ON THE AVENUES: Pay attention, students, because voter turnout went UP in New Albany.

This time out, the weekly column is to be kept (relatively) short and sweet. I’ve no grand pronouncements to make, and quite a lot of catching up to do. After all, the art of the polemic is hard enough when you win.

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Has anyone in Southern Indiana who purports to be “exercising” the practice of journalism (right) ever once considered the notion of institutional memory – or, conversely, the usefulness of a scant ten minutes of basic research?

Take it away, Susan Duncan; for the uninitiated, she’s the editor of the local chain newspaper.

Yet another exercise in flexing our Democracy muscles is in the books. Here are some post-2019 election musings from the editor’s office …

The majority of voters aren’t into exercise. Only about a third of the electorate in Clark and Floyd counties bothered to vote. That’s disappointing. Even the convenience of vote centers — something I favor for all counties — didn’t seem to make much of a difference in Floyd County. We have to start thinking outside the box when it comes to attracting voters. Maybe door prizes.

“Democracy muscles”?

Actually here at the vicious tabloid blog no one reads, door prizes are being saved for those rare and elusive occasions when the local chain newspaper's editor departs from daily news suppression and displays a modicum of comprehension, and this isn’t one of those cases.

That's because voter turnout on Tuesday in New Albany went up, and in truth, it went up somewhat dramatically given our recent history.

(That’s right: history. It’s all right there in the newspaper’s morgue, but as with so many of life’s challenges, one has to care enough to look past the knee-jerk and gaze upon facts.)

Alas, Duncan’s not the only one ignoring history. I'm having trouble understanding the many lamentations I've heard from members of both parties about "low" voter turnout on Tuesday.

Yes, it's all relative, and from an overall perspective 30% is puny, yet almost 1,800 more votes were cast in the mayor's race (8,447) than in 2015 (6,684). In fact, that’s the most votes in a mayor's race since 2003.

Isn’t THIS the takeaway, the headline, the banner?

If I'm bright enough to cut and paste numbers from the newspaper's own stories, you'd think the editor would be, too.

Obviously it wasn't the election result I personally was seeking, but both parties brought out voters who haven't been participating during recent election cycles, and for Jeff Gahan to pull in an extra 1,000 votes over his total in 2015 cannot be overlooked even if I'd like to. Seems his cash was well spent.

To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, it remains that those 4,631 Gahan supporters knew exactly what they wanted, and now they'll be getting it good and hard, but this doesn't make the mayor's ability to increase his support via 1,000 more votes any less newsworthy.

Of course, Duncan missed this, and a better indicator of her newspaper’s steady decline is hard to imagine.

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You won’t be surprised to learn that I’m a bit discouraged, but life goes on.

What I'll never forget about the 2019 election campaign in New Albany is the way the incumbent's ludicrously massive pot of special interest money successfully deflected substantive discussion about so many important topics that his own political party supposedly cares about, as well as the accompanying way so many of the community's self-encrusted pillars let him get away with it, because in the end tribal spasms count for more than anything else to them.

Their "team" won, and now they can return to their sustaining daily delusions, warm and safe on the fantasy side of those Potemkin facades.

Probably none of it will impact me, but lots of less fortunate folks are going to suffer the next four years because Jeff Gahan remains mayor, and the cool kids who'll be so quick to criticize me for saying this aloud will be the same ones resolutely looking the other way when the whip comes down.

As usual, my main muse (his name is Jeff Gillenwater) has bored directly into the central points emerging from Tuesday’s balloting.

"We have to change the local culture, not just the people in office. That means holding those self-encrusted pillars and cool kids every bit as accountable as the politicians themselves. There are plenty of “educated professionals” - not to mention professional educators - around here who ought to be ashamed to walk down the street today. But they’re not. Because they “won”. 

"I’ll say again: Do not trust those people in politics or daily life. They lie. They cheat. They suck.

"Personally, I’m just glad we won’t be here in five, 10, 15 years as all the bright, shiny, unbid, and absurdly misdirected objects start to crumble and need substantial but wholly unfunded maintenance, not to mention an even more substantial change of overall direction toward the sustainable and/or regenerative well before current patronage projects are even paid off. 

"Whoever gets stuck in office trying to deal with that is going to be wildly unpopular, likely owing to the crime of trying to be honest and realistic. New Albany votes not just like it’s the 1950s but as if the 50s are an infinite possibility. It would be wonderful if people had the forethought to choose better, to think even 10 or 20 years ahead. As is, they’ll be forced in future as usual without ever tracing their pending lack of choice back to choices they’re making now."

Jeff also states the case in personal terms, and my household concurs.

"We both have long family histories here and in moving back thought we were going to be a part of genuine, cooperative community development. The insular power trip folks here, though, don’t want that at all. We both have a long collection of ugly stories and memories. A few along the way have sold out completely. Most have just left. Lots of talent rejected and wasted here in the name of “winning”.

"We’ve been here for 15 years or so, which is too long. During that time, though, everyone I’ve ever met here (except those getting a paycheck from a politician) who has legitimately studied urban planning or community and cultural development ends up disgusted and happy to leave."

I'm grateful to Jeff for expressing my feelings. At first it seemed I might be angry after the beat-down. However, in terms of civic dysfunction, the results were entirely in keeping with the very nature of New Albany. I'm sad and a tad puzzled. That's just about it.

One doesn't stop caring, agitating or fighting after losing a single battle or one ballgame. However, multiple setbacks suggest reformatted thinking and different tactics. We'll see how this goes. In the meantime, there'll be some literal and figurative housecleaning in my universe, and a period of desperately needed cerebral battery recharging in Europe later this month.

Political asylum in Trieste? Now that's a pleasing thought.

---

Recent columns:

October 31: ON THE AVENUES: In which Team Gahan's looming appointment with unemployment is examined.

October 3: ON THE AVENUES: The cold hard truth, or just plain Slick Jeffie-inflicted consequences.

September 26: ON THE AVENUES: Socialists for Seabrook, because we desperately need a new beginning in New Albany.

September 12: ON THE AVENUES: There's no business like no business, and it's none of your business (2016).

Gahan's soulless big money machine won, but that's only temporary. The resistance wil continue.

There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world.
-- Václav Havel

Yes, I'm disappointed that David White didn't come out on top against Deaf Gahan. So be it. Gahan won, White lost. Time to catch up on life, take a deep breath, drink a few beers and then resume throwing punches.

Lieber Führer visits NAHA, Eiffel Tower: "We're from the government and we're here to help ... ourselves."

Those words in the header are more terrifying than the Gauleiter's sweater, but when you're pulling down the big money, the sty's the limit.

Click this search link  for NA Confidential's observations about the public housing takeover and subsequent colonial administration, in reverse chronological order: New Albany Housing Authority.

Meanwhile, New Albany's corporeal attorney is examining a burning question: Is the city allowed to charge a shit load of pith helmets to its TIF One card, or must campaign donors foot the bill? 

#FireGahan2019

Chronicles of New Gahania: The DNR's Slate Run Creek Public Hearing will take place on November 28.

It's important to remember that from now until the May primary, City Hall will do next to nothing without first placing the suggested action (or non-action) into the context of the mayoral re-election campaign.

This is imperative has taken on a whole new (and greater) dimension since the most recent local Democratic electoral catastrophe. Mayor Gahan and for remaining Democratic council persons now are the Alamo personified, surrounded by Republicans and prepared to expend to the very last dollar.

Meanwhile, the resistance continues on Mt. Tabor Road. 

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Good news, the Department of Natural Resources Water Division accepted our petition regarding the erosion repair work done on Slate Run Creek (along Mount Tabor Road) close to Kahls Body Shop. It will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, November 28 at 5 p.m.in the City County Building, Commissioners Meeting Room located at 311 Hauss Square. (This is the week AFTER Thanksgiving)

The scope of the public hearing, held under IC 14-11-4-8, will be limited to the authority vested in the Department of Natural Resources by the permitting statutes. This authority is confined to the floodway of the stream and any impact that the project may have on:

1) The efficiency and capacity of the f1oodway;
2) The safety of life or property;
3) Fish, wildlife, or botanical resources; and,
4) The cumulative effects of the above items.

Only issues that are directly related to this application for construction in a floodway will be addressed. Under the permitting statutes, the Department has no authority in zoning, local drainage, construction outside of the floodway, burning, etc.; therefore, topics beyond the Department's jurisdiction will not be discussed during the hearing.

Those of you who signed the petition will receive a copy of the notification letter, and a copy is attached for the rest of you. If you can not attend, please feel free to email me a letter with the questions and/or concerns you would like submitted to the DNR. Hope to see you there!

ON THE AVENUES: Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance amid various other Chronicles of New Gahania.

ON THE AVENUES: Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance amid various other Chronicles of New Gahania.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I'm feeling really upbeat about today’s encore presentation of a column originally published on November 5, 2015 – just two days after the municipal election, when the Resistance commenced in New Albany a whole year prior to the advent of Trump.

2016 was when the rest of America belatedly awakened to the necessity.

I’m happy because resorting to a column rerun means I’m up to my ears in work pertaining to the arrival of something far more important than either Deaf Gahan or The Donald, this being Pints&union. Gradually the necessary pieces have fallen into place, and we should be ready to debut next week.

Meanwhile, I'm reminded that resistance begins right here at home. What was the original Public House in 1992 if not the local opposition to the nationwide stranglehold of wretched mass-market swill?

Perhaps amazingly, that particular battle was won, and now the world of better beer is overdue for some sprucing up and remodeling, hence the notion of putting a stop to the revolving door of on-premise beer selection.

Quality, reliability and dependability as revolutionary doctrines? Life's a pendulum, folks, and if you wait around long enough, when it finally swings back the effect is not unlike a fastball right down the middle of the plate.

Returning to the local political scene, it is forever instructive to read old commentaries and compare them to now. I was wrong about Trump's accession and Gahan's statewide political ambition (at least in the short term), but much of the remainder stands up nicely.

I'm not sure that anyone foresaw Gahan's acquisition of David Barksdale, flipping a presumed Republican into a sycophantic mayoral piss boy.

Just remember that when it comes to manipulation and money, the mayor can be trusted to exploit the weak and vulnerable by finding and tapping their jugulars. Gahan simultaneously milked Barksdale for a crucial fifth Reisz Mahal vote and neutered a Republican. The historian blithely handed the charlatan power on a silver platter.

Barksdale's abrupt collapse might be sad, except it's all hamartia and hubris to to me: "Hamartia is the (fatal) flaw, hubris is the behavior that does not acknowledge it."

Gotta go order beer now.

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Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance (2015).

Recently I overheard a conversation at the coffee shop about the point of no return, the last straw – the time when one decides to jump ship.

In this instance, the precise topic was the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. Would such a revolting development merit moving to another country?

Would it mean exile?

To be more precise, would it mean self-exile?

Self-exile is often depicted as a form of protest by the person that claims it, to avoid persecution or legal matters (such as tax or criminal allegations), an act of shame or repentance, or isolating oneself to be able to devote time to a particular thing.

Granted, Trump’s elevation is unlikely, and any conceivable notion of exile remains problematic in the absence of any substantive tradition of asylum for gravely disillusioned Americans seeking refuge in the civilized world – places like Bamberg, Poperinge or Copenhagen.

Even so, I still believe that a plea for asylum accompanied by a few photos of New Albany's slumlord properties, one-way streets and economic dishevelment cadre just might do the trick. Any self-respecting resident of the Netherlands would be utterly appalled, and offer his spare room.

It so happens that I was reading The Economist on the very same day, specifically, an obituary for the Irish playwright Brian Friel.

Interviewers sometimes suggested he might have stayed in America longer. It was ever the land of liberation for him, the place his characters would leave for as soon as the potato crop was in. But he knew that, if he went, homesickness for green Ireland would gnaw away at him as surely as at them. Exile was not the answer. There was a strange dignity in staying but wavering, trying to balance emotions that would not be reconciled. Confusion, he insisted, “is not an ignoble condition”.

Emigration is a recurring motif in Ireland. During the Great Famine, Irish men and women left the island in droves, primarily to avoid starvation. In the decades that followed, and right up until the recent times, consistent patterns of self-exile continued owing to Ireland’s anemic economy and the absence of reasonable prospects for a life at home.

Over time, it’s the sort of reality calculated to produce torment and melancholy in a country’s cultural milieu, to be expressed in art, theater, music and writing. The playwright Friel decided escape was not the answer, and while he explored more universal themes in his work, we can guess that a certain intrinsic stubbornness played a role.

I can relate to that. Of course, there are other reasons for choosing exile, including war, pestilence and political vicissitude. It is the latter that concerns us today.

To be blunt: Does our recently concluded municipal election constitute one of these “jump ship” moments?

---

Or, is this a pertinent juncture for progressives to face the cruel facts about New Albany’s perennial hopelessness, and choose exile in a locale where the “A” students rule?

I don’t think it is, but these are bleak times, indeed. Book readers have almost as much reason to be scared as sheep during a second Jeff Gahan term in office. However, there are a few reasons for optimism amid the gloom, and his looting goons.

First, although you wouldn’t know it in the absence of detailed analysis by any traditional local media source, Gahan’s victory was not a landslide. It’s undeniable that a win is a win, but the incumbent lost 11% of his decisive 2011 mandate. 53% of the voters opted for Gahan, and 47% expressed a preference for his two challengers. It’s bad, but closer than before. Another $50 million in TIF bonds and he's toast.

And we'll be broke.

The Republicans made incremental gains, picking up two seats on the council. Along with independents Scott Blair and Dan Coffey, three Republicans occasionally might be able to throw a spanner into Gahan’s luxury palace construction plans.

Unfortunately, the winner as usual was apathy, with more than 70% of the city’s voters refraining from participating in the election. They’re about to get what they deserve, good and hard. So are the rest of us, especially the dissidents who challenged the re-coronation.

Still, I’m not giving up, primarily because giving up is something I resent having to do. For one thing, "love it or leave it" is a false dichotomy in my contrarian’s cosmos.

There’s a third way, by staying and continue trying to change this bastion of underachievement for the better, in whatever way can be mustered, great or small, if for no other reason than to prove that old white males need not be angry quasi-fascist reactionaries.

They can be angry muckraking leftist malcontents.

It isn’t as though I lack for experience in such endeavors, because however one might describe my clan, it was outnumbered long before the 2015 election took place. I’ve been a dissenting thorn in the side of presumed propriety since the 5th grade, and I’m not finished yet.

(See what I did there?)

Underdog defines my life. Among other things, I’m a humanist, an atheist and a heretic. Hereabouts, roughly nine bad beers are sold for every good one, and so that’s the one I drink. My diet includes more pickled herring than hamburgers. I took the Bernie Sanders test, and got 95%. Pro sports mean more to me than college, and education always trumps athletics. A car is an onerous appendage to be regrettably accepted, not exalted as an extension of one’s tumescent genitalia.

I support local independent business, level playing fields, the rank and file, walking and biking, human rights, diversity and fundamental decency. I oppose cliques, boorishness, time servers, cowards and willful stupidity.

At least simple ignorance is correctable.

---

Make no mistake, taxpayers: Gahan’s going to come out spending, and as before, it’ll be for those otherwise senseless capital project "wants" best calculated to preserve the Democratic Party’s stranglehold on power, and never as intended to alter any fundamental problems in the city. Too many people profit from decay management and pretend-decay-rectification, and Gahan needs his share of their money.

If nothing else, he’s really good at that.

Once the customary flagellations and reprisals take place. Gahan’s insipid cult of personality will be propagated even more heavily in preparation for the next step in his ambition, perhaps a State Senate run in 2018. Gahan’s team of acolytes is in place, its arrogance undoubtedly stoked by victory.

But it’s a machine with numerous holes, more illusion than substance. That’s because Gahan’s only palpable objective is political self-aggrandizement. Like most cults of personality, the aura doesn’t extend past the shadow of the chieftain, and his narcissistic need to be viewed as the fount of all wisdom is so ludicrous that it cannot survive dismemberment.

I shall continue writing the dismantlement manual, and soon enough, the curtain will be parted to reveal the great and mighty Oz, pulling at his levers. Meanwhile, let’s remember that Gahanism itself is no political doctrine.

It is a giant sucking sound of a well-tuned fundraising mechanism that never met a book.

Gahanism is neither defined by concrete ideology, nor illuminated by transparency. Rather, it is measured by crass transactions made in back corridors, rubber-stamped by co-opted functionaries, and executed to produce maximum monetization for candidate and political organization alike. It’s a pyramid scheme, and it might well crash and burn even before Gahan declares for higher office.

His political prospects will return to room temperature soon enough. Meanwhile, I’m not going anywhere, because Gahanism doesn’t frighten me. It is soulless, anti-intellectual, and so much the personification of unalloyed mediocrity that if the mayor did not exist, a reanimated Ayn Rand would have to invent him, so as to be denounced by John Galt over social media.

I can hear the bleating of the dullards now, just as I’ve heard it before: “BLAH BLAH BLAH if you don’t like it here, why don’t you move somewhere else BLAH BLAH BLAH.”

Ah, but you see, jumping ship is the one thing I cannot do, because I’ve got to be myself … and self-exile isn’t me.

Like Friel, I'm staying put. If you agree, start stockpiling paint, sit tight and wait for instructions.

---

Recent columns:

July 12: ON THE AVENUES: Thanks to Joe Phillips, there'll be pints, union and good times downtown.

July 5: ON THE AVENUES: For Deaf Gahan and the Reisz Five, their luxury city hall will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.

June 28: ON THE AVENUES: Said the spider to the fly -- will you please take a slice of Reisz?

June 21: ON THE AVENUES: Government Lives Matter, so it's $10,000,000 for Gahan's luxury city hall clique enhancement. Happy dumpster diving, peasants!

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Last night I wrote to Greg Phipps, my 3rd district councilman, urging him to vote against Pat McLaughlin's absurd, politically-motivated city council resolution to censure Al Knable, the body's current president.

Phipps' characteristic reply was cut and pasted to at least one other like-minded questioner.

"Just received the council packet this evening. Will carefully examine the arguments then vote accordingly."

What were you expecting, profiles in courage?

Welcome to Adam’s Enable Asylum, and remember to check your humanity at the door, because New Albanians presently are witnessing the most blatant example yet of the pervasive gangsterism of Gahanism, and perhaps (at long last), we've arrived at the auto-destruct nadir of the Floyd County Democratic Party, although at this point they’ve placed the bar so low in the primordial mud that just about any of the regime's ward heelers smashed out of their minds on Bud Light Lime could faint over it.

Monday’s upcoming censure resolution, team-authored by Adam Dickey, Jeff Gahan, Shane Gibson, Warren Nash, a late-model robot Adam borrowed from the Democratic National Committee and maybe even McLaughlin himself, who otherwise is destined to serve only as sycophantic delivery device, has two chief aims.

First, it is to cripple the council for the remainder of Knable's term as president. He became council president only because the two independents fled from designated Democratic grandee Bob Caesar. Once Knable was seated and got down to work, Dear Leader's conspiracy against him began taking shape.

Of course, the Republican Knable has been far better organized and much more ambitious than former president McLaughlin, whose "leadership" during endless years amounted to dysfunctional acquiescence to whatever was asked of him by Dickey’s and Gahan's greasy cabal of human slush siphons.

With only four mostly reliable Democrats remaining on the council, and in spite of the mayor’s ability to periodically “convince” non-Democratic members (including one lamentable Republican) with attractive special interest barters, the fact is that Team Gahan can’t rely on council obedience as currently constituted, so it might as well throw a grenade in the room, and blame Knable at year’s end for the lack of results.

Second, and far more importantly, it is to serve as a clear and unmistakable warning to all and sundry that no childish act of malice, pettiness or chicanery is too small to be considered for deployment by the Floyd County Democratic Party if it is deemed sufficient to maintain power in the city (the county bolted years ago).

Dickey, Gahan, Gibson, Duggins and their crews will go to any length, however nasty, fetishistic and depraved, to remain the biggest fish peddling influence in this pitifully small pond.

Indeed, in the absence of coherent principle, mobster tactics are all they have left, but fortunately these have useful and instructive purposes for those among us who still value basic human decency. As such, the ludicrous Knable smear campaign actually serves as a convenient referendum on the fitness of our council representatives to govern.

Every last one of them comes up for re-election in 2019, and speaking only for myself and my home 3rd district, Phipps’ vote on Monday evening absolutely will determine my level of political involvement next year. If Phipps casts a ballot to abet character assassination, we can pretend no longer. The journey from thoughtful idealist to abject Dickey lackey will have ballot implications of its own.

I promise.

More importantly, for those readers considering themselves as progressives, and aligned with “the resistance” as defined nationally (and on Facebook), the advent of this local Democratic Party resolution to slime an honest man means you no longer have the luxury of indulging your purely selective cognitive dissonance.

It’s wonderful to resist tyranny, but if you are decrying it there and coddling it here, we have a problem.

If you’re on the left side of the aisle, and if you persist in believing that the local Democratic Party shares your views in terms of genuine action, as opposed to Dickey’s “forever for show only” gestures and signaling, then you’re quite simply swallowing a colossal bait ‘n’ switch.

It may be helpful to grasp that Dan Canon and Jeff Gahan are as diametrically opposed as the North and South Poles. They are parallel lines that cannot meet. The criteria you’re correctly using to celebrate Canon just as surely disallows Gahan and his shameless flunkies from consideration.

That’s because the local Democratic Party is not about ideas, and hasn't ever been.

Rather, it is a crass patronage machine designed to create those juicy rivulets of sustenance that wet the beaks of appointees, secure loyalty, and maintain a level of largess capable of exploitation.

Our faux Democrats feed on sycophantism, nepotism, favoritism, glad-handing, threats and intimidation. It’s a swamp of fear, loathing and third-raters, and it’s not in Washington DC – it’s right here, rising like an oily mist from Falling Run, oozing between the third floor cracks, and inundating all of us in a morass of embarrassing complicity.

Gahan’s and Dickey’s vision of a local Democratic Party is about ideals only in the jaundiced and opportunistic sense that these can be voiced without any compulsion to follow through, and used as convenient camouflage for the down-and-grubby utility of reanimating what the local party historically existed to achieve, which isn’t civil rights or justice, but preferential pork-barreling and the maintenance of favoritism alone -- enforced with "gentle" brass knuckle reminders (or TASERs) when necessary.

Folks, if you’re shaking your fist at the "enemy," and your “friends” are behaving no differently, then it’s time to look in the mirror. Lest we forget, the only local elected official to publicly oppose Gahan’s public housing putsch to date is Ed Clere, a Republican.

Meanwhile, esteemed and credentialed Democrats like Phipps have stated for attribution that the demolition of 500 affordable housing units has nothing to do with them. Tell me, progressives: Which one’s your enemy, and which one’s your friend?

McLaughlin’s bullshit resolution means it’s time at long last to be truthful. You cannot “resist” the excesses of the Right by doubling down on behalf of the Democratic Party as it currently exists and operates on a daily basis right here in the real world, as opposed to Adam's orgasmic Disney World.

In my view, both major parties can go to hell, and the Democrats might as well board the first train to Hades. The sooner the local DemoDisneyDixecratic Party disappears, the sooner something better can be built in its place. How can it get any worse?

But it can’t get better until we realize and openly affirm that McLaughlin’s censure resolution bares this gutless local version of pretend-Democrats for all to see. They're soulless monetizers without a moral compass, and the only humane thing to do is euthanize the party, and start all over again.

Resistance?

It isn’t enough for the left-of-center resistance to be solely predicated on identity politics and social justice issues of the sort that Mayor Gahan routinely and insincerely hoists to bedazzle progressives, who are sufficiently desperate to accept toothless Potemkin human rights lean-tos in exchange for looking the other way as Gahan’s increasingly self-serving and megalomaniacal “luxury” expenditures and attacks on the working poor jump the rails of sustainability and common sense -- and contradict everything a progressive purports to stand for.

I’ll close with my own testimony.

At this point in time, after 14 years of observing this endlessly self-renewing political debacle, I’d like nothing better than to make a clean break. It would be wonderful, indeed, to enjoy a quiet existence, with my lovely wife, our cats, books, music and oceans of booze; and be back in the good beer business, helping and mentoring my friend Joe with Pints&union and reconnecting the threads of brewing, history, geography, food and folkways, just like oft times before.

It’s what I’m very best at doing, and I should be doing it. I’d prefer doing it here, in New Albany. We've so very much unrealized potential.

Alas, I understand all too well that these many years of blogging advocacy, and my perpetual willingness to say what others can't (or won’t), certainly damages my chances of getting back to work.

If so, then so be it. Here's the thing.

Among other disgraces, Gahan’s public housing putsch, his endless budget-busting luxury expenditures, their contempt for the disadvantaged among us, those botched pro-automotive two-way street grid “reforms,” the mayor’s thuggish threats against city employees – and now this fresh new character assassination directed at Al Knable – you see, these are rancid, reeking failures and abominable power plays.

They’re disgusting, and they’re wrong, and while I sometimes wish my father hadn’t raised me to speak my mind and stand up to tyrannical bullies, cliques and personality cults, that’s surely what he did.

At this juncture, I can’t seem to unlearn his lesson. I don't want to unlearn it, and I'll continue to dissent from this crisis of pure avarice. I can’t ignore Gahan’s and the Democratic Party’s divisive megalomania, and I won’t.

You shouldn’t, either.

The first step in fixing what ails us is to open our eyes and see the local Democratic Party hypocrisy in the clear light of day for what it really is, not what you’d like for it to be – and with McLaughlin’s horrendous and indefensible censure resolution, there no longer can be any doubt about who is lying.

And who isn’t.

---

Recent columns:

March 22: ON THE AVENUES: Remembering Max Allen, bartender extraordinaire.

March 15: ON THE AVENUES: The books I've been reading during the winter months.

March 8: ON THE AVENUES: Necessity was the mother of NARBA, a food and drink invention in need of re-animation.

March 1: ON THE AVENUES: Scoreboard daze of old.

Trump? He's a symptom -- and he's not reading your tweets.

Come to think of it, it's also been just about a year since Dan Coffey demanded city council attorney Matt Lorch's head on a platter -- and both Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey replied, "How'd you like it cooked, SIR?"

ON THE AVENUES: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

It’s where Gahan’s and Dickey’s creation, the Good Ship Democratic Lollipop, currently rests, and taken together, these two narcissistic beached whales in a child’s overmatched wading pool are managing against all imaginable odds to make the buffoonish serial liar Donald Trump look precisely like George Washington.

And it's been 367 days since I mentioned that I can handle only one resistance at a time.

---

If you intend to “resist” Trumpism by doubling down on behalf of the Democratic Party as it currently exists and operates on a daily basis right here in the real world, as opposed to Disney World, then you’re in for yet another apocalyptic shock, because the party requires gutting down to the foundations, and probably beyond.

Speaking personally, I don’t care. Both major parties can go to hell, and the Democrats might as well go first. If the Democratic Party disappears, perhaps something better can be built in its place. How can it be worse?

Our gutless right-wing local version of pretend-Democrats is on life support, and the chairman’s delusional cluelessness seems to have become institutionalized. The humane thing to do would be to euthanize the party, and start all over again.

It’s also time to consider a point that almost none of us are prepared for, including me. This is the element of risk sustained by the resistance during the course of the opposition.

Or, if you will, an occupation.

If you’ve studied history at all, you know that when the going gets tough, the majority usually remains seated atop its collective hands. Meanwhile, the minority resolving to openly act finds that standing up for what they believe requires some skin in the game.

It’s risky, and isn't always pretty, either. Demonstrators are beaten and jailed. Dissidents are harassed and lose their jobs. Neo-Nazis attack people in the street, and Soviets ship them off to the gulag. It’s precisely the sort of retaliation that blacks, union members and Native American pipeline opponents experience as a matter of course, although whites like me tend to think that we’re exempted – because “law.”

Yeah, right.

I’m guessing that precious few Americans have a clue about how painful this “resistance” might become. We’ve taken for granted inalienable rights and freedoms, and when these pipe dreams actually have existed outside our idealized and addled imaginations (again, mostly white), they have been gained through direct action -- agitation, peaceful protest, civil disobedience and at times, regrettably, bloody violence.

That’s history, plain and simple, and a better appreciation of history would at least be helpful, although you may or may not discover the most relevant bits on your iPhone.

Finally, it won’t be enough for the left-of-center resistance to be solely predicated on identity politics and social justice issues of the precise sort that Mayor Gahan routinely and insincerely barters to local Democrats who are sufficiently gullible to accept toothless Potemkin human rights lean-tos in exchange for looking the other way as Gahan’s increasingly self-serving and megalomaniacal “luxury” expenditures exit the rails.

Up and down the line, Democrats have fiddled past the carnage of neoliberal economic orthodoxy for far too long, and it helped bring us to this lamentably idiocratic juncture. Understand that what’s coming over the horizon is very much about economics, too. Capitalism didn’t “win,” and all those –ism frictions have never left us, although we may have left them.

Earlier today, I remarked to friends that there’s nothing like a room filled with annoyed citizens to produce remarkable levels of concentration on the part of local elected officials. Everything changes when humans act together, in concert, as opposed to separately, isolated from each other. I'm a cynic, but I haven't abandoned hope.

Resistance?

I’m trying my best here in Anchor Flats. If there is any time left over, I’ll help you with Trump.

Deal?

---

Now, that was a vintage rant, and I'm sticking with it. Granted, I didn't foresee the Dan Canon candidacy, or the delightfully concurrent way the civil rights attorney's campaign for 9th district congressman has held a mirror up to toxic Gahanism during a time of Lorch purge, Speck grid botch, NAHA putsch and Mt. Tabor subjugation.

By the way, here's some truth from Bernie Sanders. Friends, look past the diversions and shell games ... and follow the money.

Let’s wrench power back from the billionaires, by Bernie Sanders (The Guardian)

If we stand together against powerful special interests we can eliminate poverty, increase life expectancy and tackle climate change

Here is where we are as a planet in 2018: after all of the wars, revolutions and international summits of the past 100 years, we live in a world where a tiny handful of incredibly wealthy individuals exercise disproportionate levels of control over the economic and political life of the global community.

Difficult as it is to comprehend, the fact is that the six richest people on Earth now own more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people. Further, the top 1% now have more money than the bottom 99%. Meanwhile, as the billionaires flaunt their opulence, nearly one in seven people struggle to survive on less than $1.25 (90p) a day and – horrifyingly – some 29,000 children die daily from entirely preventable causes such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia ...

ON THE AVENUES: Opposition? It is defined as resistance or dissent, expressed in action or argument, and in New Gahania, now's the time for it.

ON THE AVENUES: Opposition? It is defined as resistance or dissent, expressed in action or argument, and in New Gahania, now's the time for it.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Beating a dead horse sounds like the perfect tourist attraction to take place alongside Harvest Homecoming, belly-up Boomtown, or maybe even Develop New Albany’s purely confiscated Taco, Broccoli and Lutefisk Walk.

Just imagine Dan Coffey getting ex post facto, post-it-note permission from animal control to run the dead horse beating exhibition on city property.

DNA might pitch into the festivities with used maracas and sombreros, and then Coffey can expedite the proceeds to his Save the Copperheads (and Pay the Electric Bill) Fund.

But not until Jeff Gahan wets his beak, of course.

Today I’ll be lecturing on the necessity of principled opposition to ensure a healthy municipality, although first, precisely because we’ve reached mid-July levels of heated cynicism amid the prevailing arctic freeze, let’s take another look at the News and Tribune’s recent softball-toss, high-gloss fluffery with interviewee Gahan:

“New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan excited about New Albany's future.”

Oy vey, said the blind man.

Excitement of this inflated magnitude is dollar-clad tumescence we don’t need, at least without an air sickness bag.

Mamas, please don’t let your sportswriters grow up to be editors.

Pretty please?

---

There isn’t any need to parse line-by-line these exaggerated claims made by Dear Leader.

If you’ve already been drinking Adam’s brand of high-octane KOOL-Aid, you’ll be shocking the kitties with choruses of "Kumbaya" as our posturing mayor heartily congratulates himself with the “shucks, just can’t help it if I’m perfect” plea familiar to cloistered autocrats (or Greg Fischer) since time immemorial.

Conversely, if you’re a regular reader of NA Confidential, you know that each item on Gahan’s unchallenged-by-‘Bune list of glorious civic achievements previously has been contested and dissected in this space.

In fact, although you wouldn’t know it from reading the local chain good-news-paper, there are vigorous and ongoing debates about certain of the campaigning points, including the flawed street grid realization, luxury parks funding, clearcutting of the urban canopy and the public housing putsch.

Granted, it’s inevitable that elected officials like Gahan are given a free pass to indulge in blatant electioneering by this or any other newspaper unwilling or incapable of covering local politics more rigorously.

And make no mistake: Gahan’s self-congratulatory comments to the newspaper’s stenographer are political in nature. Period. That’s because politicians are political, by definition. They're inseparable, and it’s the whole point of the exercise.

Ideally, differing political thoughts are debated in something vaguely approximating a free marketplace of ideas, but how does local opposition to Gahanism break through the cheerful cordon of the newspaper’s perennial, unquestioning business-as-usual bias toward public officials?

Yes, we might write letters, which are restricted in length and consigned to the dark inner pages in both newsprint and metaphor. A more representative roster of local columnists could help tilt the balance. Bill Hanson might awaken to a clue some random morning; then again, there's no point delving into unscientific fiction.

However, in large measure, the opposition movement in New Albany speaks through this very blog, which points to a curious omission.

Gahan remains a presumed Democrat, and the bedraggled remnants of the so-called Democratic Party’s increasingly mediocre political machine have managed to keep hold of the city’s levers.

American history teaches us that one group in particular should be especially keen to seek redress to this imbalance.

So, where the hell are the Republicans in terms of the opposition?

---

Consider the notion of a mayor’s annual “State of the City” address to city council, as mimicking the tradition of the president’s State of the Union speech before Congress.

No, it isn’t a legal requirement, although I’m prepared to argue that it should be. In New Albany, even Doug England showed up and gave such an update to council once each year. Jeffersonville’s Mike Moore still does.

Unsurprisingly, this practice has been abandoned by Gahan, who during his own two underachieving terms as a council representative would have been the first to criticize a sitting mayor’s absence. Perhaps because irony is New Albany's default state, no one seems to take note of its constant presence.

Instead, Gahan in effect gave his State of the City testimony to the News and Tribune – which asked no probing questions and meekly rehashed the transcript, and that’s the real problem, seeing as each year when POTUS is finished speaking to Congress, the opposition party provides a response.

You know, a rebuttal. The other side of the policy divide. Alternatives to orthodoxy. Hope for the dissidents.

In New Albany, why is the humble blog of a pants-down independent social democrat relied upon to provide the rebuttal to a speech the DemoDisneyDixiecratic mayor refuses to give?

Shouldn’t a Republican be doing this, too?

After all, given the reality of America bound and gagged by a two-party duopoly, isn’t it the obligation of the opposing party to oppose? To provide the alternative? To show some semblance of a pulse?

Look, I’m not suggesting opposition for the sake of opposition. Obviously, there must be viable content, but if we’re to adhere to this idea that two political parties adequately represent competing political value systems, it would be instructive to hear the council’s three Republicans make THEIR ideological case, if only occasionally.

And what better time to educate the populace than amid the gaping communications void helpfully provided by the annual State of the City speech Gahan can’t bring himself to give?

All that’s really needed is a cell phone and a Republican willing to sit down in front of a flag and start talking about what just now DIDN’T happen – and what SHOULD be happening.

Of course, in an age of instantaneous worldwide communications, the city of New Albany can’t so much as bring itself to film or broadcast ANY of its meetings, an increasingly simple function that would do more to enhance transparency in a cost-effective way than any number of blog screeds or live council tweet fests.

Mayor and council; Democrats and Republicans. Annoyingly, they all seem to prefer non-transparency, and that’s a matter for further discussion and dissection in its own right. Until then, if public officials irrespective of party affiliation really believe in greater transparency, shouldn’t they be busting their asses to advocate for it?

Dear reader, you may or may not agree with the tone of my political pronouncements here at NA Confidential, but you simply cannot say I don’t doggedly pursue my deranged oppositionist beliefs with persistence and passion.

Accordingly, while recognizing the many solid actions in community service performed by Republicans, I’m having a hard time understanding why they aren't taking on (and talking) a more conspicuous role.

Well, at least they’ll still TALK to me. I'm a leftist, and whenever one of Adam's pretend Democrats sees me coming, they cross to the other side of the street.

And admittedly, I broadly grin ... the wankers.

---

Republicans within city limits, please take note.

It is 2018, and Gahan is handing you blessed daily material on the proverbial silver platter. Tradition be damned; the 2019 campaign has started. It began here at NAC in mid-November of 2015.

You need to be doing a monthly video (for now, at least), in which a Republican offers some semblance of an opposition viewpoint to Gahan’s megalomania.

You can take turns speaking; it doesn’t matter. If Gahan won’t give a State of the City address, a Republican needs to give it instead. I understand you’re considering a GOP platform for the 2019 election, and this is a fine and overdue idea. Bring it on. Remember, the marketplace of ideas is preferred by many, though abhorred by the likes of Gahan.

Full-court press him, damn it.

I don’t care how long Mark Seabrook’s family has lived in the city. It isn't his turn unless he chases the ball. Republicans cannot win in 2019 by dropping into a zone defense; Gahan will dribble near mid-court and run out the clock, prattling all the while about his nice shiny objects, and keeping the credit card bill hidden safely beneath the mattress.

Please consider joining the rest of us in the opposition by turning up the pressure. Gahan might pull off a few fast break layups, and yet as the incredibly revealing viral video yesterday proved so tellingly, when he’s pressed, he turns the ball over, again and again.

Verily, I foresee a path for a Democrat other than the incumbent to win the mayor's race in 2019; more about this at a later date. In the meantime, the enemy of my enemy is my bosom companion. It’s time to join the fray, urban Republicans.

As for NA Confidential, we’ll continue to work our selected street corner with style and panache.

That’s why we’re here, ya know.

---

Recent columns:

December 28: ON THE AVENUES: It's the beginning of the end of insipid Gahanism, so let's look back at the Top Ten columns of 2017.

December 21: ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2017 Remix).

December 14: ON THE AVENUES: My Franz Ferdinand heritage trail, 30 years ago in Sarajevo.

December 7: ON THE AVENUES: Say goodbye to all that, and expect the bayonet.

The blog Christmas truce in 2017 always was destined to end. Altogether now: #FireGahan2019.

Locally, those "primary challenges" will be coming in 2019 ... and I'm not talking about the GOP, folks.

The ‘Resistance,’ Raising Big Money, Upends Liberal Politics, by Kenneth P. Vogel (New York Times)

WASHINGTON — It started as a scrappy grass-roots protest movement against President Trump, but now the so-called resistance is attracting six- and seven-figure checks from major liberal donors, posing an insurgent challenge to some of the left’s most venerable institutions — and the Democratic Party itself.

The jockeying between groups, donors and operatives for cash and turf is occurring mostly behind the scenes. But it has grown acrimonious at times, with upstarts complaining they are being boxed out by a liberal establishment that they say enables the sort of Democratic timidity that paved the way for the Trump presidency.

The tug of war — more than the lingering squabbles between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — foreshadows a once-in-a-generation reorganization of the American left that could dictate the tactics and ideology of the Democratic Party for years to come. If the newcomers prevail, they could pull the party further to the left, leading it to embrace policy positions like those advocated by Mr. Sanders, including single-payer health care and free tuition at public colleges.

The upending of the left comes amid a broader realignment in American politics, with the Republican Party establishment also contending with a rising rebellion, driven by pro-Trump populists. Just as the new forces on the right are threatening primary challenges to establishment Republicans, some groups on the left have begun talking about targeting Democratic incumbents in the 2018 midterm elections.

Locally, the "resistance" by necessity is aimed at the mediocre but self-lubricating cult of personality ... and no, I'm still not talking about the GOP, folks.

Here's a refresher. It's going to take a while to cover all these anchors, but the first case of spray paint's on me.

Nikita Khrushchev the successor pilloried Joseph Stalin for his cult of personality. Ironically, the philosophical father of them both, Karl Marx, disdained the notion.

Cult of personality is a pejorative term implying the concentration of all power in a single charismatic leader within a totalitarian state and the near deification of that leader in state propaganda. Totalitarian regimes use the state-controlled mass media to cultivate a larger-than-life public image of the leader through unquestioning flattery and praise. Leaders are lauded for their extraordinary courage, knowledge, wisdom, or any other superhuman quality necessary for legitimating the totalitarian regime. The cult of personality serves to sustain such a regime in power, discourage open criticism, and justify whatever political twists and turns it may decide to take.

Many Americans will scoff, dismissing these examples as unique, arising from diseased ideals amid peculiar historical imperatives, and taking place in the lives of other people, elsewhere.

Unfortunately, cults of personality are American, too, and can exist in a democracy just as easily as in a totalitarian system of government. George Washington was resistant, and Huey Long obliging. No matter the locale, certain themes in a cult of personality are constant.

The political platform has no independent existence apart from the leader, and the political process is utterly dependent on the leader for guidance.

Manifestations of activity on the part of government also are promoted as inseparable from the leader’s benevolence, and while the leader may have utilized resources theoretically shared equally by his or her subjects, the results must always be portrayed as stemming from the wisdom of the leader.

Mistakes never occur, and when they do, they’re never, ever acknowledged even as minions pay the price.

The leader’s pre-eminence is reinforced by the constant repetition of mass marketing, including the leader’s name and image as attached to almost anything lacking the good sense to move out of the way.

Contemporary electronic media surely assists the cause of building a leader’s cult of personality, but it must be remembered that the Roman Catholic Church was adept at pursuing the same strategy for its papacy long before electricity and the outsourcing of Twitter feeds.

Adam polishes Jeffrey's personality cult, and yet Dickey's Floyd County Democratic Party still hasn't embraced Gahan's public housing putsch.

Adam Dickey's a chairman on fire.

Recently at the Facebook page of the Floyd County Democratic Party, he's touted the party's local savior Jeff Gahan on four occasions (displayed like dainty meat counter offal below).

And yet Adam keeps forgetting to openly praise his Dear Leader's public housing putsch package.

ON THE AVENUES: Using Deaf Gahan’s dullest razor, we race straight to the bottom of his hurried NAHA putsch launch.

The party's in favor, right? I mean, not a single elected Democrat has openly questioned the land grab, and surely this is a policy deriving from the chairman's iron grip?

If local Democrats can't honestly address Jeff Gahan's public housing putsch, how can they "resist" Trump?

With so many local Democratic "leaders" self-identifying as geniuses, we must conclude that their current consumptive hypocrisy is a choice, not an accident.

It's #OurNA, all right: "New Albany attempting to purge itself of the poor" ... so, are local Democrats finally catching on to the Gahan shell game?

Shouldn't Adam and his party apparatus just step up and be honest ... for once?

I'd gently remind them of the prevailing dissonance, but unfortunately, Adam still bans me from social media dialogue. Apparently he's no more interested in free speech than forthright public disclosures of socio-economic engineering.

Consequently, it's our job not to forget.

#TheResistance20152019

BREAKING: US Postal Service joins #TheResistance20152019, draws line in sand at the McDonald Lane roundabout.

Tonight's satire is presented by ... hubris.

But I still think she means "uniform," not uniformed.

Neighbors upset USPS will only deliver to one side of newly reconstructed street, by Katie Bauer (WAVE)

Residents on McDonald Lane in New Albany are upset because the post office will only deliver mail to one side of the street.

The nearly $6 million McDonald Lane project added numerous safety improvements, including uniformed mailboxes on both sides of streets.

Right now, only half of the mailboxes are being used because the United States Postal Service will only deliver to one side of the McDonald Lane ...

 ... The United States Postal Service said the delivery route on McDonald Lane has been in place for more than 40 years. A spokesperson said the route is an “established line of travel,” which is the most efficient and safest way with respect to the rest of the delivery route. USPS said this has been explained at a previous city meeting.

What, is Gahan annexing the Arts Council, too? Schweitzer out as Executive Director.

So help me, if Dugout Duggins becomes head of the Arts Council, it's time to start mixing those Molotov cocktails.

The Arts Council of Southern Indiana would like to update you on some recent developments here at the Council. Our organization is making some changes and entering into an exciting period of growth. We will be sharing more details in the coming months, but we are excited about expanding our reach to surrounding counties, updating our facilities and fostering new partnerships.

Along with any organizational growth comes change. To ensure our mission and vision continue to evolve, we are making some leadership changes at ACSI.

Effective immediately, Julie Schweitzer will be leaving the organization. We appreciate her contributions to the Council as Executive Director over the past several years and her support of our mission in Southern Indiana. We wish Julie well in her future endeavors.

Over the course of the next several weeks, the ACSI Board of Directors will begin our search for a new individual to lead the Council into our next chapter of exciting growth and opportunity. In the interim, we will continue to operate uninterrupted and have identified an interim staff to support the organization.

Thanks again for all your support and look forward to the exciting future.

ON THE AVENUES: Dear Mr. Dizznee: Can you hear me now?

ON THE AVENUES: Dear Mr. Dizznee: Can you hear me now?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

---

27 April 2017

Dear Adam,

We haven’t had a genuine heart-to-heart chat for a long time.

What’s that?

Okay, okay. Actually we’ve never had one, and maybe the crazy dream I had last night helps to explain why.

You were right there in the dream, all buttoned down and ambitious like usual, accessing your devices. Your hair wasn’t short like it is now. It was long and unruly like Ludwig van Beethoven’s, and I kept making interpretive gestures with my hands because I figured you couldn’t hear me.

Of course, you can’t hear me, but it’s nothing to do with your hair, and the world’s best hearing aids probably wouldn’t.

Except maybe I’m thinking of Deaf Gahan instead.

In the dream, you approached me and began describing the importance of an upcoming Democratic Party meeting. Seeing as I’m invariably polite and well-mannered, I didn’t bother waiting until you were finished to make an incisive comment.

“You realize that I don’t like you very much at all.”

Not a beat was skipped.

“And I don’t like you much, either.”

There was a pervasive and refreshing feeling, not unlike air freshener. It was as though I’d been cleansed, but before I could walk toward the pulsating Bud Light over yonder, consciousness returned. With it came the feeling I get most mournings, that of being stuck inside of Nawbany with the Bamberg blues again.

Make no mistake, Adam. This wasn’t a nightmare, just a documentary film in my head. It provides a mature basis for the future of our relationship. Consequently, perhaps it’s time for us to review my banishment from the Floyd County Democratic Party’s social media feeds.

C'mon, you miss me -- don’t you?

It’s been three years since you lubed the muzzle and convicted me in absentia of violating double secret protocols. Let’s put it behind us. Today I’m asking that you restore these inelegantly severed communications immediately, prior to the 2019 primary, when I’ll likely be running as a Democrat(ic Socialist).

And those things people say about you not sticking to a party chairman’s impartiality during primary season? They’re just jealous of your unctuousness.

As a side note, does anyone know how much Bernie charges for campaign appearances?

The Bored of Works might temporarily close Spring Street, with the rally at 11th, so close to my councilman’s house that he’d still escape cognitive dissonance via his back door, and into the alley.

Everything’s on the table, you know.

---

Seriously, your being seen as a vindictive and punitive censor in this scenario might further damage the party – and it’s already taking on serious seawater at precisely the time when you might be leading the principled opposition to Trumpolini.

Except that it’s complicated, isn’t it? Just because we’re not close at all doesn’t mean the sickening irony’s not out to get you, so if you please, allow me to ice down my stiletto and carve the turkey.

Even the elderly heating and air guy who calls the your shots for you knows deep down that the party is in a perilous position. Gahan’s unforced errors are mounting, and Dear Leader’s well along his inevitable transition to millstone-like liability.

Deaf’s vote share fell 12% in 2015, and now he’s breathlessly alienating the ever slimmer 4% standing between a glorious third term and an ignominious loss to Mark Seabrook, Al Knable, or the ghost of Thomas Dewey.

Sorry to say it, Adam, but Advanced Disney Appreciation didn’t really prepare you for the current reality, did it?

You’re selflessly toiling out on the street, trashing Trumpism and preparing for your own quixotic anti-Clere house quest, while over on the other side of town, your local superdupermayoralstar is busy cementing his reputation as the Eastwick Drive version of Daddy Trumpbucks, albeit it with half the money – but give Gahan enough paving projects and the funding gap is sure to narrow.

The hypocrisy keeps getting deeper, the metaphorical sewage is rising, and pretty soon coffee break will be over, and it’ll be back to standing on your head, counting the recent catastrophes.

The Lorch city council attorney beheading?

Ridiculously botched.

The Summit Springs capitulation and appeasement?

It’s an object of widespread and unremitting public derision and loathing.

A sewer rate increase?

About as helpful as the cup of decaf coffee mentioned above.

One by one, the voters of the 4% are dripping down your rusty commode’s edge – and this was before Gahan’s decision to split his own party with an inept “Make Public Housing Great Again” campaign, thus fully Trumping the Donald.

Were you the one advising him to come out of the bunker and pretend to pretend leading for once? It must have terrified you when those veteran Democrats – a Bill Cochran award winner among them – finally stopped chugging the Kool-Aid and started asking unanswerable questions.

(By the way, I’ll give you credit for the way you helped Gahan pack the New Albany Housing Authority’s board with scentless sycophants. It was startlingly artistic in a Nixonian throwback sort of way, and akin to a date rape drug for former veneer salesmen.)

However, the rebellion of the Democratic elders isn’t what I noticed during the roll-out of the public housing putsch. Rather, it was the revulsion of ordinary New Albanians, as accompanied by the clueless silence of the Gahan Youth.

And Adam, about your farm system … oy vey.

There are plenty of banjo hitters and 150-lb offensive lineman, but not very much  in the way of star quality. Who’s going to replace Bob Caesar some sweet day when he takes his talents to West Palm Beach (or Holiday World)?

Never mind. I’ll just call the animal shelter myself to see which mutts are up for adoption.

It wasn’t that your prospective big leaguers were averting their eyes from the horror. It’s that they didn’t even grasp it, and had no idea that the bilge spewing from Gahan in their own backyard contradicted so much of their party's platform and history.

Did you so much as try to use it as a teaching moment, or is the cancer too far along? Concurrently, the single best statement of principle during Gahan’s war on the working poor came from a young New Albanian by the name of Nick Vaughn.

He’s not one of yours, is he?

Ye Gods, chairman: When it's the Republicans talking sense about poverty while a Democrat dances a jig atop the bleached bones of affordable housing, there's not enough whiskey in Bardstown to help get you through the night.

I could go on and on, and likely will.

In the interim, just one last question.

How’s that non-transparent authoritarian censorship mode been working for you these past few election cycles?

Sweet dreams, Beethoven.

“Ode to Joy” may not be coming to Floyd County Democratic Party playlists any time soon, although there is so very much entertainment to be gained from comic opera.

Your friend,

The Rajah

---

Recent columns:

April 20: ON THE AVENUES: The Weekly Wad? It was a modest start.

April 13: ON THE AVENUES: Ain't it funny how we all seem to look the same?

April 6: ON THE AVENUES: On swill and tornadoes, circa '75.

March 30: ON THE AVENUES: Our great and noble leader is here to stay, so let's break out the țuică and make a joyful noise.

"Here’s the good news: All this makes Donald Trump incredibly vulnerable."

The missus and I were chatting over dinner, and I was describing Mayor Gahan's forthcoming crusade to dismantle public housing in New Albany, which he's doing first by starving the NAHA board, then packing it with sycophants like the ubiquitous and unprincipled flatterer Bob Norwood, and using the new comprehensive plan to disseminate artlessly contrived lies about a non-existent citizen mandate to remove the public housing component -- all because poor people don't vote often enough, or they get in the way of all that luxury, and therefore they gravely offend Dear Leader's pasty white suburban propriety (probably back in middle school a girlfriend got stolen away from Gahan by an immigrant, or some such characteristically New Albanian small-pond memory) -- and the two of us simultaneously reached precisely the same conclusion.

You simply can't convince us that Gahan didn't vote for Donald Trump, in the company of a good many other City Hall stalwarts prone to pretending they're Democrats. Consequently, as I post these reminders of ways to resist Trump, surely you understand my real point, don't you?

Trump’s Crony Cabinet May Look Strong, but They Are Scared, by Naomi Klein (The Nation)

From climate justice to the Fight for $15, movements had CEOs on the ropes—and we can still beat them.

Let’s zoom out and recognize what is happening in Washington right now. The people who already possess an absolutely obscene share of the planet’s wealth, and whose share grows greater year after year—at last count, eight men own as much as half the world—are determined to grab still more. The key figures populating Donald Trump’s cabinet are not only ultra-rich—they are individuals who made their money knowingly causing harm to the most vulnerable people on this planet, and to the planet itself. It appears to be some sort of job requirement ...

... Stolen homes. Stolen wages. Stolen cultures and countries. All immoral. All extremely profitable. But the popular backlash was mounting. Which is precisely why this gang of CEOs—and the sectors they come from—were rightly worried that the party coming to end. They were scared ...

... So now they are cutting out the middleman and doing what every top dog does when they want something done right—they are doing it themselves ... So what do we do about it? First, we always remember their weaknesses, even as they exercise raw power. The reason the mask has fallen off, and we now are witnessing undisguised corporate rule is not because these corporations felt all-powerful; it’s because they were panicked.

ON THE AVENUES: I can only handle one resistance at a time, please.

ON THE AVENUES: I can only handle one resistance at a time, please.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

In polite New Albanian society, of the sort currently extinct, one must be eternally cognizant of protocol, so kindly excuse this brief thank you note.

---

Dear Friend,

Thanks for your invitation to join the anti-Trump opposition movement, as advertised daily by your posts on social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.

Your feelings are very much appreciated, although I must remind you that my personal antipathy to The Donald, and my disgust with just about everything he stands for, extends all the way back to the year 1988, if not earlier. I’m very proud of my credentials in this respect.

I respectfully note that while there are ample reasons to be disturbed by Trump and Trumpism, there are just as many doubts to be harbored about the presumed movement against him, which is characterized by some as “resistance,” though relying solely on an inchoate Democratic Party for leadership, augmented by frequent derogatory memes on Facebook, might prove in the end to be (shall we say) inadequate and perhaps even feeble as it pertains to direct action.

For this reason, seeing as the “resistance” to Trumpism as currently constituted (or not) is under an explicit obligation to identify itself, what it stands for and why, I eagerly await clarity about these parameters. Let me see what you’ve got, and then we can talk.

Until then, I’ll continue protesting the ongoing Gahanization of New Albany, which is the threatening kakistocracy closest to my front door. I’m older now, so please, one resistance at a time -- and get off my porch.

Your humble servant,

R

---

You never know who you’ll bump into deep in the heart of Luxury-R-Us, Jeff Gahan’s selectively scrubbed and branded downtown Nawbany, soon to be rid of affordable housing because Gahan cannot grasp who actually works in those State Street fast food joints he belchingly frequents.

It was a weird, rainy January day, and the Green Mouse was elegantly ensconced at a picnic table by City Square, under the ritzy big top, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. Something was bothering me, and if anyone might know the answer, it was him, so I asked.

“Say, have you seen any Democrats around lately?”

His expression was pained. After furtive glances in both directions, he growled.

“Democrats? You mean around here, out on the street, in full view? In New Albany?

“Yes.”

“You’re not from here, are you? That’s crazy talk. They barely show their faces when life’s normal.”

Together we watched as a Kentuckian ran the red light at Bank and Market. I persisted.

“But seriously, shouldn’t there be a local Democrat visible somewhere right about now? You know, a battlefield promotion -- someone to step forward and lead the troops after the platoon leaders all got mowed down by the Trump tsunami?”

The Green Mouse suddenly dissolved into mirth. He was laughing so hard that I feared for the health of the municipal-issue picnic table.

“A local Democrat do that, right here in New Albany? I never took you for a drug user.”

“It’s theoretically possible, isn’t it?”

“Right. It’s also theoretically possible that this gorgeous monument to shifting consumer dollars toward farmers residing far outside the city limits was built with no campaign finance kickbacks. It’s theoretically possible that Breakwind will accept a Section 8 voucher. It’s theoretically possible that Gahan’s human, and not a hologram.”

Well, I'm nothing if not stubborn.

“Okay, but shouldn’t someone be formulating the political game plan for coping with the Mighty Trumpolini?

“Duh -- of course someone should, but first you need to stop asking these stupid questions, as though you’ve forgotten who and where we are. Most of the Democrats in New Albany voted for Trump. The ones who didn’t are sitting obediently, like always, waiting for the Boy Wonder to tell them when to use the toilet.”

“But why would they do that? Adam Dickey’s lost more seats than any Democratic chairman in history.”

The Green Mouse nodded sagely.

“Funny as hell, isn’t it? Fact is, he’s out there with the rest of the chickens, their torsos rocking the gavotte while their severed heads are stacked like cordwood over by the storm water drain. He’s waiting for the Indiana Democrats to tell HIM what to do, and the Indiana Democrats are busy slicing their wrists and falling out of windows – first floor windows, but give ‘em an A for multiculturalism, seeing as defenestration’s not really a Hoosier concept.”

“I don’t understand.”

The Green Mouse’s butt landed in his empty coffee cup.

“They don’t, either. Local Democrats are exactly like that stupid meme, repeating the same action over and over, hoping it might turn out differently next time. Me, I’m flummoxed that Gahan hasn’t annexed the party outright – just call it the Anchor Party, and then he can get on with putting framed photos of himself on every mantle in every house, and also up by the flat screen at all the bars, just like back in the USSR. Boy, those were the days.”

A Tiger Truck rolled past. I spat, and the Green Mouse smiled.

“I almost forgot the latest gossip about our favorite greasy party chairman. Seems our kid wants to take on Ed Clere for House in 2018.”

“Huh? Adam the back-alley gray eminence, actually running in an election with real humans voting?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s like a surgeon operating on himself in the smoldering ruins of a train wreck, with no booze for anesthesia. Dickey had better hope his hands are steadier standing for office than they are driving the bus for others.”

“Could he really beat Clere?”

The Green Mouse just chuckled.

"Maybe he'll run against the ghost of Grooms instead. Then we’ll finally reach peak entertainment, a redevelopment commission Hamlet for the flood plain.”

We watched as David Duggins skulked into Quills for his daily latte.

“Shouldn’t he be at a Motel 6 somewhere in Sellersburg with his favorite inflatable TIF doll?”

---

A rant has been building, and I might as well let it out, so just know this.

If you intend to “resist” Trumpism by doubling down on behalf of the Democratic Party as it currently exists and operates on a daily basis right here in the real world, as opposed to Disney World, then you’re in for yet another apocalyptic shock, because the party requires gutting down to the foundations, and probably beyond.

Speaking personally, I don’t care. Both major parties can go to hell, and the Democrats might as well go first. If the Democratic Party disappears, perhaps something better can be built in its place. How can it be worse?

Our gutless right-wing local version of pretend-Democrats is on life support, and the chairman’s delusional cluelessness seems to have become institutionalized. The humane thing to do would be to euthanize the party, and start all over again.

It’s also time to consider a point that almost none of us are prepared for, including me. This is the element of risk sustained by the resistance during the course of the opposition.

Or, if you will, an occupation.

If you’ve studied history at all, you know that when the going gets tough, the majority usually remains seated atop its collective hands. Meanwhile, the minority resolving to openly act finds that standing up for what they believe requires some skin in the game.

It’s risky, and isn't always pretty, either. Demonstrators are beaten and jailed. Dissidents are harassed and lose their jobs. Neo-Nazis attack people in the street, and Soviets ship them off to the gulag. It’s precisely the sort of retaliation that blacks, union members and Native American pipeline opponents experience as a matter of course, although whites like me tend to think that we’re exempted – because “law.”

Yeah, right.

I’m guessing that precious few Americans have a clue about how painful this “resistance” might become. We’ve taken for granted inalienable rights and freedoms, and when these pipe dreams actually have existed outside our idealized and addled imaginations (again, mostly white), they have been gained through direct action -- agitation, peaceful protest, civil disobedience and at times, regrettably, bloody violence.

That’s history, plain and simple, and a better appreciation of history would at least be helpful, although you may or may not discover the most relevant bits on your iPhone.

Finally, it won’t be enough for the left-of-center resistance to be solely predicated on identity politics and social justice issues of the precise sort that Mayor Gahan routinely and insincerely barters to local Democrats who are sufficiently gullible to accept toothless Potemkin human rights lean-tos in exchange for looking the other way as Gahan’s increasingly self-serving and megalomaniacal “luxury” expenditures exit the rails.

Up and down the line, Democrats have fiddled past the carnage of neoliberal economic orthodoxy for far too long, and it helped bring us to this lamentably idiocratic juncture. Understand that what’s coming over the horizon is very much about economics, too. Capitalism didn’t “win,” and all those –ism frictions have never left us, although we may have left them.

Earlier today, I remarked to friends that there’s nothing like a room filled with annoyed citizens to produce remarkable levels of concentration on the part of local elected officials. Everything changes when humans act together, in concert, as opposed to separately, isolated from each other. I'm a cynic, but I haven't abandoned hope.

Resistance?

I’m trying my best here in Anchor Flats. If there is any time left over, I’ll help you with Trump.

Deal?

---

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