Sunday Fact Fest, Episode 04: Robin's right. Some Louisville (and SoIN) restaurants are not taking the COVID-19 pandemic as seriously as they should."

The link:

Robin Garr’s Taj Palace review at LEO: Great food and pandemic precautions, by me at Food & Dining Magazine.

My Saturday morning post at Food & Dining Magazine came about because Robin Garr did something that writers should strive always to do. His words at LEO Weekly stood me up, slapped me down, and said to me what needed to be said.

Restaurant and bar owners who aren't tasking the pandemic seriously are helping to put others at risk.

The majority of media mavens covering the restaurant and bar industry aren't holding them accountable, including me. Maybe it's time for this to change; I'm not sure it even matters given the culture of abject denial hereabouts, but what I know is that denial can only make it worse. What I can do about it as just one person isn't yet clear to me. In the meantime, it makes me even more grateful to work for people who GET IT.

My words:

 ... Billy Joel was right; honesty is such a lonely word, inside or outside “the business.” Speaking as one who owned a restaurant and brewery for 25 years, your peers function as a professional family. We stay together, and we take care of our own. There are times when some of one’s brothers and sisters err, and the understandable instinct is to keep it in the family. I’ve done so in the past, and on some occasions, I’ve come to regret it. Telling the truth might have forestalled subsequent, larger problems for everyone.

Little white lies, fudging, averting the gaze, looking the other way? They’re incompatible with the duties of journalists, analysts and reviewers, for whom credibility is dependent on being truthful. It doesn’t mean click bait, cultivating confrontation or trolling, although there might be occasional heated discussions with the folks who sell advertising.

That’s where experience comes to the fore; been there, seen that, able to synthesize information, and capable of saying what needs to be said – factually, sans hyperbole. It’s neither calling out, nor cancel culture. It’s very much about rewarding the positive performers, not the negative deniers.

I’ll shut up now. Kudos to Taj Palace, a restaurant I’ve yet to patronize but intend to visit soon for carryout, now that Robin has explained to me exactly what I need to know: “Taj Palace takes tasty Indian fare and pandemic safety seriously.”

Robin's words:

There’s no way to put this but bluntly: I don’t think some Louisville restaurants are taking the COVID-19 pandemic as seriously as they should. Why the worry?

You probably saw the news item about 11 Louisville businesses that got inspection blasts from Metro Public Health & Wellness over the Fourth of July weekend for failing to follow COVID-19 safety guidelines.

This matters: When I’m deciding where to dine during this pandemic, I want to have confidence that the restaurant’s management doesn’t slack off on health and safety.

Got conscience? In terms of Gahan, Barksdale and the Reisz Elephant, the wants of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

I was going to hold this until morning ... nah. I try to write well, and spend a lot of time on it, but tonight let's charge into it. Straight through, correct whatever mistakes I see with bleary eyes, and keep moving.

No one doubts that the current 3rd-floor City Hall struggles mightily with cramped and ancient office space in the decades-old city county building.

But have you ever heard a Gahan appointee admit error, even once?

To listen to Team Gahan relentlessly extol its own virtues, these past six and a half years have been a golden era of immaculate perfection.

As such, how can it be said that work space deficiencies have prevented Wile E. Gahan from effortlessly leaping from victory to victory?

We know better, of course, and it's just one of numerous circular arguments being deployed by the sycophants on behalf of a project of unfettered self-aggrandizement so brazen that there's really no parallel in the city's previous history.

With hard times all around, Jeff Gahan and David Barksdale are getting THEIRS, and they'e intent on getting it right now.

Maybe this is why the $10,000,000 Reisz luxury city hall plan is Peak Gahanism.

At a time when greater numbers of the city's residents than ever before are in need of assistance, Gahan's answer is to spend millions on himself. It's about the wants of the few versus the needs of the many, and displays hubris of such a high caliber that Donald Trump seems a meek and modest librarian by comparison.

Yet four Democrats and one Republican oblivious to daily life in this city somehow believe the best way to spend $10,000,000 million is on government's needs -- and meanwhile, Gahan continues to crow and strut about his masterpiece plan to displace public housing residents. He hasn't had the basic cojones to move forward with rental property inspections, and yet somehow, magically, voucher-ready apartments will soon be fruitfully multiplying.

Gahan ignores the consternation he's caused by annexing public housing. He can't bring himself to concede the existence of an affordable housing problem, or a homelessness problem, or a drug problem. In fact, he recoils from the very mention of human existence on his watch.

But a new city hall in a historically marginal warehouse? We definitely need to spend $10,000,000 on THAT.

As a longtime historic preservationist, Barksdale's probably incapable of a rational vote on this issue -- if he were being honest, he shouldn't vote at all -- but it's the four Democrats who amaze.

They pretend to adhere to a party platform that emphasizes fealty and commitment to the working man, but they see no contradictions in public housing demolitions accompanied by luxury government office boondoggles.

Not one of them grasps how the Reisz Elephant appears to the man and woman in the street, or can fathom that political behavior like theirs is what has put local Democrats in a position of sheer desperation with regard to holding power.

How is it that Democrats rationalize $10,000,000 for plush new offices when their constituents are suffering? Maybe grabbing as much as possible before the tsunami sweeps them into the gutter?

It defies logic. Unfortunately, it doesn't defy political patronage and blind loyalty to the Godfather -- and the money pours into Gahan's campaign coffers.

Readers, do me a small favor and remember this next year come election time. We'll have one, maybe two chances to restore values and integrity to city government. We simply cannot abide four more years of Democratic misrule -- and no, I don't prefer Republican.

Nine principled female independents on city council, maybe?

(Psst -- it's not about the flag or the military, and it never has been.)

I'm often reminded of Thomas Jefferson's words:

"Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

To avoid misinformed confusion, readers old enough to remember the Vietnam War era will recall Tricky Dicky Nixon's law-and-order platform, as a blunt missile aimed squarely against "anti-American" war protesters (attacking the flag and our soldiers overseas) and African-Americans (being all uppity about rights and freedoms).

A space alien (or Mr. Spock) might ask: But was the overseas war just, and did the civil rights protesters have a point?

If you're saying to yourself, well, I never protest, and when I do it is done tastefully, so as to be inoffensive to others ... you just might be revealing yourself as a privileged societal cog unable to fathom injustice.

Would you have participated in the American Revolution?

If so, on which side?

You see, etiquette typically goes out the window when TJ's tipping point occurs, as it did in America in 1776, or in Russia in 1917.

Of course, the plain fact is that NFL protests have been breathtakingly sober and polite. If you're upset about free speech and conscience, but not troubled by the mangled brains of players who perform so you can remain safely inside your bubble, there isn't much more anyone can say except "dude, I'm so very sorry for you."

It’s Not About the Flag or the Military. It Never Has Been.

When athletes protest during the national anthem, they are acting on behalf of people who can’t speak as loudly.

By Andrew Cohen (Brennan Center for Justice)

President Trump’s weekend attack on athletes exercising their constitutional right to protest followed the longtime model used by police unions. Instead of acknowledging the legitimacy of the complaint that there is discrimination and misconduct in policing — Trump, like the unions, changed the subject, lashing out at the athletes as unpatriotic, even anti-American. The protests were mischaracterized as attacks on the flag, the anthem, the military, or the nation itself. As if it were ordained somewhere that one must stand, as opposed to kneel, for the anthem.

This is nonsense, of course. There is nothing more American than protesting injustice when it is manifest, nothing more patriotic than speaking for those who do not have a voice or whose voices are rarely heard. When people protest police misconduct, and racial disparities in our criminal justice systems, they are acting to improve the conditions of their fellow Americans, acting to force necessary reform on people (like Trump) and institutions (like police unions) that resist this change. This is “anti-American” or unpatriotic only if you believe the protections of the First Amendment are overrated or unnecessary. And only if you believe it’s unpatriotic to want to make America more just ...

Colin Kaepernick and the NFL, a league "more comfortable with concussions than someone having a conscience.”

From just about the only sportswriter in America who really matters ...

"Dave Zirin is sports editor of the Nation and author of eight books on the politics of sports. He is working with Seattle Seahawk Michael Bennett on Bennett’s autobiography."

 ... on the NFL's latest public relations nightmare.

When it comes to conscience, specifics and circumstances may vary, although non-conformists of many sorts in this purportedly "free" country can easily imagine themselves wearing Kaepernick's cleats.

As an atheist, permit me to inform you that it happens all the time. In my reckoning, any time it's the occasion for all of us to perform the same rote act (pray publicly, declare allegiance to the flag) all at once, then it's time to consider dissenting.

For a very long time, I've always stood for the national anthem and pledge of allegiance in honor of my father, a World War II veteran of the Marines. However, I've refused to recite the pledge of allegiance aloud, because the words "under God" simply have no place in it and should be removed.

Now Colin Kaepernick has me rethinking this position, primarily because he's right.

Maybe I need to dissent a little harder from this point forward.

Op-Ed The NFL wants you to think Colin Kaepernick isn't being sidelined by politics. The NFL is wrong — again, by Dave Zirin (Los Angeles Times)

 ... As Green Bay Packers star quarterback Aaron Rodgers said last week, it is “ignorant” to think that Kaepernick is unemployed because of his play.

“I think he should be on a roster right now,” Rodgers told ESPN’s Mina Kimes. “I think because of his protests, he’s not.” Rodgers is not alone.

The rash of anonymously sourced articles trashing Kaepernick’s play came just days after several thousand people rallied in front of Goodell’s NFL headquarters on Park Avenue in New York City: a demonstration that loudly called out a league dependent on the physical punishment of black bodies, a league that — in the words of the Rev. Jamal Bryant — is “more comfortable with concussions than someone having a conscience.”

The NFL seems to believe that shutting out Kaepernick will be like a crack of the whip across the backs of its players, stamping out dissent, keeping everyone in line. But the opposite has been the case. During the preseason, and in the wake of events in Charlottesville, Va., more and more players stepped forward to sit, take a knee or raise a fist during the anthem, and they are not shy about telling the world why. Unlike last season, white players also have involved themselves in these protests ...

Your smack talk about Colin Kaepernick contrasts with "perhaps the greatest defense of freedom of expression ever formulated by a Supreme Court Justice."

Time for some learnin', thanks to a recommendation by Stephen. After all, Brain Injury Ball need not be damaging to your OWN noggin.

COLIN KAEPERNICK AND A LANDMARK SUPREME COURT CASE, by Jeffrey Toobin (New Yorker)

The decision by Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, first to sit and then to kneel, rather than stand, during the national anthem before his team’s games has set off a national debate. The 49ers grudgingly supported his right to protest against the ritual, and other players have now joined him, while some politicians, like Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, have denounced the defiant, if silent, gestures. The best answer to the anthem conundrum, however, can be found in the most eloquent opinion in the history of the Supreme Court.

And a concurring opinion: Kaepernick has made his fellow Americans think about what they’re standing for, and why.

BREAKING: City of New Albany reveals big new branding logo for Summit Springs.

“Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.”
― Marilyn Monroe

ON THE AVENUES: High atop Summit Springs with friends (and relatives) in low places.

Tuesday Heresy Quartet 1 of 4: Validating American values by scrapping the Pledge of Allegiance.

At meetings, I'll stand for the pledge for only one reason: My father's military service, and by extension, the service of all others.

That's a matter of individual conscience, not mandated public compliance, and one's individual conscience extends to the wording of the pledge, which I don't repeat aloud.

That's because the addition of "Under God" is my personal deal-breaker; however, you're free to comply or dissent as you please. Just know that coercion as it pertains to the exercise of conscience has a tendency to negate the values purportedly being espoused.

The pledge of allegiance must go: A daily loyalty oath has become a toxic, nationalistic ritual, by David Niose (Salon)

We make students salute national greatness for 13 years. No wonder Trumpian anti-intellectuallism is on the march

The final straw came when a teacher accused Alicia, a high school sophomore, of treason.

Alicia (not her real name) hardly comes across as subversive. She’s not one of those kids who is intrigued by anti-American propaganda from ISIS, for example, nor is she one who has been duped by homegrown anti-government groups calling for a citizens’ rebellion. She’s pretty much an ordinary, intelligent teenager—interested in politics, current events and government, but hardly a fringe radical.

Her offense in the eyes of her homeroom teacher, however, was that she chose to sit out the Pledge of Allegiance. This act, for Alicia and countless other young Americans, has brought on the wrath of authority, with teachers and school administrators unleashing mean-spirited accusations and hostility toward students who dare to question the wisdom of a daily loyalty oath. We may be a free country, but any kid who chooses to sit out the collective exercise of exalting America runs a risk of official ostracization.

ON THE AVENUES: To the New Albanians, each and every one.

ON THE AVENUES: To the New Albanians, each and every one.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

There is a monolithic message adorning the west-facing side of the former Anchor Range & Stove building, which for many years has been owned by Padgett, Inc.

The banner is two stories tall, almost as wide, and probably can be seen from Skyline Drive in the Knobs.

It reads:

Zurschmiede for Mayor

“Conservative Principles Driving Progress”

Paid for by New Albanians for Common Sense Government PAC

The last time I saw an inscription this large was in Moscow, back during Communist times – something about the critical importance of the five-year plan, the threat of American imperialism, or some such – but I mention this phenomenon not as the pretext for a series of “size really doesn’t matter when it comes to happy endings” jokes.

Rather, it’s all about the nomenclature.

You see, ideas do matter, and as human beings, we concretely express our ideas with words, and words are building blocks. It’s how we move beyond mental abstraction to communication, and from primitivism to progress.

So, while Adam insists I’m “not a serious candidate” for mayor, and Jeff dismisses me as having done nothing “in a positive manner for New Albany” – concurrent with the entire Padgett industrial enterprise differing with my viewpoint on the primacy of humans versus trucks on our street grid, most often by reverting to the non-verbal, as with their middle fingers held aloft, just look at the way all of them have started using these two words.

New Albanian.

Guess who coined that descriptor?

Until the New Albanian Brewing Company came along in 1994, did anyone in these parts ever routinely choose the words “New Albanian” to describe someone from New Albany?

It is possible they did so in a random or periodic sense, though let’s face facts: NABC’s adaptation of the term has spilled over into popular usage and acceptance, hence the identity of the slush fund sponsoring Padgett’s overwrought signage.

You’re welcome.

It’s nice to have a legacy, isn’t it? If only there were royalties at play.

---

Meanwhile, local Democrats and Republicans alike have been using the hashtag #CountTheWays in social media.

Gahan is busy counting the number of bright, shiny gifts he’s given us, always remembering to scrape the price tag off with his dainty finger nail before affixing the ribbon and grinning like the fatherly potentate he imagines himself to be.

Zurschmiede’s hard-working subalterns have been busy counting their own ways in rebuttal, often deploying phrases originating … from elsewhere. Since I’m feeling charitable, I’ll use the word “subconsciously” to describe their passage from source to meme.

I can live with it, even without the screenplay credits. After all, I’m a content creator. For me, the hashtag is #CountTheIronies, which embraces both the major political parties as they’ve reacted to my presence in the race.

You might think that as a European-style social democrat, my independent mayoral candidacy would have the effect of pulling our right-leaning local DemoDixieDisneycrats leftward.

Instead, the party establishment has responded by doubling down on its bizarre love affair with trickle-down Reaganomics, conveniently substituting ruinously expensive quality-of-life “wants” (water parks, beautification projects) for steroidal 1980s-era military spending in the partisan broken budget analogy.

Concurrently, the city's Republicans have gleefully adopted my platform points, pushing the GOP as an entity steadily left, toward the center. It’s surreal for the GOP to issue ritual denunciations of crony capitalism, corporate welfare and trickle-down Reaganomics, and recent promises to create a "user-friendly" city are enough to make dispassionate space aliens believe they’ve finally embraced two-way streets, too.

However, Padgett’s Soviet-scale banners and PAC money make such a conversion extremely unlikely.

All of this leaves this unrepentant Bernie Sanders fan as the only mayoral candidate eager to speak openly about specific, critical economic development needs, as opposed to quality of life wants.

Ironies aside, I'll just stay where I am, over here, comfortably left of center. If the Republicans are more eager to join me than the Democrats, then it just makes the irony even more delicious – although it should make a fair number of Democrats who ought to know better profoundly uncomfortable.

They’re probably too filled with mute nostril agony to even notice.

---

As it pertains to the mayoral race, the New Albanian (that’s me) is an outsider, insurgent and underdog. Apparently he’s also a wild card. Both party camps seem to be basing their electoral predictions on varying estimates of the votes I’ll extract, and from where.

But in a political system built and maintained for the benefit of two major parties, an independent surely must take votes from somewhere, almost by definition. That’s why we refer to the existence of voters who’ve been known to display autonomous tendencies, like thoughtfully considering individual candidates and their ideas outside the confines of the archaic phrase, “pulling the straight party lever.”

I believe these discerning voters can see quite clearly what I’ve brought to the table during this campaign. It’s a principled alternative, and a third way to approach local governance, one necessary because the two-party system here is tired and broken.

For most of us, governance isn’t about party affiliation, anyway. It’s about managing competently, planning rationally and producing results every single day – right here in New Albany -- where we live and work and play.

I’m not a politician, but 25 years as a local independent business owner have equipped me with a useful tool box. Local independent business owners strive to maintain a level playing field for consumers. We listen, accommodate, troubleshoot, manage employees and solve problems as they arise. We create tangible value from scratch, as with the American craft beer industry.

I’ve also traveled throughout America and Europe, paying attention to life and learning how things work. I’ve probably attended more council meetings than some elected council persons, and maintained this public affairs blog day in and day out, for the past 11 years.

The New Albanian (me again) is uniquely placed to break the two-party stalemate in New Albany and Floyd County, and to be a bridge to the next generation of leaders. I have no political party to serve, only the people of New Albany. As mayor, neither my name nor the names of elected officials will appear on plaques.

“The City of New Albany” means all the people, not just a privileged few. It’s going to be about us, not me.

As for the ramifications of my effort, it may or may not be true that Kevin Zurschmiede will be the ultimate beneficiary, but the ballot is set, and there's nothing I can do about the likelihood of Gahan's ego-driven vanity candidacy siphoning votes from the only genuine Democrat left in the mayoral race.

That Democrat is me, and conscience is key.

I’ve written about rumblings of threats and retaliation emanating from the mayor, his minions and Democratic Party elders. It is unfortunate when "group-think" is allowed to digress into intimidation, but apparently it has.

Know that if the local Democratic Party machine wishes to be spiteful and vindictive, it's the machine's problem, not ours. It remains a mystery how the party's chairman contorts reality so as to square his pious bromides about "respectful" candidates with Dan “Copperhead” Coffey's continued presence on the ballot as a Democrat -- but that's his problem, and a huge one.

Ultimately, it remains my position that ballots and basic choice are matters of personal conscience, and I've neither the desire, nor any solid reason, to tamper with such. If you support my independent candidacy, I'd rather you be able to express your preference openly, but at the same time, given the current atmosphere, I understand perfectly well if you cannot.

Some voters who ordinarily find themselves occupying a "side" based on factors beyond the actual issues (family, habit, compulsion at work) may choose to preserve the outward appearance of conformity, while resolving internally to opt out of politics as usual and vote differently -- independently -- in 2015.

If so, merely let conscience be your guide. That's why the ballots are secret, and no one should be looking over your shoulder, anyway.

If we’re voting as New Albanians, as opposed to Democrats and Republicans, then the choice is perfectly logical. It's doing what’s right for the whole city, and not only one or the other of our two clubs.

---

Recent columns:

October 8: ON THE AVENUES: There’s an indie twist to this curmudgeon’s annual Harvest Homecoming column.

October 1: ON THE AVENUES: No more fear, Jeff.

September 24: ON THE AVENUES: Almost two years later, Mr. Gahan has yet to plug in this clock, and so it's time for him to clock out.

September 17: ON THE AVENUES: Dear Neighbor: If you’re tired of the same old story, turn some pages.

September 10: ON THE AVENUES: Lanesville Heritage Weekend comes around again.

September 3: ON THE AVENUES: When even Mitt Romney can run to the left of New Albany’s Democrats, it's a very big problem.

August 27: ON THE AVENUES: Whips, chains and economic development (2010).

Campaign Diary, Chapter 6: Matching ensembles in the 3rd, psychologically speaking.

First, thanks to the New Albanians who've supported the Baylor for Mayor campaign thus far, whether with grassroots testimony, the wearing of t-shirts, planting signs or kicking a few dollars into the jar. Every little bit helps, and I appreciate it. I've heard from voters in every district who agree that by emphasizing transparency, infrastructure and empowerment, we can TIE the city together.

In this periodic installment of the campaign diary, permit me to narrow the focus to my own neighborhood, and observe that there is a psychology to the political yard sign.

Given that I've publicly disagreed on occasion with my 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps' partisan votes with the current administration, I still believe that on balance, our views with regard to what's fundamentally best for New Albany's neighborhoods are in accordance: Ordinance enforcement, rental property registration, safe and functional two-way streets, human rights, and support for level playing fields and the rule of law.

I've advocated and fought for these (and other) ideas, and so has he. I believe in our own district, neighbors asking for one of my signs, and placing it next to one of Greg's signs, shows that they see the similarities more than the differences -- and grasp the reality of the incumbent mayor's abject failure to govern in the best interest of the neighborhood. Jeff Gahan's instincts are suburban, not urban, and virtually all the areas inside the beltway can benefit from greater urbanism, not less.

I'm restricting the analogy to my own backyard merely to suggest that the odd man out in this instance is the current mayor. Look at the positions, platforms and policies. It's a secret ballot, and we all have the opportunity to vote our consciences.

Thanks.

Hey, ESNA.

The missus and I live within the boundaries of the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association (ESNA). We moved into our house on Spring Street in October, 2003. This blog began in October, 2004, and my first-ever blog reference to ESNA came in November, 2004.

There is a reason for mentioning this.

I'm running for mayor as an independent. While my candidacy is not restricted to any one area or neighborhood in the city of New Albany, it is no exaggeration to suggest that my platform almost perfectly jibes with the long-term aims of ESNA.

In fact, it seems to be a all-embracing composite of what we've discussed these many years.

The beauty of it is that these precepts apply equally to all the city's areas and neighborhoods, even if they're particularly applicable to ESNA's.

Baylor for Mayor: 3 Goals + 7 Platform Points.

As for the political ramifications, it may or may not be true that Kevin Zurschmiede will be the ultimate beneficiary, but the ballot is set, and there's nothing I can do about the likelihood of Jeff Gahan's strange vanity candidacy siphoning votes from the only genuine Democrat left in the mayoral race.

That Democrat is me, and conscience is key.

Campaign Diary, Chapter 3: Insurgencies, signage and conscience.

All I ask is that you look at my candidacy rationally. Neither Gahan nor Zurschmiede really gets where you're coming from. They cannot, and they never will. Their political clubs come first, not you.

This isn't propaganda.

It's simple fact. I appreciate your support ... even if you can't announce it.

The East Spring Street Neighborhood Association Inc. is formed to foster the ongoing revitalization of the area, and to improve the quality of life for those who live and work within the association boundaries. Additionally the association is designated as follows:

To be a forum for the discussion & review of community issues & projects

To be an advisory body & advocate to our elected representatives on behalf of our members

To monitor & facilitate public services & infrastructure investments within our association boundaries

To educate & establish communications in the community & to externally promote New Albany

To develop solutions to community issues & to shape the future vision of New Albany

To seek grants and other funds for community projects

To implement, promote, or coordinate with other agencies and programs for the protection, safety and enhancement of the neighborhood community

We have also just recently gained our non-profit status as a 501C3.

Campaign Diary, Chapter 3: Insurgencies, signage and conscience.

See also: 3 Goals + 7 Platform Points

Given the dysfunction of the two-party system in New Albany, running for mayor as an independent candidate is the only viable option for me, and I revel in the embrace of pragmatic ideas and simple common sense, these seemingly being precluded from the dialogue once the parties shift into gear with "politics as usual."

If the Democrats were more democratic, perhaps there'd have been another path, but to quote Gertrude Stein, "There is no there there."

With our local way of politicking stacked solidly against independence, it is important for an independent candidate like me to survey the landscape with realism.

I'm a maverick, an insurgent and an underdog. The political parties possess more money and foot soldiers than I can muster. Jeff Gahan has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from faraway PACs and contracting interests; meanwhile, I've managed roughly $300 in "outside" money, from Bloomington and Indianapolis.

In short, I'm a potentially dangerous and unconventional wildcard, underfunded and outnumbered -- or, exactly where I want to be. 

We'll be mixing old and new during the course of spreading the word, and here is an update.

---

Web site updates are under way this week, and video shoots begin tomorrow.

Many of you have asked for yard signs, and they're about to be ordered. Previously I've expressed reservations about these, and to be honest, I haven't entirely changed my mind about it, but ... and this is a big BUT ... I understand the dynamic of introducing the general public to who I am and what I stand for, and yard signs are a part of it. I also feel that if you want one, I want you to have one, and you'll get one.

We'll also be announcing guidelines for an upcoming art competition, also centering on yard signs of an edgier and more personalized nature. Stay tuned for details.

The formally sanctioned "debate" schedule is in place, and I'll write separately about it.

Also, I'm looking for a home for the two durable vinyl banners pictured above. If you have any ideas, please let me know. A downtown building would be groovy; so would a yard visible from the interstate. There are many potential spots, and I'm open to suggestions.

In closing, a few words on conscience.

Previously I wrote about the petition process for ballot access, during which there were rumblings of threats and retaliation on the part of signatories otherwise identified with the Democratic Party.

It is unfortunate when "group-think" is allowed to digress into hints of intimidation, but apparently it has. Ultimately, it remains my position that petitions, ballots and basic choice are matters of personal conscience, and I've neither the desire, nor any solid reason, to tamper with such.

Know this: If you support my independent candidacy, I'd rather you be able to express your preference openly, but I understand perfectly well if you cannot. Happily, many voters who ordinarily find themselves occupying a "side" based on factors beyond the actual issues (family, habit, compulsion at work, etc) may choose to preserve the outward appearance of conformity, while resolving internally to opt out of politics as usual and vote differently -- independently -- in 2015.

If so, merely let conscience be your guide. That's why the ballots are secret, and no one should be looking over your shoulder, anyway.

If the local Democratic Party machine wishes to be spiteful and vindictive, it's the machine's problem, not ours. It remains a mystery how the party's chairman contorts reality so as to square his pious bromides about "respectful" candidates with Dan Coffey's continued presence on the ballot as a "Democrat" -- but that's his problem, and a huge one.

As an independent, I just want to accomplish something, and you can help.

Coyle site luxury giveaway: "The people that they want to attract can't afford to live there."

Even a Democratic loyalist grasps the obvious.

The argument against (the Coyle site residential development) is right in front of everyone's face. The people that they want to attract can't afford to live there.

Since Thursday evening's city council meeting, I've received almost a dozen e-mails and messages from New Albanians publicly identifying as Democratic, but expressing personal confusion (and in some instance, revulsion) at the Reaganite corporate welfare nature of Jeff Gahan's trickle-down Flaherty and Collins deal for luxury apartments.

Of course, you know I agree with you; the local Democratic Party has run aground, and yet it will be difficult for you to take a public stand in recognition of this reality.

That's okay. I get it. Knowing there's a problem is the first step toward resolving it. Just remember that we're here to do the right thing for the right reasons, as the late Hank Jacoby once put it, and it comes down to conscience.

A brief note about conscience.

... Lots of voters who ordinarily choose a side based on factors beyond the actual issues (family, habit, compulsion at work, etc) will choose to preserve the outward appearance of "this or that" conformity, while resolving internally to opt out of politics as usual and vote differently in 2015. If so, and conscience is their guide ... well, that's why the ballots are secret. No one should be looking over your shoulder.

As for the impending Coyle site giveaway, taxpayer subsidized big-city pricing to live within an errant bocce toss of fundamentally neglected one-way arterial streets, slicing through neighborhoods dominated by slumlord mentalities, just might be working at cross-purposes with millennial aggrandizement. It's complicated, as the following essay suggests.

Then again, New Albany's governing Democratic clique seldom bothers to read.

Millennials Will Live In Cities Unlike Anything We've Ever Seen Before, by Alissa Walker (Gizmodo)

... Then came some interesting data, pegged to the release of 2014 Census information this spring: Millennials have indeed started moving out of big city downtowns—but not necessarily in favor of a quiet rural or suburban life.

A brief note about conscience.

I was asked to identify a signatory to the petitions we circulated, but I'm not getting into that, and here is why.

For one thing, I didn't personally gather all 250+ signatures, did not review the entire list, and could not give a definitive answer without looking at the copies.

If I did, I still wouldn't.

Most importantly, whether or not the petition is an open record subject to request (I don't know either way), we've already seen in Jeffersonville that the Democratic Party there seems intent on targeting certain signatories of a petition for reprisal.

It is my position that ultimately, petitions and ballots are matters of personal conscience, and I've neither the desire, nor any solid reason, to tamper with such.

Moreover, I think that lots of voters who ordinarily choose a side based on factors beyond the actual issues (family, habit, compulsion at work, etc) will choose to preserve the outward appearance of "this or that" conformity, while resolving internally to opt out of politics as usual and vote differently in 2015.

If so, and conscience is their guide ... well, that's why the ballots are secret. No one should be looking over your shoulder.

As for the petitions, they're finished now. If the local machine wishes to be spiteful and vindictive, it's the machine's problem, and not ours.

We just want to accomplish something.

For refusing to say "Under God," his grades should have been raised.

If the principles of the founders have any meaning at all, then a "pledge of allegiance" to a piece of cloth, spoken aloud by rote, is in itself an entirely unnecessary act.

Inserting the words "under God" into it? That's just egregious, and offensive to anyone who sees the merits in separating church and state.

Placing one's hand on a Bible as part of a ritual to be "sworn" into office?

Ditto.

Making the whole process obligatory in a public, secular school system and placing a grade on it? That sounds like the sort of Tea Party goofiness about to be proposed by the likes of Lee Ann Wisehart.

I'll stand during the pledge as a token of esteem to my father and other veterans, but in this, as in these other considerations, shouldn't they be a matter of personal conscience, and not compulsion?

Student Omits ‘Under God’ From the Pledge of Allegiance, School Vindictively Lowers His Grades, by John Prager (AATTP.org)

A California High School student was punished for omitting “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Derek Giardina, 17, a student at Merrill F. West High School in Tracy, California, said the Pledge of Allegiance properly as instructed as part of the morning announcements. While he omitted only two words, which were added during the anti-Communist panic of the 1950’s.

Unfortunately, the school lacks the necessary knowledge of American history to appreciate the traditional manner of reciting the Pledge, arguing that if a student is going to lead the school, the pledge must promote one specific deity — or, the “traditional way,” as the school says.

Giardina says he was required to lead the school in the pledge as part of a debate class assignment, but that he would normally abstain because he is disillusioned with our country, and is not at all religious ... 

And then we elected Raygun.

What's it gonna be, CM Blevins?

As four cacophonous years have passed, with at-large councilman Donnie Blevins forever dangling in the legislative wind, unable to settle on a core set of beliefs that might assist him in sorting through the pressures that come with being recognized as the perpetual swing vote, I’ve nonetheless defended him more often than not – and emphasized with him almost always.

I’d sit out there in the gallery during those nights when Blevins would be forced to make a decision, and you could see the contradictory cartoon figures, an angel and a devil, one on each of the councilman’s shoulders, and watch him almost visibly buckle beneath the responsibility of casting his vote for the Gang of Four on one side or the mostly reasonable group on the other, and I always knew it couldn’t be easy for him.

There were times when it was hard to watch. Sometimes Blevins would muster heroic oratory during the course of seemingly "getting it," while other times, he'd arrive in the council chambers like a schoolboy who'd just been taken to the woodshed ... and with Dan Coffey's belt marks shadowing his face. We'd nod, and think yep -- this time the Gang got to him last, and he rolled over.

----

There is much about Monday’s last night’s city council meeting that deserves comment, and Bluegill is working on it, but before I retire for the night, something must be written – perhaps gently, perhaps still with much empathy on my part – about Blevins’s performance.

It was as bad a job of acting as I’ve witnessed in four years, and it bodes ill as we approach a period when the Gang of Four, itself about to be dissolved after the November elections, might still be able to kneecap the city for a generation to come.

The Gang's rancor is elevated, and it is increasingly rabid, and the Luddites on the council seemingly are ready to make the whole community pay for its own inability to comprehend a modern world that no longer will permit ward-heelers to conduct balloting in their garages, tell tremendous whopping lies without audience members calling them on it, or being able to avoid howling laughter when they cowardly abstain on crucial votes.

Two weeks ago, the council determined to form a committee, made up of the body’s three at-large councilmen, for the purpose of communicating with the plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit (the author is one of them) so as to avoid trial. The merits of this case have been discussed at some length here, but what is relevant at the moment is that the council approved this measure, after which the lame duck Blevins promptly let it be known that he had no interest in participating alongside fellow at-large councilmen Jack Messer and Kevin Zurschmiede.

Not unexpectedly, Blevins did not attend Monday’s 6:00 p.m. fact-finding hearing, which concluded shortly before 6:30 p.m., at which time four of us descended the steps in route to a quick dinner at the Speakeasy, only to find Blevins chatting with workers in one of the offices downstairs.

Hours later, at the conclusion of the regular meeting, and as CM Messer presented his committee’s report to the remainder of the council, Blevins – who confessed to having read only a small bit of the plaintiff’s document as discussed at the committee meeting – erupted in indignation at the suggestions presented by the plaintiffs during a gathering that Blevins scoffed at attending even though he was two floors down by the time it ended, and almost certainly was there before that.

As I said, I’ve defended Blevins before, but his ineffectual performance tonight revealed a odiferous and disingenuous hypocrisy that approaches the level of that practiced routinely by Larry Kochert and Dan Coffey. You've no idea how depressing this is for me, because I always have retained hope that Blevins would be able to move beyond it.

Blevins, after all, was named to the redistricting committee. Perhaps – just perhaps – he might accept the assignment with the seriousness it deserves rather than play the Gang of Four’s brinksmanship game without contemplating first that he is their most dispensable pawn.

That's because blatant political sociopaths like Dan Coffey are interested in congenitally indecisive people like Donnie Blevins for one reason, and one reason only, and it’s the same reason that Coffey’s second reading of an ordinance that seeks to cripple the city’s ability to lawfully assist economic development passed last night on the strength of Blevins’s veritable coin-flip of a swing vote: To keep the string of power wrapped tightly around Coffey’s own pudgy, bullying knuckle, and if Blevins thinks that after all of this is over that Coffey will be inviting him to the Wizard’s Westside dirt-floor hovel for ice-cold barbecued bologna on a stale shingle, then all my theories about the ability of humans to adapt for the best interest of their own survival can be thrown out the window.

Too bad, Donnie. You coulda been someone, really. You’ve shown those glimmers, and I know you’ve felt them, too. But when you let people like Larry Kochert and Dan Coffey twist your arm, and when you find out that they’re not really laughing with you … well, it’s just sad, and all you’ve accomplished is to keep quite a few people poor, ignorant and without hope of redemption -- and I know that really isn't your intent.

Dan Coffey cares neither about you nor about them. He must perpetuate the civic rot in order to have people like you – and people like them – looking toward him as the instrument of their salvation. They're bound to be disappointed. So are you, Donnie.

Sorry, but someone had to say it. I understand that you believe in a higher power, and I'll readily confess that I don't, but I just wish there were some way that I could make you see the power that this city ideally possesses if the doers and the capable can shake free of the shackles imposed on them by the likes of Coffey and Steve Price.

Donnie, they're not helping people to become free. They're ensuring failure by promising gullible, desperate people that the hands of time can somehow be frozen. It's only an illusion, and at times, you've seemed to grasp that, although you've not been able to shake it for long enough to offer hope of a positive legacy. Right now, your legacy is mixed. There are five meetings left, and your term will then be over. However, you're lucky, because time remains for you to be a part of the solution and not the problem.

And I mean that sincerely. Perhaps Dan Coffey will print this off for you to read. He doesn't follow the blogs, you know. But he detests us just the same, and you -- Donnie Blevins -- know that he's wrong in feeling that way.

The question, then: What do you intend to do about it?