Gahan's street grid sausage-making: CNA 27 tour attendees, please help us -- New Albany is being held hostage by New Urban Imposters.

Today's the 14th, and perfect weather for New Albany's leadership cadres to mislead people -- and make no mistake, that's exactly what they'll be doing.

Gahan, Rosenbarger set to go full frontal Pinocchio about their urbanism credentials when the Congress for the New Urbanism 27 meets in Louisville June 11-15.

If any CNA 27 attendees are reading this note, and you plan to tag along on the New Albany tour this afternoon, please do me this one small favor: ask questions of these serial liars.

• Why the beg buttons? 
• Why the Main Street beautification median?
• Why the reformatted Market Street median? 
• Where are the bike lanes?
• Why so many fading sharrow markings?
• What's the reason for the plethora of routinely ignored pedestrian crossing beg-button-flashing-light "permission" stations? 
• Why is the traffic still moving so damned fast? 
• Isn't there more to walkability than bright shiny beautification projects?

They won't so much as attempt to answer, and you'll probably be hustled off to detention with the police chief.

But please try. Gahan's street grid bait 'n' switch is abhorrent, and the emperor is unclothed.

Gahan, Rosenbarger set to go full frontal Pinocchio about their urbanism credentials when the Congress for the New Urbanism 27 meets in Louisville June 11-15.

Jeff Speck's coming to the Congress for the New Urbanism's CNU 27 in Louisville. On Wednesday afternoon (June 12) in Louisville he'll be speaking about his new book Walkable City Rules.

On Friday (June 14) Speck returns to New Albany.

Whoa, boy.

We've long noted that Deaf Gahan, Pinocchio Rosenbarger and various other pay-to-play functionaries brutally gutted Speck's amazing Downtown Street Network Proposal, a renewal plan for the downtown street grid. They retained the two-way street reversion and quickly punted, discarding every other useful suggestion Speck made about bicycling, wasteful medians, the interstate intersections and so much else.

If any CNA 27 attendees are reading this note ("help us, we're being held hostage by idiots"), and you plan to tag along on the New Albany tour on June 14, please do me this one small favor: ask questions. Why the beg buttons? Why the reformatted Market Street median? Where are the bike lanes? What's the reason for the plethora of ignored pedestrian crossing beg-button-flashing-light "permission" stations? Why's the traffic still moving so fast? Isn't there more to walkability than bright shiny beautification projects?

We could have had transformation. Gahan, Rosenbarger and their coterie settled for dull shrapnel reflecting their fundamental cowardice. They should be ashamed of themselves, but as we've seen oft times before, there's nowhere near the level of self-awareness necessary for shame.

About The Congress

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the nation’s oldest international nonprofit working to build great places and walkable, vibrant neighborhoods. CNU will host its 27th annual Congress, CNU 27.Louisville, in Louisville, KY June 12-15, 2019.

The Congress is the premier national placemaking event, convening 1500+ diverse, interdisciplinary urbanists and placemakers from all 50 states and around the globe to exchange ideas, explore urban places, work alongside residents, and learn in the field.

Congress programming is varied and accessible to urbanists and members of the public at any level of knowledge and understanding of New Urbanism.

Will all the Libertarian VP candidates please step forward -- not so fast, William Weld.

Vote Hugo (the No Tolls Kitty) for President. He'll both thank and ignore you.

Petersen has a point, unless these doctrines of free choice and individual judgment contradict traditional party unity to the point where one wonders how a Libertarian can even belong to a party, but at least if Johnson, Trump and Clinton are the nominees, we'll have three political parties nominating Republicans.

I'll save you the trouble: Jill Stein for President.

Gary Johnson Booed at Libertarian Party Convention for Calling William Weld 'the original libertarian', by Matt Welch (Reason)

Former Republican governor's praise for former Republican governor comes under fire from current Libertarians

Last night, on the eve of what may well be a historic Libertarian Party National Convention, America's leading third party held a debate among the very many people running for its highly coveted presidential slot. Former New Mexico governor and 2012 L.P. nominee Gary Johnson, who is considered to be the front-runner in the race, took a sharp jab during the debate from upstart contender Austin Petersen over the controversial-to-libertarians, praised-by-media-outsiders selection of former Massachusetts governor William Weld as his suggested running-mate. (Veeps are elected separately at L.P. conventions.)

Petersen, who has been making hay with his contention that "It's time for us to stop nominating failed Republicans, and start nominating successful Libertarians," drew sustained applause when he challenged Johnson over Weld's Libertarian bonafides: "In 2012, he didn't endorse Ron Paul, he didn't endorse you, he endorsed Mitt Romney. In 2016, he endorsed John Kasich. Why didn't your VP pick endorse you?"

“He’ll take Mr. Sanders’s aspirational approach over Mrs. Clinton’s caution any day.”

“Democrats who want to win a big majority in November, to take back the Congress and to move forward in the states, know that the party has to stand for something that excites young people, that excites working people. No matter who the nominee is, the party has to take a big-vision stand.”

Water park!

Boomtown!

A place to walk your dog!

Those are big ideas, right?

A Contested Convention Is Exactly What the Democratic Party Needs, by John Nichols (The Nation)

Bernie Sanders will go to Philadelphia with more pledged delegates than any insurgent in modern history. Here’s what he could do with them.

Joe Biden understands something about the Democratic Party and its future that his fellow partisans would do well to consider. “I don’t think any Democrat’s ever won saying, ‘We can’t think that big—we ought to really downsize here because it’s not realistic,’” the vice president told The New York Times in April. “C’mon man, this is the Democratic Party! I’m not part of the party that says, ‘Well, we can’t do it.’” Mocking Hillary Clinton’s criticism of Bernie Sanders for proposing bold reforms, Biden dismissed the politics of lowered expectations. “I like the idea of saying, ‘We can do much more,’ because we can,” he declared, leading the Times to observe that, while Biden wasn’t making an endorsement, “He’ll take Mr. Sanders’s aspirational approach over Mrs. Clinton’s caution any day.”

My anti-Trump credentials stretch back to 1987, when Ross Douthat was eight years old.

Photo credit.

First the "conservative affirmative action" columnist Ross Douthat got in trouble joking about Donald Trump's assassination, which got Allen West all shook up. Then Douthat pinned the blame for Trump on Barack Obama ...

“What it hasn’t inspired is much in the way of self-examination, or a recognition of the way that Obama-era trends in liberal politics have helped feed the Trump phenomenon.”

... which Sean McElwee refutes vigorously in Salon:

Ross Douthat’s pathetic Trump evasion: The NYT columnist attempts to pin the blame on Obama — and fails spectacularly

 ... Trump is the ugly creation of the Republican party’s race-baiting political coup. As a man Douthat admires quite a bit once said, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Obama’s only responsibility for creating Trump was being a Black man who had the audacity to become President of the United States.

Now Douthat has moved past all that, and advocates convention chicanery by the grandees.

The Party Still Decides, by Ross Douthat (New York Times)

What Trump has demonstrated is that in our present cultural environment, and in the Republican Party’s present state of bankruptcy, the first lines of defense against a demagogue no longer hold. Because he’s loud and rich and famous, because he’s run his campaign like a reality TV show, because he’s horribly compelling and, yes, sometimes even right, Trump has come this far without many endorsements or institutional support, without much in the way of a normal organization, clearing hurdle after hurdle where people expected him to fall.

But the party’s convention rules, in all their anachronistic, undemocratic and highly-negotiable intricacy, are also a line of defense, also a hurdle, also a place where a man unfit for office can be turned aside.

Donald Trump's book The Art of the Deal was published in 1987. That's amazing. It means I've been disgusted by Trump for nearly 30 years. What took the rest of you so long?

Even you, Ross?

Democrats declare a convention as prevailing reality takes an ugly, profound beating.

Think about New Albany. Consider where we've come from, and where we are going. It needn't be at a deep, probing level; rather, just pause and look back on the past two or three decades, and ruminate about municipal government's relentlessly adversarial attitude towards modernity -- the absence of creativity, and the persuasive evidence that ideas generally are regarded with the same tender loving care as trees on Main Street.

Now, ask: Which of the two major political parties can claim consistent hegemony during this very same period?

Clue: It isn't the GOP, at least at the city level.

Finally, read the unexpurgated text of the local Democratic Party's call to conventioneering. Note that it remains the party that Ted Heavrin calls home. Weigh the past and the present. Reach your own conclusions.

If you can make it all the way through this exercise without resorting to hallucinogenic substances, congratulations.

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Some say that party identity doesn’t matter on the local level. We disagree.

Over the past few years under Republican leadership, Floyd County has faced difficult challenges: financial scandals, ethical wrongdoing, and just poor decision-making. While other areas are moving forward, Floyd County is falling further behind. Take just two startling facts: Our poverty rate has increased by 30% since 2000, while our per capita income has dropped from 1% above the national average to 3% below it. That’s the wrong direction for our community!

Now more than ever, it's important that we work as citizens to improve our community. To kick our efforts into high gear, we're hosting our first "County Convention" to bring our party together and offer our shared vision for the future of Floyd County. At our convention, we will showcase our candidates, adopt our local platform, and begin to coordinate our outreach activities. The event will be held on:

Saturday, June 21, 2014 at 9:00 a.m. - Noon
40/8 Voiture #1250 Club
221 Albany Street
New Albany, Indiana

You can be part of the team! The strength of our local Democratic Party has always been local Democrats. Without your input, hard work and dedication, we wouldn't be able to field top-notch candidates for public office, build a grass-roots support network, or spread our positive vision throughout the community. If you want to make a positive difference in Floyd County and help our Democratic candidates, we are inviting you to attend.

Mark your calendar and join us on Saturday, June 21, 2014 at 9:00 a.m. The future starts now!

Easter reading 2: An atheist gathering deep in the heart of Mormon.

Who knew we had an association?

I mean, one of the best parts of being an atheist is not having to belong to anything, or to articulate a "positive" approach in the sense of evangelizing nothingness.

As I've noted previously in this space:

Why must an atheist (like me) be compelled to articulate a “positive” approach, when atheism at root merely describes the absence of belief in unseeable, unknowable and unprovable supreme beings?

Negation is inevitable in the sense of my being without personal belief in phantasmogoria. When any such solid evidence in support of a deist's perspective should appear, I'm ready to consider it. Until then, there is nothing.

It is superfluous for either deist or atheist to imply that atheism must present a “positive” platform or doctrine. Supernaturally speaking, nothing from nothing equals nothing. Unlike religion's confusing and contradictory directives, we as atheists needn't flail ineffectually in the search for something that can be artificially tied to supernatural sanction as stated by scatter-shot "holy" books.

But atheists the new Mormons? Er, no thanks. I'll stay an indie, thank you very much.

Are Atheists the New Mormons?, by Michael Schulson (The Daily Beast)

Atheists are holding their annual convention in Salt Lake City, but things have been surprisingly cordial. Maybe these uniquely American groups have more in common than they think.

It’s a bit like holding the Republican National Convention in Berkeley: This weekend, the American Atheists are gathering in Salt Lake City for their annual conclave. Attendees can hear a keynote speech by outspoken former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, attend workshops with titles like “So you want to debate Christians?” and mingle during a karaoke night and a costume dinner.

Wow, redux.

It's impossible not to be awed by the crowd in Denver. The MSNBC camera just panoramically scanned the crowd. I keep expecting a football game to break out, and yet, incredibly, the people are there for a presidential candidate.

Senator Richard Durbin, who was in New Albany at the Parthenon back in May, will introduce Barack Obama soon.

Eight years of idiocy, really about to come to a close? I can only hope.

Kucinich rocks the DNC.

Hillary Clinton made the "Democrats for McCain" look like the disreputable turncoats they are ... and Dennis Kucinich made Clinton look tame. Even when they're scripted right down to the restroom breaks, major party conventions can still make for compelling viewing.