Croissants d'BBQ Bologna: Dan Coffey says that restaurants are taking up the sidewalk and his compatriots damn well better do something about it.

There will be a city council meeting tonight. If I can remain sober today, I might attend it.

But first, at the July 20 city council meeting, the king of barbecued bologna -- the Wizard of Westendia, and the Shunner of Tulip Tiptoeing -- indulged his penchant for diversionary innuendo.

Coffey's germ of truth is irrefutable, because disabled users really do face myriad daily challenges attempting to navigate the city of New Albany's sidewalks and streets.

But making this point by attacking the city's food and dining community, which has done more than any other economic sector to make downtown habitable again, misses the larger truth by a Birdseye mile.

As we've pointed out numerous times before, city government itself has no mission statement or internal policy pertaining to prioritization of mobility, and City Hall needs to begin by policing itself in this regard.

The vast majority of abuses occur at the hands of the city's chosen contractors, indifferent utility monopoly slackers, and unfortunately the city's own Street Department. Neither Jeff Gahan nor the Board of Public Works and Safety has made an effort to embrace modernity.

To repeat: it's merely procedural.

The city must develop good habits, and to develop them, the city must acknowledge it has a problem. A good start would be reading the bimonthly council agenda. At the bottom, there is a promise of assistance from the city clerk to disabled council meeting attendees who are in need of it.

Shouldn't the city's own workers, contractors and utility monopolies adhere to the same promise?

It starts with BoW's rote interrogations. Instead of this:

"How will (a proposal) affect parking/traffic/cars?"

The board first should ask this:

"How will (a proposal) affect handicapped users without cars?"

Infrastructure decisions routinely are rendered in the absence of forethought as to their effect on persons with disabilities. These tiny bits of effort will have little if any ultimate effect on the Holy Writ of Autocentrism, as worshipped by City Hall. However, these instances will immeasurably assist the disabled in getting back and forth.

Consequently, it is laughable for Coffey to continue pointing his dull reaper's finger at downtown business violators when there are far larger fish to fry. Furthermore, it's a safe bet that these scattered and inconsequential instances of eatery transgression are occurring not in Coffey's 1st district, but Greg Phipps' 3rd, which embraces the epicenter of downtown east of State Street.

And so we've learned to ask the question: What's Coffey after this time? I guess we'll find out after Adam Dickey hands the envelope du jour to Coffey on a gilded Democratic Party platter.

Tonight's agenda follows. After writing the preceding spiel, that half-full bottle of gin over in the corner is starting to look very much like lunch.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Unisex.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why new words? Why not the old, familiar, comforting words?

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show Trump-ers and Trump-ets that you're brighter than them. To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us who want nothing more than to be able to cross the street without being mowed down by a motorist, all we have is time -- and the opportunity to learn something.

You may have seen this image on Facebook. It's from a Kroger store in Athens, Georgia, and has been shared 112,000 times.

Judging from some of the responses, it seems that a great many people are not aware of what "unisex" means.

Unisex

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unisex refers to things that are not gender-specific, being suitable for any gender,^[1][2] but can also be another term for gender-blindness.

The term was coined in the 1960s and was used fairly informally. Though the combining form uni- is from the Latin unus meaning one, the term seems to have been influenced by words such as united and universal where the uni- prefix takes on the sense of shared. In this sense, it can be seen as meaning shared by both sexes.^[3]

You no longer have an excuse, Dan.

Death to Cracker Barrel: Lopp does not impress in Tribune cover story.

Like The Gary before him, John Lopp seems eager to graft as many exurban principles as possible onto the downtown canvas to impress those prone to the way of reacting, not necessarily thinking, that culminates with the exclamation, "Boy, just think if we had a (insert national chain store) downtown."

In this, I believe Lopp is utterly mistaken. It is ludicrous to mention the magical words "Cracker Barrel" as curative for a vicinity that has numerous, unique local dining options already, and it makes me worry that the residential neighborhood he has in mind might be better situated up on the hill, behind a big wall and billfold-activated gates.

To be fair, at least some of this dust-kicking may be intended to distance Lopp Real Estate from the downtown work of former associate Mike Kopp, now out on his own as Blue Sun. And, positing the need for charming downtown "gateways" probably is harmless and might provide a morale boost to some.

Just the same, much of what Lopp says in today's Tribune cover story strikes me as jarringly out of synch with what we've learned about downtown prospects -- fundamentally, that they be distinct and local, and that the city be used as it was intended to be used.

Can your Cracker Barrel do that? Nope.

Next?

No start date set for west end work; Lopp said gateways to downtown must improve to bring more variety.