Endorsement: Hands down, Greg Roution is the best candidate for Floyd County Coroner.

Disagree if you will, but to me there's little reason to dwell on political affiliation and the usual attendant ideologies when it comes to voting for coroner. 

I have not yet made Greg Roution's acquaintance, but he strikes me as qualified and professional, perfectly capable of performing the duties of coroner. 

Does it bother me, a socialist, that he's a Republican? 

Not really. So is his opponent, the one running as a (pretend) Democrat, and I know plenty about him. Folks in my significantly "blue" neighborhood know exactly what I mean, which is why you don't see many Oxendine signs here, even if he's planted dozens of them quite illegally in public rights-of-way.  

This matters little in the end, because comparing the two candidates, I find that Roution's presentation speaks to competence and integrity.  

That works for me. Greg Roution is the best candidate, so please join me in voting for him.

I’m running for the Floyd County Coroner in 2020. Just a bit about me.

# I have lived in Floyd Knobs for the last 24 years.
# Married with three great kids.
# I’m retired from U.S. Army & Kentucky National Guard with 20+ years, as a First Sergeant, Combat Medic.
# I have been an registered nurse for 21 years working at Norton Healthcare.
# Now I’m the Forensic coordinator running the Sexual Assault Program for the last seven years at Norton Healthcare as an Forensic nurse.
# I have worked with The Louisville Metro Police Dept as a forensic nurse.
# I have attended multiple classes on sexual assault training, strangulation, gunshot and human trafficking.

I would appreciate your confidence as being elected as the next coroner and if you have any questions please reach out to me. Feel free to share this page with your friends.

Man from the Magazine.

Alexander Lukashenko is the offspring of another universe.

He graduated from the Mogilev Pedagogical Institute (now Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University) in 1975, after 4 years studying there and the Belarusian Agricultural Academy in Horki in 1985.

He served in the Border Guard (frontier troops) from 1975 to 1977, where he was an instructor of the political department of military unit No. 2187 of the Western Frontier District in Brest and in the Soviet Army from 1980 to 1982. In addition, he led an All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (Komsomol) chapter in Mogilev from 1977 to 1978. While in the Soviet Army, Lukashenko was a deputy political officer of the 120th Guards Motor Rifle Division, which was based in Minsk. He later rejoined as a tank specialist.

In 1979, he joined the ranks of the CPSU. After leaving the military, he became the deputy chairman of a collective farm in 1982 and in 1985, he was promoted to the post of director of the Gorodets state farm and construction materials plant in the Shkloŭ district. In 1987, he was appointed as the director of the Gorodets state farm in Shkloŭ district and in early 1988, was one of the first in Mogilev Region to introduce a leasing contract to a state farm.

The Soviet system, of which Belarus was a component until the USSR fell apart in 1991, functioned to advance non-entities like Lukashenko. In some ways, like making a university education available to those of hardscrabble upbringings, this was admirable.

And, glancing at Lukashenko's CV, it can be seen that he knew exactly how the bread was buttered. In short, he gravitated to the political organizations attached to the military and agriculture, proving his bona fides in these groupings, where the real power resided. It's entirely reasonable to imagine that had the USSR not collapsed, Lukashenko still would have emerged as a regional power broker.

How much any of this matters now is an open question. This article explains it quite well without quoting the late Kenny Rogers ("The Gambler").

We also can assume that Lukashenko has a nest egg in the Bank of the Kremlin should event require relocation.

'We will perish': embattled Lukashenko sends SOS to Putin, by Andrew Roth (The Guardian)

Belarusian leader seeks Kremlin support against external threats as analysts predict an end to his rule

 ... Putin has stopped short of offering support or an endorsement of Lukashenko, who is facing the gravest crisis of his career. It is likely that Moscow will wait and see whether Lukashenko can survive the next weeks or even days, as protests and labour strikes grow and pressure mounts on him to leave office.

“Now it’s clear that Lukashenko’s era is over, and I think that’s clear for everyone in Moscow, including in the Kremlin,” said Dmitry Suslov, a professor and foreign affairs expert at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.

Even if the Belarusian leader does limp through this crisis, Suslov said, his model of president-for-life probably will not. People around Lukashenko are reported to have already sounded out the Kremlin on fleeing to Russia if he is deposed, according to a Bloomberg report ...

In Britain's elections, as in American ones: We'll awake "to find one of these horrors in charge."

Photo credit: The Economist article.

I was asked, "How is Donald Trump viewed throughout your travels?"

To be honest, it didn't come up.

There were instances of anti-Trump in graffiti-rich Ljubljana, and a couple of folks in Slovenia mentioned Melania Trump, born in 1970 during Yugoslav times in the Slovenian city of Novo Mesto (near the border with Croatia). She grew up in a town called Sevnica and began her modeling career prior to Slovenia's independence in 1991.

It's worth noting that had Melanija Knavs grown up in any of the other communist countries in east-central Europe where the orthodoxy was more rigid than Yugoslavia's relatively less restrictive Titoist variety, she probably wouldn't have had a head start in the late 1980s. Interestingly, her father was a member of Slovenia's atheistic League of Communists, but had his children secretly baptized Catholic.

In short, I find the institution of "First Lady" very strange, and Melania far more interesting than Donald, but to each their own.

Meanwhile in Great Britain, a dismal election campaign is about to conclude, and The Economist is flustered. The Liberal Democrats won't win, and yet consider the possibilities for lesser parties in a parliamentary system to influence the outcome, an option we're denied by the American fixation with a two-party system that exists nowhere in any statutory or constitutional sense.

That's why I detest the two-party system more than any single representative of it, including Trump -- and yes, I'd almost surely vote Labour.

Our election endorsement: Britain’s nightmare before Christmas ... A divided country faces an election that will tear it still further apart (The Economist)

British voters keep being called to the polls—and each time the options before them are worse. Labour and the Conservatives, once parties of the centre-left and -right, have steadily grown further apart in the three elections of the past four years. Next week voters face their starkest choice yet, between Boris Johnson, whose Tories promise a hard Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour Party plans to “rewrite the rules of the economy” along radical socialist lines. Mr Johnson runs the most unpopular new government on record; Mr Corbyn is the most unpopular leader of the opposition. On Friday the 13th, unlucky Britons will wake to find one of these horrors in charge ...

People first? The reign of a strongman leader in the Maldives ends at the ballot box as he tries to rig an election but loses anyway.

We begin this report about an election upset in the Maldives with the gratuitous use of the "L" word.

Unrivalled luxury, stunning white-sand beaches and an amazing underwater world make Maldives an obvious choice for a true holiday of a lifetime.

One million annual tourists visit the islands, which have a population of a little more than 420,000.

The Maldives is a republic lies south-west of the Indian sub-continent. It is made up of a chain of nearly 1,200 islands, most of them uninhabited.

None of the coral islands stand more than 1.8 metres (six feet) above sea level, making the country vulnerable to any rise in sea levels associated with global warming.

The economy revolves around tourism, and scores of islands have been developed for the top end of the tourist market.

Its political history has been unsettled since the electoral defeat of long-serving President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in 2008.

Back to that election.

President in paradise: An election upset in the Maldives (The Economist)

Abdulla Yameen, the strongman president, lost to a diminished opposition

THE last time Abdulla Yameen looked on the verge of losing power, in February, he declared a state of emergency and locked up two Supreme Court justices, members of parliament and even his own half-brother. His preparations for the presidential election on September 23rd appeared just as thorough. The most prominent leaders of the opposition remained in jail or in exile. The government had showered voters with pre-election goodies, such as waiving rent fines and trimming prison sentences. The police went as far as to raid the opposition alliance’s headquarters the day before the vote.

What could possibly go wrong for Yameen?

And yet, when the results came in, to general astonishment, Mr Yameen was declared to have lost, with only 42% of the vote. The winner was the unassuming but unjailed Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the leader of the diminished opposition in parliament. Mr Yameen, who had appeared determined to cling to power just six months before, conceded without protest.

Solih eloquently placed his victory into context.

“For many of us this has been a difficult journey, a journey that has led to prison cells or exile. “It’s been a journey that has ended at the ballot box.”

It seems that luxury projects and accompanying corruption scandals were a hallmark of the defeated Yameen.

Many of Mr Yameen’s big schemes will doubtless receive the scrutiny parliament was unable to give them previously. Some of his strongman policies, such as the re-introduction of the death penalty and the re-criminalisation of defamation, may be rolled back. And the corruption scandals and unexplained murders of critics that marred his rule are likely to be investigated more thoroughly.

When power-hungry candidates lose, it lifts one's spirits.

Council Thursday: Caesar loses control, and the GOP finds it. Haven House and the Homeless Coalition are funded. One down, 23 to go.

I've been attending city council meetings for so long, I can remember Barb Anderson's annual appearances before the body, when she'd ask if perhaps this year our city might (a) acknowledge homelessness exists, and (b) consider absorbing just a bit of Haven House's expense in addressing their needs in lieu of NA's ongoing refusal to do anything itself, for its own -- and the dysfunction would explode.

Like that time back in December of 2007 (a second example from 2008 appears below, at this post's end).

 ... Not that there weren’t full-throated, arena-sized roars last night. For outgoing at-large councilman Donnie Blevins, it was an evening of indisputably Biblical proportions. Blevins, a credentialed minister, led off what he believed would be his final meeting with a quiet New Testament prayer (a dozen or more references to “heavenly father” blessing any and all present), closed it with an impassioned Old Testament prophet’s tirade (a half dozen angry “bull craps”), and as such, played a small but significant part in the customary display of legislative dysfunction that, in the end, is the only way this council will be remembered.

Specifically, Blevins’ fire and brimstone was directed against fellow councilman Kevin Zurschmiede, who tabled R-07-45, a resolution to provide funding for Haven House, the homeless shelter in Jeffersonville. Haven House has been beset with managerial difficulties in 2007, yet remains the only local organization committed to dealing with a problem that few community members or elected officials seem willing to admit exists.

Zurschmiede explained the withdrawal as being necessitated by a “couple of phone calls” he received earlier in the afternoon. If these calls were indicative of the malice with which some in the community customarily regard Haven House’s director, Barb Anderson, then it’s likely the calls were anonymous; be that as it may, Zurschmiede summarily punted and Blevins immediately pounced on the fumble, first asking that the tabling be reconsidered, and then, much later at meeting’s end, loudly and passionately providing his view of the problem with colleagues who don’t know what it’s like to be “out on the street” at this time of year before storming out of the room, not to return.

Game, set & match: Blevins.

On the first Thursday evening of 2018 we learned that yes, homelessness is a thing even if Jeff Gahan persists in disagreeing, and more amazingly, these days Haven House should receive more money than Barb comes to ask for.

None other than Dan Coffey -- who was on his creepiest "good Danny" behavior all night -- politely and constructively suggested upping Haven House's tithe at the expense of the Homeless Coalition, which would see its previously promised $75,000 cut to $50K.

Bob Caesar promptly channeled his inner populist and melted down, completely and utterly embarrassing himself, launching petulant tirades in all directions, and denouncing the Homeless Coalition to everyone except the organization's director, Keeley Stingel, who stood the lectern inviting questions, and informatively fielding them, with Caesar reverting to stone cold silence until she sat down -- then off he went again.

 A tad cowardly, wouldn't you say?

Just what was the issue with Tiberius Severus Octavian Elagabalus Septimius Augustus Claudius Hadrian Gluteus Maximus Caesar-- Protector of Fitting and Proper Scribnerian Values, Deliverer of all Downtown Datedness, Master of the Ex-Mercantile, and Guardian of the Gates?

Probably his unceremonious defeat in the meeting-opening election for the 2018 council presidency, an occurrence that may or may not prove auspicious in the coming year. First, let's look back at last year's inaugural council conclave on January 5, 2017, when the mayor's handy squadron of envelopes easily put down an insurrection.

Dynamic Duo resumes control of New Albany city council, Boy Wonder plots next move, and the rest of us drink straight through.

Just some honest horse trading, Shane.

I suppose someone's got to do it, so here is coverage of Thursday evening's city council meeting.

A rumored seismic shift in the council's power base failed to materialize, as indie swing voters played the game the way the game is meant to be played, and extracted their minimum yearly requirement of tasty nutrients from the Dear Leader.

Accordingly, Pat McLaughlin was re-elected to the position of Council President for Life, defeating Al Knable 6 to 3, with Knable's votes coming from GOP council block.

The vote to re-elect Greg Phipps as Vice President was 5 to 3 over David Barksdale, with Scott Blair abstaining.

Returning to 2018, President-for-Life McLaughlin retired, and Caesar stood in his stead. Phipps again sought the vice president's chair. The deck seemed familiarly stacked; with Coffey seemingly back on the mayoral payroll, he'd join the four Democrats in selecting Caesar and Phipps, rendering Blair's vote irrelevant.

However, both independents joined the three Republican members in ushering in Knable as president and Blair as vice-president, reminding us that when you're without a political party on city council, it's a year-to-year contract.

Blair's motives are a mystery to season ticket holders, and we'll believe in this coalition when we see it persevere, but ever since Coffey (at heart an unreconstructed Falangist) deserted the Democrats for unprincipled independence in the aftermath of The Donald's enthronement, it has been at least theoretically possible for a Republican/Independent marriage of convenience to make life fairly difficult for Dear Leader.

Surely Gahan will outbid the GOP for Coffey's services? After all, they've been so symbiotic for so long.

New Albany City Council provides funding to homeless coalition, by Chris Morris (Dead Horse Scrolls)

Haven House to receive $50,000, or more

NEW ALBANY — The Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana and Haven House in Jeffersonville both were given a financial boost at Thursday's New Albany City Council meeting.

The council voted on third reading to give the Homeless Coalition $50,000, $25,000 less than what the organization originally asked for. Haven House also was awarded $50,000 on first and second reading, and may get a little more on Jan. 18 when the third and final reading of the ordinance is voted on. Haven House was seeking only $25,000, but council members praised the work of Director Barbara Anderson and decided to give her shelter at least a $25,000 bump.

"We all know the work she does," Councilman Dan Coffey said. "She is proven. They need more boots on the ground right there."

Haven House is the only long-term homeless shelter in the area. Anderson said there are currently 33 residents living there from New Albany. She said the majority of the money received will go toward new bedding and to expand the restroom. She said there are currently 87 people living at the shelter.

"We are the only real residential shelter of any size in 14 counties [Southern Indiana]," Anderson told the council.

As a blog bonus, let's rewind to the antics of December 2, 2008.

---

"Pole Dancing at the Homeless Shelter", and other songs of unintended mirth from the Same Song Singer.

I strolled into last evening’s council meeting just in time for the commencement of the public hearing on A-08-19, an ordinance to set salaries for elected officials.

Settling into the creaky metal chairs that we can’t afford to replace, I listened as Gonepostalman launched into pointed criticism of what sounded to me like an optional program of healthcare benefits available to local elected officials.

The decrepit sound system crackled.

In the speaker’s eyes, this option amounts to a 180% raise if exercised – something positively scandalous in a country where people like the Gonepostalman customarily resist the siren's call of universal health care like that widely enjoyed in functional countries they loath for not being as American as we are.

Of all people, it was none other than Dan Coffey who effectively lanced the boil by asking the U.S. government’s taxpayer-sponsored snail mail delivery technician to describe the history of his own pay raises and benefits, but not before Steve Price served notice that if a shameless Checkers speech was good enough for Tricky Dicky, it’s good enough for the downtrodden constituents that CM Price drives (not walks) constantly on his own gasoline dime to visit, drink Folger’s, and assure that their prospects won’t be permitted to improve on his watch.

CM Price noted that alas, he was one of the council members who had signed up for the health care bonanza, not for himself, mind you, but after friends phoned him anonymously late at night and said that some doctorin’ now and then might be good for his daughter … and now that Gonepostalman had rightly pointed out the error of his ways, a contrite Price could see that thinking about his family was selfish.

“I put her before the common good of the city of New Albany, and that was wrong,” said Price.

Instinctively, I reached for my hankie … to wipe the shit off my shoes.

Put 'em to work breaking up rocks.

As C-J reporter Dick Kaukas informs us, the council approved a $25,000 tithe to Jeffersonville’s Haven House homeless shelter, primarily as a conscience-salving means of avoiding a comprehensive consideration of New Albany’s own problem with homelessness, and yet, as Price noted during an interminable, pre-school-masterly grilling of Haven House director Barb Anderson, it isn’t that most of those homeless people really want to work, anyway, something Price gleaned from his personal experience with a deadbeat rental property resident who stiffed the councilman and fled to the shelter at his first opportunity, presumably exhausted by daily mandatory Dave Ramsey recitations.

Remarkably, the primary rationale for Price’s hectoring of Anderson was revealed to be “red flags” raised by mysterious (different) callers phoning the councilman to complain about Haven House’s management, while refusing to come on down to the council chambers and put their comments on the record, with not even a Nixonian doctored transcript as proof of their existence.

The Haven House debate continued, with Coffey forcefully upholding the need to fund help for the homeless, and suddenly the gallery gasped as Price made another shocking revelation.

Who told you THAT?

Not only would there be no overtime for firefighters and a potential City-County Building rent snafu, but all of it had come to him “ACCORDING TO THE NEWSPAPER,” not via more obvious and conventional methods like his person being seated twice monthly on a council that deliberates on such matters in spite of never receiving information that isn’t passed on to them by cub reporters and red-flag-wielding chatters.

Don’t touch that rotary dial, folks … there’s more.

Outgunned, and with most of his ammo actually cheap Wal-Mart blanks, Price adeptly reversed field and decided to feign some measure of concern about the homeless, extemporaneously offering his venerable, three-minute old personal plan for the city to do something positive about the problem of people who refuse to work.

(a) House them in the Tabernacle building on 4th, presumably because its engaging patio-style rooflessness would simulate natural conditions out on the street, or …

(b) House them at the Rustic Frog/II Horseshoes, since to do so would be an improvement on the go-go dancers there now, and with an added benefit of the homeless being housed out of view by the floodplain, where they would be invisible to taxpaying citizens disturbed by their shiftlessness.

Perhaps the owners of the property will give it to the city.

Believe it or not, but it wasn’t over yet.
Having approved the Haven House funding resolution by a count of 8-1 (guess who), and with little further debate in the offing on the first reading of the salary ordinance, the increasingly apocalyptic (not to mention apoplectic) Price threw a final gem of observation into the recessionary gloom pervading the vicinity of Dewey Heights.

How bad is it, Steve?

Well, it’s so bad that the uncouncilman personally knows of people who’ve been forced to dispense with cable television to make ends meet.

The soiled hankie was of no further use, so I buried my head in my raggedy sweatshirt. The humanity … the humanity … hmm ...

Wonder if they’ve got cable over at Haven House?

"Sleaford Mods have taken charge of Britain after staging a coup against the government."

Their relevance escalates as the election draws near.

Keeping Dry Under Storm Clouds: An Interview with Sleaford Mods, by Dan Derks (Pop Matters)

Before reading on, whether you’re seasoned or green with Sleaford Mods, it’d be helpful to watch two videos of the band. “Jobseeker”, performed on Later… with Jools Holland, and “Tied Up In Nottz” are certainly good starting places.

 ... The band’s discography is built on wordplay that offends and indicts, each syllable recounting the British class wars that have shaped Williamson’s life. Equal parts manifestos and barroom rants, Sleaford Mods songs find power in the amorphous boundary between the two. English Tapas, their newest release, is no exception.

There is an alternative.

Sleaford Mods overthrow government (The Daily Mash)

SLEAFORD Mods have taken charge of Britain after staging a coup against the government.

The Nottingham double act stormed Whitehall armed with loud rants about the current state of affairs and successfully removed Theresa May’s government in less than eight minutes ...

That's LA, not NA: "City Hall candidates are saying no to real estate developer donations."

Streetsblog referred to an article in the Washington Post, and I retweeted it.

Just imagine living in a place where a local politician would find it advantageous to renounce the sort of "beaks wetted" campaign contributions which here in New Albany comprise the fundamental building blocks of governance. Just imagine living in a place where local journalists cared.

You may say I'm a dreamer ...

Seeking an edge over incumbents, these L.A. City Hall candidates are saying no to real estate developer donations, byEmily Alpert Reyes and David Zahniser (Los Angeles Times)

Two years ago, in a tough race for the Los Angeles City Council, health clinic executive David Ryu made a promise that helped propel him to victory: He swore off campaign contributions from real estate developers.

That promise, Ryu said, was meant to reassure voters that community needs, not political donations, would guide his decisions on new building projects.

Now, with concerns over development and campaign cash taking center stage in the March 7 election, an array of candidates are embracing the same strategy as they look to topple incumbents, some of whom have a steep financial advantage.

Public affairs consultant Mitchell Schwartz, waging a long-shot bid to unseat Mayor Eric Garcetti, said he won't take campaign funds from real estate developers. Council candidates in races from Echo Park to Westchester have made similar promises, singling out that money as a symbol of City Hall corruption.

Dynamic Duo resumes control of New Albany city council, Boy Wonder plots next move, and the rest of us drink straight through.

Just some honest horse trading, Shane.

I suppose someone's got to do it, so here is coverage of Thursday evening's city council meeting.

A rumored seismic shift in the council's power base failed to materialize, as indie swing voters played the game the way the game is meant to be played, and extracted their minimum yearly requirement of tasty nutrients from the Dear Leader.

Accordingly, Pat McLaughlin was re-elected to the position of Council President for Life, defeating Al Knable 6 to 3, with Knable's votes coming from GOP council block.

The vote to re-elect Greg Phipps as Vice President was 5 to 3 over David Barksdale, with Scott Blair abstaining.

Local Democratic Party chairman Adam Dickey was in attendance, furiously compiling Mickey Mouse Mash Notes in preparation for his 2018 Indiana House challenge to Ed Clere. By that time, Mayor Gahan should have finished folding Democrats into municipal government as Legally Contracted Janitorial Services for Redevelopment -- though Redevelopment itself is about to double as the New Albany Housing Authority's captive board. More on that next week.

To reiterate, the ideal site for Jeff Gahan Presents New Albany City FC is ready and waiting for the TIF-fueled bulldozers.

Finally, as council was reminded by a Navajo Drive resident who correctly divined that not a single elected or appointed member in New Albany Government Inc. can quote the exact mandated procedure, FOR GOD'S SAKE PICK UP YOUR LEAVES PEOPLE.

The meeting adjourned before 7:30 p.m., and martinis -- only those necessary to cope -- began flowing.

We hope the "Turkish awakening" is transferable.

A few years back, I devoted a column to the nation of Turkey and its modern founder, Atatürk.

ON THE AVENUES: “Science is the only true guide in life.” (December 1, 2011)

... In “Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography,” M. Sükrü Hanioglu charts Kemal’s rapid career trajectory. As hero of the battle against the Commonwealth at Gallipoli in 1915, he rapidly advanced to the top of a crumbling, post-WWI regional heap, emerging during the 1920’s not just as the most powerful military and political figure in Turkey, but as the freshly minted country’s undisputed motive force, who eventually was redubbed Atatürk – Father of the Turks.

Hanioglu’s slim volume excels because it is relentlessly focused on a specific examination of Atatürk’s intellectual life and avoids narrative history from the perspective of his sex life, private proclivities or recreational drug preferences (he had a wife, read quite a lot and died of cirrhosis). Significantly, when we ask what made this man tick, the single most revealing answer is what did not: Religion, in the form of the Islam.

Just a few weeks ago at my nominal beer blog, a brief reverie was authorized as I reflected on my visit to Istanbul, 30 years ago.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 5 … From Istanbul to Rome, with Greece in between.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 4 … With Hassan in Pithion.

Given a municipal election coming to New Albany in November, "nobody expected this" is a phrase guaranteed to capture my attention. Bicentennial Park could be Gezi Park, if we want it.

At last, the Turkish awakening Erdogan could not crush, by Alev Scott (The Guardian)

Turkey fulfilled the legacy of Gezi Park yesterday. What protesters could not accomplish two years ago has now been achieved. Such a resounding vote for change – for the first time in 13 years – means the ludicrously named Justice and Development party (AKP) has lost its majority. Nobody expected this. As the votes came in last night and the opposition’s amazed celebrations began, no one partied harder than supporters of the minority rights-focused Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), which blossomed out of the Gezi movement, and whose success in the face of intimidating odds proved the key to the AKP’s undoing.

There are now serious questions to be asked about Turkey’s political future in the wake of this extreme transformation, but on waking up this morning my overriding urge was to sing “Ding dong, the witch is dead!” and dance like a liberated Munchkin. Of course I’m talking about President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who failed to surface yesterday evening after his ambitions for an executive presidency had been crushed with satisfying finality – and about whom I would never have written such blasphemous sentiments if his party still retained a majority.

Johnny Marr has given me a great campaign t-shirt idea.

Photo: Aaron Farley/NME

For added enrichment, consider the return of the protest song.

Johnny Marr urges UK election voters: 'Get rid of this lot on Thursday' at NME

Johnny Marr has spoken out about the upcoming UK general election, urging voters to oust the current Conservative and Lib Dem coalition ...

... Tory leader David Cameron previously publicly declared his love for The Smiths, which led Marr to later tweet: ""David Cameron, stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don't. I forbid you to like it."

Ditching the fatalism and pushing for change in politics. Is it time?

A second Sunday link from the Guardian, but only because it makes sense. Granted, the context is British. However, the content applies very much to the United States in general, and to New Albany in particular.

2015 general election: enough of the fatalism. It’s a great time to push for change in politics, by Armando Iannucci

Politicians are fearful, the electorate is confused, but let’s harness the ideas and passion alive in the country

It really says a lot about the state of British politics that the televised leaders’ debate I’m most looking forward to is the one between Russell Brand and Al Murray. The way things stand, it looks more likely than a Cameron v Miliband debate. It also looks the more interesting.

A Brand/Murray smackdown would be hugely serious and relevant since it would go to the heart of what ails the UK’s democratic condition today: whether voting in elections is worth bothering with at all. Russell Brand has spent the past six months arguing the party system is so busted that true and lasting change can only be achieved by turning our backs on it and, come election day, staying at home in droves. Al Murray, on the other hand, embraces the political process by choosing to stand against Nigel Farage as the Pub Landlord, in effect saying that voting counts because it can take real power away from those whom you fear or mistrust.

Taking power away from those we fear or mistrust. Think about that.

Politicians have always been protective about their brand, but a collective caution seems to have overwhelmed them. It’s difficult, despite the policy reviews and speeches, to know precisely what Labour is in favour of. Which spending budgets will they protect and which ones will they abandon to the fires?

Think of this recent summary of local "Democratic" platform principle: "Being physically cleaner, financially stronger, and fundamentally better." What does it really mean? Has any of it been accomplished? Has the candidate who pronounced it in 2011 been willing at any point during the past three years to seriously examine the words, to place them into context, and to do so in the company or real people, as opposed to unelected back alley boards?

Conversely, NA Confidential has been exploring platform planks for 10 solid years. There is more genuine content here in a month than the local Democratic Party has mustered since FDR's final term. The trick is learning from it, linking it together, and being able to clearly explain it.

On the Tory side, we know they’ll give us a referendum on Europe but won’t say which side they’ll take. Nor will they supply us with any basic indication of how the laws of maths can deliver us from debt by taking more money from the poor than from the rich.

Will local Republicans even contest this year's races?

Then there’s the real imponderable: devolution, regionalism, constitutional reform, English votes for English laws. Call it what you will, the stark fact is that on this most fundamental of issues – what form our future democracy will take – we only have vague suggestions from everyone. All the parties want to run the country but won’t say what country it is they want to run.

These, too, are the questions being ignored in New Albany: What kind of city do we want this to be? Is it a pass-through or a stay-awhile? Is it a place to make omelettes, or spend another 200 years staring at the rotting eggs for fear of breaking one?

No doubt policies are up and viewable on websites somewhere. But the stupefying reality is we still don’t feel we know. They’ve had months, years even, to prepare and mighty budgets for media spend, and yet we feel so little the wiser. You get the impression they’d love their manifestos to go out encrypted.

That's breathtaking. Iannucci has not been to New Albany, and yet he has descended the labyrinth of "Get Smart" hatches, conveyors and secret elevators, all the way into the down-low bunker, where the mayor receives information from the outside world via Maalox the Younger and the Rasputin of Redevelopment.

Can holograms be encrypted?

Is encryption the very nature of the hologram?

Why shouldn’t we abandon our political masters and stay at home? Looking at the polls, no one knows how this thing is going to end up, so why bother? ...

... I would argue the opposite, that now is the best time in a generation to go out and vote. With such a fragmented system on offer, nothing is inevitable. Uncertainty may create instability, but it can also generate churn and change in a way that doing nothing never can.

The truth is, we haven’t been abandoning politicians – they’ve been abandoning us. The main parties have run recent elections focusing on smaller and smaller tribes of supporters in the hope that the bare minimum will squeeze them through.

It might be different if there could be a platform one favors, as built from substance of the sort one might cast vote to endorse, without feeling the need to bathe afterwards. That's why I cannot favor either of the two local political patronage dispensers, and it's also why it seems to be the right time to take a stab at such a platform.

The enduring local received political wisdom in New Albany is that voters will reject genuine substance. At the same time, it has not ever been attempted. 2015 strikes me as the perfect opportunity. Vote for the platform, vote against the generator of mistrust, or do both, simultaneously. The strategy works, or it doesn't.

And at the very least, we will have tried.

Council Night 1: Gahan needs his pliant 'yes' man, so "McLaughlin to seek third term as New Albany City Council president."

But why waste your time and mine when it's already been written?

ON THE AVENUES: Party time in the trickle-down, one-party city.

 ... However, we must give the Democratic Party’s one-party municipal patronage machine full credit for functioning at peak efficiency of late. The city council’s (functional) 8-1 “Democratic” majority has been absolute, with lone Republican Kevin Zurschmiede obviously disinterested, maverick Diane Benedetti completely isolated and the body’s president, Pat McLaughlin, performing supinely as de facto City Hall shop steward.

That was in August of last year. Tonight we begin a whole new year, presumably donning our Sunday best to meet the new boss (same as the old boss), but with an opportunity to queue the Manics:

Hello, it's us again

You thought you were our friends

Success is an ugly word

Especially in your tiny world

The point ... let's see ... I had it right here.

Oh, right: Paddy Mac wants to be Jeff's boy next door for another year.

McLaughlin to seek third term as New Albany City Council president (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany City Council will elect leaders for 2015 when it convenes Monday.

The council president and vice president positions will be selected by the body. Two-term Councilman Pat McLaughlin has served as the council president the past two years, and said Friday he would again seek the seat.

“If the council is willing to have me, I’m willing to do it,” he said.

Council members can nominate someone else if they choose. Beyond a slight pay increase, the council president is in charge of leading the meetings and ensuring the body follows the agenda.
The president also holds authority over some board and commission appointments, though the council generally votes on those positions.

All nine seats on the council are up for election this year beginning with a primary in May.

Boris Johnson gets his folkloric clogs on.

Boris Johnson is a blowhard, and it isn't readily apparent that his conclusion follows the premises, but no matter; you have to hand it to him for using the word "jacquerie" in the year 2014.

And his hair is longer than mine.

European elections 2014: This is one peasants’ revolt that Brussels can’t just brush aside, by Boris Johnson (The Telegraph)

... There is a kind of peasants’ revolt going on, a jacquerie. From Dublin to Lublin, from Portugal to Pomerania, the pitchfork-wielding populists are converging on the Breydel building in Brussels – drunk on local hooch and chanting nationalist slogans and preparing to give the federalist machinery a good old kicking with their authentically folkloric clogs. There are Greek anti-capitalists and Hungarian neo-fascists and polite German professors who want to bring back the Deutschemark. They are making common cause with Left-wing Italian comedians and Right-wing Dutch firebrands and the general slogan is simple: down with technocracy, down with bureaucracy, and give power back to the people!

The NewAlbanist on tactics of self-selection and self-rejection.

Fresh off his star turn as "Soapy Sam" Ballard in "Rumpole and the Big Henry Bain Sauce and Egg Man" ... just kidding.

It's been wonderful to experience the bookseller's erudition of late. I keep company with the finest expository writers in town (Randy and Jeff), and reading them enriches me. I'd say it makes me a better writer, except only sobriety can do that -- and what a price.

The bookseller defines his term:

Today’s word from Ben Schott’s Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition

Bösewichtsduckmäusrigkeit – Cowardice in the face of malevolence.

Pronounced [boo-ze-vicchts --dook-moyz-rihg-kite]

Then he moves to The NewAlbanist for the details.

Bösewichtsduckmäusrigkeit It Ain’t
Bösewichtsduckmäusrigkeit It Ain’t, Part 2

We had a few discussions over the weekend with regard to an earlier post, one in which I lamented the seeming withdrawal of one and the patent abdication of many others when it comes to seeking elective office.

I am reminded that such decision do not take place in a vacuum. The vapidity of New Albany government is the product of both self-selection and self-rejection.

There are two primary tactics practiced by incumbents.

As an oblique comment on the general theme of civic engagement, there's an anecdote I enjoy repeating which goes something like this.

I'll be discussing New Albanian social conditions and trends, conceding that (of course) the best and brightest always leave town to seek opportunities elsewhere, and usually someone will squint and reply, "I see you're still here."

Yes, so true -- but why further encourage the brain drain by being elected?

The NewAlbanist: "And Then There Were … None?"

Admittedly, it struck me as a bit premature that Brad Bell announced his candidacy for the 2015 council race some 20 months before the primary.

In addition, there's a "once bitten, twice shy" hangover from my erstwhile newspaper column's shoddy treatment (post-primary, 2011) at the hands of the Blind Goys from Alabama.

It's also true that no one's running for anything until there's the correct election to contest. Verily, at this precise moment, I'm not running for office, although if you're interested in examining the platform from my council race in 2011, the Facebook campaign page remains up.

Clear as mud? Now, here's what the bookseller (NewAlbanist) has to say, and as always, it's quite thought-provoking. Now if you'll excuse me, there are tea leaves to be read.

And Then There Were … None? by newalbanist

At their next family reunion, if not sooner, Jeff Gahan, New Albany’s mayor, and Dan Coffey, the city’s longest-tenured city council member, will surely share a satisfied chuckle over their cooling baked beans and warming potato salad. For yet another talented and innovative New Albanian has thrown in the towel and conceded the electoral field to the reigning cabal.

My friend, Roger Baylor, seems to have literally done that. In the midst of a renewed effort on his part to simply help improve our city, Roger has been compelled to issue a caveat in conjunction with that effort – “I’m not running for office.” More on this, below.

No, Erika; probably not.

I'm very disappointed that Prof. Erika hasn't commented on PourGate.

Matt Lorch sets sight on da Judgeship.

I'd hate to lose Matt's mischievous countenance at council conclaves, but onward and upward. The lawyering business comes naturally to Matt, and he's conscientious and diligent. Best of luck to him.

Lorch to run for Superior Court Judge; Local lawyer currently serves as council attorney, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

New Albany City Council Attorney Matthew Lorch is seeking to be the next judge of Floyd County Superior Court No. 2.

With luck, they'll fight over the use of 8th & Culbertson as campaign headquarters.

Yo, Democrats: Anyone except England against Clere, please.

For too many years, New Albany’s three-term former mayor, Doug England, thought of himself as the heir-presumptive to the Indiana House sinecure occupied for so many decades by Bill Cochran.

Unfortunately for Hizzoner, time chose not to wait. A Floyd County Democratic Party unable to devise coherent tactics for succession stuck with Cochran for one election too long, and buoyed by thick wads of the GOP’s out-of-state PAC cash, newcomer Ed Clere unseated the incumbent in 2008. England was forced to settle for a third, curiously underachieving term as mayor.

Clere, now comfortably ensconced in the House at least in part because of the local Democratic Party’s serial disorganization, is seeking a third term, and yet again England – who was unable to best Shirley Baird in the recent at-large city council race – is assuring all and sundry that he’s the anointed challenger.

Let's hope it's a dream, and Bobby Ewing comes bounding out of the shower.

Although not without intrinsic entertainment value far transcending even our degraded local political norm, an England candidacy for the House would be a tragically doomed waste of an election cycle for the Democrats. The only way such a run even remotely approaches making sense is as an act of calculated political cynicism.

"After all, it's finally his turn, so let him raise some money and run, and maybe he'll bloody Clere a bit and give us more time to plan."

But this notion implies a depth of strategic acumen seldom witnessed in local Democratic circles. Time to plan? Plan for what? A fourth consecutive Clere win in 2014? Isn’t allotting candidacies by seniority what brought us Walter Mondale’s bold capture of Minnesota (1 down, 49 to go) in 1984?

If our local Democrats wish to arrest the party’s headlong descent into irrelevance – and in fact there are few signs that any of them have any clear ideas how to do so – they’ll surely have to do better than England as "next" against Clere. Barring better, which in itself is a staggering admission of core impotence, they must at least find someone younger.

Rep. Clere is young chronologically, which plays well to the cadres of the Clere Youth brigades, among whom he functions as a matinee idol. Clere’s youth is artfully balanced by the Falangist proclivities of a man at least twice his age; he began his political career by trumpeting a pragmatic centrism, and then once elected, openly bragged of a headlong rush to the right-wing fringe, exciting Floyd County’s geriatric antediluvians, whether Republican or nominally Democratic.

Having previously fumbled away the opportunity to hold Cochran’s once secure seat, and coming gratifyingly close with Shane Gibson last time around, the Democrats must opt for a fresh face, preferably with sensible, progressive, 21st-century grassroots credentials. There might yet occur that rarest of local phenomena, a contest of ideas.

By contrast, an England candidacy would be an exercise in old school down and dirty, with the respective party PACS slugging it out over mailers of extended skeleton hands, boudoir allegations and the occasional graphic designer’s depiction of collegiate moon shots. It would be hilarious, and futile. England has more personal and political baggage than containers filled with plastic trinkets on the deck of a Chinese ship bound for Wal-Mart. The GOP slimings would be vicious, and impossible to refute.

There may be nothing the Democrats can do about Clere’s ongoing incumbency, but the very least the party can do in the interim is give its apparatus a good scrubbing, begin thinking in a future tense, and offer the community a viable alternative. Anyone except England against Clere, please.

Geez, it's been a whole month.

Time to collect your signs from this scenic location on Rolling Creek Drive.