GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW for 7 February 2020.

This week's mouse droppings are brought to you by HWC Engineering, because as long as HWC is on the scene, we'll be reminding you that it shouldn't be.

The Green Mouse doesn't push drugs, punch his girlfriend or salute when commanded by anger-management-challenged sycophants.

He's just a drinking rodent with a green problem. 

Yesterday I took a glance over the mouse's shoulder to see what he was scribbling in that ubiquitous steno pad.

Let's all work together on a new city motto. I'll start. "NEW ALBANY -- WHERE KOOL-AID IS KING AND SHEEP ARE SCARED." What do you think? Or this: "COME FOR THE TWO-WAY STREETS, STAY FOR THE ONE-WAY THINKING."

It was that kind of week.

But first, a hopeful sign. This is a wonderful new City Hall feature, and at long last, we see a faint glimmer of transparency.

WEEKLY PROJECT UPDATES:

The following project updates were given at the Board of Works meeting on 02/04/20

JACOBI, TOOMBS & LANZ

➡️ Grant Line Road (Daisy Lane To McDonald Lane):

Last Week: Donated $250 to Gahan4Life
This Week: Donated $100 to Applegate for Office 2018 - 2034
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BEAM • LONGEST • NEFF

➡️ SLATE RUN ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROJECT - PHASE 1

Last Week: Donated $250 to Gahan4Life
This Week: Donated $250 to Caesar "The Salad" Re-election Campaign
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HWC ENGINEERING (AND HOME IMPROVEMENTS)

➡️ EASTRIDGE DRIVE QUALITY OF LIFE HOT TUB - PHASE 5.7

Last week: Donated $250 to Gahan4Life
This Week: Two gallons Scrubbing Bubbles (in-kind donation)

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Things were relatively calm hereabouts until Wednesday evening, when two vicious mind fucks elicited comment. But first, let's revisit the editor's New Year's resolution: a "sabbatical from polemics about local politics."

I said from the start that the Friday column you're reading is an exception, because I'm not a 100% cold turkey kind of guy. Events this week on Wednesday may seem to indicate my resolve is tottering a bit, and to a degree this is true. It's very difficult to cease speaking truth to the prevailing doofuss tomfoolery. However the record clearly shows that I've cut way back, thereby saving time for other important uses (like getting paid), as compared with the hours formerly devoted to explaining the sheer, enduring idiocy perpetuated on a daily basis by NA's ethics-free ruling caste.

I'm making progress, little by little. But when an outsider with an agenda lofts one of those tempting lob passes, every now and then a patriotic citizen just has to slam it home.

Speck's unfulfilled plan: Intellectually lazy carpetbagging shortcuts from clueless Louisvillians don't make New Albany's streets any safer.

Jeff Gillenwater is quoted extensively at the link, and he also made this observation.

In simplest terms, (Chris Glasser) “reported” a bunch of stuff that isn’t factually true. How many times have we had the “thinks he’s educated and liberal but doesn’t have a clue” conversation just in the past few days?

Bunches, Jeff, just as with the other Wednesday night revelation. Prohibition in America often is well-meaning, which doesn't mean it's right.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Neo-prohibitionism, foppery and hypocrisy at Indiana Landmarks as Family Dollar on Vincennes gets a perfectly legal alcohol sales permit.

Gillenwater again:

The Family Dollar thing is a hoot. I’ve no doubt that a more upscale, historically housed spirits merchant would get a big seal of approval from the same crowd, “vulnerable populations” be damned.

In closing, this week's column lamented the passing of an institution ... and yes, you're getting another Gillenwater quote as coda.

ON THE AVENUES: Alas, New Albany is less of a place without a bookstore.

I am perennially reminded of just how little most people know about what the hell has actually happened around here in those fifteen years and how quickly they take to filling that knowledge void by considering themselves as central to it. That second bit about self-aggrandizement has at least been consistent. Especially troubling is that so many who either clearly didn’t understand the potential or actively argued against it are now (and in some cases still) in positions of power and are (still) actively working against the spirit and substance of those earlier, more independent days that Destinations and a handful of others embodied as a part of New Albany’s second or third or fourth or whichever coming it is.

Next week: Lobotomy or gin? The experts weigh New Albanian coping mechanisms.