The Torture Never Stops.

Let's see if I have this straight.

It took laborious behind-the-scenes lobbying to convince New Albany's city council Democrats to approve a toothless face covering/mask resolution, an eloquent statement of abdication. This done, a committee of customary suspects was appointed to consider a "heavier" ordinance, and all involved -- including the mayor, who'd also done precisely zilch -- breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing  of substance had occurred, and responsibility was deferred.

(As an aside, now I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, they'll return to the ordinance idea. They might.)

But, still: The score begins Nothing 1, Something 0.

Then, after President Trump emerged from his Twitter war room in a state of consciousness suitable to tepidly support the wearing of face coverings/masks, Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, decreed a statewide mandate for Indiana, to begin a week after his announcement, this delay coming because -- well, there's all the time in the world, I suppose.

Nothing 1, Something 0, but with a runner on base.

Then, after standing by for weeks, Dr. Thomas Harris read the governor's proclamation and belatedly discovered the effectiveness of face coverings/masks, issuing his own Floyd County Health Department writ mandating masks to take effect three days in advance of Holcomb's order.

Nothing 1, Something 0, but with another runner on base.

Today, Holcomb signed an executive order mandating face coverings/masks, but without any semblance of an enforcement mechanism. Subsequently it was revealed that Harris's order also is absent any teeth, and what the hell, it didn't matter anyway, because both the sheriff (Frank Loop, R) and the police chief (Todd Bailey, D) -- in agreement for the first time in living memory -- conceded their shared disinterest in enforcing ANY such law.

Let's see -- double play, then a runner picked off; Nothing comes to bat and blasts home runs on two straight pitches.

Nothing 3, Something 0. Game over. Pandemic very much NOT over.

I ask, again: if politicians are not going to muster the simple courage demanded of them by their oaths, and expend the necessary political capital to help the populace stay safe DURING A PANDEMIC, then when, exactly, do they feel that the proper time might actually be?

This is why I detest the two-party system with every last fiber of my being.

Our elected officials from both parties have combined to incessantly politicize public health during this crisis, and to hand us a document written in invisible ink. But I must say in utter candor that the GOP, in charge of "governing" throughout the state, bears more of the sad burden of ignominy.

Let's call the non-outcome Triple Secret Probation.

Better yet, why not refer to it as a DEAD LETTER. 

After all, their combined non-efforts will lead to Hoosiers ... that's right, dying.

(for the next few days, I'll be titling my posts after songs. That should confuse them even more)

Local Democrats won't fix the party because Adam and Jeff are delighted to FIX the party.

The ruling family in characteristically posh luxury.

I gotta hand it to the Exalted Chairman of the (still kinda sorta) Local Ruling Party.

Whenever I need the perfect photo to enhance the point of his flock's escalating irrelevance, he always has one posted right there at the top of the feed, as when local DemoDisneyDixiecrats gathered last week to celebrate the legacy of slave-owning presidents.

Occasionally amid pockets of enlightenment, these "traditions" are modified.

Jefferson-Jackson Dinner Will Be Renamed, by Ashley Southall (NYT; 8 Aug 2015)

An Iowa Democratic Party panel voted on Saturday to change the name of the popular Jefferson-Jackson dinner, joining several state parties in distancing itself from the legacies of the two former slave-owning presidents for whom the dinner is named. (from Democrats in general have lost the ability (and the inclination) to reach out to the entire population.)

However, not in New Gahania, where introspection is as common as streetside stump grindings.

Dear Leader doesn't reflect. He doubles down, and then Adam happily trots down to the laundry with a another basket of soiled jockstraps.

Can Democrats Fix the Party? by Tim Dickinson (Rolling Stone)

Trump's victory exposed the party establishment as utterly broken – now Dems hope to rebuild in time for a 2018 comeback

 ... Under Obama, the party infrastructure was honed to elect a president. And being a presidential party is a powerful thing – until you lose the White House. The Clinton campaign lost significantly on its own merits, though the party is loath to admit it. The same candidate who was caught flat-footed by the rise of Obama in 2008 found herself stunned by the grassroots surge behind Sen. Bernie Sanders. "And she was really surprised by how strong Trump was – and part of it was she just sucked," says the Democratic strategist, who criticizes Clinton despite being entrenched in her center-left, pro-trade wing of the party. "At a really fundamental level we gotta get people to acknowledge what a fucking piece of shit her campaign was, because Donald Trump should not have won this election."

The strategist adds, "Yes, Comey happened. And yes, the Russians happened. But she had more money than God, and they spent all of it trashing him and not actually rebutting his ideological agenda." By transforming the election into a referendum on character, Team Clinton let Trump off the hook as the frontman for the extremist GOP platform. "The country's waking up shocked to what he's doing because Hillary didn't actually explain to anybody what he was going to do when he became president," the strategist says. "We focused on him groping people – and not on him saying he was going to end our alliance with Europe or he was going to strip health care. It was an amazing failure of our politics to make our case."

Please, sir, might you consider ... shoveling ...

... your effing walk.

Therein lies a rant. Of course, shoveling snow isn't a consideration this morning, although I'm so impossibly old that I can remember being warned four days ago to expect eight inches of it, followed by the Killer Kold, presumably preceded by flash floods and the stray winter locust infestation.

Think of all the jobs on the planet, and consider how often weather forecasters are wrong as they fear-monger for fun and profit. Consider how long you'd last in your job with the same abysmal rate of failure. The weather forecasting profession has long since digressed into realm of late night television sketch comedy; you know, when the weatherman calls the supermarket and says "line up the milk and bread, boys -- I'm gonna spin the wheel and scare the bejesus out of the morons tonight. Just send my commission check to the same Swiss bank account."

Shakespeare's oft-quoted line, ''The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" turns out to have been inaccurate. There were no weather forecasters in the playwright's time. He couldn't possibly have known to get it right.

Shovel Your Fucking Walk, by John Cook (Gawker)

Good morning. Is there snow on the sidewalk in front of your residence or place of business right now? Shovel it.

Oh, I'm sorry—you don't own your apartment? You just rent, from a landlord, whom you believe to be responsible for shoveling the walk? Good point. Has he shoveled it yet? No? OK, then shovel your fucking walk. You're right, he should totally have shoveled it. But he didn't. So now you have to.

REWIND: Take my city – please? (2010)

A group of New Albany business owners were discussing the uncanny tendency of councilmen Dan Coffey and Steve Price to vote against proposals that stand to improve the very neighborhoods they represent, and the eternally bizarre way their constituents reward them for warding off the threat of progress. One person said, "It's because they're invested in failure, not success." That's very, very true. A culture of losing perpetuates losing, and dire predictions must prove to be dire, lest Nostraccino be proven false. The following was published in the pre-OSIN Tribune on February 25, 2010.

---

BEER MONEY: Take my city – please?

By ROGER BAYLOR, Local Columnist

The English language is rich in words that convey varied shades of meaning. For instance, consider the notion of defeatism.

According to Merriam-Webster, it means “an attitude of accepting, expecting, or being resigned to defeat,” and dates to the end of World War One. During wartime, defeatism might doom any entity, whether an individual or a nation, to collapse at the hands of the enemy. What if defeatism were to extend beyond resignation, to the point where defeatists actually begin collaborating?

We might refer to collaborators as traitors, a term personified in American history by the person of Benedict Arnold, a homespun turncoat now synonymous with villainy and treason. Back in Europe, the era of the Second World War spawned two floridly suggestive terms in a similar vein.

One is “fifth column,” defined as “a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group, such as a nation from within, to the aid of an external enemy” (Wikipedia). The other, which also suggests equal elements of active participation in bringing about defeat, and eager cooperation with a victorious enemy, is “Quisling.”

Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian military officer and fascist politician, took the opportunity of Nazi Germany’s 1940 invasion to subvert resistance, and with Norway’s fate sealed, to form a government in concert with the occupiers. In reality, Quisling was a mere puppet with almost no power beyond that exercised by foreign military might through a credo of violence.

Whether confronting a defeatist, Benedict Arnold, traitor, collaborator, turncoat, fifth columnist, villain, puppet or Quisling, the amateur psychologist in all of us is tempted to explore inner psychological motives when asking, “Why?”

There isn’t a single answer. The other side offered a better deal, and the slighted Benedict jumped. Many residents of Berlin, subjected to horrific daily bombing raids, concluded that the war was lost, and sought to end it sooner rather than later. At least some Norwegians held the same views as Quisling, and saw him as a savior.

However, I believe that each of these words in its own nuanced and distinctive way incorporates an element of willfully surrendered autonomy, dignity or freedom of choice to a force outside one’s control. Undoubtedly, in each case, an obligation is severed, ties that bind shattered, and faith broken. Yes, treason may be the only way out, in the sense of preserving one’s life.

But what kind of life is that?

---

Recently I was skimming the local blogosphere and reading an angry discussion of sewers, rates, bonds and various suggestions that are anatomically incorrect. Interestingly, one anonymous commentator counseled surrender.

“If you can possibly comprehend such an idea as most New Albanians have, we WANT the Bondholders to come after us; we WANT the State to step in; WE WANT the EPA to stop our nightmare. We'll take one or all three; simply show citizens where and what and why about our money! It is not we want New Albany to fail; we want an end to corruption in NA -- or at least what MOST FEEL is corruption.”

Seeing as I’m not hooked on a feeling, I disagree.

If we as citizens and elected representatives of this city fail to face our legal obligations with regard to bondholders by financing and maintaining the sewer utility, we will default, and our affairs inevitably will be run by higher authorities.

Once engaged, these authorities will not be interested in show trials stemming from “feelings” of corruption, or revenge for past slights, or our various daily pleas of stupidity, poverty and degradation, which we routinely cite as reasons for not facing our municipal problems, as though we as a community are whimpering mutts groveling lest another round of beatings commences.

In fact, should this day of capitulation come, our civic autonomy will be severely curtailed, and for a long, long time. We’ll not be leaving our rooms for supper until the mess is tidied.

Amazingly, others among us believe that the best way of coping with the sewer utility’s financial crisis is to take every last cent of the city’s economic development money, both now and for decades into the future, and use it as a subsidy for today’s rates. My 3rd district councilman, Steve Price, suggested exactly this approach, aloud, last week.

That’s penny- AND pound-foolish. I trust that most rational people can see the unmitigated folly in using future development resources to avoid paying what it actually costs to flush our toilets now, and will be puzzled at how anyone would suggest crippling his own habitat.

That’s because it makes sense only as culture war. The Price Plan would have the effect of “protecting” today’s low-income, fixed-income residents by ensuring that they remain precisely where they are, forever, by striking a blow to any hope of future economic progress, which at long last will ensure that all New Albanians exist at the same egalitarian level of impoverishment.

Price enjoys using the word “Communist” to describe anything he disagrees with, including me, but I submit that his plan to gut the city’s economic future, taken in concert with the idea that outside control of the city is a better idea than self-rule, combine to create just as communistic a system as I ever witnessed in Eastern European countries during the Cold War.

Outside entities would govern us, society would be leveled, and a small group of ideological (as opposed to fiscal) elites would call the local shots.

Is Price’s regressive “vision” yours, too?

One fine flush in the open air museum.