sounding like THE EDITOR that begins on Dec. 21. That will be summer in Rochester, and, sad to say, will continue to disappoint us much too cool, not enough sunshine.

But we will be able to proclaim that summer in Rochester is much too long. The benefits to us Rochesterians, especially those like myself who moved here from other parts of the country, are numerous but include finally being able to explain why we chose to live here "Hey, you can't beat winters in Rochester." Elwell grew up in Indiana, where the winters, he said, are "brown ugly." He has lived in this area since 1970. Elwell, 53, and his wife, Becky, live in Gates and have two grown sons. He teaches education at SUNY Brockport. The Golden Pen is awarded for letters that are concise and well-written and that express strong opinions.

Winners need not agree with the editorial positions of this newspaper. Check foster families I have followed the articles concerning the sexual abuse case in a Hamlin foster home. Apparently, the accused was cleared because the now 17-year-old involved has a history of lying. Does this mean that children who repeatedly lie are less likely to be sexually abused than their counterparts who tell the truth? Did anyone ever question why this child felt the need to lie so much? Could it be that she suffered emotional turmoil from being abused and this was a way of acting out? if the public was aware of everything that went on in foster homes, they would be outraged and the system would be forced to change. A start to this change could be a good background check and psychological testing of the entire foster family.

This would begin to weed out the pedophiles and other abusers from the foster-care system. Julie Baker Bergen something it's not; in truth, I think it describes the very best of what Rochester actually is. Rochester is a wonderful place to live, and we are a forward-thinking community. We do have people here from all over the world, we do speak a variety of languages, enjoy diversity in what we eat, how we look and how we live. We do welcome new ideas and new people, and tolerate and try to embrace different ways of speaking, dressing, thinking and living.

We really are a "coastal" community in the best sense of the word. Unfortunately, there is just one little problem with the whole idea of RPO needs our support I have heard that cuts in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra budget are being considered. I find this distressing for a number of reasons. The RPO is a quality organization that lends itself to the cultural environment in all of Upstate New York. In an age of violence in television shows, news broadcasts, video games and life in general, the RPO is helping to educate, not only children but adults as well, that there is still a time and place for cultural endeavors and behaviors.

It is so very easy to let an organization such as the RPO decline due to budget cuts and political oversights. It is, unfortunately, much harder to see it brought back once it declines. It is frightening that Rochester would be willing to spend great amounts of money to build a new stadium for Red Wings but is unwilling to underwrite the relatively small amounts needed by the RPO. Talented players, conductors and quality administrators cannot afford to wait around while a community fiddles, unable to decide its priorities. We must realize the importance of all our area's assets athletic and cultural.

We need to support the quality orchestra we now have. Robert Gray Penn Yan He bought their line I was absolutely amazed by Thomas Collins' perception of those no voters responsible for the recent defeat of five school budgets (reader essay, May 14). Clearly he accepts the myth, and not the reality, of quality education. Collins parrots the unbelievable rhetoric taxpayers have been subjected to for years. It has been the specialty of teachers unions, administrators unions, the districts, school boards and everyone else with a vested interest in the politics of education.

Each year the recipients of largess clamor for more. "Don't vote no. Don't delude yourself. Don't take it out on the kids. Your vote doesn't matter anyway, just pay up!" When will the whiners stop insulting our intelligence and degrad- Coast any day.

Our coast, for example, is free of trite lighting effects like sunrises and sunsets. You want to see some great coastal lighting? Come to the North Coast and see Ursa Minor hanging over the lake at midnight, or watch the aurora bore-alis pulse just before dawn. If only the Beach Boys had known about the North Coast when they wrote California Girls, they could have skipped the praise of East Coast girls and opened instead with: "North Coast girls are cool they give me chills when I'm up there When Don McLean, in his song LETTERS TO GOLDENPENAWARD Elwell observe winter. Winter in Rochester will be described as absolutely beautiful people will winter in Rochester, we will complain that winter is much too short and the rest of the country will be envious as we report winter temperatures and skies that can't be matched anywhere else. Now we will also have to change the name of the season those in the suburbs.

So if the mission was to explore ways to try to equalize or enhance life for those children in the city, why didn't we hear from the children and families most in need? Why were most of the children quoted in the paper from suburban communities and non-minority groups? And why was the group Ms. Ritter interviewed at the conference primarily white and apparently middle class and suburban? We didn't hear any of the anger, frustration, fears or hopes of inner-city children and families. That diluted the impact of an otherwise profound and important conference. Barbara H. Miller Pittsford Trying to kill animals? If the deer meat is not fit for human consumption, why give it to the animals in the zoo? Are they trying to kill them too? Mary M.

Clark Rochester it j. iflfe i hi mr -2F i- jet-ate-.