ROCK and role-play all night, and pray every day.

It's been a while since we checked in on the nanny theocrats at ROCK, mostly because I hate disturbing these selfless Theatair-X stall monitors while they're working toward the Christian equivalent of Sharia law, all the while remaining utterly clueless as to the analogy.

From 2012: REWIND: Some ROCK ‘n’ role playing.

Today, via the group's ROCK Ayatollah e-newsletter, we learn that the churchgoin' part of ROCK is usurping the civic engagement. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

We are newly energized !!

We are pleased to announce that God has a new plan for ROCK. After a nearly 10 year journey of faith and preparation, ROCK will start a Tuesday night prayer meeting in leased space on 7th Street Road at Energized Baptist Church.

On November 14, 2013, ROCK publicly announced our plan to downsize activities until there was renewed interest in ROCK's mission. In less than one week, God made it clear that He did not approve of our stated plan ...

 ... We believe it is God's desire for ROCK to start a Tuesday prayer meeting at Energized Baptist Church on 7th Street Road. The prayer meeting will model what we learned at Brooklyn Tabernacle. It will include, among other things, worship music; and prayers for our country, Louisville, each other, specific prayer requests submitted online, and healing. (We do need a musician!!).

Please, someone give them a musician. Maybe they'll get back aboard the spaceship and colonize elsewhere.

ON THE AVENUES: 1Si, Kerry, ROCK and the gays.

ON THE AVENUES: 1Si, Kerry, ROCK and the gays.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Remember back in 2007, when One Southern Indiana was tying itself in church/state/oligarchy enrichment knots by ineptly seeking to bind itself to the Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana cabal?

Boy, do WE remember it here at NA Confidential. Never, ever has it been any more fun ripping down statues of idols than when 1Si was thrashing in self-Stemler-inflicted Neanderthal agony over Theatair-X.

Great moments in silent film: Michael Dalby throws Kerry Stemler a lifeline.

Did anyone notice that in the end, when it came to clarifying the relationship of One Southern Indiana with Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana, Michael Dalby duly took responsibility for acknowledging the slippery slope that 1SI chairman of the board Kerry Stemler, not Dalby himself, originally commenced sliding down at the ROCK press conference?

Eminences seldom get grayer than Kerry Stemler, nor logic fuzzier than when refracted through the immaculately laundered linen of his privileged white Wonder Bread mind.

In 2007, Stemler was 1Si's Big Chief Tablet Chairman of the Board, and he had decided one morning over Pop-Tarts and Sanka that it would be a great idea to hop into bed with the meddling theocrats and scripture-quoters at ROCK, because doing so might end the vile threat to regional economic development posed by a solitary smut shop in Clarksville -- this being the same Stemler (and the same 1Si) who were conspiring at the very same time to toll those few precious Kentuckians choosing to cross bridges to come to Indiana and spend their money.

Go figure the economic development merits of THAT strategy ... but I digress. We asked:

What does ROCK's theocratic advocacy have to do with economic development, and why is Stemler giving 1SI's imprimatur to a very specific and exclusionary Christian advocacy group?

As soon became hilariously clear, Stemler's choice of churches had been made without the knowledge of 1Si's then-president, Michael Dalby, who in the end was compelled to take the responsibility hit and control the mayhem as Stemler retreated to the board room for another round of Champale and Chef Boyardee, a pairing of champions.

Now the topic is HJR-6, Indiana's lamentable attempt to fuse reactionary clergy with constitutional amendment, and thus stem the tide of rampant buggery and same sex marriage. The organization calling itself Freedom Indiana explains the basis of opposition to this sheer lunacy.

Freedom for all Hoosiers!

We are a statewide bipartisan coalition of businesses, faith leaders, civil rights and community organizations, and individuals united to defeat HJR-6.

This anti-freedom amendment duplicates existing law and would permanently ban all protections for same-sex couples and their families and remove existing protections for unmarried Hoosiers.

Stand with us, and sign the petition to defeat HJR-6!

As documented daily by reputable news organizations across the state, and others with metered paywalls, the momentum against HJR-6 is building quickly, and as the bookseller pointed out earlier in the week, the dominoes continue to fall against the amendment.

INDIANAPOLIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE COMES OUT AGAINST ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

"Indiana's struggles to retain its college graduates are well documented and often acknowledged in the state legislature. Its necessity to ease this "brain drain" by attracting talent on a national scale would be inhibited by adopting an unnecessary, discriminatory amendment with fading support from younger generations.

"As the only potential marriage amendment up for consideration nationwide in 2014, it is important to be mindful of the conspicuous part HJR-6 would play in portraying Indiana as a state that welcomes some, but not all, talented workers."

Forever eager for clarification, I've gone to One Southern Indiana's Facebook page twice in recent weeks to ask whether the organization had yet lifted its quivering finger to the winds of modernity, and as yet, no reply has been forthcoming. It's no wonder, given that 1Si possesses the quaint view of social media wherein communications always are a top-down, one-way street. No doubt such an attitude was copped from the likes of Kerry Stemler himself.

It's an institutional thang, tantamount to a human stain. Nowadays Stemler seems to believe he is the chairman of the board of Southern Indiana as a geopolitical entity, and not just calling plays for 1Si. As such, will he be interfering in this great drama?

Indeed, what happens next?

Will 1Si do the right thing?

Will it do anything at all?

If 1Si actually decides to queue for once on history's correct side, will ROCK subsequently gather its members into a tight circle outside 1Si HQ, douse themselves with petrol -- and then both of them catch on fire?

Can we throw Stemler on that same fire and make it a threesome? Hasn't he done enough damage to the regional societal fabric (as opposed the profitability comforter) for one clueless lifetime?

Let's just say that while hopeful, I'm not holding my breath.

REWIND: “Life in OSi a grim reality.”

Writing this morning about Matt and Ed and Erika and yard signs the size of Connecticut somehow made me recall this newspaper column, which was published on September 30, 2010. It garnered some of my most glowing reader comments ever: Nutjob, hypocrite, drivel, asinine and senseless were among the terms used by outraged readers who feared the thesaurus. Here is the column in its entirety.  

---

“Life in OSi a grim reality.”

By GORDY GANT
Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporter

(New Albany, OSI) -- November 15th, 2065, is the 50th ISindependence Day in One Southern Indiana, the impoverished, stubbornly paternalistic enclave that broke away from Indiana after the state’s favorite son, Mitch Daniels, suffered a landslide loss to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race.

While living memories of that time have faded, the impact of events continues to influence daily life.

Depressed and shattered by his loss, the former governor fled to a hiding place near Birdseye and declared a state of Major Insurgency Moves. Concurrently, a band of tightly-knit oligarcho-theocrats at the economic development agency called One Southern Indiana (1Si) staged a series of cynical bait-and-switch ploys, culminating in a bloodless coup in 2015 that wrested civil authority from legally elected local governments.

After undergoing treatment, Daniels subsequently renounced his failed political revolt and took up religion, becoming an evangelist and the leading American proponent of wealth accumulation at his Your Tax Abatement is Jesus ministry prior to his death in 2019.

Meanwhile, the former chamber of commerce gradually undertook to improve the quality of life for its top tier of major business investment partners.

---

Today, amid persistent shortages, the mood in 1Si is one of weary resignation. 1Sindependence Day will feature lengthy speeches and exaltations of economic progress, as broadcast over the 1Si-approved Clere Channel network, which Grooms bright Young future Stemlers for leadership in the community.

Most people merely will parrot the platitudes, resuming their search for firewood in the remnants of wooded areas, most long since clear-cut to build subdivisions with names like No Oak Glen and Elm Infested Acres.

1Si’s numerous manual laborers will get half-days off to drink non-alcoholic Victory Juice and parade past the descendents of the founders, seated atop the Tomb of the Unknown Exurbanite, jowly in their golf wear, drinking expensive, imported Corona Lights, and extolling the virtues of a non-union workforce.

Since the Great Oil Out of 2035, the parade has been non-motorized, and just a few miles away from the mausoleum are the massive unfinished hulks of the Ohio River Bridges Project, made redundant by the depletion of petroleum.

In vast, smoldering areas of a city formerly known as Jeffersonville, squatters now live in grimy tents, reduced to commuting by ox cart to mow grass at the homes of 1Si’s upper echelon at the Quarry Bluff gated compound, or forced to walk long miles to beg for alms at the Shrine of St. Daniels, owned and operated by Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana.

---

ROCK was formally established as the moral and cultural arbiter of 1Si by the late Commandante Stemler shortly after the Glorious Revolutionary Economic Progress Capital Campaign was concluded. ROCK vowed to purify minds stained with Democratic liberalism, declaring in 2022 that all pornography had been eradicated (along with most books and all competing political parties).

ROCK’s slogan can be seen on every desktop: “Free speech is the devil’s workshop. Work for 1Si, instead.”

---

Residents are not willing to speak openly to the few outside journalists permitted to enter 1Si. Their reticence is understandable. During the past two decades, as 1Si’s public policy council outlawed small retail businesses and began paying workers in Yum! Brands gift cards, it has become all too easy to lose one’s tacos, nachos and beanie weenies.

Miraculously, dissent has not been fully suppressed.

Thomas N., from Sellersburg, remembers the day when the One Southern Indiana operatives came to his street with their laptops.

“They were nicely dressed and friendly, but serious,” says the retired software analyst. “As a Democrat, I was worried when they started promulgating the 5 O’Clock Network Fundamental Purity Laws, but they were handing out free thumb drives to the kids. It seemed okay.”

“We were told that we’d have jobs, education and fiscal restraint, and we believed it,” he adds. “By the time things started getting bad, it was too late.”

A far younger man calling himself Koba expresses bitterness at the toll on modernity of 1Si’s iron-fisted rule.

“I live in a rental property owned by a Sodrelite, and it’s a piece of ****,” spits Koba, “but one day I was down in the crawl space, and I found these old books about green strategies and sustainability. It was like an epiphany, because I didn’t know there was any other way except consuming irreplaceable resources for 1Si’s enrichment.”

“I can’t let anyone see me reading these books,” he continues, “because if the 1SBlock Watch hears about it, I’ll lose my Yum! Card and be exposed as a Girly Man. And yet sometimes, late at night, I risk hacking through the firewalls of the 1Sinternet, and see how communities in other places operate.”

“It’s incredible. Did you know they actually have free elections in other parts of the country?”

---

Amy C. provides the official version of life in 1Si. She works as free enterprise re-education specialist in the Michael Dalby Institute of Public-Private Partnerships. As great-granddaughter of a Bi-State Authority member, she enjoyed a privileged upbringing and attended the prestigious One Southern Indiana University Southeast Christian Academy of ROCK.

“Although my spiritual guide, the Reverend Wickens IV, teaches us that we must be humble and self-effacing, I agree with all the central tenets of Stemlerism,” she begins. “We are building the perfect, economically developed society.”

“People who are not too stubborn to accept St. Daniels as their guide and fiscal savior know how to be respectful and constructive,” she concludes. “Given that we’re traveling the correct historical path, why tolerate people whose questions are no more than vicious personal agendas?”

REWIND: Some ROCK ‘n’ role playing.

Yesterday I chanced upon a Facebook blurb in which a fundamentalist Christian political candidate was prattling on about ancient and noble superstitions being trampled underfoot by vicious secular humanists, and it occurred to me that it's been a while since Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana unleashed one of the organization's patented photo-ops, or for that matter, offered a turgid billboard erection. In anticipation of the next one, which surely can be expected to coincide with the fall election campaign, let's adhere to the dictum that the best defense is a good offense, and look back at a column first published in the newspaper on January 22, 2009.

---

ROCK ‘n’ role playing.

When confused and uncertain, we often recoil from the challenges of the future, reverting instead to comforting visions of one or the other redemptive halcyons from a past viewed with rose-tinted hindsight. Very little of it stands up to scrutiny, but no matter. Cultural mythology is aimed at supplanting rational thought, not buttressing it.

Citizens like you are standing up all across the country---standing up to reclaim our culture, a culture that was founded on the principles that are today being threatened at every turn.
-- Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK)

ROCK is back in the news with another orchestrated anti-pornography public relations campaign. It has erected a billboard, convened a press conference and hinted that the “end times” are finally near for Clarksville’s Theatair X.

But just as Fidel Castro’s stubbornly unmovable Cuba has thwarted generations of American politicians, so has Theatair X frustrated the efforts of local do-gooders. Wile E. Coyote’s success rate versus the Roadrunner is considerably better than the “winning” percentage amassed by Theatair X’s many detractors over the decades.

However, ROCK now says it has incriminating goods, and it demands that Clarksville’s town fathers take action against a business so eternally impervious to the vicissitudes of an ever-changing marketplace that if it were a “family” owned fruit and veggie stand, it probably would be receiving a lifetime achievement award from One Southern Indiana, and maybe a seat on its board.

Let’s leave the bananas and cucumbers out of it, pour a refreshing locally brewed ale, and return to the question I’ve asked of ROCK and the like-minded numerous times:

Exactly which culture are you so intent on reclaiming?

---

I’m so old that I can remember Citizens for Decency through Law, which as acronyms go comes out CDL – and a commercial driver’s license is hardly as rhythmic as ROCK, is it?

CDL was founded in Cincinnati in 1958 by Charles Keating, who later became famous (and eventually incarcerated!) for corruption during the savings and loan scandals that erupted during the presidency of Bush the Elder. Our local chapter of CDL declared holy war against Theatair X when disco was ascendant, Chevettes patrolled the highways and Jimmy Carter donned his energy crisis sweater.

Earnest prayer and righteous protest ensued, until eventually the smut peddlers became so terrified of CDL that they demolished the drive-in movie screen – to make room for a new building and a contemporary business model, which has thrived ever since.

In 1978, as part of my senior civics group project, a representative of CDL was booked to speak to us about pornography’s threat. We also scheduled an employee of Theatair X to appear separately and provide what we imagined as instructive counterpoints about rights, freedoms and frequent flyer discounts, but he abruptly cancelled at the last minute.

In a shocking turn, only a few months later the very same no-show was shot and killed while mowing his yard. I didn’t know him, but my personal aversion to cutting grass dates to that sad day.

In 2009, ROCK is a state of the art, social-networking and niche-marketing phenomenon, utilizing sophisticated communication technologies rather than CDL’s splotchy mimeographs and rotary dialing lists. ROCK capably harnesses the affluence and ideology of the vast and expanding Southern Indiana exurb, home of the mega-church and big-box theories of shopping, salvation and life itself, as well as tapping into the same “wealth creationism” espoused by One Southern Indiana, which continues to exploit a linkage, however surreptitiously, with theocratic tendencies.

However, we’ve all been here before. ROCK plays a familiar role in a long-running medicine show as civilization’s oldest professions, sex and religion, grapple for turf as millennia race past in the blink of a heathen’s jaundiced eye.

----

The question again:

Exactly which culture is ROCK so intent on reclaiming?

Is it the one with barefoot and pregnant women denied the right to vote? Does it have something to do with the enduring traditions of vice, gambling and prostitution in river towns like Jeffersonville and Clarksville, communities that profited from the calculated civic-mindedness of bookies and pimps just as surely as Louisville prospered from the coerced labor of African-American slaves?

Am I forgetting all the other aspects of presumably “golden” cultures of the past, when sewage flowed unnoticed through the streets, all of medicine was faith-based quackery, the Inquisition made Gitmo look like a Cancun resort hotel, and witches were regularly burned to keep parishioners toasty and warm in their pews?

In the past, organized Christianity aligned itself with each and every one of the preceding and lamentable abuses, which is to say that an often unquestioned local authority figure standing unchallenged at a pulpit taught supernaturally sanctioned gibberish to the fearful and reticent, with catastrophic results for those on the wrong side of faith.

ROCK unabashedly aligns itself with a particular religious worldview, simplistically offering “reclamation” of culture as its goal, but is a workable definition even possible under the circumstances of preconceived religious affiliation?

Perhaps there exists a remote possibility that “reclaimable” culture can be explored coherently, although only within the checks and balances of a truly pluralistic society, with shared respect for a multiplicity of viewpoints and a commitment to impartiality in the pursuit of truth.

Given the historical record of Christianity, I’m skeptical.

----

One of our civics set pieces was a feature from a “Hustler” magazine, which was one of Keating’s prime targets back in the day. It’s none of your business how we obtained it. The pages we clipped showed gruesome photos of disfigured and mutilated corpses. The title?

“War – The Ultimate Obscenity.”

Three decades later, that’s about all I recall from the class, meaning that contrary to popular opinion, I actually did learn something in high school.

Kentuckians reclaim their religious culture, their racism, their leech-based health plans ...

There's the Creation Museum, and now there's this. Verily, the whole civilized world busts a gut in contemplation of these displays of superstition and religious bumpkinism. Somewhere, H.L. Mencken is laughing out loud.

Kentucky churchgoer tells of deep hurt after interracial marriage ban; Stella Harville not welcome at Gulnare Freewill baptist church after ex-pastor votes to ban couples of different races, by Ed Pilkington (Guardian)

A small baptist church in eastern Kentucky has voted to ban interracial couples from joining the congregation and from taking part in all church functions other than funerals.

ROCK and droll all over: A billboard I'd like to see.

ROCK huffs and puffs as Dalby, 1Si hurriedly wash their hands of the Sellersburg Town Council's AEC.

That didn't take long. The story begins here: Juvenile or adult? Sellersburg Town Council sleeps with ROCK, awakes to fleas and incredulity. Thanks T.

As an added bonus, Evening News columnist Debbie Harbeson gets in on the ROCKin’ good time. Anyone seen Steve Burks?

From: Michael Dalby
Date: February 16, 2011 5:03:42 PM EST
To: Recipient
Subject: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

One Southern Indiana releases statement regarding Sellersburg, Indiana’s proposed Adult Entertainment Commission

NEW ALBANY, Ind. – (February 16, 2011) – One Southern Indiana is responding to reports the organization is slated to provide a representative for a proposed Adult Entertainment Commission in Sellersburg, Indiana. Prior to various news reports published on February 15, 2011, neither One Southern Indiana nor its representatives was aware of any plans for such a commission or any requirement that it provide representation.

One Southern Indiana was and continues to be uninvolved in the formation of this commission and cannot comment on how the Sellersburg Town Council determined the validity of this information.

About One Southern Indiana: (snipped)

Juvenile or adult? Sellersburg Town Council sleeps with ROCK, awakes to fleas and incredulity.

David Mann of the Evening News drew the short straw and witnessed one of the most inadvertently hilarious legislative decisions in recent memory, this one occurring in Sellersburg.

Following is the entire first part of Mann's article, detailing the Town Council's request to invite unelected bodies like Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK) and One Southern Indiana (1Si) to participate in opening a Pandora's Box larger than any ever imagined by the likes of Steve Price.

Sellersburg regulates live adult entertainment; New ordinance requires licenses for businesses, entertainers

The Sellersburg Town Council is now regulating live adult entertainment businesses.

Under the ordinance, which was approved unanimously during a Monday night meeting, adult businesses and the entertainers working therein have to pay a $5,000 licensing application fee, with a yearly renewal cost of $4,000. In order to be approved for the license, they have to provide basic information such as name, Social Security number, date of birth and written statements from three “bona fide residents of Clark County setting forth that the applicant is of good moral character.”

The ordinance says the business must have the license posted at all times and entertainers themselves have to keep their license affixed to their person at all times. Further, it establishes a seven-member Adult Entertainment Commission empowered to issue the licenses. Also, if a license is rejected, the town keeps $1,000 of the application fee to cover regulatory costs.

The commission has to include one clergyman or minister, two Democrats, two Republicans, one representative from One Southern Indiana and at least two members have to be female.

Town Council President Brian Meyer, said the ordinance has been more than a year in the making.

“It came from seeing what other communities have gone through without an ordinance,” he said.

Recent enforcement of adult business regulations in Louisville could send businesses looking for a new place to set up shop, he said, noting that the town doesn’t have any establishments to which the ordinance would apply.

Town Attorney Perry McCall said the town modeled its ordinance after similar regulations in Spencer County. The town also sought input from Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana, also known as ROCK, a group that opposes the businesses around the region.

The ordinance applies only to live entertainment. Councilman Paul Rhodes said he would like to eventually amend it to regulate retailers of adult books, videos and accessories.

The measure was approved unanimously in two readings.

As for the suggested composition of the regulatory commission, why must there be a clergyman or minister?

If the council intends to violate every known church-state separation, can't it be inclusive and have a Druids or an Imam, too?

Why on earth is One Southern Indiana involved with this?

Why? Isn't a doomed model of oligarchic economic development enough for one organization's everyday activities?

Does it go all the way back to Kerry Stemler's infamous public tango with ROCK, the closest equivalent we have to the style and intent of the Inquisition?

Wasn't Stemlers pole (poll?) dance with ROCK so appallingly ridiculous that even Michael Dalby disavowed it?

R.O.C.K. on, One Southern Indiana ... but first, please answer these inconvenient questions. (2007)

Speaking of dancers with 1Si-approved licenses dangling from their shielded boobies, will these same entertainers now become a staple of iSi's 5 o'Clock Network functions?

It might improve attendance, guys, but I suppose that the Ayatollah Wickens would prefer seeing them swaddled in parkas and furry caps, Russian-style, which is where Dostoevsky wrote ... well, you know.

You might not, actually; will The Brothers Karamazov survive the Town Council's future scrutiny?

I point to this passage: "Amend it to regulate retailers of adult books, videos and accessories."

If you think that such a clause would only benignly apply to the likes of Cleopatra's sticky offerings, you really haven't been paying attention to the history of censorship under the aegis of various Moral Minorities in American history.

Try reading about them ... if you can still find the book at Sellersburg's soon-to-be ROCK and 1Si-approved library.

One more thing which is relevant to New Albany.

I missed the last council meeting, but an attendee reports that Rev. Steve Burks, recently elected to the township board and a Republican primary candidate for council in the sixth district -- where NABC's original location does business -- asked if, given new regulations in Louisville, the council was ready to let the experienced folks from ROCK come in and help them craft an ordinance.

That'd be an unconstitutional ordinance, sports fans, just like the one Sellersburg has now passed. Someone call a team of high priced lawyers, please, as overpaying to rectify constitutional frivolity seems to be the game ROCK wishes us all to play these days.

Supreme Court to NA: Cleopatra's free to remain tacky, R.O.C.K. free to pray for divine intervention, remainder of us free to yawn.

As we await scathing commentary from the only public-mullah-policy entities that really matter – Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (R.O.C.K.) and its Mohlerite chieftain, One Southern Indiana’s annual Theocrat of the Year Bryan Wickens (will God please build the downtown bridge?), it would appear that the Supreme Court's refusal to hear New Albany's case against the adult store now known as Perpetuall Deserted Cleopatra's dooms the costly six-year effort to run porn out of town.

There is disagreement on this point in the local media. In Daniel Suddeath's article for the Tribune, city attorney and autumn Indiana House candidate Shane Gibson remains mindful of possibly observant reading voters, and does not rule out future action.

Meanwhile, at the C-J, Harold Adams quotes Mayor England as being ready to end the war: Supreme Court declines to hear New Albany adult store case.

Me? I'm still waiting for R.O.C.K. to define the culture it proposes to reclaim, and to do so without rewriting history. Don't worry. I'm not holding my breath.

It isn't about football, for heaven's sake.

You must read all the way to the bottom, past the clutch of platitudes and homilies, to find the true meaning of this praiseworthy commitment to "inspiration," as accepted without question by the Tribune's reporter:

Chick-fil-A owners desire to inspire; Clarksville restaurant owners to bring in family from “The Blind Side” to share story

Proceeds from the event will go to ROCK: Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana. Haag said the restaurant decided to give the proceeds to the group because it shares a lot of the same themes as the event, which involves family and community.

That's right: Come to hear this wonderful story, and pay toward support of a lobby group that does not accept the separation of church and state, and which would gleefully assist in the establishment of Christian theocracy in America if only the gullible give them enough rope to hang the rest of us in the name of one or another deity.

Where's Tom Paine when we need him most?

Wickens does the Torquemada Twist.

Silly me. I keep expecting that ROCK might someday advocate the reclamation of the economy, or tackle the negative impact of malnutrition in children, or even consider the growth problem of chain-think's decimation of small business, but no, nothing that truly impacts all citizens and not just the ones deploying their scriptures as cruise missiles.

Instead, the organization increasingly is a PR platform for the Wickensian cult of personality. That's too bad, but so very American in nature that there's little to do about it except laugh over a Progressive Pint ... until they get bored with sex and come for us, because in the end, one of the two oldest professions is fermentation.

National issue brings a major negative impact to River City! Tune in tonight at 11PM!

Tune in tonight to WHAS 11 at 11PM as ROCK President Bryan Wickens is interviewed about the growth problem of prostitution in Louisville advertised through Craigslist.

For more information on how ROCK is working to build stronger communities and families in our region and across the nation - call our office at (502) 297-9892 or visit us at www.myrocktoday.org.

Unintentional satire, Volume 46: R.O.C.K. warns against "indecent" Stupor Bowl ads.

I totally agree. Those vile, repulsive Budweiser ads must go!

Meanwhile, those of us not hidebound by hormonally mutant Wickensianism will be rushing to GoDaddy in search of the smut, and when we find some, it will be posted right here at NAC.

Are you ready for some football? What you might not be ready for this Sunday are the family unfriendly commercials that will have parents scrambling to get the remote control. In particular, we have learned that GoDaddy.com commercials cross the line when it comes to the matter of decency.

ROCK President Bryan Wickens stated: "It is a shame that in an event that recognizes the talent, hard work and effort of the players to get to the Super Bowl, there is a company like GoDaddy.com that not only exploits women to sell its product but also does not care that children are in the viewing audience. As parents, we must always be on guard to protect our children from this kind of indecency."

ROCK sez: "Louisville, KY tagged as most 'obscene' city by Google trends."

Isn't that why Al Gore invented the Internet in the first place?

Look: Have you ever noticed the fellow on Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana's (ROCK's) billboards?

Don't you think he looks a lot like porn king Larry Flynt? No, no ... not "King Larry" Kochert, but Larry Flynt, founder of Hustler? Man, that's just as uncanny likeness, if you ask me.

Speaking of ROCK, here's the text from a recent mailing, complete with the irregular spellings. Who knew that Louisville was so wicked? Excepting Lively Shively, of course.

Last week, 14 local men were arrested for child solicitation in an undercover operation. Detective Dan Jackman discussed how Louisville was the "most obscene" as far as searches that are made online. He also said that when it comes to downloads of child pornography, the Louisville area is one of the worst.

ROCK President Bryan Wickens said: "For 40 years, Theatair X and businesses like it have been in our community. What happens in s*x businesses doesn't stay in s*x businesses. It permeates the culture around us. It is especially alarming to see the connection between s*x searches and child p*rnography downloads. We have to be about reversing this trend, along with standing strong with communities that want to protect themselves from the harmful impact of s*x businesses."

They won't even spell the word "s*x" in their e-mail broadsides.

Here's a column I wish I'd have written. It's by Debbie Harbeson, and appeared in the Evening News on Thursday.

HARBESON: Are you ready to talk ROCK?

Bryan Wickens, ROCK’s leader, wrote a guest column in last week’s Evening News where he referred to his organization’s methods of gathering information on sex shops.

He wrote, “We do not enter these establishments, but retain the services of professionals.”

I don’t understand. If you are doing Christ’s work, shouldn’t you go in there yourself? Try as I might, I just can’t picture Jesus as a moralistic lawyer hiring some so-called professional to be with the sinners instead of doing it himself.

Another potential ROCKlamation project?

Every time I listen to the well-intentioned and hopelessly oblivious activists of Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana ROCK), many of whom seem to have consciously refrained from any objective study of history that does not begin with the words “Holy Bible,” I immediately think of articles like this one. It is an obituary that appeared in a recent issue of The Economist.

Is the institutionalized “exploitation of blacks” part of the hallowed American history that ROCK seeks so avidly (and for the most part thoughtlessly) to reclaim? How many Christian pulpits supported the institution of slavery?

Take your time, soldiers. It isn’t like really I expect a coherent answer to be forthcoming, although you’d think that an organization fronted by a highly trained lawyer making almost 100 Gs per annum just might be able to articulate the occasional historical analogy that doesn't have to do with with puritanical sex preoccupations.

I'm so naive.

John Hope Franklin (April 2, 2009; from The Economist print edition)

John Hope Franklin, historian of race in America, died on March 25th, aged 94

Militancy was not in his nature. He was too scrupulous a historian for that, and too courteous a man. Asked whether he hated the South, he would say, on the contrary, that he loved it. His deepest professional debt was to a white man, Ted Currier, who had inspired him to study history and had given him $500 to see him through Harvard. Yet, alongside the dignity and the ready smiles, a sense of outrage burned. He longed to tell white tourists thronging Washington that the Capitol had been built by slaves, and that Pennsylvania Avenue had held a slave market, “right by where the Smithsonian is”. Profits made possible by enslaving blacks had not only allowed Thomas Jefferson to enjoy fine French wines: they had also underpinned America’s banks, its economic dynamism and its dominance in the world. The exploitation of blacks was something he admitted he had “never got over”.

ROCK stages "Alamo" revival as contagion from the west threatens Indiana.

Is Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK) standing guard to ensure that basic fairness and human dignity not be permitted to infect properly God-accredited families and children right here in Hoosierland?

Unanimous ruling: Iowa marriage no longer limited to one man, one woman, from the Des Moines Register.

Iowa's only a state away ... and we thought that wall funded by Major Moves was going to protect us against immigrants.

Another fine question that wasn't asked.

An excellent question from satirist:

On its website, ROCK claims to be a 501(c)(3) organization. A question maybe our friends at the Tribune can answer: At what point does ROCK's political activities make it a taxable organization?

As we've noted previously, ROCK makes no bones about it:

ROCK is a non-profit organization that exists to defend and sustain the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our country was founded.

Maybe the Tribune should ask. maybe one of nine council persons who swallowed the theocratic medicine without a discernable whimper might, too.

I guess that makes it our job.

To ogle pasties or not to ogle pasties: Adult cabaret ordinance vote.

Time now to consider the insidious threat of adult entertinament. Thanks again to the library for making live blogging possible. This is fun! Apologies for typing errors.

G-09-01 Live Adult Cabaret etc., etc.

CM Caesar notes the two changes and remains oblivious to the slippery slope. He does conceed that the Indiana ATC regulates drinking in the state. That's an incredible thing, really, so now the hours are extended to 3:00 a.m.

CM Benedetti now postures as defender of decency, thanking Vince Garmon for his support and pandering to the gallery. She voted for her brother's zoning ordinance, and has never recognized the conflict of interest inherent i this. How obscene is that? Chortle.

Marcey Wisman starts to read the ordinance, and I fear that the titillation will be too much for the crusaders. Red Scott and John Mattingly leave the room before the voting takes place. The lawsuit to come should be richly enjoyable.

"Not the intent of the ordinance to suppress free speech." Makes you wish we were talking about smoking and not smokers, or outlawing "deleterious" behavior by the Prices and Coffeys of the not so august body. Then again, we live in an irony-free zone. How is irony zoned here? Not sure. I'm glad a had a beer before I came (to the meeting) tonight.

Hey, wait -- that was fairly graphic. I'm blushing. Excretory function? Gads. Are ballet and theater still permitted in New Albany? Is artistic expression still permitted? Must we consult the Wickens Testament first?

It takes approximately forty minutes for the establishment of theocracy act to be read into the record by the clerk. It would have taken less time to ready the ten Commandments in Aramaic while suspended upside down in a dunking tank filled with cold Folgers. I know; that's just kinky ... and now presumably illegal unless you do it at home.

Will anyone have the courage to vote against the idiocy, just to make a lonely statement in favor of free expression? Probably not. There's not an ounce of it on display. None. Everyone's nicely respectable, and Bryan Wickens is as much a Torquemada as the grand inquisator himself.

Now we learn that the building commissioner will have the right to do inspections.

As soon as he finishes with the rental properties, I guess. You'd think that Mr Haeseley would be here tonight to defend the adult entertainment rentals.

Here's the vote.

Caesar

Price

McLaughlin

Benedetti

Gahan

Gonder

Messer

Zurschmiede

Coffey

"Aye" on all counts.

No on any interest in defending free speech.

Public speaking time rolls forward: ROCK and Red.

I'm doing this live, so forgive me for mistakes.

Red Scott is at the lectern. He is the manager of the former II Horseshoes. He says that out of 938 total checked entries in a recent weekend period, 557 were from Indiana. 212 of these were from Floyd County. 38% of the customers come from Floyd County. The rest were from outside the locality.

He now asks how many other joints draw this kind of trade from outside the county. Perhaps he hasn't been to Gravity Head, but I digress even if it annoys me.

"We sit way out in the middle of nowhere," says Red. He thinks that the council is expending much time and money on something that probably doesn't even matter. He says that the 212 doesn't include the regulars, and there were 84 couples. Presumably hetero, although he didn't qualify it further.

Red's wasting his time, because the council doesn't care about any viewpoint other than that of the organized lobby group.

Bryan Wickens now follows Red to the floor. The focus, according to Wickens, is not about a particular business. It is about protecting families from the negative secondary effects of adult businesses. He says we must remain focused on this. He thanks the council. Do decrepit rental properties have an effect on families and children? Wickens does not say, and never has, and never will, for as we have learned, ROCK is admittedly and unabashedly a single-issue group.

They are flagrant and eternal hypocrites. But I digress, again.

It's been building, for sure.

It's great to be sitting in a quiet room, away from the bedlam of the past two days. I'll begin the Sunday morning Tribune wrap with the newspaper's letters to the editor.

LETTERS: March 1, 2009

— Reader thanks city council for proposed adult ordinance

— Reader has something to say to landlords

The first reader is Vince Garmon, a member of Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK), who thanks the New Albany City Council for being so very diligent in tackling the grievous threat to our community posed by adult entertainment, even as the same council congenitally refrains from tackling any of the other dozen (two dozen?) threats that don’t conveniently fall beneath the hot-button umbrella of evangelical preoccupation with sex to the exclusion of interest in all those “other” mundane threats, which after all, don't really affect life in the non-blighted exurb where the real church-goers live -- right, Gary?

Coincidentally, today's front page headline informs us: Adult ordinance faces changes with New Albany City Council.

The minute adjustments include extending the hours of operation and changing the no-contact distance between customers and dancers.

Sorry, but it's venting time for the Publican.

Perhaps well intentioned councilman Bob Caesar, who is quoted in the article, would do well to consider Terry Stalwar’s recent column about unintended consequences.

Bob, you’re permitting the Christian Right to frame the rules of the game, and you do so at the peril of us all. You are risking a slippery slope that will be greased when these (currently) one trick ponies declare victory over the current imaginary peril and change focus to another just as ephemeral, but as "defined" by a specifically religious outlook that jibes not one solitary jot with the secular legal tradition that we ostensibly observe in this country.

Their object is a theocracy, Bob.

Also, recall that every word currently devoted to depicting the damage inflicted by adult entertainment was once deployed to explain the need for the enforced sobriety of Prohibition. It's bad enough that so few of the newly elected council persons ever bothered to study the body and function of that which they wanted to become a member. It's even more depressing to conclude that none of them have read history, either.

The second letter comes from our own Highwayman:

However, don’t walk in the door with fairytales about how being a landlord is not being a business person.

Lloyd is referring to the latest instance of landlord gibberish, as reported by the Tribune last week:

“It’s just another tax. You cannot convince me that it’s anything other than that,” (Haeseley) said. “My biggest concern is that they’ve already established that we’re a business, and I disagree with that.”

He buys it and he resells it for a profit, making use of all available legal quantifications while doing so, and yet in the past, Brian Haeseley has referred to his rental properties as “products,” and echoed the current propaganda that he so freely rehashes that his chosen vocation should not be described as a business.

What is it, Brian? A xylophone? Girl Scout cookie? Cumulo-nimbus cloud?

That rumbling sound you hear is George Orwell doing somersaults six feet under, but perhaps Goebbels was right: The bigger the lie, the more likely that a benumbed public will swallow it.

Stray note to Pat Harrison: The preceding is an historically accurate reference to history in the context of the Gestapo.

Finally, something encouraging to balance the idiocy: New Albany on the Levee?, in which it is suggested that the experience of Newport, Kentucky, might have relevance to our own.

A jolt, to be sure. Believe it or not, there are people living in the city of New Albany who are capable of gazing upon a similar-sized river city less than two hours away and learning something.

I know, I know ... learning probably is illegal, and if so, it'd be the only ordinance we ever bother to enforce, but the point is that these people want to bring someone to New Albany for all of us to learn something.

That's positively subversive for the Open Air Museum.

Freedom to Screech almost certainly is against it, and the concerned troglodytes are preparing to self-immolate on the courthouse steps in protest of the government taking a penny more of their Wal-Mart shopping money -- you know, the cash that keeps Chinese sweat shops ticking.

I'd like to finish this essay, but there's a semi-trailer caught in a pothole outside my door. Gotta go hitch up the team of Dalmatians and go pull him out. Wish me luck. And if anyone finds one of the those anonymous letters circulating to the effect that I lack sufficient moral character to be permitted to do business here (alas, B, that's what I persist in calling it), please forward it to me.

Now more than ever, I could use a good laugh.