tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90971252024-03-07T18:46:20.797-05:00NA Confidential<b>New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?</b>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.comBlogger15165125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-45044788878889343392021-03-29T09:25:00.002-04:002021-03-29T09:29:43.957-04:00Regular posting is returning, now at RogerBaylor.com<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNabvLlLR4G82Mo2Pjfy7JT3GwroSMjDxZlsVIPo25xJl2J9aTFYzKIHZDA8tstKvWFbKgMvjct4JzLZ80Ajuwx-9ROuWpNJLturSq1jG3YfZfBLQ33cc9vGdXx1GcKrUUvABVsg/s2048/IMG_7709.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNabvLlLR4G82Mo2Pjfy7JT3GwroSMjDxZlsVIPo25xJl2J9aTFYzKIHZDA8tstKvWFbKgMvjct4JzLZ80Ajuwx-9ROuWpNJLturSq1jG3YfZfBLQ33cc9vGdXx1GcKrUUvABVsg/s320/IMG_7709.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>It's here: <a href="https://www.rogerbaylor.com/">https://www.rogerbaylor.com/</a></p>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-16565624884808177782021-01-01T14:00:00.001-05:002021-12-17T08:28:03.887-05:00NA Confidential fought and ran away, but I'll live to fight another day -- just elsewhere.<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sjr11lGEBg4" width="420"></iframe></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div>The long-awaited day has arrived, and the anchor-festooned junta will be awash in Bud Light Peach-A-Rita. Your "Deez Trump Nutz" calendar for 2020 is headed for the landfill, it's January 1, and <i>NA Confidential</i> has officially concluded its 16-year run. </div><div><br /></div><div>Help me kill another decade, and maybe there'll be a box set. </div><div><br /></div><div>Until then, or whenever Google/Blogger gets around to further atrocities against taste and decency, I'm proverbially OUTTA HERE. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I'm a bit behind schedule getting the new web site in the water, but no worries. The past few months have been busier than expected, but the site will begin soon. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you're just tuning in, three recent essays explain why this has happened. </div><div><br /></div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-change-is-coming-to-model-village-and.html" target="_blank">A change is coming to the model village, and NA Confidential is winding down.</a></b></li><li><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-or-off-avenues-theres-got-to-be.html"><b>On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after.</b></a></li></ol></div><div><br /></div><div>And the third, repeated verbatim here. </div><div><br /></div><div>---</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-welcome-to-last-will-and.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential.</a></b><div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1o-K6d_DO3xqywsWXROWEZ1TE3IP7yEBLnOQM_WWa7iyXD4JaMxGuo3anjQavPlwsNf4fSO4lGcOzO1wM529PdzLHMjiPZv2gGGw0nlzanpIW4n2ozseSIbDf8-MO6VHTv_PTuQ/s773/masthead+nac+2004.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="773" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1o-K6d_DO3xqywsWXROWEZ1TE3IP7yEBLnOQM_WWa7iyXD4JaMxGuo3anjQavPlwsNf4fSO4lGcOzO1wM529PdzLHMjiPZv2gGGw0nlzanpIW4n2ozseSIbDf8-MO6VHTv_PTuQ/s320/masthead+nac+2004.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div>It cannot be denied that I’m a slow learner, a late bloomer and a serial procrastinator. </div><br />This much is perfectly clear. Actually, I’ve never cared enough to even try dodging these compliments. <br /><br />The odd part has always been that once I get around at long last to learning, blooming and/or making up my mind, it’s a done deal. Once a decision has been determined, right or wrong, it is pretty much irrevocable with me. <br /><br />So it was last week when I awakened to thoughts about <i>NA Confidential’s</i> future, and concluded it has none, at least in its present format. I'll continue writing elsewhere, and soon the blog will cease to exist as an active, ongoing entity. <br /><br /><i>NAC</i> began in 2004 as a way of channeling a long-gestating insight, this being the importance of grassroots localism. It was and remains my view that people tend to obsess about hugely complex national and international topics to the exclusion of approachable issues outside their front doors, and in their own communities, because theatrically pontificating in broad terms is easier than getting involved with the grit and grime of specifics. <br /><br /><i>NAC</i> started out as a diary of sorts, a place to chronicle my journeys, promote the beer businesses I was involved with at the time, channel my inner Mencken, and write about anything I damn well pleased. Other folks helped out with writing (Randy, Jeff, Lloyd), and then they didn’t. <div><br /></div><div>The blog grew into a public gathering spot, a function that ebbed drastically once social media exploded. All along, it was a spot to broach subjects no one else would. I followed these stories where they took me, and it didn't always make people happy. <br /><br />They're entitled to their own opinions, although not their own facts.<br /><br /><i>NA Confidential’s</i> first post was on October 22, 2004. Who even imagined we’d still be talking about it in 2020? I didn't.</div><div><br /></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">You don’t need a gumshoe with rotten breath and one too many alimony payments to figure out the problem with this town. It’s something in the water that causes people here to lose their vision. Q: What do New Albanians call Southside's mashed potatoes? A: Freedom Foie Gras. Well, we’re here to change all that.</span></div></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div>Ha! </div></div><div><div><div><br /></div><div><i>Change</i> all that? <br /><br />A tad cheeky, and ultimately a point to debate, although others can decide the extent, if any, of the blog’s influence hereabouts. Irrespective, the blogging experience has changed me, and nowadays I’m at a crossroads amid the crossfire. Consequently, there are several good reasons for acknowledging various irrefutable realities and drowning the blog in the nearest available bathtub. <br /><br />Allow me to explore the reasoning. <br /><br />---</div><div><br /></div><div>Localism? Not so much. Between our toxic social media fixation, the pandemic and Trump’s invasive cult of personality, interest in provocative takes on local matters in Nawbany has largely disappeared. Readership has responded accordingly, by plummeting. This should please my betters. </div><div><br />Part of this decline owes to the scattershot essence of Blogger; it is an utter piece of crap, and a dysfunctional platform overall. For at least a decade Blogger has been unsuitable for my intentions. Now it’s largely unusable owing to recent revisions, and I should have exited long ago when the going was good. That one's on me. <br /><br />In addition, I turned 60 in August, and began paying attention to what the mirror (and my wife) was trying to tell me about the meaning of life. In short, it’s time for an autumn (of my years) deep cleaning and reboot. What better time than multiple, horrifying daily existential crises? <br /><br />Then an e-mail notice came, reminding me it was time to renew my rogerbaylor.com domain name. Having finally learned a bit about WordPress owing to my position as digital editor at <i>Food & Dining Magazine</i>, and with the publication’s house web guru Jason around to advise me, starting anew at my own web site suddenly became an attractive option. <br /><br />The year 2020 already was the most tumultuous year of my life, and probably yours, too. Why not end it with closure, by euthanizing <i>NAC</i>, and moving forward to something different? <br /><br />--- <br /><br />Of course there’s another aspect to the blog’s impending termination, a process which began in earnest the moment last year’s municipal election cycle concluded. <br /><br />Jeff Gahan’s unprecedented third mayoral term (save for C. Pralle Erni’s four), and especially his increased margin of victory in the 2019 election, constituted voluminous (and perhaps inevitable) handwriting on the wall. It was a clear, unmistakable vote for civic fantasy, and against truth telling, whether by a malcontent like me or on the part of perpetually somnolent local newspapers … or anyone else, for that matter. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was, in fact, a slam dunk. <br /><br />Accordingly, a solitary dissident at a blog parked at the woefully deficient Blogger hell hole simply cannot hope to make a difference in such a dismal, uncomprehending milieu. Ironically, what it <i>can</i> do is make the dissident’s own position unsustainable -- and it has. <br /><br />None of this thrills me, but the truth of it is simply undeniable, and that’s why I’ll go through the narrative a final time before <i>NAC</i> self-destructs. Accordingly, let’s award credit where it’s due, sans snarkiness. </div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>I fought Nawbany, and Nawbany won. </b></h3><div><br /></div><div>That's it, in a nutshell. As an intelligent, well-educated and worldly person, I can fully appreciate the tactical deficit of my coordinates in this pandemic year, as pinned down in a fox hole with massed (metaphorical) artillery pointed in my general direction. </div><div><br />Well played, dominant cadres. I've learned that "it's the way things work here" is more than a recurring promise; it's a big-ass buzz saw, and I'm sliced, diced and vanquished. </div><div><br /></div><div>Evidently “check mate” means the same thing in all of those European languages I wish had come easier to me so as to facilitate being a joyful expatriate. It looks like we’re marooned here until the house is paid off. After that, Ireland (or Malta, or Bolivia; whatever), here we come. </div><div><br />Verily, the governing Nawbanian clique's “lone dissident on the grassy know-it-all” containment strategy for the past seven years has proven to be highly effective. Granted, it took a few dozen of <i>them</i> to whip one blogger acting alone, but make no mistake: The lash of the nabob's whip is real, and accordingly, I’m whupped. </div><div><br />Cutting me off from any “official” political and governing dialogue is only a small part of it, because the community pillars have completely succeeded in institutionalizing a local perception of me as social misfit and pariah, to be shunned by “right thinking” people as if I were a member of India’s untouchable caste. <br /><br />Evidently if you whisper often enough that Roger’s a dangerous nutcase, otherwise sane and intelligent people will start to believe it. The ones who don’t? They'll merely say they <i>regret the inconvenience</i>, but just <i>can’t risk being seen with you</i> – <i>you understand</i>, they’ll say amid the furtive glances, <i>it’s just business</i>. <br /><br />Yes, I understand the obligations of current accounts, although frankly, some of you should be ashamed to spend hours denouncing the perfidy of national Republicans while simultaneously encouraging crickets to chirp when it comes to the eually repellant habits of local Democrats. That’s cowardice, and it’s also hypocrisy. I genuinely feel bad for you, but really? </div><div><br /></div><div>Toss a starving dog a bone. Maybe just a wee shred of resolve, every now and then?<br /><br />What’s more, in so many of these "tsk tsk" instances, it has not mattered in the slightest what I <i>actually said or wrote </i>to prompt a flurry of finger-wagging; folks have concluded automatically that I’m mistaken, not to mention disreputable, based on what they imagined me saying or writing, and not actually hearing or reading it. Purportedly it is understood by those who – you know – <i>understand</i> these sort of things. <br /><br />Frustrating, but also quite brilliant. </div><div><br /></div><div>I’m stymied, hung out and left to dry. Like I said, full credit where it’s due. The Kool-Aid is strong, and I am weak. Long live the junta!</div><div><br />--- <br /><br />Furthermore, the ruling elite came to an astute recognition that while they cannot hurt me personally, people around me are vulnerable. It’s a crude, blunt-edged form of reprisal, as well as a highly efficient one. In good conscience I can no longer risk the threat of collateral damage to innocent bystanders.</div><div><br /></div><div>Additionally, because the leading element in New Albany has successfully characterized <i>NA Confidential</i> in its diverse entirety as the equivalent of deranged snuff porn fetishism, the blog’s “brand” is compromised, stuffed into a straw man's cubbyhole and tainted by association. <br /><br /><b>Masterful, indeed.</b> <br /><br />My earnest efforts in 2020 to remove the political element from the blog have been easier than I imagined, but ultimately it's futile. The torture is unlikely to stop, the Blogger platform remains inadequate for future writing, and the blog as currently constituted is dead in the water, adroitly blockaded by local arbiters, blithely shunned by the aspirant vanguard, and abjectly short-circuited by its own host platform. <br /><br />I can take a hint and surrender, dear (leader).<br /><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qXGv-rd-bvA" width="420"></iframe> <br /><br />--- <br /><br />Granted, I might start again at a new <a href="https://www.mrwebsmith.com">website</a> and continue calling it <i>NA Confidential</i>. But it needs to be retired. At the forthcoming Roger Baylor Dot Com there will be an archive of the 15,000+ posts appearing at <i>NAC</i> since 2004, albeit completely inactive in terms of new content. It will be maintained strictly for historical interest, and as a sketchbook for future writing. <br /><br />Resurrecting <i>NAC</i> wouldn’t be the same. I played the game and lost. So it goes. It may not have been fair or square, and yet make no mistake; I knew exactly the nature of the surreal absurdity I was getting into way back in 2004, purporting to chronicle the life and times of a city that hasn’t been on the cutting edge of anything since the 19th century, and probably never will. <br /><br />As proof, note that in their most recent races, Donald Trump (Republican President), Jeff Gahan (Democratic Mayor) and Scott Blair (Independent City Council) each won the 6th council district by almost exactly the same percentage of vote as the others. <br /><br /><b>Huh? If you can explain <i>that</i>, then it’s <i>your</i> turn to grapple with this town’s psychotic DNA. </b><br /><br />Looking at it objectively, <i>NAC</i> can be said to have accomplished some positive outcomes; just the same, it is exhausted. So is the blog's creator. </div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>NAC</i> is the only Nawbany blog that truly mattered, ever, except blogs seldom matter here, <i>ever</i>, especially when pursuing the sort of subject matter that differs with the prevailing "mentality" (rest assured I use this term guardedly). <br /><br />In the beginning, back in 2004, good friends warned me that we're a barely literate, perennially dirty little river town, and likely would always be this way, forever. <br /><br />I laughed. <br /><br />I’m laughing no longer. Stick a fork in me, because I’m done. <br /><br />To those who have read, thanks for reading, and for all your support over the years. When the new digs are ready, I’ll let you know, as long as <i>you let me know</i> if we ever arrive at answers to the opening questions.</div><div><br /></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: #335577; color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.8px;">New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?</b></div></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><div><div><div><br /></div><div>Splitting the atom was far, far easier than this. </div></div><div></div>
</div><p></p>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-83571830317874395352020-12-31T15:18:00.002-05:002020-12-31T15:19:31.676-05:00Roger's Year in Music for 2020. Without music in 2020, I'd have gone quite insane.<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X0mzMd17jG0" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /> For one year at least, pending what I decide to do about the future of my self-expression, there'll be relative simplicity in the following listening lists for 2020.<div><br /></div><div>There's also a documentary of note, highly recommended to those of you who were/are INXS fans like me.</div><div><br /></div><div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JRIFR3hkIpo" width="420"></iframe> </div><div><br /></div><div> Here we go. </div><div><br /></div><div>---<br /><br /><b>I LIKED THESE A LOT BUT THEY WEREN’T RELEASED IN 2020 </b><br /><br />Titus Andronicus … An Obelisk (2019) <br />White Reaper … You Deserve Love (2019) <br />Wussy … What Heaven Is Like (2018) <br />Haim … Days Are Gone (2013) <br />Eubie Blake … The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake (1969) <br /><br /><b>LISTENED MUCH TO THESE NEW ALBUMS BUT DID NOT BUY THE DISCS </b><br /><br />Idles … Ultra Mono <br />Kansas … The Absence of Presence <br />Pearl Jam … Gigaton <br />Nubya Garcia … Source <br />Lang Lang … Bach: The Goldberg Variations <br /><br />25 Sleaford Mods … All That Glue (compilation, not new music, but a constant companion) <br /><br /><b>24-11 COULD BE IN JUST ABOUT ANY ORDER</b> <br /><br />24 Blossoms … Foolish Loving Spaces <br />23 Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever … Sideways to New Italy <br />22 Grouplove … Healer <br />21 Strokes … The New Abnormal <br /><br /><div>20 Sparks … A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip <br />19 Travis … 10 Songs <br />18 The Killers … Exploding the Mirage <br />17 Fontaines DC … A Hero’s Death <br />16 Ocean Alley … Lonely Diamond <br /><br />15 Everything Everything … Re-Animator <br />14 James Dean Bradfield … Even in Exile <br />13 Spacey Jane … Sunshine <br />12 Wild Front … The Great Indoors (EP) <br />11 The Struts … Strange Days <br /><br /><b>10-6 ARE GREAT ALBUMS BY OLD FARTS </b><br /><br />10 Bob Dylan … Rough and Rowdy Ways <br />9 AC/DC … Power Up <br />8 Bruce Springsteen … Letter to You <br />7 Bob Mould … Blue Hearts <br />6 Deep Purple … Whoosh! <br /><br /><b>TOP FIVE </b><br /><br />5 Doves … The Universal Want <br />4 Courteeners … More. Again. Forever. <br />3 Haim … Women in Music Part III <br />2 Rookie … Rookie <br />1 The 1975 … Notes on a Conditional Form (as an album, from start to finish uninterrupted. It moves me tremendously in this fashion, less so when biting off smaller bits). </div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-32303515526735432352020-12-29T09:35:00.000-05:002020-12-29T09:35:52.543-05:00NAC's New Albany "Persons of the Year" for 2020 should be obvious. <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q0PHWKRFgZ0" width="420"></iframe><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One cannot come back without first going away, and consequently<i> NA Confidential</i> is winding down after 16 years, but let's not neglect the selection of New Albany’s "Person of the Year" for 2020.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As in 2019, there'll be no run-ups and time-wasting teasers, although our basic definition remains intact, as gleaned so very long ago from the pages of <i>Time </i>magazine.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States news magazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."</i></div></blockquote>
<div><br /></div>Obviously the biggest story of 2020 was the COVID-19 pandemic, as yet ongoing in spite of the bleating and jabbering of my fellow aging white men. <div><br /></div><div>Mercifully the pandemic has kept Mayor Jeff "Dear Leader" Gahan stranded in his Down Low Bunker to an even greater daily extent than in previous years, thus sparing us from the worst excesses of his forever fawning ProMedia propaganda machine. <div><br /></div><div><div>And so, with sincere gratitude, we thank Jeeebus for small favors like this temporary shrinking of the mayoral personality cult. </div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, we survey the field in search of the next biggest story behind only the coronavirus itself, and ironically, find the answer in the pages of <i>Time</i> magazine.</div><div><br /></div><div>New Albany's co-persons of the year for 2020 are the city's frontline health care workers and those comprehending the year's movement for racial justice, or precisely the same ones who SHOULD have topped <i>Time's</i> list this year, both of them applicable locally, and both of them with far more relevance to humanity's shared contemporary experience than Mayor Nabob or Councilman Nobody <i>might ever expect to be</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Following are <i>Time's</i> own definitions, which were rejected, and let us note the ridiculousness of the magazine selecting Joe Biden, although doing so probably delighted His Deafness, Squire Adam, a handful of elderly DemoDisneyDixiecratic grandees and (sadly) a few politically impotent but materially comfy local progressives. I retain hope that the latter will eventually realize they must do, and not merely say. </div><div><br /></div><b>Frontline Health Care Workers</b> <br /><br />"The COVID-19 pandemic has put the world on hold. However, anyone deemed essential—like health care workers, postal workers, sanitation workers, transportation workers and many others—had to keep going. They risked their lives and in doing so, saved countless other lives."<br /><br /><b>Movement for Racial Justice</b><br /><br />"The tragic killing of George Floyd started a movement, not just in America but across the globe. In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, protesters took to the streets, demanding action to fight racial injustice at the hands of police and any entity that embodies systemic discrimination. There have been some positive outcomes since the movement started but it’s far from over." <div>
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<u><i>A decade, including these previous winners:</i></u><br />
<ul>
<li><b>2019 ... <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2019/12/nacs-new-albany-person-of-year-for-2019.html" target="_blank">Automobile Supremacy in Nawbany</a></b></li><li><b>2018 ... <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2018/12/in-unanimous-decision-nacs-new-albany.html" target="_blank">Jeff Gahan's Money Machine</a></b></li>
<li><b>2017 ... </b><b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2017/12/were-not-exempt-so-nacs-new-albany.html">#MeToo -- the NA silence breakers</a></b></li>
<li><b>2016 ... <a href="http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2016/12/on-avenues-with-new-albanys-person-of.html">Chloe Allen</a></b></li>
<li><b>2015 ... <a href="http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2016/01/nas-person-of-year-2015-is-very-nearly.html">New Albany property tax payers</a></b></li>
<li><b>2014 ... <a href="http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2015/01/new-albanys-person-of-year-for-2014.html">Heroic Non-Incentivized Downtown Developers</a></b></li>
<li><b>2013 ... (tie) <a href="http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-2013-nac-person-of-year-vote-ends.html">Houndmouth and "Quality of Life"</a></b></li>
<li><b>2012 ... <a href="http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/search/label/Bill%20Allen">Bill "Slumlord" Allen</a></b></li>
<li><b>2011 ...</b> <b><a href="http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-albanys-person-of-year.html">The Sherman Minton Bridge</a></b></li>
</ul>
<ul></ul></div></div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-36546067402920232252020-12-22T10:34:00.002-05:002020-12-22T10:34:10.675-05:00The books I read in 2020.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_qrcBZM2exAGQIJa1mKB0AKkeXrJQllNqJi5zI222zG1J-DpjlllyDtspoYQiqVtUTZV0muqy3pW3sqGIfRc51zFj5BwODwHvM5Xa8oGu32TciAoDUcfNhw-s2OprD_bZcKK5-A/s1280/Roger+and+books.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="718" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_qrcBZM2exAGQIJa1mKB0AKkeXrJQllNqJi5zI222zG1J-DpjlllyDtspoYQiqVtUTZV0muqy3pW3sqGIfRc51zFj5BwODwHvM5Xa8oGu32TciAoDUcfNhw-s2OprD_bZcKK5-A/s320/Roger+and+books.png" width="320" /></a></div>The COVID-19 pandemic has touched tens of millions of people around the world. For us, it precluded the usual work and travel schedules and kept us here at home, where I've probably spent more time in 2020 then the past two or three years combined. <div><br /></div><div>Bizarrely and for all the wrong reasons, at long last I've had ample time to read. In turn, all this reading has constituted a massive brainfood overload, and I'll make no attempt to summarize the following.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, at this precise moment in time, here are the three books from 2020 that made the deepest impression. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Capital and Ideology</i>, by Thomas Piketty </div><div><i>Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents</i>, by Isabel Wilkerson </div><div><i>War and War</i>, a novel by László Krasznahorkai</div><div> <br />These were consumed in a frenetic period from late July through November; as the mass insanity engendered by the presidential campaign intensified, so did my need to sept aside and try to make sense of it. After Krasznahorkai's deeply affecting novel, I plunged into non-fiction until the election was concluded. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then, turning back to fiction, I learned a final lesson: when your neighborhood is descending into crazed madness, Broch's novel <i>The Sleepwalkers</i> cannot provide the slightest measure of escapist relief. </div><div><br /></div><div>But four novels by Kurt Vonnegut in one calendar year might be trying to tell me something, too. </div><div><br /></div><div>So it goes; here they are. A final note: 2020 was the year New Albanians said goodbye to Destinations Booksellers. It was a refuge amid the Gahanist mediocrity hereabouts, and will be missed. </div><div><br /></div><div>---<br /><br /><b>Books of 2020 (chronologically in reverse order)</b><br /><br />31. <i>Cat’s Cradle</i>, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut <br /><br />30. <i>Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend</i>, by Brendan Wolfe <br /><br />29. <i>The Sleepwalkers</i>, a novel by Hermann Broch <br /><br />28. <i>Encounter</i>, a collection of essays by Milan Kundera <br /><br />27. <i>Capital and Ideology</i>, by Thomas Piketty <br /><br />26. <i>The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century</i>, by Wolfgang Schivelbusch <br /><br />25. <i>Jailbird</i>, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut <br /><br />24. <i>Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents</i>, by Isabel Wilkerson <br /><br />23. <i>Capitalism & Disability</i>, selected writings by Marta Russell <br /><br />22. <i>Backlash: What happens When We Talk Honestly About Racism in America</i>, by George Yancy <br /><br />21. <i>Towards the One & Only Metaphor</i>, a novel by Miklos Szentkuthy <br /><br />20. <i>Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future</i>, by James S. Shapiro <br /><br />19. <i>Craft: An Argument</i>, by Pete Brown <br /><br />18. <i>War and War</i>, a novel by László Krasznahorkai <br /><br />17. <i>Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms</i>, translated by Matvei Yankelevich <br /><br />16. <i>Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s</i>, by Frederick Lewis Allen <br /><br />15. <i>Mother Night</i>, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut <br /><br />14. <i>Which Fork Do I Use with My Bourbon?</i>, by Peggy Noe Stevens and Susan Reigler <br /><br />13. H<i>ow We Eat with Our Eyes and Think with Our Stomachs</i>, by Melanie Mühl and Diana von Kopp <br /><br />12. <i>Bliss Was It in Bohemia</i>, a novel by Michel Viewegh <br /><br />11. <i>An Omelette and a Glass of Wine</i>, by Elizabeth David <br /><br />10. <i>Russian Cosmism</i>, edited by Boris Groys <br /><br />9. <i>The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine Was Saved for the World</i>, by Christy Campbell <br /><br />8. <i>Bluebeard</i>, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut <br /><br />7. <i>The Ghosts of My Life</i>, by Mark Fisher <br /><br />6. <i>Capitalist Realism</i>, by Mark Fisher <br /><br />5. <i>Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginnings of the Modern World</i>, by Thomas Cahill <br /><br /><div>4. <i>The Prague Cemetery</i>, a novel by Umberto Eco <br /><br />3. <i>Bavarian Helles</i>, by Horst Dornbusch <br /><br />2. <i>Strong Towns</i>, by Charles Marohn <br /><br />1. <i>The Tragedy of Liberation</i>, by Frank Dikkotter</div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-27086830866737012282020-12-15T17:05:00.001-05:002020-12-15T17:05:11.409-05:00REPOST: "The moral and aesthetic nightmare of Christmas," by the late, great Christopher Hitchens.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXR-5HFbBEoe088FZdz9IcmUv-ylCo_zb0uVOVpPtvfh8syGq1olROkknJ-ewdkLu33BEcKrkMerVgoqCK9pNfMiukOLeHMJolZHZWpcIMXch5qFLn44NuF0cLNuVEB-3U3PT7xQ/s942/Hitchens+War+on+Christmas+2005.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="942" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXR-5HFbBEoe088FZdz9IcmUv-ylCo_zb0uVOVpPtvfh8syGq1olROkknJ-ewdkLu33BEcKrkMerVgoqCK9pNfMiukOLeHMJolZHZWpcIMXch5qFLn44NuF0cLNuVEB-3U3PT7xQ/s320/Hitchens+War+on+Christmas+2005.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><i>I've chosen to allow </i>NA Confidential<i> to run its course, and so to close out the dreadful pandemic year of 2020, I'll be making a daily post from the archives. The following appeared on December 14, 2014. </i></div><div><br /></div><div>--- </div><div><br /></div><div>How I miss Christopher Hitchens.</div>
<br />
Introductory excerpts from Hitchens' timeless essay are reprinted below, so be sure to follow the link to read the whole, glorious piece, first noted here at<i> NAC </i>in 2008. I reread this every year on or before Christmas Eve. In 2013, there was added gravity, which also deserves another look.<br />
<br />
In 2013, as Christmas approached, I'd just finished reading <a href="http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2013/11/on-writer-ray-mouton-and-his-novel-in.html">Ray Mouton's novel, <i>In God's House</i></a>. In 1984, Ray was the lawyer chosen by the state of Louisiana's Catholic Church hierarchy to defend the first priest ever to be charged in secular court with child molestation. Looking back on the perspective of the present day, we obviously know what became of all this, and that Ray's appointment with destiny was the first tiny peek inside a truly massive scandal. I wasn't expecting to be moved to such an extent by Ray's book, but I was -- and remain.<br />
<br />
Carrying these thoughts into my annual date with Hitchens, I find the atheist's cynicism to be vastly enhanced.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2008/12/tis_the_season_to_be_incredulous.html"><b>'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous: The moral and aesthetic nightmare of Christmas</b></a>, by Christopher Hitchens (<i>Slate</i>; Dec. 15, 2008)<br />
<br />
… My own wish is more ambitious: to write an anti-Christmas column that becomes fiercer every year while remaining, in essence, the same. The core objection, which I restate every December at about this time, is that for almost a whole month, the United States—a country constitutionally based on a separation between church and state—turns itself into the cultural and commercial equivalent of a one-party state.<br />
<br />
As in such dismal banana republics, the dreary, sinister thing is that the official propaganda is inescapable. You go to a train station or an airport, and the image and the music of the Dear Leader are everywhere. You go to a more private place, such as a doctor's office or a store or a restaurant, and the identical tinny, maddening, repetitive ululations are to be heard. So, unless you are fortunate, are the same cheap and mass-produced images and pictures, from snowmen to cribs to reindeer. It becomes more than usually odious to switch on the radio and the television, because certain officially determined "themes" have been programmed into the system. Most objectionable of all, the fanatics force your children to observe the Dear Leader's birthday, and so (this being the especial hallmark of the totalitarian state) you cannot bar your own private door to the hectoring, incessant noise, but must have it literally brought home to you by your offspring. Time that is supposed to be devoted to education is devoted instead to the celebration of mythical events ... </blockquote>
The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-25741491119921171042020-12-14T08:30:00.000-05:002020-12-14T08:30:51.741-05:00REPOST: Books: "Giving the finger" -- and no, not at a Board of Public Works meeting.NA Confidential <i>is sliding into oblivion, and so to close out the abysmal year of 2020, I'll be making a daily post from the archives.</i><div><br /></div><div>
--- </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Books: "Giving the finger" -- and no, not at a Board of Public Works meeting.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>
May 17, 2016<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyRX79tpndG38X6YIxwP3GOzeLrfyYjcLlCcPA0RkgrXVUKmJFODdCD1Eq6ykEmwFQvEGGa7WJmiiHmqjVD_aLC8Z8LzJcDs8Np-rYgzGIdPLYE4P9Z3qnq5mwMzkHJ5-FzHHwXg/s1600/italian+gestures.gif" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyRX79tpndG38X6YIxwP3GOzeLrfyYjcLlCcPA0RkgrXVUKmJFODdCD1Eq6ykEmwFQvEGGa7WJmiiHmqjVD_aLC8Z8LzJcDs8Np-rYgzGIdPLYE4P9Z3qnq5mwMzkHJ5-FzHHwXg/s320/italian+gestures.gif" width="126" /></a></div>
Kudos to the Indiana University Press, because this long overdue translation of a study of gesture is far better cause for celebration than a mere IU basketball game. It reminds me of being in Italy and seeing people communicate with hands in addition to words.<br />
<br />
Incidentally, the author's mention of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Barzini,_Jr.">Luigi Barzini's</a> classic book <i>The Italians</i> reminds me of the "mut read" stature it once enjoyed. During the 1970s and 1980s, travelers to Italy always were advised to read The <i>Italians</i> before leaving home.<br />
<br />
I've a strong suspicion that the wisdom of this recommendation still holds true, even 50 years after publication, and so I'll reread Barzini before we visit Sicily this autumn. <br />
<br />
As for the gestures, maybe only one or two, just in case ...<br />
<br />
</div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Giving the finger</a> at <i>The Economist</i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><br /></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><b> GESTURE IN NAPLES AND GESTURE IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY</b>, by Andrea de Jori; translated by Adam Kendon ... Indiana University Press; 632 pages; $49.95 and £34</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><br /></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div> A MAN and a woman are talking on a bus in Naples. All of a sudden, the man raises his hand, draws together his fingertips, lifts them to his lips and appears either to spit on them or to give them a kiss before pointing them at the woman. How to know whether his intentions are noble or base, romantic or murderous—spitting on one's fingertips being the second most deadly insult in Naples after spitting directly in your face?</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><br /></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div> The answer may well be found in Andrea de Jorio's extraordinary volume, “Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity”, now finally translated into English almost 170 years after it was first published ...</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><br /></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div> ... In modern times, Luigi Barzini was the writer who did most to put out the word on de Jorio and his classic. In “The Italians” (1964), Barzini described “Gesture in Naples” as a gem, though one so difficult to obtain that he had to resort to purloining a copy from an unsuspecting English gentleman. Thanks to a fine translation by Adam Kendon, an anthropologist who has studied aboriginal sign language—and to the imagination of Indiana University Press—thefts of this kind will no longer be needed.</div></div></blockquote></blockquote>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-91566791912250015392020-12-02T09:32:00.003-05:002020-12-02T09:35:46.098-05:00ON THE AVENUES: PourGate (the Great Beer Pour War of 2013): "Kneel and Kiss My Ring, You Degraded Alcoholic."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div><br /></div><div>Last evening (1 December 2020) two of three Floyd County Commissioners declined to certify another four-year term for Dr. Thomas Harris as county health officer. </div><div><br /></div><div>John Boyle <a href="https://wfpl.org/floyd-county-commissioners-deny-top-health-officials-contract-extension/" target="_blank">has the story at <i>89.3 WFPL</i></a>, noting "none of the three commissioners, all Republicans, discussed the matter before the vote, and all have been vague about their reasoning to move away from Harris, the county’s top health official."</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking for myself, I've no complaints about Dr. Harris's handling of pandemic-related. He may have done too little, but that's a result of the right wing's hold on state government; doing <i>anything at all</i> in a proactive sense during a public health emergency automatically placed Harris far above <i>every other county and city official</i> of either major political party in this miserably reactionary vicinity.</div><div><br /></div><div><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #eeeecc; background-origin: initial; background-position: 10px 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url("https://resources.blogblog.com/blogblog/data/rounders3/icon_arrow.gif") 10px 0.5em no-repeat rgb(238, 238, 204); border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-image: initial; border-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 14px 2px 29px;"><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-avenues-doc-harris-and-commissioners.html" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">ON THE AVENUES: Doc Harris and the Commissioners at the No Clue Corral.</span></a></h3></div><div><br /></div><div>Yet again, a complete lack of transparency and openness on the part of local elected officials means we must read tea leaves as to the whys and wherefores, but there is one scenario that might rationally explain the tight lips of the commissioners, and this is the expectation of a lawsuit (or multiple lawsuits) against the county pertaining to the workplace environment at the health department. </div><div><br /></div><div>This has been a persistent rumor for a long time, and allow me to stress that while there is no proof, such an eventuality would justify the prevailing reticence. As a caveat, let it be understood that none of this is to be construed as criticism of the front line health department workers. The shop floor is working hard. As oft times before, we speak here of upper management's inadequacies, and the buck stops with Dr. Harris.</div><div><br /></div><div>Recalling the dominance of the Republican Party in Floyd County government, as opposed to Democratic Party control of the city of New Albany, the Green Mouse asked around and was told in essence that behind-the-scenes factions have been applying pressure for Dr. Harris' removal. </div><div><br /></div><div>At the risk of oversimplification, these factions comprise a center-moderate wing (yes, it <i>does</i> exist) with at least one candidate in mind, and the lunatic fringe of pandemic-denying Trumpist idolatry (you KNOW they exist). The position of the commissioners seems to be that whomever is inserted into the job by the health department's board will pay sufficient heed to COVID automatically, as if by magic, leaving them to juggle factions and tend to their own warring power elites. </div><div>So it goes, and here we are. I've expressed support for Dr. Harris, and see no reason to backtrack, but now it's moot. More than one reader expressed shock and amazement with regard to my advocacy of Dr. Harris amid this politics-first kerfuffle, no doubt recalling PourGate, the Great Beer Pour War of 2013, when he tried to grab authority that wasn't his for the taking, and was rebuffed at every level of state government, rightfully so. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let's revisit.</div><div><br /></div><div>On June 14, 2013, the New Albanian Brewing Company was peaceably vending beer at Bicentennial Park, by means of a supplemental catering permit issued by the company's governing agency, the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission.</div>
<br />
The Floyd County Health Department arrived and said that NABC also needed a temporary food serving permit.<br />
<br />
I said no, that's entirely incorrect. They persisted and a two-year-long struggle commenced. For a complete compendium of <i>NAC</i> links telling the excruciating story of PourGate, go here:<br />
<br />
<i>May 20, 2015:</i> <a href="http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2015/05/pourgate-2013-it-took-two-years-but.html"><b>PourGate 2013: It took two years, but this new law silences Dr. Tom Harris and the Floyd County Health Department.</b></a><br />
<br />
It's all plague under the pustules now, but don't be surprised if this inscription appears on my tombstone: <b>"He Helped Vanquish the Health Fascists in the Great Beer Pour War, Then Died Anyway, Just Like Everyone Else."</b><br />
<br />To connect PourGate with the current situation, especially the recurring gossip about Dr. Harris' management style, here's a reprint of what remains the single most read "guest column" in the blog's history (August 1, 2013). Say what you will about my reputation for stridency, but the fact is that I can have a conversation with just about anyone on any side of this or the other divide. <div><br /></div><div>Except Dr. Harris. Insert "shrugging" emoji here.<br /><div>
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<b>ON THE AVENUES: "Kneel and Kiss My Ring, You Degraded Alcoholic."</b><br />
<br />
<i><b>A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor. Today's guest columnist is Dr. Thomas Harris.</b></i><br />
<br />
<i>In the interest of fairness, I've invited Dr. Tom Harris, much decorated generalissimo of the Floyd County Health Department, to write this guest column offering his side of the recent unpleasantness. Looking at the whole situation dispassionately, Dr. Harris and I have quite a lot in common. Both of us were born, grew up, went to school, and received college degrees. I'm a professional in my field, as he is in his. In fact, it is to be imagined that we undulate, conjugate, ejaculate and defecate in similar ways, if not exactly the same -- unless, of course, he’s a space alien, and he is, and so the following is <u>satire, pure and simple</u>.</i><br />
<br />
If you assume I’ll begin this essay by thanking a lowly brewer for affording a rebuttal to his serial insolence, think again.<br />
<br />
One should never assume -- you'll make an ass out of yourself, certainly not me, because after all, I'm a doctor. The grandeur of my medical world view inevitably comes with the position, i.e., the rarefied territory of my critical role as guarantor of public health and safety.<br />
<br />
The rest of you should just get the hell out of my way.<br />
<br />
Let's get right down to brass tacks. Baylor, how dare you suggest that beer and brewing constitutes a “profession” in the same sense as a board-certified emergency medical pioneer like me. Every single day, our trained medical elites soothe suffering and save lives. <br />
<br />
And you? You slouch at the tavern, sink into your cups, ruin your liver and foster bitterness toward those laudable over-achievers who possess my skill set and sheer dedication to public health and safety – whether the public understands any of it or not.<br />
<br />
Because they seldom do, and mine is a tireless task, indeed. <br />
<br />
It probably has escaped your notice, since not one of you care very much about public health and safety, not to mention your own disgusting standards of personal hygiene, but vast numbers of our fellow Americans are clueless sheep wallowing in a medieval squalor of bacteria. If not for the efforts of selfless heroes like me, you'd doubtless be bathing daily in your own raw sewage. <br />
<br />
You really must see yourselves some time. Your filthy, germ-ridden body parts hang flabby and exposed from inadequate, scant clothing. You continue to smoke cigarettes even after we kicked you outside. You have sex before you’re married, refuse to use condoms, decline to exercise, and “dine” regularly on Big Gulps and Fritos. Any of you ever met a whole fried chicken, deep-fried Twinkie or fat-laden burger you wouldn’t stuff by the dozen into your gaping pie holes? I didn’t think so. <br />
<br />
We try our best to ban all these substances that hurt you, but do you thank us? No, you just keep babbling about your right to determine your own destiny and live your own lives, as though we can tolerate free will when pathogens are everywhere. What have we become in America, a nation of philosophers?<br />
<br />
And when it comes to the crux of the recent episodes, and why on earth we’d need anyone’s permission at all to regulate temporary beer pouring or any other activity deemed appropriate for saving you from yourselves, has it ever occurred to any of you that all of these dreadful materials you insist on ingesting are manufactured by food producers with an even lower opinion of you than me?<br />
<br />
Furthermore, they have absolutely no respect for us as regulators and preservers of public health and safety. Every single one of those restaurants, lunch counters, taquerias, hot dog stands, food trucks, bistros and sushi joints bring in money hand over fist.<br />
<br />
Do you think for one moment that local government funds the health department the way ordinary people throw money at some guy wrapping bacon around a cream puff? Not that local government has any money, because a lower tax burden is better for all of us, and the more golf you play, the more you know that if not for the GOP, we’d have even less funding for inspections. But we’re all white folks here, and I needn’t remind you of your obligations.<br />
<br />
That’s what galls me about my own health department board being all namby pamby and saying Baylor doesn’t have to pay fees for his temporary permits. <br />
<br />
When I said during the hearing that money doesn’t matter, what I meant was that I know far better how money matters and doesn’t matter than any of you cretins. As without doubt the leading element in society, we doctors are in the best position to make such judgments, and that’s why this whole shakedown started, anyway, because if New Albany’s mayor says it’s okay for ambulances to go to any hospital, and not be forced to use Floyd Memorial, then how’re we going to maintain the monopoly … er, I mean the monopoly on public health and safety, of course. <br />
<br />
Why can’t you pathetic maladroit plebes grasp what I’m telling you? After me, it’s the deluge. You prattle on and on about answers, and how you’re entitled to the truth about the health department’s comprehensive program to control what goes down your gullets, so let me tell you something.<br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>You can't handle the truth!</b><br />
<br />
Baylor, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with syringes. Who's gonna do it? You? Lee Cotner? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for the ATC, and you curse the health care supermen. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that my random personal opinions about food safety, while unsupported by Indiana law or precedent, saves lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.<br />
<br />
You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at beer parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall.<br />
<br />
We use words like "honor," "that’ll be $20," and "superior intellect." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.<br />
<br />
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a drunkard who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very public health and safety that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.<br />
<br />
I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up some hand sanitizer and stand the post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think you're entitled to!<br />
<br />
I do the job I was chosen to … and you're god damn right I made it all up on a whim! Now, be a good little boy and obey your elders.<br />
<br />
After all, there’s no pluralism in a foxhole, juvenile.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>---</div><div><br /></div><div>November 30: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-avenues-few-thanks-to-give-as-we.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: A few thanks to give as we eagerly await Trump's forthcoming eviction.</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>November 24: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-avenues-doc-harris-and-commissioners.html">ON THE AVENUES: Doc Harris and the Commissioners at the No Clue Corral.</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>November 15: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-avenues-karma-karma-karma-karma.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon (The Big Bang Remix).</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>November 7: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-or-off-avenues-theres-got-to-be.html" target="_blank">On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after. </a></b></div></div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-49556663695692789232020-11-25T10:54:00.001-05:002020-11-25T10:54:43.752-05:00ON THE AVENUES: A few thanks to give as we eagerly await Trump's forthcoming eviction.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2rPYP8gdBmrjs3d3hBcmB3w_qZ1F7evSZx4urchZvDcOf8WVM9ZFo0x10r4Qybz9wy0Qx2FRr-wDAuu-4xXes_LqhsnRIFL9BQwgirSp4pVyhEbd-u-0YEchi4T6E_J_l41sMJg/s1490/On+the+Avenues+Template+Title+Photo+June+2019.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="1490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2rPYP8gdBmrjs3d3hBcmB3w_qZ1F7evSZx4urchZvDcOf8WVM9ZFo0x10r4Qybz9wy0Qx2FRr-wDAuu-4xXes_LqhsnRIFL9BQwgirSp4pVyhEbd-u-0YEchi4T6E_J_l41sMJg/s320/On+the+Avenues+Template+Title+Photo+June+2019.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Consider it a quasi-retired blogger’s fallback credo in times of holiday-inspired gluttony.<br />
<br />
<b>"Cutting and pasting leaves more time for mandated eating and drinking."</b><br />
<br />
Over a period of years, I'd pause only momentarily to update the previous Thanksgiving Day column before rushing off to Vietnam Kitchen for the Baylor family’s holiday tradition of K-8 or clay pot catfish, and often both.<br />
<br />
Ironically, this habit of appending something topical to hurriedly regurgitated past musings soon came to resemble the procedure at family gatherings occurring throughout the nation during this uniquely American celebration.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, Vietnam Kitchen ceased being a factor in 2015, when the restaurant commenced a fresh tradition of its own and began closing on Thanksgiving Day. 2016 found us vacationing in Catania, Sicily, where I swapped Southeast Asian staples for Pasta alla Norma, followed by a delectable mixed grill of horse meat.<br />
<br />With each bite I dreamily pondered revisionist Kentucky Derby thoughts. <div><br /></div><div><div>Abroad again in 2019 (be still, my throbbing heart), our Thanksgiving meal was taken at <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Gostilna Pri kolovratu</a>, a cafe and eatery in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Located strategically opposite the cathedral, this restaurant dates to 1836 and has been recently revitalized by new ownership. </div><div><br /></div><div>The food at Gostilna Pri kolovratu was impeccable: barley soup with sausage; Vodnik salad from the 1799 "classic" Slovene cookbook (local greens, beets, cauliflower, hard boiled egg); lamb knuckle (sun-dried tomato and balsamic reduction); ribeye steak. The wine was Slovene merlot and the parting glass Pelinkovac, a bitter herbal liqueur. We actually had our dessert of Prekmurska gibanica (layered cake) and štruklji dumplings earlier in the day while strolling, not realizing an evening return was in the offing.</div><div><br /></div><div>This year we'll be cooking at home with the help of a stuffed, deboned turkey from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/taylorscajunmeatco/" target="_blank">Taylor Cajun Meat Company</a>, and to prepare for the task I've already gone to the store — the package store, that is. No sense interfering with THAT most noble and enduring of traditions. I have been, and always shall be, a practitioner of the drinking arts, whether on Thanksgiving or any other delightfully pagan day.<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
It will surprise no one to learn that it isn't my habit to "give thanks" in clichéd terms to non-existent deities using code language I personally find meaningless, although from each according to his credulity, to each according to his needs.<br />
<br />
This isn’t to imply that I refrain from thankfulness.<br />
<br />
Top billing goes to Diana, who is my rock, followed closely by friends both old and new. They comprise a diverse extended family and are greatly appreciated. With the advent of Pints&union in 2018, the family has grown. <br />
<br />
I can’t put into words what this pub-building experience has meant to me. In the aftermath of my career at NABC, it was understood that a stint in the wilderness would be necessary to purge and cleanse. Joe Phillips needed a rhythm guitarist, and here I am, doing what I do best. It has been redemptive, and I’m very appreciative.<br />
<br />
Three years of civic notoriety as an under-employed dissident and "non-person" afforded me unprecedented opportunities to learn. It felt like a graduate degree without the onerous tuition — and I'm thankful for the education. Any day is wasted without an opportunity to learn, and a whole new stack of books awaits. I've read more of them in 2020 than ever before during a single year, owing to COVID-19 and spending a great deal more time than usual at home. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thankfully, we've both made it through the pandemic healthy, so far. </div><div>
<br />
Overall, I’m constantly reminded of my good fortune after six decades on this planet. There has been lots of dumb luck, and I’ve also “made” some of my own breaks. Serendipity and opportunism both have played roles. I’ve worked, worried, absorbed and forgotten in equal measure, with time still on the clock for restorative boreassing.<br />
<br />
Balance. That’s always the most important thing.<br />
<br />
For a quarter-century, until the ownership coalition at NABC dissolved, I was able to make a living from drinking beer, most often in my natural preferred habitat of the public house. It was a business, but at the end of the day intangibles and ideas mattered far more to me.<br />
<br />
They still do, which is another reason the Pints&union gig is such a good fit.<br />
<br />
Being in a position to educate and challenge always was the real motivation, because the pub truthfully remains the poor man’s university. I tried to make my former workplace perform this function as often as humanly possible, and I’m doing my level best to reformat the experience at our new venue. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>What we've learned at Pints&union this year amid the pandemic's many foundational challenges has been a post-graduate course in survival. It isn't over, but Joe has put us in a very good place to make it through to whatever follows. </b><br />
<br />
One thing I don’t regret at all is the absence of filthy lucre. </div><div><br /></div><div>There were times when a higher percentage of it might have been useful, but I remain a reluctant capitalist. I've never been rich and likely never will be, but I’m delighted to stand on my record when it comes to teaching, agitating, creating lasting memories and trying to get to the heart of the matter – whether it’s beer, localism, travel, complete streets, running for mayor, music or all the above, tied together as they should be, sensibly and coherently, because absolutely nothing exists in a vacuum.<br />
<br />
Legacies needn’t depend on wealth. They’re about doing what you can, while you can, as best you can, and producing a body of work impervious to calculations of interest, percentages and historical revisionism. Twenty years on, if someone smiles because they recall good times at the pub, then it’s the very best return on my time and investment.<br />
<br />---<br />
<br />
As an aside, there aren’t many parts of my first career in business that I genuinely miss. It was time to go, and I went. <br />
<br />
However, I do miss some of the crazy things we were able to organize during the “imperial” period, such as Saturnalia, the annual celebration of winter seasonal and holiday beers. From 2004, Saturnalia was calibrated to begin each year on the day after Thanksgiving, and to run through Christmas. I liked it far better than Gravity Head.<br />
<br />
In pre-Christian Rome, Saturnalia was the annual winter solstice celebration coinciding with the feast days for Saturn (the god of sowing and the harvest), Consus (god of the storage bin) and Opa (goddess of plenty). Many of our contemporary winter holiday traditions derive from Saturnalia’s pagan roots, including the hanging of wreaths and garlands, donations to the needy, prayers for peace, time off work to be enjoyed with family, and of course eating, drinking and merriment.<br />
<br />
There was a resonance to Saturnalia because so many fine people return home for the holidaze. It always seemed to me that winter seasonal beers provided the most suitable accompaniment to the joys of reconnecting, sharing war stories, and remembering those who no longer are with us -- the folks I’m very thankful to have known while they were here on earth.<br />
<br />As this column heads for the stretch, it’s time for some boilerplate.<br />
<br />
A few years ago in the <i>Jeffersonville Tom May Good News Bugle</i>, I made an observation.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>There’s never any better time than Thanksgiving for an iconoclast’s thoughts to be made public.</b><br />
<br />
Naturally, it's futile to expect anyone to read my outpouring of words Thursday, on the holiday itself. Given the inability of many New Albanian readers to wade through my commentary without scratching their heads in confusion, it’s plainly impolite to ask them to waste valuable time gnawing leftovers to engage in a frustrating, household-wide search for seldom-used dictionaries and thesauruses.<br />
<br />
But I am nothing if not stubborn, so let’s revisit the notion of “iconoclast”:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
1. A breaker or destroyer of images, esp. those set up for religious veneration.<br />
<br />
2. A person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., as being based on error or superstition … rather like your humble correspondent.</blockquote>
<br />
Regular readers know my heroes have always been iconoclasts. From Socrates through Tom Paine, and not exempting 20th-century polemicists like H. L. Mencken, there’s nothing as thrilling as an iconoclast taking a headlong swipe at unexamined assumptions.<br />
<br />
The most wonderful aspect of iconoclasm is that personal dissipation does not pre-empt the message. It actually may enhance it.<br />
<br />
Consequently, it is my duty to remind you that Thanksgiving, while perfectly enjoyable from a hedonist’s standpoint, and wholly conducive to this bibulous trencherman’s standards, actually stands for something of importance.<br />
<br />
This certain “something” isn’t the prevailing pastel-colored viewpoint of Puritans and Natives merrily gathering for a quaint New England picnic, pausing only occasionally from the consumption of corn chowder and non-alcoholic cranberry wine to pray before their respective deities.<br />
<br />
The need for apologetics aside, and whether or not Squanto miraculously facilitated a peaceful first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock, the subsequent history of the white man on the North American continent featured the unabated slaughter of Native Americans, incessant pillaging of the environment, and an exculpatory doctrine of “manifest destiny” interwoven with prevailing religious belief, as intended to ease the consciences (if any) of those pulling the triggers.<br />
<br />
We’ll leave the open approval of African-American slavery, emanating for many generations from Christians occupying American pulpits, for another day of faux “thanks.”<br />
<br />
In the context of real American history, and to the exclusion of mythology and wishful thinking, the holiday we term “Thanksgiving” is ironic, to say the very least. I prefer reflections on all human history to be in accordance with the record, and as events actually occurred, without the tidying impulse to obscure and sanitize them.<br />
<br />
I accept that people in all places and times do what they can with what they have, and believe that the best we can hope for is to learn from the past in the hope of learning worthwhile lessons and avoiding mistakes. In my opinion, the worst error of all is to misrepresent the historical record to justify theological needs.<br />
<br />
Like what happened to Jeff Speck’s traffic study when it finally was “implemented” beyond recognition for maximum monetization by New Albany's resurrected, non-book reading Orwellian cadres.<br />
<br /><b>
Yes, I observe Thanksgiving, too. It’s just that I do so realistically, dispensing with personality cults and fake facts.</b><br />
<br />Meanwhile, America’s Christmas shopping season started on July 4, and it will reach a crescendo on the day frenzied pop culture vultures have dubbed Black Friday.<br />
<br />
Pavlov’s overworked and fever-ridden mutt can be expected to salivate continuously as university economics school analysts (I’m gazing at you, IU Southeast) read imported tea leaves to guess whether holiday season retail sales will be sufficient to keep Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot and Meijer’s solvent for another year as Amazon’s dark clouds continue to roll ever closer toward a One Store State.</div><div><br /></div><div>I prefer the idea of Plaid Friday, and shifting my shopping to independent small businesses. But at least there’s food on Thanksgiving, even if the Vietnamese joints are all closed. Iconoclasm aside, I always enjoyed the traditional Norman Rockwell bird-spread. This year we'll enjoy a scaled-down version. In 2021, who knows? <br />
<br />
After all, to each his and her own tradition. May yours be peaceful, and not harmful to others.<br />
<br />
As they say in Haiphong: Một hai ba, yo! The phrase means "cheers" -- or maybe it's "someone bring me the leftovers."</div><div><br /></div><div>---</div></div><div><br /></div><div>November 24: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-avenues-doc-harris-and-commissioners.html">ON THE AVENUES: Doc Harris and the Commissioners at the No Clue Corral.</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>November 15: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-avenues-karma-karma-karma-karma.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon (The Big Bang Remix).</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>November 7: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-or-off-avenues-theres-got-to-be.html" target="_blank">On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after. </a></b></div><div><br />October 8: <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-im-voting-for-biden.html" target="_blank"><b>ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult. </b></a><br />
<div><br /></div><div>October 1: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-welcome-to-last-will-and.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of <i>NA Confidential</i>.</a> </b></div><div><div></div></div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-16705945099434490152020-11-24T13:10:00.002-05:002020-11-24T13:15:50.640-05:00ON THE AVENUES: Doc Harris and the Commissioners at the No Clue Corral.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2rPYP8gdBmrjs3d3hBcmB3w_qZ1F7evSZx4urchZvDcOf8WVM9ZFo0x10r4Qybz9wy0Qx2FRr-wDAuu-4xXes_LqhsnRIFL9BQwgirSp4pVyhEbd-u-0YEchi4T6E_J_l41sMJg/s1490/On+the+Avenues+Template+Title+Photo+June+2019.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="1490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2rPYP8gdBmrjs3d3hBcmB3w_qZ1F7evSZx4urchZvDcOf8WVM9ZFo0x10r4Qybz9wy0Qx2FRr-wDAuu-4xXes_LqhsnRIFL9BQwgirSp4pVyhEbd-u-0YEchi4T6E_J_l41sMJg/s320/On+the+Avenues+Template+Title+Photo+June+2019.png" width="320" /></a></div>Ah, the foolish delusions of youth. <div><br /></div>Displaying the guileless eagerness of a fresh military recruit going into battle for the very first time, I began attending New Albany city council meetings in 2005, concurrently submitting to engagement in all sorts of grassroots public meetings. <br /><br />After a few months thrashing through this stinking, fetid swamp, my only goal in life became finding a nice, dry branch to hang on to. <br /><br />My persistence in indulging this gavel-pounding, head-throbbing, BDSM-like fetish for social dysfunction subsequently extended far past the point when most normal people would have been forcibly loaded onto the padded taxi for a no-expenses-paid visit to Fantasy Island. <br /><br />It’s a testament to my sheer, stubborn cantankerousness that I never became one of the zombie drones, although not unlike formaldehyde, copious quantities of beverage alcohol certainly helped preserve my sanity. <br /><br />Then in 2019, lest the gateway martinis lead me down a path to heroin, I withdrew from the fray. After 15 years, I finally reached a sensible conclusion that as long as undemocratic Democrats ruled the municipal roost, there’d never be improvement. Rehabilitation proceeds apace. <br /><br />But those outlandish nightmares of King Larry Kochert ogling my leotards? <br /><br />They’ll last forever. <br /><br />One lesson from this era of trauma and self-harm also stays with me, because whenever Floyd County politicians belonging to either major political party suddenly cite an alarming lack of information as a reason to delay acting, even when the vital information deemed essential has reposed for weeks and maybe months atop a case of Bud Light Kumquat-A-Rita in their dens—in Bob Caesar’s case, immediately adjacent to the “missing” crate containing his Bicentennial Commission financial records—it invariably leads to two closely related outcomes. <br /><br /><b>Their sleeves are being tugged by self-appointed pillars (read: fixers) of the community … and as a result, an embarrassing retrograde maneuver is in the offing. </b><br /><br />Given my pre-retirement history of gleefully exposing the dismal antics of New Albany's DemoDisneyDixiecrats, currently extinct beyond city limits, many heads will be nodding in anticipation of the usual verbiage directed against Adam’s Ants. <div><br /></div><div>Not this time. </div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, let’s take a journey to the other side of the aisle, and consider our information-deprived county commissioners, Republicans all: Shawn Carruthers, John Schellenberger and Tim Kamer. </div><div><br /></div><div>---<br /><br />Dear reader, unless you’re a complete imbecile, you've grasped with clarity and certainty that the COVID-19 pandemic has entered a particularly gruesome stage as the holiday season approaches. <br /><br />Consider the self-inflicted wounds of Indiana’s governor, Eric Holcomb. After more than seven months of futility spent trying to thread the GOP’s culture-wide needle of pandemic denial, even as his predecessor Mike Pence stood off to the side, maskless, breathing vapid scripture into his eyeglasses, Holcomb opened, then partially closed, and finally conceded his own impotence in declaring a new color-coded system to put COVID mitigation measures into the hands of local county officials. <br /><br />Just think how much Holcomb’s late autumn devolution might have helped had it been implemented in April. Perhaps he was frightened by the Libertarian insurgency in the gubernatorial race. Pence might have been distracted by the need to find a new job. None of it would matter if not for the potential for a worse pandemic than we already experienced, and presently are witnessing. <br /><br />Now, in November, for all intents and purposes, COVID-era devolution means that local unelected county officials are being charged with formulating and enforcing policies pertaining to the pandemic. <br /><br />There’s the rub. <br /><br />With the vast majority of Indiana’s elected Republicans, as well as a far larger percentage of minority Democrats than you might imagine, all unwilling to risk leadership during an election-year public health crisis, but yearning to preserve their electoral viability for future pandering, the magical solution is to put unpopular decisions in the hands of folks like Dr. Thomas Harris, chief of the Floyd County Health Department. <br /><br />Frequent readers will recall the infamous "Pour Gate" scandal in 2013 (<a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2019/05/remembering-great-beer-pour-war-of-2013.html" target="_blank">see here for a full account</a>), when Dr. Harris sought to exceed his agency’s statutory limitations and was wrestled to the ground and repelled by a holy coalition of Hoosiers. Obviously, Dr. Harris and I are not bosom buddies, and quite likely won’t ever be. <br /><br />However, 2013 and 2020 are one hundred and seven years apart. <br /><br />It was reported last week that Dr. Harris has been approved to serve another term by the health department board, a decision customarily "certified" by the three Floyd County Commissioners (as noted, all are Republican). <br /><br />However, the certification was tabled, with Kamer, the least experienced commissioner, stepping forward as de facto spokesman to cite the telltale absence of critical information. Carruthers and Schellenberger merely confined themselves to disinterested nods, and transparency crawled off to die. <br /><br />The optics of the unanticipated delay couldn’t be much worse for the commissioners, given that earlier in the week Dr. Harris has announced tighter pandemic restrictions on restaurants and bars, still more timid than those taken in surrounding states, and yet a step in the right direction. <br /><br />Unless, of course, you’re among the whack-jobs who still deny the efficacy of <i>any</i> pandemic restrictions, or the existence of COVID itself. Whether the three commissioners do or don’t embrace science is a question we can’t answer, although their haste in stalling Dr. Harris’s reappointment seems to me an irrefutable clue. After all, one of them is the Republican Party’s county chairman. <br /><br />Scuttlebutt meanwhile suggests their arms are being twisted by Republican grandees besotted with lunatic fringe Kool-Aid and evangelical Christianity; perhaps Dr. Harris failed to properly fill out the Right to Life questionnaire, or forgot to put a MAGA sign in his yard. <br /><br />Or, as my friend Occam suggests, it’s exactly as it seems, and local Republicans are terrified lest they be viewed as surrendering to nasty masked liberals who worship George Soros. </div><div><br /></div><div>Freedom! Liberty! Mass infections and an early death to grandma! </div><div><br />Well, you know, the stock market <i>rules</i>. <br /><br />--- <br /><br />As many of you are aware, I’m employed part-time by a restaurant, and have another part-time job writing about restaurants. When Dr. Harris usurped his department's power in 2013, I spent two years fighting against him, and winning, because he was wrong—and quite a few Republicans agreed, and did the heavy lifting required. <br /><br />However, I fully support the measures announced last week by Dr. Harris to address the pandemic’s spread. They’re something, as opposed to nothing, and also necessary, as opposed to Disney World. <br /><br />In point of fact, Harris’s actions during a single day last week shot this unelected official straight to the top of the local leadership board, seeing as leadership from <i>elected </i>officeholders has been even more AWOL than usual since March. <br /><br />Yes, city council passed a toothless resolution, and two weeks ago, the mayor attached his name to a ludicrously belated social media pronouncement divulging his lightbulb-above-noggin recognition of the pandemic, and urging citizens to mask up and distance themselves. News travels slowly into the shadowy bowels of the bunker, and it only took hundreds of days, but better late than never. <br /><br />We needn't elaborate as to what local elected Republicans have done concerning COVID, since as Billy Preston once reminded us, nothing from nothing leaves … nothing. <br /><br />Dr. Harris exercised a semblance of leadership, and his Republican handlers immediately hung him out to dry. It isn’t a coincidence. They inhabit a political belief system that would have exiled Dr. Anthony Fauci before Memorial Day if not checked. Many of them are entangled in religious superstition that would have been right at home in Spain during the Inquisition. We stream music via weird and mysterious invisible waves; they spin 78-rpm discs coated with shellac. <br /><br />Dear reader, if you espouse human reason, and respect the veracity of the scientific method, I suggest you query the commissioners as to what sort of petty game they're playing, and who is issuing their marching orders. Their phone numbers are <a href="https://www.floydcounty.in.gov/index.php/floyd-county-government/floyd-county-indiana-commissioners" target="_blank">here</a>, although not their e-mail addresses.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not surprising, is it?</div>
<div><br /></div><div>---</div><div><br /></div><div>November 15: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-avenues-karma-karma-karma-karma.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon (The Big Bang Remix).</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>November 7: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-or-off-avenues-theres-got-to-be.html" target="_blank">On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after. </a></b></div><div><br />October 8: <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-im-voting-for-biden.html" target="_blank"><b>ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult. </b></a><br />
<div><br /></div><div>October 1: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-welcome-to-last-will-and.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of <i>NA Confidential</i>.</a> </b></div><div><div></div></div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-36225003306825162142020-11-15T00:30:00.002-05:002020-11-24T12:56:47.257-05:00ON THE AVENUES: Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon (The Big Bang Remix).<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2rPYP8gdBmrjs3d3hBcmB3w_qZ1F7evSZx4urchZvDcOf8WVM9ZFo0x10r4Qybz9wy0Qx2FRr-wDAuu-4xXes_LqhsnRIFL9BQwgirSp4pVyhEbd-u-0YEchi4T6E_J_l41sMJg/s1490/On+the+Avenues+Template+Title+Photo+June+2019.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="1490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2rPYP8gdBmrjs3d3hBcmB3w_qZ1F7evSZx4urchZvDcOf8WVM9ZFo0x10r4Qybz9wy0Qx2FRr-wDAuu-4xXes_LqhsnRIFL9BQwgirSp4pVyhEbd-u-0YEchi4T6E_J_l41sMJg/s320/On+the+Avenues+Template+Title+Photo+June+2019.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Pedestrians being hit by cars is a car problem. Car congestion is a car problem. Noise and air pollution from car exhaust is a car problem. The solution is less space devoted to cars and fewer cars. </b></i><br />-- Momifornia on Twitter </span><br /><br />Nawbany was awash in cascading waves of irony the past week, and seeing as we’re not the sort of city that appreciates the variety of honesty that irony elicits, my brief return from internal (infernal?) exile is merited. <br /><br />According to reliable reports on social media, it appears that Mayor Jeff Gahan was involved in an automobile accident on Monday afternoon at the contested intersection of Klerner Lane and Mt. Tabor Road. <br /><br />First and foremost, we believe no one was hurt. Had there been an injury, and if any of it had been relayed by the picked-over carcass of deceased local media, I would not discuss the accident in this space. <div><br />So, disclaimers aside, it was reported that on Monday the armored mayoral SUV (Nawbany lacks Saudi-sized oil reserves, but galdurn it, we have a sewer utility cash cow) t-boned a smaller car, with a photo clearly showing the mayor talking on his cell phone, probably with Rudy Giuliani (or the city attorney, whichever one picked up first), and absent the pandemic face covering timorously beseeched by his safely captive city council. <br /><br />The witness who broke the story added that the mayor then left the scene before police arrived. <br /><br /><b>Wait -- you may be asking, “forget bad driving, Roger, but why is the intersection contested”? </b><br /><br />Thanks for asking. <br /><br />Originally the mayor sought to place a roundabout at this precise location, as part of a barely plausible multi-million dollar “improvement” project for Mt. Tabor Road, which local residents spent something like five years <i>contesting</i>, at their own expense, accurately characterizing it as an expensive boondoggle, constructed in such a way as to attract even more speeding cut-through traffic in a residential area, thus contradicting the claims of proponents in City Hall (and nowhere else) that traffic would be slowed and calmed for all time. <br /><br />These neighborhood advocates, those fated to live adjacent to the “improvements,” felt strongly that with increased traffic there’d be even more instances of vehicular mayhem, a prediction scornfully rejected by the mayor, who blamed partisan politics, and in essence asked residents whether they believed the mayoral clique or their own two eyes. <br /><br />As <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/06/traffic-cluster-part-one-mt-tabor-road.html" target="_blank">documented during the past two years</a>, and now proven in 2020 by the automobile-supremacist mayor himself, their own two eyes proved plenty accurate. <div><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IBR8oYK1Ik86ec9CHsg7Gq96LMH0nM0SEOiX73aZGAp7V5mk8e_ttPkjUeJnU80-fGjYQdTrBfz7Aqmd0opX3cDxByvIv7mj8Q-gz1xBA-hT8VDrzWsHz7wzspbQQ-5dDLHZUA/s1517/Gahan+crash+Klerner+tabor+leaves+the+scene+2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="1517" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IBR8oYK1Ik86ec9CHsg7Gq96LMH0nM0SEOiX73aZGAp7V5mk8e_ttPkjUeJnU80-fGjYQdTrBfz7Aqmd0opX3cDxByvIv7mj8Q-gz1xBA-hT8VDrzWsHz7wzspbQQ-5dDLHZUA/s320/Gahan+crash+Klerner+tabor+leaves+the+scene+2.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Naturally the residents were never once asked whether they wanted road “improvements.” The project was imposed from above, by the elites. <br /><br />Welcome to Nawbany, pilgrim -- and if you don’t have a car, you’re not really welcome at all. </div><div><br />--- <br /><br />In fact, as this baleful year of 2020 limps to the finish line, motor vehicles of all stripes are moving way too fast all over town. <br /><br />In response, City Hall continues to insist with a straight face that we should believe the increasingly illusory, North Korean-style press releases, which breathlessly laud the unprecedented achievement of universal street grid calming and pervasive lawfulness, as achieved throughout the city by the shining wonder of perfect governance. <br /><br />But I live on Spring Street, and can attest that these claims are utterly fictitious, or as my father might have put it, “bullshit.” <br /><br />Apart from obvious examples like chronic speeding at all hours of the day, there’s the <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2018/10/we-buy-cars-face-of-luxury-car-sales-in.html" target="_blank">noisy and disruptive HyperCar</a> auto polishing and sales lot located in my East Spring Street neighborhood, which in the beginning claimed it would be servicing cars only, and not selling cars, at least for a very long time, but forgot the promises almost immediately as city officials yawned, and currently has so many fancy souped-up race cars crammed into its lot that some of them must always be parked (illegally) on 13th Street, with HyperCars employees and customers getting their jollies by taking all these cars on cacophonous spins around the block, dozens of times each day, while shifting, revving, squealing tires, screeching and emitting bursts of metallic flatulence that I’m guessing combine to produce something akin to an orgasm. <br /><br />As such, and in an instance of profound irony that comes close to matching the mayor’s Mt. Tabor mishap, on Thursday evening one of hyper-diaper’s cars parked illegally on 13th Street was creamed by a hit-and-run driver, who paused long enough for nearby residents to emerge from their homes and chase the fleeing driver to Market Street.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZrrgTVopkXPBd2LGZfOKDF37GgWIvW8g2qXkppwpulCegRYAM4yPJ9xZfTPBlYYEGS3KGLr2J9ulU0oC0G_ASfiOnVNBAW6GKssGvgZwex8arP-EN2U_HRW4OXOo-AeoHeujxg/s2048/Inkedhypercars+crash+nov+2020+2_LI.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1378" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZrrgTVopkXPBd2LGZfOKDF37GgWIvW8g2qXkppwpulCegRYAM4yPJ9xZfTPBlYYEGS3KGLr2J9ulU0oC0G_ASfiOnVNBAW6GKssGvgZwex8arP-EN2U_HRW4OXOo-AeoHeujxg/s320/Inkedhypercars+crash+nov+2020+2_LI.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I considered risking bad karma by laughing my ass off, but didn't. A better response is crying in frustration at the perennial backwardness displayed by Nawbany. <br /><br />Here we are in Midtown, supposedly a municipal showplace for genteel “blue” progressivism, and instead of urbanism we have hyperactive race cars on one side of Spring at 13th, and the failed candidate Oxendine’s clown-car discount funeral home on the other. <br /><br />And our presumed neighborhood leaders? They’re AWOL, as always. <br /><br />--- <br /><br />What makes the irony of the mayor’s recent driver’s ed fender bender even more delicious is that it transpired in the yard of a neighborhood resident who helped leaded the opposition to the Mt. Tabor “improvement” project. <br /><br />She heard the crash and snapped a photo of the two damaged vehicles, with unmasked mayor (literally and figuratively) standing in her yard. Upon publishing the photo of a public event that occurred in front of her house, the ruling elites circled the wagons and commenced slagging, leading to the usual drooling defenses of the mayor as a wonderful human being on a par with Gandhi, or perhaps even the departing humanitarian Donald Trump. <br /><br />Pfui. It’s all irrelevant. <br /><br />Again and again I’ve pointed out that quite a lot of New Albany’s foot dragging pertaining to complete streets, walkability and all-purpose urban modernity -- the city’s abject refusal to so much as try leveling the playing field via mobility solutions not reliant on internal combustion engines -- stems from the abysmal and persistent ignorance of elected and appointed public officials who, in effect, have neither been anywhere nor seen anything, and who wouldn’t be caught dead reading a book if the pages slapped them in the face like the palm fronds adorning their hard seltzers. <br /><br />City Hall has willfully botched these equations ever since Gahan began consolidating power, because power in little-pond Nawbany is about campaign finance funding from pay-to-play skimming, the proceeds from which simply cannot be generated by walking or biking projects. Rather, automobile supremacy equals cash. It’s unfortunate, but true. <br /><br />At least the mayor now has direct experience of what it’s like to run afoul of city streets he’s done so much to curate in his own image, and I can only hope that some sweet day he’ll take the debacle a step further and attempt to use one of his favored push-button (un)controlled urban crosswalks, with their tiny flashing yellow lights ignored as hot rods roar and tow trucks cruise at 60 mph on “calmed” stretches of Gahanesque speedways, learning in accordance with those of us who walk, and despairing of making it to the other side alive. <br /><br />Maybe then, at last, he’d grasp the profound disconnect he has imposed on those without cars. Yes, it means he’d have to go out for a walk, and admittedly that’s about as unlikely as a Democratic Party grandee being spotted on a bicycle. But a boy can dream, especially when dreams are all we have in the complete and unmitigated absence of principle. <br /><br />The errant politician probably won't have to answer for it; his handlers will shelter him, and the super-duper-hyper-racecar place will deny that it creates daily mayhem on residential streets, but I'm just happy with any dent, real or metaphorical, placed in our local default of automobile supremacy. <br /><br />Maybe we’ll get a clue, some day. After all, even a stopped pre-digital clock is right twice each day.</div><div><br /></div><div>---</div><div><br /></div><div>November 7: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/11/on-or-off-avenues-theres-got-to-be.html" target="_blank">On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after. </a></b></div><div><br />October 8: <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-im-voting-for-biden.html" target="_blank"><b>ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult. </b></a><br />
<div><br /></div><div>October 1: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-welcome-to-last-will-and.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of <i>NA Confidential</i>.</a> </b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>September 24: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/09/on-avenues-magic-and-loss.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Magic and loss. </a></b></div><div><p>September 17: <b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/09/on-avenues-stuck-inside-of-nawbany-with.html" target="_blank">ON THE AVENUES: Stuck inside of Nawbany with the Flanders blues again.</a></b></p></div></div></div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-12597065910689199802020-11-07T11:09:00.003-05:002020-11-14T18:16:23.835-05:00On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6kKpta6UtZCfRm4oBCiLFReuejzV_pK2S16i8mSTtFXHynGy3fWA8GKfDGxJYGZ6JyWIVRJ_zQcDQyKGgcEg-7cotynD0CdFFaPwYUTjPpYPD2v7ikNH5mciq5ID_ajOKeaBWQ/s610/dumpster+fire+porta+lets.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6kKpta6UtZCfRm4oBCiLFReuejzV_pK2S16i8mSTtFXHynGy3fWA8GKfDGxJYGZ6JyWIVRJ_zQcDQyKGgcEg-7cotynD0CdFFaPwYUTjPpYPD2v7ikNH5mciq5ID_ajOKeaBWQ/s320/dumpster+fire+porta+lets.png" width="320" /></a></div><i><div><i><br /></i></div>What I do want to nudge you to consider is this: everything you are passionate about at the national level has a local analog that needs your attention. </i></div><div>-- Charles Marohn (<i>Strong Towns</i>; "<a href="https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/11/4/its-all-local-now" target="_blank">It's All Local Now</a>")<p>No, there haven't been any columns lately, and very few posts. This is to be considered a status report. </p><p>As confided previously, this blog is being allowed to wither on the vine. There's a place and time for everything, and 15,000+ posts during 16 years are enough. This particular soapbox is being dismantled. Another will be erected elsewhere, although it will not be entirely the same. ON THE AVENUES will make the transition. Beyond that, I'm unsure.</p><p>It is an oft-told story, but worth a quick rehash. <i>NA Confidential</i> arose from my deep frustration with the (seeming) pointlessness of political involvement at the "macro" level of nation state. Hours, days, and years arguing about what should happen "up there," but no real way to be heard or to influence the outcome. It's actually easier that way; it absolves the individual from doing anything about it except talk.</p><p>This was in 2004, and as the presidential contest approached (W's re-election would be a bitter disappointment), I decided to look out the front door, down the three-lane, one-way racetrack running past our house, and see what could be done at the grassroots "micro" level. </p><p>As noted, this change of focus played out over an unexpectedly lengthy period. Here's something I wrote at Fb yesterday, as we await confirmation that Trump has been dumped:</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>I thought this would be an excellent time to announce a return to active local participation, much like the Dick Nixon account at Twitter, given that I feel little different than I did in 2004 when W's re-election turned my interest toward the street outside. </i></p><p><i>Then it occurred to me that it took 13 years of local participation to turn this one-way street to two ways. That's right: 13 years. </i></p><p><i>Furthermore, since I'm not a Republican and am still effectively blackballed (blackmailed?) into silence by reigning DemoDisneyDixiecrats -- whose stripes haven't changed since Tuesday -- there's no pathway available to me to do much of anything apart from coded commentary, a nice reading list, plenty of alcohol and the occasional sausage. </i></p><p><i>Okay, so be it; consequently, the new web site will be called Expatriate in Place, or Open Air Exile, or something like that.
I'll be delighted when Trump departs. But it's the same unforgivingly stupid Nawbany outside these four walls.</i></p></blockquote><div><br /></div>
It appears Joe Biden will win the election, but I'm not "celebrating" one damn thing beyond the singular and profound relief afforded by NOT being compelled to listen to Donald Trump's nonsensical, narcissistic bleating and babbling every single day of my life.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>I have almost no confidence that the Democratic Party, as currently configured, can do much of anything positive in the years to come. My position has been, and remains, that in spite of differing appearances, our two major political parties are conjoined in their duopoly. If they both can’t be vaporized at once, one must collapse and the other will soon follow. </div><div><br /></div><div>And I don’t care which one goes first. </div><div><br /></div><div>Consequently, I have as little interest now, as in 2004, in wasting time debating broad macro topics with no conceivable way of being heard. But locally, the pillars of the community have me effectively blockaded, scourged and blacklisted, primarily because of the past 16 years I've spent reminding them of their tendency to be utterly without clothes (politically and in terms of consciousness, not -- heaven forbid -- in the sense of public nudity).</div><div><br /></div><div>They're all in favor of truth, until the truth is they're undereducated, incompetent, and in many instances outright venal. It shatters their self-delusions, and they get touchy (but not feely). Tough shit, although I'll concede there's a price to be paid when you're the one spotted holding a ball-peen hammer. </div><div><br /></div><div>What happens next? I don't know, and neither do you. </div><div><br /></div><div>History has shown, time and again, that absolute certainty is a fool's errand. The pandemic already has proven that everything we take for granted and flip overnight into an entirely different reality. </div><div><br /></div><div>So I plan to be loitering around the perimeter for while, working my two jobs, scanning the landscape, and forever mindful of the year 2015, when the incumbent mayor tried ineffectually to <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2015/09/jeff-gahans-nothing-positive-comment-is.html" target="_blank">take a swipe at me</a>: "Roger’s never done anything in a positive manner to help the city of New Albany.” </div><div><br /></div><div>In 2017, I explained <a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-beer-beat-i-guess-if-nabc-isnt.html" target="_blank">why he's completely full of shit in making this assertion</a>, because he never spent a single day in his life being entrepreneurial with his own money, and I mention his haplessly ignorant words now only because they're a powerful reminder that there are numerous ways outside ruling elites, social cliques and "the HWC fix is in" to be involved, accomplish things, make a difference and agitate for change. </div><div><br /></div><div>One of my favorite W.C. Fields stories may or may not be true, but it's a good one about the comedian on his deathbed. </div><div><br /></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><b>As the end approached, on that Christmas Day in 1946, an old writer-friend named Gene Fowler entered the hospital room and there was Fields, a self-admitted agnostic, thumbing through a Bible. </b></div></div><div><div><b><br /></b></div></div><div><div><b> “What are you doing, Bill?” asked the incredulous Fowler. </b></div></div><div><div><b><br /></b></div></div><div><div><b> “I’m looking for loopholes,” Fields whispered. </b>
</div></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div>Pretty much. <i>NAC</i> can die, because it will make the dipshits happy, and as such, it's my loving gift to them. </div><div><br /></div><div>Me? I'm looking for loopholes.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #eeeecc; background-origin: initial; background-position: 10px 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url("https://resources.blogblog.com/blogblog/data/rounders3/icon_arrow.gif") 10px 0.5em no-repeat rgb(238, 238, 204); border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-image: initial; border-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 14px 2px 29px;"><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/update-nac-is-heading-for-exits-but.html" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Update: <i>NAC</i> is heading for the exits, but we're not there quite yet.</span></a></h3></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #eeeecc; background-origin: initial; background-position: 10px 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url("https://resources.blogblog.com/blogblog/data/rounders3/icon_arrow.gif") 10px 0.5em no-repeat rgb(238, 238, 204); border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-image: initial; border-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 14px 2px 29px;"><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-im-voting-for-biden.html" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult.</span></a></h3></div></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #eeeecc; background-origin: initial; background-position: 10px 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url("https://resources.blogblog.com/blogblog/data/rounders3/icon_arrow.gif") 10px 0.5em no-repeat rgb(238, 238, 204); border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-image: initial; border-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 14px 2px 29px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: x-small; text-decoration-line: none;"><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-avenues-welcome-to-last-will-and.html" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;">ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of <i>NA Confidential</i>.</a></span></h3></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-76048899315927076762020-11-01T22:30:00.001-05:002020-11-02T08:50:31.156-05:00Marc Murphy and Dan Canon on Tuesday's election. <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLLVfzx-0_AoGZu-TaGVFeTDJ5jPH84mFaBZzgmI_u0TartqSaSizRCtyfDpunL1szKiU4N-6krbJfHXjARystAqHX5TPgMBEcZOxHswD0KkIPHUbCx75cQHPglEwpQhGn4jpVIg/s1280/Broken.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLLVfzx-0_AoGZu-TaGVFeTDJ5jPH84mFaBZzgmI_u0TartqSaSizRCtyfDpunL1szKiU4N-6krbJfHXjARystAqHX5TPgMBEcZOxHswD0KkIPHUbCx75cQHPglEwpQhGn4jpVIg/s320/Broken.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/joseph-gerth/2018/12/27/louisville-cartoonist-marc-murphy-uses-art-hold-powerful-accountable/2376609002/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Marc Murphy</a><i> is an attorney, freelance cartoonist and the editorial cartoonist for the </i>Louisville Courier Journal<i>. His comment appeared at Facebook.</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>---<br /></i><br /> Broken.<br /><br />Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, America is broken in a way the removal of Donald Trump alone cannot fix. In the way cell phone video has exposed the brutal racism of our nation to those who are finally willing to believe with their eyes what our black neighbors have been telling our ears for generations, the pandemic has exposed our economic and social infrastructures for the wealth-serving, draconian frauds they have been at least since the rich convinced the white poor that taxes exist only to build a road to communism. The so-called political “division” hasn’t for a long time been between citizens of good faith with differing strategies to create a better country, there is in most respects now simply a right side, and an irredeemable wrong side.<br /><br />Even if he loses - and in the unlikely event he concedes without trying to finally execute our democracy - millions upon millions of Americans will have voted for a man who has moved past pretending to care about the truth, about the Constitution, about the world, or about anything other than his own immoral interests. These millions, many of whom you know, work with, attend soccer games with, and even celebrate holiday meals with, will have voted for him for reasons well known and well-explained elsewhere. For some of them increasing their own wealth through the stock market, by lowering taxes, and even by protecting their suburban property values is the limit of their interest in the “politics” they otherwise sneer at because they are insulated from the cruel world for others they help build.<br /><br />Far more of those millions of Trump voters, however, are either the unwitting victims of the very economic and social strategies they support, or have decided that protecting what has become their white Christian (in name only) world is worth the sacrifice. These are broad descriptions but more detailed analyses paint these voters in no better light: The Catholics, for instance, dishonoring the Church’s social justice - truly Christ-like - tradition by supporting a man and a party who violate the Commandments and The Beatitudes daily in exchange for a so-called Pro-Life vote.<br /><br />The pandemic rolled into the United States like the Germans into Poland because this nation - without universal health care, without guaranteed basic income, without even a national impulse to care for others institutionally - was quite literally the least-prepared and most vulnerable allegedly developed country on the planet. Not only was there no national strategy there were lies, disorganization and self-interest in its place. The states were left to decide that, ultimately, families and business could ironically only afford to survive the virus financially if they were forced to risk surviving it medically by “opening up”. The simple act of wearing a mask became weaponized and used by the President himself as a way to identify the weak, and his enemies. The United States of America in 2020 decided, quite intentionally, that hundreds of thousands of deaths of mostly old and disproportionately non-white citizens were acceptable collateral damage. Like it always had.<br /><br />America isn’t great. In its history when it was doing great things it had its foot on the necks of the descendants of slaves and 155 years after the end of the Civil War and even after these last months of marching we expect gratitude because *maybe* there will be revised Use of Force standards or some such thing for the police. The Democratic Party spent hundreds of millions of dollars this campaign cycle supporting candidates who can’t really distinguish themselves from their Republican opponents and even hope to appeal to Trump voters. America doesn’t have a tradition of a true opposition party and that’s why we live less in a democracy and more in an oligarchy, in which power and wealth continues to be more consolidated in the hands of a few, and the systems are perverted to serve only their interests. Interests that pay no taxes, because their private helicopters and 3-ton SUVs don’t need new roads, they pay for their own healthcare and private schools, and they don’t give a shit about you. We should eat cake, they would say.<br /><br />There are no gallows outside our Bastille. But fundamental change can come through non-violent means and there were candidates this cycle willing to take the first steps down what will be a hard road. “Decency” is nice, but it doesn’t buy a child’s surgery, it doesn’t fix her school, it doesn’t pave her road or provide— how is it I’m writing this in 2020? - clean drinking water. “Decency” doesn’t remake our militarized police departments from the ground up. “Decency” doesn’t make the minimum wage a livable wage. “Decency” tells everyone to be patient. We’ve been patient too long. Hundreds of thousands died because of it, and hundreds of thousands more will. Tuesday has to be a beginning, not the end.</div><div><br /></div><div>---<br /><i><br />Dan Canon lives in the neighborhood. He replied, also at Facebook.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>---<br /></i><br />Every last word of what <a href="https://www.facebook.com/marc.murphy.58?__tn__=%2CdK-R-R&eid=ARB8ZE601vZkOXmPyOpE4IncUvtB99YLVvNuZxt1_36LEFKRcG8iYB7RLYOHGB30jnTOQCVXFTnQXkIL&fref=mentions">Marc Murphy</a> says here. I'm an avowed optimist, but that optimism is very big-picture these days - like, humanity's probably gonna be okay. But America is probably not. I'm looking down the road and trying to spitball outcomes that don't leave us a third-world country with a strongman dictator in another decade (at best), and I don't see very many. Murphy's no cynic. Both of us have had up-close looks at the institutions that run our lives, and they are very, very fucked.<br /><br />I predict Trump loses on Tuesday, but what happens as a result? What comes after Trump? What happens when the GOP comes up with a younger, healthier, fascist pig - one who's capable of tying his shoes and speaking above a third-grade level?<br /><br />Rough seas ahead, mates.</div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-80602182644422455402020-10-30T18:07:00.001-04:002020-10-30T18:07:04.248-04:00Hanson's Folly, updated: There's still no diversity among regular News and Tribune opinion columnists.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYwEZyYH9CG3o8WgcAsmXVPoHY6mKEafyZXMZQW95GLWj9eJjFYhYxR8-2CNY8v3e6Tp3e5N81aZRj_CkQKzzcA8pRMyezClt5UIPJQFRnEbQyhCHlXI9Wlf-41b0wXBgqf0bajw/s812/Hanson+7.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYwEZyYH9CG3o8WgcAsmXVPoHY6mKEafyZXMZQW95GLWj9eJjFYhYxR8-2CNY8v3e6Tp3e5N81aZRj_CkQKzzcA8pRMyezClt5UIPJQFRnEbQyhCHlXI9Wlf-41b0wXBgqf0bajw/s320/Hanson+7.png" /></a></div><div>I took a gander in February, checked again in June, and updated again circa late August (and posted at Twitter).</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/06/hansons-folly-there-remains-complete.html" target="_blank"><b>Hanson's Folly: There remains a complete absence of diversity among regular <i>News and Tribune</i> columnists. </b></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Here's a fresh update. Obviously elections bring out the letters to the editor, and so the sample size is slightly smaller than usual for periods of the same length. </div><div><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Letters 20</b></li><li><b>White Male Columnists 18</b></li><li><b>White Female Columnists 3</b></li><li><b>Black Male Columnist 1</b></li><li><b>Editorial Board 1</b></li></ul><p></p><p>Allow me to calculate (because readers would notice, anyway) that of the 22 opinion columns, whether authored by whites, blacks, males or females, all writers probably are over the age of 50 (with the exception of staffer Daniel Suddeath), and all but one of them are white (95% of column slots).</p><p>Back in June, publisher Bill Hanson lamented racial injustice in America and bemoaned his own white "privilege," asking in essence what's to be done? Since then, 80-odd percent or more of his newspapers have continued to be old white people. I'd sugar-coat it if possible, but it isn't possible.</p><p>Publisher, heal thyself. </p><p>Here are the screen shots at the <i>News and Tribune's</i> website ("<a href="https://www.newsandtribune.com/opinion/" target="_blank">Opinion</a>"), beginning October 8, ending October 30. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6k5wjrVG6R9diBW_HqpKfbtzU555lfE0mai8R5GS9TFZTh1dGhvfvQIwwvyIqEEG712I8npld792cBTYqFgeyPojOTcc37eSSrsRrRw9k60ADW30ADhGloJAGBN2lUsR6sXrsTQ/s707/N%2526T+Old+and+White+6.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="707" data-original-width="434" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6k5wjrVG6R9diBW_HqpKfbtzU555lfE0mai8R5GS9TFZTh1dGhvfvQIwwvyIqEEG712I8npld792cBTYqFgeyPojOTcc37eSSrsRrRw9k60ADW30ADhGloJAGBN2lUsR6sXrsTQ/s320/N%2526T+Old+and+White+6.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzhuF0ppqkv0pGl0JKAnd7U3FOApBeUOhvut-L-H7RzVZeY5g9lANRe90LizaStbmsoQPwy5clPBFZazGBBPYm9QDilJC_kRvrYz-B_YpgiGerMuzBefV3uUzHSqULgGoHpgnaPA/s754/N%2526T+Old+and+White+5.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="345" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzhuF0ppqkv0pGl0JKAnd7U3FOApBeUOhvut-L-H7RzVZeY5g9lANRe90LizaStbmsoQPwy5clPBFZazGBBPYm9QDilJC_kRvrYz-B_YpgiGerMuzBefV3uUzHSqULgGoHpgnaPA/s320/N%2526T+Old+and+White+5.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqvI2Phu3ARUsFV_2y6IBV7pMcTa8Fsh3o0FKd7O_izcUIdMwKDCrAsU7vpov3o_QRRFsgHcHtH-_MPSWUSmt3rzx7M02XEwPnx_ONdfa1hhYytWqOQEYMxiz7m1Zu7nCpE4_J8w/s731/N%2526T+Old+and+White+4.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="321" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqvI2Phu3ARUsFV_2y6IBV7pMcTa8Fsh3o0FKd7O_izcUIdMwKDCrAsU7vpov3o_QRRFsgHcHtH-_MPSWUSmt3rzx7M02XEwPnx_ONdfa1hhYytWqOQEYMxiz7m1Zu7nCpE4_J8w/s320/N%2526T+Old+and+White+4.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUqz1OHFpPBAgc21owHj9tGJhm-IxQRmNmKNOVgN_WmvPa6V8ac6Z0FDbULGifGwjMiIC40f7qcYvxqt-v4_x6i4UqOS2ckJdowRoulTML5uALgHE_3Yisjd1mJPzBpYCGOUwPEw/s730/N%2526T+Old+and+White+3.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="358" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUqz1OHFpPBAgc21owHj9tGJhm-IxQRmNmKNOVgN_WmvPa6V8ac6Z0FDbULGifGwjMiIC40f7qcYvxqt-v4_x6i4UqOS2ckJdowRoulTML5uALgHE_3Yisjd1mJPzBpYCGOUwPEw/s320/N%2526T+Old+and+White+3.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN30mB4KDuUjzhtwlYvic8S5RieoYNPAv3mTwVYv2fqJRDIZn88hqWmmLGZwf1GdiUtiy7d5K4qN040XVODHItuPl_rtCtyWCR1GzYsZAlc2sQEs3KHut-FVliwb_-8aKLW8qhuw/s724/N%2526T+Old+and+White+2.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="724" data-original-width="410" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN30mB4KDuUjzhtwlYvic8S5RieoYNPAv3mTwVYv2fqJRDIZn88hqWmmLGZwf1GdiUtiy7d5K4qN040XVODHItuPl_rtCtyWCR1GzYsZAlc2sQEs3KHut-FVliwb_-8aKLW8qhuw/s320/N%2526T+Old+and+White+2.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik6vGQZyg0BK-EdQ4GUFo1S8DTiPM_ZDBWdcvYdJXrOSGscDkV9y_GIX-G03xijrNV8QWjSJfMVkYYmsdTpyonnk4ZYle5Gwg6LJ5VDrp6tllPwwj0JN9mLhynO7hDBVdqOLkzgg/s689/N%2526T+Old+and+White+1.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="689" data-original-width="398" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik6vGQZyg0BK-EdQ4GUFo1S8DTiPM_ZDBWdcvYdJXrOSGscDkV9y_GIX-G03xijrNV8QWjSJfMVkYYmsdTpyonnk4ZYle5Gwg6LJ5VDrp6tllPwwj0JN9mLhynO7hDBVdqOLkzgg/s320/N%2526T+Old+and+White+1.JPG" /></a></div><br /><p></p></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-30506245117979715722020-10-29T11:04:00.047-04:002020-10-30T18:29:27.007-04:00Eliminate jaywalking laws: "The core problem lies with street design, not human behavior."<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ikCVLAfKNn5vn2J1uoO1phZf6R4swz41PIa8onHvxGmN8z2aRygzPYwHivhQkh7nay42yNPKU_UxYrPwu47523o0QdXSF8zdIjQdCzgBSjQVtSirI4bvJm4Hy03z-SMCYN_94A/s546/Modern+Moloch+Autocentrism.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="405" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ikCVLAfKNn5vn2J1uoO1phZf6R4swz41PIa8onHvxGmN8z2aRygzPYwHivhQkh7nay42yNPKU_UxYrPwu47523o0QdXSF8zdIjQdCzgBSjQVtSirI4bvJm4Hy03z-SMCYN_94A/s320/Modern+Moloch+Autocentrism.jpg" /></a></div>Yes, we've been here before.<div> <h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #eeeecc; background-origin: initial; background-position: 10px 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url("https://resources.blogblog.com/blogblog/data/rounders3/icon_arrow.gif") 10px 0.5em no-repeat rgb(238, 238, 204); border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-image: initial; border-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 14px 2px 29px;"><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2015/08/walking-is-not-crime-dunman-and-others.html" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Walking is not a crime: Dunman and others on the scourges of jaywalking in auto-erotic America.</span></a></h3><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #eeeecc; background-origin: initial; background-position: 10px 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url("https://resources.blogblog.com/blogblog/data/rounders3/icon_arrow.gif") 10px 0.5em no-repeat rgb(238, 238, 204); border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-image: initial; border-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 14px 2px 29px;"><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2017/05/like-jaywalker-said-people-dont-obey.html" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Like the jaywalker said: "People don’t obey the rules when they’re driving. Why should I?"</span></a></h3><div><br /></div>But any little chink to be taken from the imperialistic edifice of automobile supremacy is worth a well-aimed Molotov cocktail here and there. </div><div><br /><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#"><b></b></a><blockquote><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-16/jaywalking-laws-don-t-make-streets-safer" style="font-weight: bold;">9 Reasons to Eliminate Jaywalking Laws Now</a>, by Angie Schmitt and Charles T. Brown (<i>CityLab</i>)<br /><br /><i>They’ve rarely protected pedestrians, and their enforcement is racially biased. Two street safety experts say there are better ways to curb traffic violence. </i><br /><p><span face="PublicoText-Roman-Web, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif" style="font-size: 16px;">O</span>n Sept. 23, Kurt Andreas Reinhold, a 42-year-old Black man, was trying to cross a street in San Clemente, California, when two officers from a special “homeless outreach unit” stopped him. An altercation ensued; minutes later, Reinhold, a father of two and down-on-his-luck former youth soccer coach, <a href="https://atlantablackstar.com/2020/09/25/deputies-from-homeless-outreach-team-fatally-shoot-black-homeless-man-during-struggle-over-jaywalking-accusations/">was shot and killed</a>. In a cellphone video of the confrontation, Reinhold can be heard demanding, “Where did I jaywalk?”</p><p style="text-align: left;">This is a particularly troubling example of a pattern we see all too often. Black and Brown people, especially men, are routinely targeted by police for jaywalking or simply existing in public space. Often these stops result in an escalating series of fines and fees. In other cases — as in San Clemente, as well as in <a href="https://account.sacbee.com/paywall/registration?resume=208138724">Sacramento</a>, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/spd-officer-who-punched-teen-in-jaywalking-incident-cleared-of-using-excessive-force/">Seattle</a> and <a href="https://nypost.com/2014/01/19/cops-beat-elderly-man-after-he-jaywalked/">New York City</a> — they can end in violence. <br /><br />Especially at a time when there is intense focus on police brutality and racism, Reinhold’s death should prompt us to pause and consider who is truly served by jaywalking laws. Their effectiveness as safety measures appears to be limited: Despite heavy handed and selective jaywalking enforcement, pedestrian deaths in the U.S. have increased rapidly in the last decade. As two of the top experts on pedestrian safety in the country, we think it is time for cities to consider decriminalizing jaywalking or eliminating the infraction altogether. </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Here’s why.<br /><br /></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Jaywalking is a made-up thing by auto companies to deflect blame when drivers hit pedestrians.</li><li>The concept of jaywalking encourages drivers to be aggressive toward pedestrians, and for third parties to ignore or excuse pedestrian deaths.</li><li>Our streets are not designed to make walking safe or convenient.</li><li>Pedestrians are almost as likely to be struck and killed at an intersection as mid-block.</li><li>When pedestrians jaywalk, they are often behaving rationally.</li><li>Jaywalking laws are not enforced fairly.</li><li>Jaywalking stops are frequently explosive.</li><li>The focus on jaywalking reflects the lower political status of those who walk — not the societal harm of the activity. </li><li>The safest countries globally allow jaywalking.</li></ol><br /><i>snip</i></div><div><br /><blockquote>Eliminating jaywalking laws may sound radical, but it’s been <a href="https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/seattle-jaywalking-tickets-police-bias">discussed</a> before in cities such as Seattle. Other places, like <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/policing-the-open-road/">Berkeley, California</a>, are experimenting with new models for traffic enforcement that deemphasize police in favor of crash investigators who are trained to help promote infrastructure changes that improve safety. New York Attorney General Letitia James has advocated for <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/sipu_allan_feliz_report_final.links_.pdf">removing police</a> from traffic stops, and a <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2020/10/13/voters-support-removing-traffic-enforcement-from-police-purview-in-new-york">new survey</a> shows a majority of New Yorkers support the idea.<br /><br />Wider reforms and changes to traffic safety enforcement are needed, from increasing diversity within law enforcement to enhanced data tracking, police training, inclusivity and investment in new social and criminal justice <a href="https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/Equity-In-Traffic-Enforcement20">programs.</a> Such efforts must be implemented with a vigilant eye towards reversing existing inequities: Early results from so-called “unbiased” enforcement efforts, such as intelligence-led enforcement, <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/To-curb-racial-bias-Oakland-police-are-pulling-14839567.php">used by cities like Oakland, California</a>, show disparities in traffic stops <a href="https://abc7news.com/oakland-police-opd-racial-profiling-traffic-stops/6414305/">remain.</a> The time is now, not later, to revisit or eliminate laws like jaywalking that are primarily used as a pretext to stop Black and Brown people — and rarely protected any pedestrians in the first place. </blockquote><p></p></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-63602432474548485392020-10-26T09:32:00.000-04:002020-10-26T09:32:25.360-04:00An absolute fascination with "The 15 Tallest Skyscrapers of Yugoslavia."<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgS9J4z7qP6ZTPyw7KwLarByior0cJI1n-MAO4r-YgHreG3tCBKD1ewa119inRY1Btu5Wnn76_I1W0ppHwTfdKw2C3MPbepRHluRnkbYEsCzkMIT2Rw32gsdKmgvp76xVH07msrg/s1280/Banjica+belgrade+five+towers+block.webp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgS9J4z7qP6ZTPyw7KwLarByior0cJI1n-MAO4r-YgHreG3tCBKD1ewa119inRY1Btu5Wnn76_I1W0ppHwTfdKw2C3MPbepRHluRnkbYEsCzkMIT2Rw32gsdKmgvp76xVH07msrg/s320/Banjica+belgrade+five+towers+block.webp" width="320" /></a></div>If Donald Niebyl created a calendar with these images I'd snatch one up. <div><br /></div><div>My only visit to Yugoslavia when constituted as such came in 1987, for only a couple of weeks, and these buildings fascinated me, as did the "Spomenik" monuments Niebyl has been chronicling the past few years. This link from March, 2020 also includes a summary of my chronology on the topic.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/03/farewell-to-hotel-zlatibor-in-uzice.html" target="_blank"><b>Farewell to the Hotel Zlatibor in Užice, Serbia ... and further tales of the spomeniks (memorials) in former Yugoslavia.</b></a></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>I've never had a sufficient grounding in architecture to know very much about any of this. But the interest remains just as strong. <br /><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><a href="https://www.spomenikdatabase.org/post/the-15-tallest-skyscrapers-of-yugoslavia" target="_blank"><b>The 15 Tallest Skyscrapers of Yugoslavia</b></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Among the most monumental and landmark structures ever built during the era of Yugoslavia were its many soaring high rise towers and skyscrapers, of which many pushed the envelope of engineering and inspired a nation to look towards the future. While the country of Yugoslavia has ceased to exist for nearly three decades now, the many iconic and charismatic skyscrapers built during that era continue to inspire and speak to not only the old Yugoslav generation, but also the new youth generation who never lived in that former nation, as well as people around the world who are drawn in by their unique and bold architecture. However, for all of the fame and fan-fare surrounding many of these structures, many have barely been written about and few meaningful words dedicated to their history. In fact, my entire impetus for writing this article was that when searching for a listing of the seemingly straightforward query of "what were the tallest buildings of the Yugoslav-era", I found no authoritative articles related to that question or any serious investigation into the topic.</div></blockquote>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-71402589331639594072020-10-24T13:05:00.000-04:002020-10-24T13:05:16.831-04:00Revisiting Neil Postman's bet on Huxley over Orwell. <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp7kP1zvLRXbBcecl2nlifXRL8GAaoLldaRGFiwrFrsFd3GfKJmr7oyCwMBR4i1ZvvbiEYsS-NbojcFFEPWjGUv8p-pdR-azMO6NV31DD5hpJfk3pf38Xbhj8WNrg4UFQkKh_f2w/s1250/Orwell+Huxley+comparison.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="882" data-original-width="1250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp7kP1zvLRXbBcecl2nlifXRL8GAaoLldaRGFiwrFrsFd3GfKJmr7oyCwMBR4i1ZvvbiEYsS-NbojcFFEPWjGUv8p-pdR-azMO6NV31DD5hpJfk3pf38Xbhj8WNrg4UFQkKh_f2w/s320/Orwell+Huxley+comparison.png" width="320" /></a></div>My old friend John Campbell posted on Facebook: "Aldous Huxley was right, not George Orwell."<br /><br />Before repeating John's quoted passage from Neil Postman's 1985 book, here is Postman's son Andrew to explain it, courtesy of <i>The Guardian</i> in 2017.<div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><b>My dad predicted Trump in 1985 – it's not Orwell, he warned, it's <i>Brave New World</i></b></a></div><div><br /></div><div>...The central argument of <i>Amusing Ourselves</i> is simple: there were two landmark dystopian novels written by brilliant British cultural critics –<i> </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World"><i>Brave New World</i> by Aldous Huxley</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four"><i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i> by George Orwell</a> – and we Americans had mistakenly feared and obsessed over the vision portrayed in the latter book (an information-censoring, movement-restricting, individuality-emaciating state) rather than the former (a technology-sedating, consumption-engorging, instant-gratifying bubble).</div></blockquote><div><br />Neil Postman, from <i>Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business</i>:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.</div><div><br /></div><div>But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's <i>Brave New World</i>. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.</div><div><br /></div><div>What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in <i>Brave New World Revisited</i>, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1<i>984</i>, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In <i>Brave New World</i>, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.</div></blockquote>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-6980646701694966412020-10-23T20:49:00.006-04:002020-10-23T20:49:56.604-04:00"Hotels of Pyongyang," not Summit Springs.<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zvodg_PqH18" width="420"></iframe> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The book is <i><a href="https://www.hotelsofnorthkorea.com/" target="_blank">Hotels of Pyongyang</a></i>, by James Scullin and Nicole Reed.
I may need to get this one for Christmas.</div><div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/10/24/the-curious-design-features-of-north-korean-hotels" target="_blank"><b>The curious design features of North Korean hotels</b></a> at <i>The Economist</i>
</blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><i>A book of photography offers an offbeat look at a little-seen city</i></blockquote><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghbpsWA2WakWQCwuRyV8yzVam_KrdXKaZkQhSYXkd21JDFZHWrz6nGkRyJLIeiMus-yIBu0dausqTkZ9kkInVZrcfX4y1_lvzZ5n1IdOmlWDqG59coxx_G7Bse6XbvFzIO95m6Nw/s1500/Chongnyon%252BHotel%252B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghbpsWA2WakWQCwuRyV8yzVam_KrdXKaZkQhSYXkd21JDFZHWrz6nGkRyJLIeiMus-yIBu0dausqTkZ9kkInVZrcfX4y1_lvzZ5n1IdOmlWDqG59coxx_G7Bse6XbvFzIO95m6Nw/s320/Chongnyon%252BHotel%252B3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">...the book’s main interest is in the unique design features of the hotels. Even those few Westerners who have ventured to North Korea are unlikely to recognise most of them (the vast majority of visitors to the country are Chinese). Because of the pandemic, North Korea has been off-limits to overseas tourists since the end of January. So, for the moment, those tempted to go—and the many more who never will—can get no closer to a Pyongyang hotel than Ms Reed’s engrossing pictures.</div></blockquote></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-1384934189934015032020-10-21T13:40:00.091-04:002020-10-24T16:02:56.986-04:00BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Welcome to 12 days of a beer world that utterly baffles me. <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi71Wk92te_CjcteX01E4_eid6ddsbVts9GER_2udYJgaN67m_2VYvXjukoVqsoCJsDchhbN1WMHNZvitm2ImEernj_8MCuqhS0nHic-nLWki1rqtYRHM0lo2Lv6i8xzVFSgtu0iA/s1143/Beer+with+a+Socialist+July+Scaled+2.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="1143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi71Wk92te_CjcteX01E4_eid6ddsbVts9GER_2udYJgaN67m_2VYvXjukoVqsoCJsDchhbN1WMHNZvitm2ImEernj_8MCuqhS0nHic-nLWki1rqtYRHM0lo2Lv6i8xzVFSgtu0iA/s320/Beer+with+a+Socialist+July+Scaled+2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"></strong></p>Last week a friend gave me a bottle of <a href="https://kcbier.com/2018/08/22/the-bier-nerd-why-is-festbier-a-vienna-style-lager/" target="_blank">Vienna-style lager from KC Bier Co, a brewery in Kansas City</a>. It's a classic European style, underappreciated and too seldom brewed, as well as delicious. Shortly thereafter I bought a six-pack of Bell's Kalamazoo Stout, the label of which clearly states that the recipe is the original, from 1988. It was absolutely beautiful in its unadorned simplicity. <div> <div>Yep; tasting is entirely subjective, and it isn't necessary for us to agree. Furthermore, I'm not interested in being the old man with clenched fist railing against creativity. It's your money. Nothing against Rochester Mills; haven't been there, and know no one involved. I hope they make a mint, as opposed to infusing a milkshake stout with it. </div><div><br /></div><div>This said, I can think of nothing about twelve variously flavored milkshake stouts that speaks to me. So be it, and we move on. </div><div><br /></div><div>By the way, how'd that Red Velvet get in there? </div><div><br /></div><div><ul><li><b>Peanut Buttercup Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>Imperial Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>King Cake Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>English Toffee Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>Imperial Java (Coffee) Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>Michigan Maple Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>Gingerbread Cookie Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>Chocolate Chip Pancake Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>Imperial Triple Layer Decadence Milkshake Stout</b></li><li><b>Red Velvet Ale</b></li><li><b>Double Chocolate Milkshake Stout (Revised Recipe with More Chocolate)</b></li><li><b>Salted Caramel Milkshake Stout</b></li></ul>The full press release is here:</div><div> </div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><a href="https://www.brewbound.com/news/rochester-mills-announces-2020-twelve-days-of-milkshake-stout-release-dates-and-contents/" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Rochester Mills Announces 2020 Twelve Days of Milkshake Stout Release Dates and Contents</span></b></a></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – Craft beer lovers in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana can begin their Holiday shopping and celebrations early with the return of the Twelve Days of Milkshake Stout. Given the popularity and growing consumer demand for this variety pack of beers, Rochester Mills will release their limited holiday edition 12-pack on November 1 online for pick-up at the Production Brewery Taproom in Auburn Hills and at “Better Beer Stores” across their distribution territory. The sampler pack features one, 16 oz. can of each beer in this year’s Twelve-Days of Milkshake Stout draft promotion.</span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">“What began as a crazy idea to take twelve different versions of our Milkshake Stout to twelve bars over twelve days a few years back has grown into a holiday tradition,” said Rochester Mills Marketing Director David Youngman. “It’s the perfect gift for stout lovers, already wrapped and ready to go. Containing one pint of each variant allows you to share and compare with friends or horde for personal enjoyment.”</span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Rochester Mills Taproom in Auburn Hills will join more than twenty-five other select premium craft beer bars and restaurants throughout Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana as host locations for the progressive tap takeover event beginning the first week of November. Admission is free and open to the public, ages 21 and up. The progressive tap takeover event will feature the (12) twelve specialty and limited-edition varieties of Milkshake Stout, Rochester Mills’ flagship beer. Each week, beginning the first week of November, two new beers will be tapped and stay on draft until the kegs run dry.</span></div></div></blockquote>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-61555793368234794672020-10-20T16:49:00.000-04:002020-10-23T21:32:16.642-04:00A stop last Saturday at Wolfe Cemetery in Georgetown.<div>We took a low-intensity road trip last Saturday.</div><br /><b><a href="https://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-saturday-morning-outing-to-hemlock.html" target="_blank">A Saturday morning outing to Hemlock Cliffs, with an unexpected side order of unsolved murder.</a></b><div><br /></div><div>On the way back, I'd yet to become aware of the locally famous story of William Dessie Messamore. This didn't come until later in the evening, when there was time to research. I can't recall ever hearing this tale, but it's possible my dad and his friends might have regaled me with it when I was a kid. </div><div><br /></div><div>For the return trip, we decided to stop by Wolfe Cemetery on the western edge of Georgetown for a visit with my parents, who are buried there. They always were adamant about having a simple veteran's grave marker, nothing elaborate or ostentatious. </div><div><br /></div><div>Diana and I always agreed with this course, and found the graveside scene on Saturday to be peaceful and appropriate. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ofsbfa-fWb4x6rQGNr0VH9OCeF8htOAg_symHvCFhMP1ilIR3vdAM_tbNq4_c_6W_vEqbT8Ieb-8cbhxSuX2xV87WzTnxzXeaT39dJuN2HjA6EOlFY4Jg9FZIBs5eeRcJ6cXoA/s2048/DSCN0012.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ofsbfa-fWb4x6rQGNr0VH9OCeF8htOAg_symHvCFhMP1ilIR3vdAM_tbNq4_c_6W_vEqbT8Ieb-8cbhxSuX2xV87WzTnxzXeaT39dJuN2HjA6EOlFY4Jg9FZIBs5eeRcJ6cXoA/s320/DSCN0012.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvSDNsU2WgO-WyuoD0jpxawlGBomtlQgDnTyn-c7zK8lJjJl7pgQd1199Mgm3WjnacCSipC6FA5r0oQR_EQDHRcp6q45eAmwm5pzHTzCVgiOTdCkIu1bW0txFb1BaDPEjeDtVOQ/s2048/DSCN0011.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvSDNsU2WgO-WyuoD0jpxawlGBomtlQgDnTyn-c7zK8lJjJl7pgQd1199Mgm3WjnacCSipC6FA5r0oQR_EQDHRcp6q45eAmwm5pzHTzCVgiOTdCkIu1bW0txFb1BaDPEjeDtVOQ/s320/DSCN0011.JPG" /></a></div><div><br /></div>I wasn't up for a scientific survey, but most of the grave markers at Wolfe Cemetery are on the conservative side. This is in keeping with my recollections of the townspeople. Some are more expressive, and there's nothing wrong with that. After all, you can't take it with you.<br /><br />Cemeteries always make me think. Will our lives and work be remembered? I'm not sure it matters. Thirty-five years ago, I walked along the Appian Way while visiting Rome. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAZY3v2t8Q7E-4sdWhep5m6DmFVaCj5LCg92na9zCQn1IGUWL03RT6A2hjgrcZYx2aQWQSipofAncK7CMe0N5CQf-E-McaxG6l-B3jrKpgM41nVWmkln-WuqJdw_lqrOP4_qg1rg/s1800/1985-0089+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1144" data-original-width="1800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAZY3v2t8Q7E-4sdWhep5m6DmFVaCj5LCg92na9zCQn1IGUWL03RT6A2hjgrcZYx2aQWQSipofAncK7CMe0N5CQf-E-McaxG6l-B3jrKpgM41nVWmkln-WuqJdw_lqrOP4_qg1rg/s320/1985-0089+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsXOKSYTACE9qDXb0QLyUr2KUMRnuL-Zx6eypE5LpVU4SZKWEl_Skwi6tsR_yh9_jidBD2771LzB54lsB9LafICfkHEFqzM87z99wuE9wmCnnAgi_OKX_lTzN-nX1W6dLRRdGxNg/s1799/1985-0090+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1191" data-original-width="1799" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsXOKSYTACE9qDXb0QLyUr2KUMRnuL-Zx6eypE5LpVU4SZKWEl_Skwi6tsR_yh9_jidBD2771LzB54lsB9LafICfkHEFqzM87z99wuE9wmCnnAgi_OKX_lTzN-nX1W6dLRRdGxNg/s320/1985-0090+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Crumbling 2,000-year-old memorials bore the names of tremendously important people who've been forgotten for almost as long. Gazing at them, lost in reverie, I soon realized the significance of the here and now -- namely, autos zooming past my vantage point on the narrow one-lane road. I opted for life, and repaired to the nearest bar for sustenance.</div><div><br /></div><div>I may have known what my parents' grave at Wolfe Cemetery would look like, given I'd seen it previously. But I didn't know my reaction would be one of peacefulness and equanimity. We can't live forever, and their resting place seems, well, <i>right</i>. Maybe it's time for my wife and I to have that chat, too. </div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-27007964918858910382020-10-19T16:08:00.002-04:002020-10-19T16:08:45.919-04:00Trump and toxic masculinity: "The core struggle for men is not with one another, but between our own warring selves."<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixQlg_5Z-FtCi6MEd_2e7yzSGjJtDmpMcqJMTmcAzbFyNeUf8QCCrfwhAfUgwyVB_jIbo3CN1PzlqEveCWgNLsHIptmYhZ5x7fz1MCDFH3PGaYbTAtaz6o95DVqGWNLjfTGMRUOQ/s1400/Giuliani+Trump+Drag.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="1400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixQlg_5Z-FtCi6MEd_2e7yzSGjJtDmpMcqJMTmcAzbFyNeUf8QCCrfwhAfUgwyVB_jIbo3CN1PzlqEveCWgNLsHIptmYhZ5x7fz1MCDFH3PGaYbTAtaz6o95DVqGWNLjfTGMRUOQ/s320/Giuliani+Trump+Drag.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>If the rot is as deep as it seems, many of the enablers will begin slipping away to preserve future self-aggrandizement opportunities. It's likely to end with a whimper, not a bang. Like so many suffering from toxic masculinity, particularly the hardcore narcissists, there is an element of cowardice. <div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-wrote-trumps-the-art-of-the-deal-and-im-terrified-of-what-hell-do-next" target="_blank"><b>I Wrote Trump’s ‘The Art of the Deal.’ And I’m Terrified of What He’ll Do Next</b></a>, by Tony Schwartz (<i>Daily Beast</i>)<br /><br />... This is toxic masculinity in action—the sense of entitlement, the embrace of privilege, and the wanton exercise of authority over others. It’s also marked by the rejection of any qualities that might be considered feminine, including gentleness, vulnerability, and empathy—the very qualities that Biden is relying on to distinguish himself from Trump.<br /><br />For Trump, and for so many men desperate to hold onto control they fear is slipping way, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">the tactics</a> include disparaging rather than encouraging others, reacting harshly rather than reasoning calmly, seeking certainty rather than struggling with complexity, and blaming others in a conflict, instead of first reckoning with their own responsibility. As the psychologist Terry Real puts it, “We raise boys to live in a world in which they are either winners or losers, grandiose or shame-filled, perpetrator or victims.”<br /><br />The power that most men feel is fleeting and fragile, easily shattered by criticism, and uncushioned by the capacity for intimacy. Without deep relationships, including with themselves, too many men find themselves perpetually looking for ways to fill their inner emptiness and prove their worthiness.<br /><br />The core struggle for men is not with one another, but between our own warring selves.</blockquote></div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-13298208528364380562020-10-18T22:07:00.003-04:002020-10-19T16:43:23.452-04:00A Saturday morning outing to Hemlock Cliffs, with an unexpected side order of unsolved murder.<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8SzbwpX6i1c9vUsERSZ1Iy_zWRAoHVKVNxVT8SMYb73QFAjTIXe4KtZ0pdBKItUL_Q4eKFBBcipCEscwORbXK6JYlBGXio2hm2UDtReuc_F-v-Njz2FE9zNj9rlk8zT2Axrsz7w/s320/DSCN0007.JPG" width="320" /></div><br />On Saturday morning we drove down to the <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/hoosier/recreation/recarea/?recid=41570" target="_blank">Hemlock Cliffs</a> in Crawford County, a charming sandstone box canyon that's part of the Hoosier National Forest. The photos don't do it justice; it's a hidden jewel, not a big ticket item. Coupled with the drive, I found the experience to be a lesson in regenerated second-growth forest. There'd have been a great deal of pasture land and denuded hillsides even when I was a kid. <div><br /></div><div>When I posted about it later on Fb, a friend mentioned the saga of <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185036312/william-dessie-messamore" target="_blank">William Dessie Messamore</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;">In the early 1950s, Messamore was questioned about a family who had disappeared from his Crawford County, Indiana, farm without a trace on January 7, 1949. Members of the missing family were Thomas Vandiver, his wife, Beatrice, and her daughter from another marriage, Wanda Johnson. The family had been living with Messamore on his farm in English when they disappeared. The Vandiver investigation led to a confession from Messamore that he had been part of a Kevil, Kentucky, bank robbery. Police worked for years to solve the Vandiver mystery while Messamore served a 28-year prison sentence, including time at Alcatraz, for the bank robbery and a Paducah jail break. He was eventually paroled. No one was ever charged in the Vandiver case, although authorities always suspected the case was murder and thought Messamore was involved.</span></blockquote><br />Supposedly the house where the crime occurred was located a few miles north of our whereabouts Saturday near the hamlet of Mifflin, which no longer exists. It is said the house was up on Saltwell Hill, with an expanse of cliffs in the back yard, so local legend affirms the existence of bones in a sinkhole (or the bottomland over the edge of a cliff like those we walked past). </div><div><br /></div><div>It's a helluva story, and based on Messamore's attraction to crime, all too possible. The story is retold here (<a href="http://www.marmotadventures.com/php/story.php?2007-07-24,2" target="_blank">The Vandiver Mystery</a>) and there (<a href="https://cleverintuition.livejournal.com/3408.html" target="_blank">Hughes Interview</a>).<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS1xzSHHKv8xw_I_oNPawbxAvCyGSdWzrB9z9HppE6asOb1TKA5i8R3X4akr9Pb7pSx4ISxfmkyqSmzOkGIseRlO0lFM6yZXBDIYsb6aemco7SVaQAN9Y7421VoPEb4BkuRdDOJg/s2048/DSCN0005.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS1xzSHHKv8xw_I_oNPawbxAvCyGSdWzrB9z9HppE6asOb1TKA5i8R3X4akr9Pb7pSx4ISxfmkyqSmzOkGIseRlO0lFM6yZXBDIYsb6aemco7SVaQAN9Y7421VoPEb4BkuRdDOJg/s320/DSCN0005.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuKwMPvL7YLJWlwi-AIYmfu2qAGJ794P-rREcO9_kdpcT3Kk-rc7Ok27K4KKL0TfFsHk1slRkrdg1zPmWrNrAdOSs2jfs42c1CkP85Wpi2HLLB1Ft5wMxo43j02ODDd4xhn9RskA/s2048/DSCN0006.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuKwMPvL7YLJWlwi-AIYmfu2qAGJ794P-rREcO9_kdpcT3Kk-rc7Ok27K4KKL0TfFsHk1slRkrdg1zPmWrNrAdOSs2jfs42c1CkP85Wpi2HLLB1Ft5wMxo43j02ODDd4xhn9RskA/s320/DSCN0006.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAzC3A4wcP-wLX26pgG5YiRwLA4PoQEaamEyNzEniJTjPtbxDvlfAjueToD8f39ZrgbueoPM0p0t9zytfK5mvh9xSTAKegRbr0pAPCzsELAzu01dFoY_U7yT4UFm2tpYUZduFG2A/s2048/DSCN0009.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAzC3A4wcP-wLX26pgG5YiRwLA4PoQEaamEyNzEniJTjPtbxDvlfAjueToD8f39ZrgbueoPM0p0t9zytfK5mvh9xSTAKegRbr0pAPCzsELAzu01dFoY_U7yT4UFm2tpYUZduFG2A/s320/DSCN0009.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU2bFzgs2m7g8LNPjWtVVztAo22V15hBofljZYAsDLfnCHSAxdCt5s8Kzw2o_Y0TfB-S6DXWC8NZW8nrOaGSOg4O89tjWCpH0QzvSmLEnKAry8F-1wsHJxsaQ6c8TVWzWJPQ5T6Q/s2048/DSCN0008.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU2bFzgs2m7g8LNPjWtVVztAo22V15hBofljZYAsDLfnCHSAxdCt5s8Kzw2o_Y0TfB-S6DXWC8NZW8nrOaGSOg4O89tjWCpH0QzvSmLEnKAry8F-1wsHJxsaQ6c8TVWzWJPQ5T6Q/s320/DSCN0008.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmsVf6JiK6YXWHye5vgMNFChdiRSvRdr0G2yBzgBYgP-JpOqi2iNkuEg5J43WLmhHhWlp7c2MfzvCpHBiu0zzkdw1R5WmjVLzhZfyfnQQwG12Uw7SrIG3gdApm6WvsenGQBMcitA/s2048/DSCN0004.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmsVf6JiK6YXWHye5vgMNFChdiRSvRdr0G2yBzgBYgP-JpOqi2iNkuEg5J43WLmhHhWlp7c2MfzvCpHBiu0zzkdw1R5WmjVLzhZfyfnQQwG12Uw7SrIG3gdApm6WvsenGQBMcitA/s320/DSCN0004.JPG" /></a></div><p></p></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-86139588709915347552020-10-16T17:43:00.001-04:002020-10-17T20:34:40.894-04:00Endorsement: Hands down, Greg Roution is the best candidate for Floyd County Coroner. <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG4vs2hIYkGv6b1UaOyV3bAOaUuzYMgz4FUUW0IiRK3UVYgjLQsg1L6SfNrjWuodx-g2aI8smtGIDHJorT6GN-S9EeAlm9uy9DIRoPe58C6bGii1y07E20-hNyVn1ICCcWxhHURQ/s571/Greg+Roution+Coroner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="571" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG4vs2hIYkGv6b1UaOyV3bAOaUuzYMgz4FUUW0IiRK3UVYgjLQsg1L6SfNrjWuodx-g2aI8smtGIDHJorT6GN-S9EeAlm9uy9DIRoPe58C6bGii1y07E20-hNyVn1ICCcWxhHURQ/s320/Greg+Roution+Coroner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p>Disagree if you will, but to me there's little reason to dwell on political affiliation and the usual attendant ideologies when it comes to voting for coroner. <div><br /></div><div>I have not yet made Greg Roution's acquaintance, but he strikes me as qualified and professional, perfectly capable of performing the duties of coroner. <div><br /></div><div>Does it bother me, a socialist, that <i>he's</i> a Republican? </div><div><br /></div><div>Not really. So is his opponent, the one running as a (pretend) Democrat, and I know plenty about <i>him</i>. Folks in my significantly "blue" neighborhood know exactly what I mean, which is why you don't see many Oxendine signs here, even if he's planted dozens of them quite illegally in public rights-of-way. </div><div><br /></div><div>This matters little in the end, because comparing the two candidates, I find that Roution's presentation speaks to competence and integrity. </div><div><br /></div><div>That works for me. Greg Roution is the best candidate, so please join me in voting for him.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Greg-Roution-for-FLOYD-County-Coroner-106981534208004/" target="_blank"></a></div><blockquote><div><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Greg-Roution-for-FLOYD-County-Coroner-106981534208004/" target="_blank">I’m running for the Floyd County Coroner in 2020</a>. Just a bit about me.</div><div><br /># I have lived in Floyd Knobs for the last 24 years.<br /># Married with three great kids.<br /># I’m retired from U.S. Army & Kentucky National Guard with 20+ years, as a First Sergeant, Combat Medic.<br /># I have been an registered nurse for 21 years working at Norton Healthcare.<br /># Now I’m the Forensic coordinator running the Sexual Assault Program for the last seven years at Norton Healthcare as an Forensic nurse.<br /># I have worked with The Louisville Metro Police Dept as a forensic nurse.<br /># I have attended multiple classes on sexual assault training, strangulation, gunshot and human trafficking.<br /><br />I would appreciate your confidence as being elected as the next coroner and if you have any questions please reach out to me. Feel free to share this page with your friends.</div></blockquote><div></div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-30299902153447632402020-10-15T18:40:00.003-04:002020-10-18T13:26:50.560-04:00Documentary: "Germany and the Cold War" (two parts). <div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yo2iaF9nsrk" width="420"></iframe></div><p style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m_th9doyC_A" width="420"></iframe> </p><div>It's another exemplary two-part <i>Deutsche Welle</i> documentary, focusing on the Cold War as experienced in the two German states that arose from the post-WWII settlement. </div><div><br /></div><blockquote>For more than four decades, divided Germany was the epicenter of the Cold War. The border severing East and West embodied the animosity between the US and USSR. The smoldering conflict threatened to escalate and destroy both German states. The Cold War was persistently present in the two Germanys - both on the political and military level, but also in everyday life. On the one hand, there was the race for technical progress, the fear of bombs and rockets, the struggle for moral superiority over the other side: and on the other, doubt about each state’s policies, and those of their allies. <div><br /></div><div>How did Germans experience this Cold War? How did it shape attitudes to life on both sides of the Iron Curtain? </div><div><br /></div><div>This two-part documentary asks political actors and decision-makers in East and West, but above all contemporary witnesses from divided Germany, what experiences they had in the period between 1945 and 1991. Who were the winners and losers in this brutal stand-off between communism and capitalism? The demonstrations on June 17, 1953, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the major demonstrations in Bonn against Pershing missiles, nuclear strike drills, employment bans in West Germany on members of the German Communist Party, the opening of the Wall, the collapse of the Eastern bloc - all were events that shaped people’s lives. This is their story and the story of Germany in the Cold War. </div></blockquote><div><br /></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9097125.post-23667597051275786152020-10-14T10:52:00.000-04:002020-10-15T10:52:30.449-04:00Albania's last trains.<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MlNVdfgMKcA" width="420"></iframe> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For the past 40 years, maybe even earlier if childhood stamp collecting is taken into account, I've been fascinated by the country of Albania. The Albanian coastline was visible in 1985 as the ferry stopped at Corfu, and finally in 1994 came the chance to actually visit. It's been the only time, but I've been wanting to return ever since.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's a shame but understandable that Albania opted for automobile-centrism after emerging from Europe's most North Korea-like existence, and it's a head-spinner to consider communist-era Eastern European rolling stock still in use. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is an elegiac and melancholy documentary. I watched it twice, something that's very rare. </div><br /><blockquote>We travel through Albania in a diesel locomotive at a leisurely 40 kilometres per hour. The aged trains make their way through the countryside on single-track lines. Travelling by rail in Albania is not always for the faint-hearted. The trains that are still running were once in the service of the former Deutsche Reichsbahn, the East German state railway before the fall of communism. Albania's rail network was never successfully connected to that of its European neighbors. In fact, it is even threatened with closure in favor of expanding the roads. There are said to be just 50 train drivers left in the country, and as mechanics they also take care of their decrepit diesel locomotives. The documentary accompanies one of them, Vladimir Shyti, and conductor Florida Kucuku on a journey to the north, south and east of the country, on the last remaining sections of track through an intact natural landscape. <div> <br />The wind whistles through broken windowpanes and branches whip against the 112-ton locomotive. It sounds dangerous and it is. The numerous level crossings have no safety precautions and pose a great danger to pedestrians, cyclists and animals. This often leads to serious accidents. The last trains in Albania all start their journey in Durres, also known as the "gateway to the Mediterranean," and that is where every journey also ends. Anyone boarding a train needs plenty of time and patience. Although rail travel is very inexpensive, it cannot compete for time with travelling by car, which is reflected in the low number of passengers. Hardly anyone takes the train these days. So how long will this form of transport continue to exist in Albania at all? </div></blockquote><div></div>The New Albanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10757531658514051905noreply@blogger.com0