Independence Day? Two, with pleasure: "The only Founding Father worth honoring this 4th of July is Thomas Paine."

It's a long read, and this is a short excerpt. It's worth your time.

Why? Because July 4 makes me feel radical and revolutionary, and it's never too late to make good on promises deferred, especially in 2020 (see Pierce, Charles P. for more).

There's still a chance to bust this sucker wide open, folks. For more on the topic, see "Happy Birthday, America!" by Ricky L. Jones in a past issue of LEO Weekly.

Reading Paine From the Left, by Sean Monahan (Jacobin)

Though embraced by the likes of Glenn Beck, Thomas Paine was the American Revolution's most radical figure.

 ... Paine was a consistent advocate of a strong federal government and also a sharp critic of economic inequality and poverty who designed the world’s first fully fleshed-out scheme of social welfare provision. Beyond that, he introduced millions to a radical critique of private property and class society, and pointed to democratic politics as the solution.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, while ruling classes were cursing Paine’s name from pulpits and palaces, the growing radical workers’ movements were toasting to his memory and reprinting his works. The Irish Republicans, the Chartists of England, and the early American labor movement all lauded Paine and his ideas echoed across Europe in the Revolutions of 1848. For generations, the revolutionary’s birthday was celebrated every January 29 by fledgling trade union and socialist movements on both sides of the Atlantic, who regarded Paine as one of their intellectual fathers and a role model for democratic revolutionaries.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the only Americans who dared to openly claim Thomas Paine for their own were radical trade unionists, freethinkers, abolitionists, and socialists. As John Nichols points out, in 1856 the New York Times warned that the “many socialist Painites . . . and their affiliation to every species of radicalism in the land boded evil to the future of our republic.”

The Prussian Forty-Eighter, disciple of Karl Marx, and Civil War Union Army Gen. August Willich praised Paine’s radical criticisms of authority at dozens of the birthday celebrations held by radical German-American organizations. Eugene Debs too was an open Painite, and at his trial for sedition for publicly opposing World War I, he cited Paine’s declaration, “My country is the world. To do good is my religion” as a model of the “wider patriotism” that he espoused.

As Harvey Kaye observes, the Communist Party published a collection of Paine’s writings in 1937, and hailed him as the “foremost fighter for world democracy,” the “chief propagandist and agitator of the revolution,” and a visionary radical who saw “beyond the limits of the bourgeois revolution,” attacked the “accumulation of property,” and proposed a “system of social insurance.”

Paine was at the center of two of the great democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth century — the American and the French. (Beyond that, though he found the violence of the Haitian Revolution “distressing,” he considered it “the natural consequence of slavery,” which should “be expected everywhere.”)

Not only was he a central personality in the “age of revolutions,” he was one of the first radicals to connect the cause of political democracy to economic demands. Because of that, he was touted as a champion not only of the rights of the commoners against aristocracy, but, as Eric Hobsbawm put it, “the radical-democratic aspirations of small artisans and pauperized craftsmen” against the owners of property ...

Independence Day? One, as Charles P. Pierce writes: "We're in Another One of Those Moments Where the Great Bluff Gets Called."

The speeches referred to by Pierce are lengthy, eloquent and worthy. In my estimation, they're best read prior to hamburgers and fireworks; for those seeking an antidote to The Trumpian tendency to spew verbal sewage, they're especially helpful.

But you see, you must want to learn genuine facts, as opposed to the bilge fed you since kindergarten days.

This Fourth of July, We're in Another One of Those Moments Where the Great Bluff Gets Called, by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

It is the same bluff Frederick Douglass called in 1852, and Dr. King called in 1962.

This is a great year to have a Fourth of July. This is a great year to have a Fourth of July because we are in the middle of another one of those historical moments in which the great bluff gets called, loudly, raucously, and in the public square. You remember that great bluff. It is the bluff that Frederick Douglass called in Rochester in 1852.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

It is the bluff that Dr. King called in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1962.

In a sense we've come to our nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds.”

It’s the one that is being called by thousands of people in the streets, and by the removal of every memorial to every traitorous gossoon, and by defiant young people who are pushing all their chips to the center of the table. This is the bluff they’re all calling ...

Frederick Douglass: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (2019).

Dave Zirin, one of a select group of sportswriters who really matter, introduces a speech by Frederick Douglass, originally delivered in 1852.

Here’s hoping people take the time to read the entirety of Douglass’s brilliant speech. Even though his were words that spoke directly to his moment in history, they still ring with an unsettling power.

As Douglass says, “Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

The speech itself is lengthy, eloquent and worthy. In my estimation, it is best read prior to hamburgers and fireworks.

‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’, by Frederick Douglass By Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

Paine & Pleasure, Part 1: "The only Founding Father worth honoring this 4th of July is Thomas Paine."

It's a long read, and this is a short excerpt. It's worth your time, and will be followed by the second part, an old column of mine that includes a passage about Paine.

Why? Because July 4 makes me feel radical and revolutionary, and it's not too late to make good on promises deferred. For more on this topic, see "Happy Birthday, America!" by Ricky L. Jones in the current issue of LEO Weekly.

Reading Paine From the Left, by Sean Monahan (Jacobin)

Though embraced by the likes of Glenn Beck, Thomas Paine was the American Revolution's most radical figure.

 ... Paine was a consistent advocate of a strong federal government and also a sharp critic of economic inequality and poverty who designed the world’s first fully fleshed-out scheme of social welfare provision. Beyond that, he introduced millions to a radical critique of private property and class society, and pointed to democratic politics as the solution.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, while ruling classes were cursing Paine’s name from pulpits and palaces, the growing radical workers’ movements were toasting to his memory and reprinting his works. The Irish Republicans, the Chartists of England, and the early American labor movement all lauded Paine and his ideas echoed across Europe in the Revolutions of 1848. For generations, the revolutionary’s birthday was celebrated every January 29 by fledgling trade union and socialist movements on both sides of the Atlantic, who regarded Paine as one of their intellectual fathers and a role model for democratic revolutionaries.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the only Americans who dared to openly claim Thomas Paine for their own were radical trade unionists, freethinkers, abolitionists, and socialists. As John Nichols points out, in 1856 the New York Times warned that the “many socialist Painites . . . and their affiliation to every species of radicalism in the land boded evil to the future of our republic.”

The Prussian Forty-Eighter, disciple of Karl Marx, and Civil War Union Army Gen. August Willich praised Paine’s radical criticisms of authority at dozens of the birthday celebrations held by radical German-American organizations. Eugene Debs too was an open Painite, and at his trial for sedition for publicly opposing World War I, he cited Paine’s declaration, “My country is the world. To do good is my religion” as a model of the “wider patriotism” that he espoused.

As Harvey Kaye observes, the Communist Party published a collection of Paine’s writings in 1937, and hailed him as the “foremost fighter for world democracy,” the “chief propagandist and agitator of the revolution,” and a visionary radical who saw “beyond the limits of the bourgeois revolution,” attacked the “accumulation of property,” and proposed a “system of social insurance.”

Paine was at the center of two of the great democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth century — the American and the French. (Beyond that, though he found the violence of the Haitian Revolution “distressing,” he considered it “the natural consequence of slavery,” which should “be expected everywhere.”)

Not only was he a central personality in the “age of revolutions,” he was one of the first radicals to connect the cause of political democracy to economic demands. Because of that, he was touted as a champion not only of the rights of the commoners against aristocracy, but, as Eric Hobsbawm put it, “the radical-democratic aspirations of small artisans and pauperized craftsmen” against the owners of property ...

Chicago fact-finding tour, 2017: One or the other Haymarkets on Tuesday, July 4.

Greektown is right down Halsted ...

(backdated)

The Confidentials had an appointment in Chicago on July 6, and I'll have more to say about it. Why drive all the way up and back without spending a day or three seeing the town?

I'd have preferred an Airbnb in a place like Oak Park, but the last-minute nature of the exercise found the choicest rooms already booked. Diana gave Priceline a spin, and the result was an inexpensive room at the Kimpton Allegro downtown at Randolph and Wells in the theater district.

But when the parking costs as much as a discounted room, I recommend Spot Hero. It was flawless, and saved 60% off the hotel's parking fee. The car was 100 feet away in a garage across the street. Granted, there are restrictions. We knew we'd be walking or riding CTA with 3-day passes ($20), so it was worth it to let the car sit.

We arrived at noon on Tuesday, July 4. There'd be fireworks later in the evening, and crowds already were thronging Millennium Park in early afternoon. Still, many businesses were closed for the day. We found a passable Mexican joint for lunch, studied the map and found that a brewpub was within walking distance of the hotel -- west, over the river and under the transit hub.

This was Haymarket Pub & Brewery, located at the corner of Randolph and Halsted. The interstate passes between the brewery and the site of the Haymarket Affair.

The crowd gathered on the evening of May 4 on Des Plaines Street, just north of Randolph, was peaceful, and Mayor Carter H. Harrison, who attended, instructed police not to disturb the meeting. But when one speaker urged the dwindling crowd to “throttle” the law, 176 officers under Inspector John Bonfield marched to the meeting and ordered it to disperse.

Then someone hurled a bomb at the police, killing one officer instantly. Police drew guns, firing wildly. Sixty officers were injured, and eight died; an undetermined number of the crowd were killed or wounded.

Taken together, the bombing's agitated prelude and the overwrought reaction to it contributed mightily to the concept of May Day worldwide. That's right -- it all started in Chicago. I bet you thought it was Moscow.

We were told that the Haymarket Memorial near Desplaines and Randolph streets has been temporarily displaced for a building project and will return in the fall of 2017. Here's a file photo.

At the brewery, the doors were open facing the street on a temperate day, and we enjoyed beers and nibbles while watching baseball on television. I'd guess that Belgian derivatives and IPAs made up two-thirds of the draft list on the day of our visit. Seeing as I've finally relented to the notion of samplers, my choices ranged across the menu. Every Haymarket beer I drank, whether hoppy or malty, was very good -- with a single exception, the Kölsch.

Call me old-fashioned, but hop aromatics redolent of honeydew melon and strawberry are better deployed elsewhere. Somehow the characteristic Kölsch crispness was buried in fruit. It wasn't my gig; however, make no mistake. The Haymarket Pub & Brewery is outstanding, and I'd return there in a heartbeat.

We bought wings to go and returned to the hotel for a nightcap, only to find the bar closed for the holiday. Fortunately there is a Seven-Eleven right around the corner, and it yielded a six-pack of Revolution Gumballhead Sun Crusher cans.

Red alert to the trencherman in me, because Chicago was going to be caloric.

On Wednesday: Cubs and Rays at Wrigley Field and beers at the Red Lion. 

Mercy Otis Warren, and calling the Declaration of Independence's bluff.

We went for a walk, and saw children on a porch lighting minor league noisemakers.

D said, "Do you think if we asked those kids what July 4 meant, whether any of them would know?"

Nah. Neither the kids nor the nearby adults. But Charlie Pierce will take a stab at it.

It's Time We Called the Declaration of Independence's Bluff, by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

It's the most American thing we can do.

Mercy Otis Warren suspected, as Herman Melville later would say outright, that the Declaration of Independence made the difference, that it not only was a statement of revolutionary principles, but that the statement was so profound that it could not be bound by the monochromatic and unisexual demographic of the people who signed it. She sensed that, at its heart, the Declaration was a self-perpetuating land mine in the history of the country that was just then coming to be ...

... So, here's to Mercy Otis Warren, and to Frederick Douglass, and to Susan B. and MLK and poor old LBJ, too, kickass women and kickass men who understood that we are children of Revolution, but that this Revolution was based on an enormous bluff that demands to be called by every American generation in its own way.

"Howard Zinn’s July 4 Wisdom Stands the Test of Time."

This was topical in 2015. 

“The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media--none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.”
-- Howard Zinn 1922-2010

Empathy is an appreciation of another's point of view, often defined as "standing in someone else's shoes."

The late Howard Zinn used empathy with considerable eloquence, as a starting point for harnessing the experiences of the oppressed to deconstruct mythology. In times of diversionary vitriol, it's important to remember that shoes come in different shapes and sizes.

People's History of the United States

... A People’s History is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.

July 4 offers an excellent annual opportunity to reconsider assumptions.

Howard Zinn’s July 4 Wisdom: Put Away Your Flags

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

But why restrict these reconsiderations to just one day a year?

Patriotism and the Fourth of July

... Mark Twain, having been called a "traitor" for criticizing the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, derided what he called "monarchical patriotism." He said: "The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: 'The King can do no wrong.' We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: 'Our country, right or wrong!' We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had - the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it, all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism."

Frederick Douglass: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (2016)

Dave Zirin, one of a select group of sportswriters who really matter, introduces a speech by Frederick Douglass, originally delivered in 1852.

Here’s hoping people take the time to read the entirety of Douglass’s brilliant speech. Even though his were words that spoke directly to his moment in history, they still ring with an unsettling power.

As Douglass says, “Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

The speech itself is lengthy, eloquent and worthy. In my estimation, it is best read prior to hamburgers and fireworks.

‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’, by Frederick Douglass By Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

Gahan honors council enforcer Coffey on the Wizard's home turf.

Everyone knows fire works only at dusk, because before night falls, there is too much sunlight and you can't see it. Noticing the font size accorded Jeff Gahan, I made an observation yesterday at Facebook.

Perhaps the mayor will choose this occasion to speak out about the councilman's homophobia.

He hasn't yet, has he? Absolutely clam-like. But it'll be a question I ask him when we debate.

Meanwhile, Coffey -- a selective, top-down social media personage if ever there was one -- himself caught wind of my simple inquiry.

Ah, yes. Jim Croce once referenced a lover's cross, but here in New Albany, it is a loser's cross that we all must bear -- even when he's unopposed.

If I hadn't already committed to a fine evening of food, friends and even a few "fire works" of our own, I might have gone to Coffey's personal park unit (did he keep the key as a souvenir when the restroom was demolished?) and listened to the mayor's remarks, which thus far seem to have gone unremarked and unreported by the usual breathless sycophants on social media.

Readers, did any of you attend?

If so, please give us a report.

Howard Zinn on the 4th of July.

“The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media--none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.”
-- Howard Zinn 1922-2010

Empathy is an appreciation of another's point of view, often defined as "standing in someone else's shoes."

The late Howard Zinn used empathy with considerable eloquence, as a starting point for harnessing the experiences of the oppressed to deconstruct mythology. In times of diversionary vitriol, it's important to remember that shoes come in different shapes and sizes.

People's History of the United States

... A People’s History is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.

July 4 offers an excellent annual opportunity to reconsider assumptions.

Howard Zinn’s July 4 Wisdom: Put Away Your Flags

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

But why restrict these reconsiderations to just one day a year?

Patriotism and the Fourth of July

... Mark Twain, having been called a "traitor" for criticizing the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, derided what he called "monarchical patriotism." He said: "The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: 'The King can do no wrong.' We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: 'Our country, right or wrong!' We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had - the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it, all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism."

Frederick Douglass: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

Dave Zirin introduces this speech by Frederick Douglass, which was delivered in 1852.

Here’s hoping people take the time to read the entirety of Douglass’s brilliant speech. Even though his were words that spoke directly to his moment in history, they still ring with an unsettling power.

As Douglass says, “Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

The speech itself is lengthy, eloquent and worthy. In my estimation, it is best read pre-fireworks.

‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’, by Frederick Douglass By Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

Fireworks and Idiots who can't think for themselves ... well ...

Apparently Steve Graves has not visited New Albany. I would prefer he does not. After yesterday's conflagration at the recycling complex, few of us are in the mood for NA portraying Damascus this coming Wednesday evening.

For parts of the nation, a fireworks-free Fourth, by Charles Wilson and Steven K. Paulson (Associated Press)

DENVER (AP) — Drought and wildfire fears are snuffing out some Fourth of July festivities this year.

From Utah to Indiana, state and local governments are calling off annual fireworks displays out of fear that a stray rocket could ignite tinder-dry brush and trigger a wildfire. They're also warning residents not to use fireworks, sparklers or Roman candles in backyards ...

... The danger is real: Fireworks were blamed for more than 15,500 blazes and $36 million in property damage in 2010, according to the National Fire Protection Association in Quincy, Mass ...

... Some states are grappling with just how far they can go in issuing bans. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said she considers fireworks a risk that can be avoided, but state law allows cities and counties to ban only certain classifications of fireworks and where they can be used. More than half of the state's 33 counties and its largest cities have already imposed restrictions and urged residents to attend organized events instead of setting off their own ...

... Leaders of the fireworks industry, which brought in nearly $1 billion in sales nationally in 2011, question whether firework bans are legal. Steve Graves, executive director of the Indiana Fireworks Association, said people should be given credit for common sense ... "Instead of talking about safety, they decided to treat Hoosiers like they're a bunch of idiots that can't think for themselves," Graves said.

Did you know that a drummer named Steve Price once played for Pablo Cruise?

Last night a councilman named Steve Price (no relation to Pablo Cruise's thumper) was among the opening acts for Ambrosia, which headlined the 4th of July gig at New Albany’s reconstructed riverfront amphitheater.

It wasn’t Pablo Cruise, but what’cha gonna do?

It wasn't Player, either, and I know what you’re probably thinking, but I thought Ambrosia was fairly good. They’re pros who’ve been at it for years, and the band boasts at least three songs you’ve heard before: “How Much I Feel”, “Holdin’ on to Yesterday” and “Biggest Part of Me.” Their only stinker was a cover of the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour."

And now, for the record …

Player did “Baby Come Back.”

Pablo Cruise’s hits were “What’cha Gonna Do” and “Love Will Find a Way.”

And, as a final note to DH: “So Into You” was one of the handful of 70's hits performed by Atlanta Rhythm Section, which I previously had gotten confused with the Amazing Rhythm Aces … not to say Ace, which had hits during the 1970’s, but were not American. Ace was from Sheffield, England (home of my beloved Def Leppard), and don’t get me started on Ace's woefully underrated singer, Paul Carrack.

Where was I?

The mayor predicted a crowd of 6,000 - 7,000 for the fireworks. My guess would be closer to 3,000 – 4,000, but small matter either way. The crowd seemed well-mannered, and the Budweiser swill wagon was doing decent business.

Meanwhile, a committee is organizing entertainment for remaining warm-weather Fridays, including music and perhaps some theatrical performances, and city hall, eager to bill subsequent festivities as not being funded from taxpayer coffers, says it remains committed to these events always being “free” to the public.

Short-term, I agree with this effort to placate the tea drinkers – except, as we know, someone, some time has to cover the costs.

Longer term, a different strategy should be pursued. The vicinity of the amphitheater should become a template, easily convertible on a scheduled basis into a profit-making arrangement between the city and a private concessionaire/booking agent/entertainment entity.

Name acts cost money, and both risks and rewards can be spread among a public-private partnership. Potentially, it’s a great venue. It could be far better, with rewards for city coffers and private wallets alike.

Last night we walked downtown, had a touch of wine at River City Winery, took in Ambrosia and the explosives, had a beer at the Brewhouse with friends, and walked back home. Five years ago? Not quite possible.

We’re winning – 2.78 yards and a cloud of dust each down, but winning nonetheless, and neither Pablo Cruise's drummer nor my councilman can do much about it.

A bit of Zinn to exacerbate the hangover.

With the birthday parties mostly concluded and the nationalism temporarily abated, permit me to note that I never really understood how one or the other God could be on “our side.” Maybe my irreligious upbringing caused me to miss something, although I doubt it.

It always seemed to me that if the concept of God were to have any meaning, it would be with the alleged “supreme being” as a neutral overseer, and not an active handicapper in grisly conflicts that fell outside the ordained rulebook to begin with.

With that as preface, permit me also to observe that I deeply appreciate Howard Zinn’s role as American gadfly even if I’m not in lockstep agreement with him at all times. His seminal work, “A People’s History of the United States”, occupies a prominent place on my bookshelf. As topical evidence of Zinn’s intent: Put away the flags, by Howard Zinn (2006).

Any explication of hypocrisy is worthwhile, but at the same time surely it’s redundant of Zinn to spotlight atrocities committed by American soldiers. All troops in all wars commit atrocities, because war itself is an atrocity, and should be undertaken not as whim, but as a last resort. It isn’t that the Bush neo-con cabal never understood this point. It’s that they did, and proceeded to purposely ignore it, and that’ why history’s judgment is going to be unrelentingly harsh.

I don’t regard Zinn’s perspective as gospel any more than I do the obscure musings of ancient desert dwellers, but he asks uncomfortable questions … and someone should be making such queries in any society that truly values freedom of speech.

And he signs his name, too. Does that make him ineligible for residence in New Albany?

New Albany's show tonight, and beautification underway.

It has been an exhausting past few weeks, and it seems a break is merited. NABC will be open today (Thursday, July 3) but closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday for a long holiday weekend.

Tonight, the action's downtown.

Concert, fireworks coming to New Albany riverfront Thursday; Beautification effort starts this week, too, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune).

An unprecedented celebration and the desire to beautify the riverfront corridor has inspired the New Albany Urban Enterprise Association to team with a local landscaper. Beginning this week, Mike Pattison, owner of Equinox Gardens at 313 Mount Tabor Road, is hanging baskets and planting flowers through areas of the Urban Enterprise Zone — an area mainly covering downtown that is marked for economic enhancements.

A thriving (and progressive?) RiverStage in Jeffersonville, and in New Albany ... er, never mind.

Last October, NAC joined the cheering throng, knocked back a few hop-laden growlers, lassoed the oversized statue overlooking that yellow canopied namesake dome, and pulled that mother back down to room temperature.

New hope for the riverfront: Thousands gather downtown to toast Trinkle’s departure.

With his resignation ostensibly on file, and in a spirit of joyous impending Boblessness, I wrote:

Trinkle, who couldn’t find his way out of the conventional thinking box with a Saturn rocket bungeed to his back side, was undoubtedly James Garner’s single worst appointment as mayor.

Throughout his career, Trinkle has gazed in fear upon multi-generational diversity and artistic creativity and always -- always -- he has seen only encroachments and dire threats to the suffocating limitations of his own preferred monocultural milieu. Never has it occurred to him that these offer virtually limitless possibilities for circumventing the “constraints of a city budget with many priorities," which he now predictably cites as an excuse upon exiting the scene.

Trinkle's tenure on the waterfront was a pathetic failure. Perhaps, for once, the city will learn something from the experience. I, for one, am learning not to hold my breath.

And yet, we still live in New Albany. Seven months later, Trinkle’s name still adorns a slot at the city’s web site, and whether or not he’s actually still involved with administering the chronic annual disuse of the city’s waterfront, another summer of virtual nothingness beckons.

Meanwhile, just upriver, something is being done …

Jeffersonville officials hope to bring crowds out with RiverStage season, by the Tribune's David Mann

There’s going to be concerts for the adults, musicals for the kids and Willy Wonka — who has long entertained both. Those are among the events going on at Jeffersonville’s RiverStage this summer.

As New Albanians continue to sift through the underachieving rubble of the Trinkle years, we find our faces inadvertently rubbed in piquant river mud by the words of Keith Fetz, a Jeffersonville city council member who dares (!) use the "P" word without fear of being rhetorically jumped in a dark alley by New Albany’s reactionary spokesman for all things backward, Councilman Cappuccino:

“It’s pretty progressive for a city our size to have something like that,” (Fetz) said. “I just think (the RiverStage) is a huge economic development tool. It’s kind of a magnet to bring people to downtown Jeffersonville.”

At least the annual 4th of July celebration remains on the agenda.

New Albany to celebrate Fourth on the Third, by the C-J's Rick Rojas.

Fireworks over the river. Local bands performing. A summer evening of refreshments and fun. That's the checklist for a Fourth of July celebration in most places.

But not in New Albany. It all happens on July 3.

Not wanting to be overshadowed by other celebrations in the area, New Albany Mayor Doug England has planned for his city's to take place one day early.

Yes, Erika, we offer an alternative to the ongoing amphitheater malaise, and it was described in this space last summer:

Meanwhile, even in New Albany there are entrepreneurs of all generations who are willing and able to transform the amphitheater into a profitable, multi-cultural and diverse undertaking, one certainly capable of shifting income to the city rather than draining from it by being forced to subsist on a barely justifiable salary paid to one person who is completely out of touch with the demographic most sorely needed.

That'd be youth.

A better case for a public-private partnership is difficult to imagine; merely state the criteria, accept bids, award a contract, specify the percentage to be returned to the city, and permit private enterprise and a profit motive to inject life into a moribund and neglected area.

I look forward to the day when this topic is dead, because that means the riverfront is being used. Until then ... Myanmar redux.

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On the merits of Boblessness: Inject entrepreneurialism into New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, and restore value to a mismanaged community asset.

On the waterfront: Same old song and dance .

Not spectacular enough? Maybe they should play some Zappa, instead.

If he's not going to use the Riverfront Amphitheater, would Bullet Bob mind if we borrowed it and made some money?