At Jacobin, a comprehensive analysis of Labour's implosion in the UK election.

The Brexit referendum in 2016 needn't have taken place under the terms by which David Cameron minted the vote, but once it did, the verdict was regarded as binding by a majority of United Kingdom residents. Subsequently the UK's withdrawal from the European Union might have been negotiated in a number of ways -- by either Labour or the Conservatives (Tories).

I've underlined the key passage in this excerpt, which makes the preceding point very clear.

As for the recent election, Labour was split in half by Remainers who were only slightly less appalled with the party's working class base than wealthy London bankers. The Tories succeeded in closing their ranks because Nigel Farage's one-issue Brexit Party saw it could achieve its chief aim by losing, and campaigned accordingly, meaning that finally, Farage triumphed even if he isn't part of the new government.

In short, Jeremy Corbyn's political decapitation means that the "Tony Blair Light" version of centrist Labour can again seize control, differing from the Tories ... how, exactly?

The Obsessive Remainers Have Scored a Massive Own Goal, by Daniel Finn (Jacobin)

For the last three years, second-referendum campaigners heaped blame on Jeremy Corbyn for his alleged role in “facilitating” Brexit. Yet their determined efforts to torpedo his leadership destroyed any chance of a compromise solution — and made the hardest of hard Brexits inevitable.

... LABOUR'S POLICY

The position set out in Labour’s 2017 manifesto could be summarized as follows: we accept the result of the referendum; it’s not the result we wanted, but people have voted to leave the European Union and we can’t ignore that choice. That doesn’t mean we’re going to give the Tory government a blank check to negotiate any kind of withdrawal deal they like. There are several possible routes out of the EU, some of which would be far more damaging than others. We won’t support a deal that will destroy people’s jobs and living standards, or one that will prepare the ground for a bonfire of social rights and protections.

This was in no way a distinctly “Corbynite” position. Leading figures on the Labour right gave it their firm support in the run-up to the 2017 election: from Tom Watson and Yvette Cooper to Chuka Umunna and Wes Streeting.

The thinking behind it was simple. On grounds of principle, it would have been extremely dubious for politicians to reject the outcome of the referendum altogether. All the major British parties agreed to hold it in the first place, and there were no conditions for a quorum or a supermajority attached before the vote. The turnout was reasonably high, and those who took part voted to leave the EU by a small but decisive margin. Trying to overturn a democratic vote without having made any attempt to honor it would set an ugly precedent for the future.

It might still have been necessary to do so if all possible versions of Brexit were bound to be disastrous, but that simply wasn’t the case. Norway has never belonged to the EU, and there’s no reason to think its citizens are worse off than their neighbors in Sweden or Denmark. A so-called “soft-Brexit” deal would have been a perfectly acceptable framework for Labour to carry out domestic social reforms: a step sideways, not a step backward.

There was also a pragmatic case for Labour’s Brexit platform that could not be ignored or wished away. The Leave/Remain divide cut through the heart of the party’s electoral base. Two-thirds of Labour’s 2015 electorate voted Remain, the rest broke for Leave, but the “Labour Leavers” weren’t spread evenly around the country. Roughly two-thirds of Labour-held constituencies had a pro-Brexit majority in 2016: if all the Labour Leave voters defected to the Conservatives — or just stayed at home on polling day — the party could end up losing dozens of seats. It would be much easier for the Conservatives to win a general election on a hard-line pro-Brexit platform than it would be for Labour to see them off with a clear-cut anti-Brexit stance ...

UK election aftermath: "Any radicalism that fails to ask the really thorny questions isn’t radical at all."

It would be a mistake to read too much into the (soon to be dis-) United Kingdom's election. Something had to happen with respect to Brexit, and it did. Conditions in America, while mind-numbing in their own sordid way, cannot be compared with Brexit fatigue, which played out like one of those sieges in medieval times.

During the course of analyzing Labour's debacle, the columnist offers two questions and a comment that are highly applicable to present-day conditions here. I've placed them in bold.

Maybe it's just me, but thus far amid our seemingly endless presidential campaign, only Bernie Sanders seems to be addressing truly fundamental economic questions. The rest of it is little more than slightly differing ways to appease the needs of capital accumulation.

Spare me the Buttigieg bluff. He's a Republican in all but name. I'll vote for Sanders until I can't, then I'll reassess.

This Labour meltdown has been building for decades, by Aditya Chakrabortty (The Guardian)

 ... Any radicalism that fails to ask the really thorny questions isn’t radical at all. In Britain in 2019, those include: against rampant inequality and climate change, what’s the economy for? What do the public actually want from politics and economics?

In the 2017 election I wrote that a party that grew out of social institutions needed to turn itself into a social institution in precisely those areas it historically took for granted. That remains the key task: providing advice to those whose benefits are being slashed, legal support to tenants under the cosh from their landlords, haggling with the utilities to provide cheaper and better deals. Add to that: teaching political and economic literacy to voters, not just activists, and consulting constituents on what issues Labour should be battling on.

None of this is as easy as getting the woman with the great backstory to run No 11, or some GCSE marketing talk about finding new “narratives”. It’s hard graft, and it won’t make good copy. But Labour has no God-given right to expect votes, let alone to govern. It needs to renew its contract with its base. The big question is whether it wants to.

UK election 2019: Is the scene set for a return to Scottish independence?

Thursday's UK election brought a huge majority to the Tories amid Labour's cataclysmic defeat, which makes Brexit a prospective fact after three and a half years of political gridlock. Brexit will be a long, drawn-out process, but now it will happen.

Interestingly, leaving the European Union might set into motion the dissolution of the United Kingdom.

It isn't easy to explain the election's implications for perpetually fragile Northern Ireland, although it should suffice to use the word "destabilizing" -- to say the least.

DUP and Sinn Féin under pressure to restore power sharing, by Rory Carroll (The Guardian)

DUP loses big name as voters punish parties for Northern Ireland’s political dysfunction

... Boris Johnson’s election victory, which has liberated him from dependence on DUP votes in Westminster, has added to the sense of urgency. He is expected to push through a Brexit deal that will create checks and inspections on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Mike Nesbitt, a former leader of the Ulster Unionist party, told the BBC the election’s great irony was that for decades, unionists had feared Irish nationalism as the main threat to the union. “Then more recently it was Scottish nationalists, but it’s actually English nationalism which is posing the existential threat to the future of the union,” he said.

Lots of eggshells and tightropes in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile in Scotland, things have become very interesting. The previous Scottish independence referendum in 2014 didn't favor detachment. It might a second time, given a general pro-EU opinion.

Scottish independence vote a 'democratic right', says Sturgeon, by Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks (The Guardian)

Boris Johnson rejects first minister’s call as his spokesman says result of 2014 vote ‘should be respected’

Nicola Sturgeon is to publish a blueprint next week for a new Scottish independence referendum but Boris Johnson has rejected any moves towards a fresh vote.

The first minister said the Scottish National party’s “overwhelming” election victory in Scotland, where it won 47 of the country’s 59 Westminster seats with 1.2m votes, gave her a clear and undeniable mandate to hold one.

Sturgeon said she would publish the “detailed democratic case” for the transfer of the legal powers from Johnson’s new Conservative government, which has to authorise the Scottish parliament to stage any referendum that changes the UK’s constitutional structures.

“This isn’t about asking Boris Johnson or any other Westminster politician for permission. This is instead an assertion of the democratic right of the people of Scotland to determine our own future,” she said in a short victory speech in Edinburgh, where she declined to take questions.

snip

Sturgeon said the scale of the victory proved again that a large majority of Scots wanted to remain in the EU, three years after the country voted against Brexit by 62% to 38%. The election was a “watershed moment”, she said.

“Westminster has ignored the people of Scotland for more than three years. Last night, the people of Scotland said enough,” Sturgeon said. “It’s time for Boris Johnson to start listening. I accept, regretfully, that he has a mandate for Brexit in England but he has no mandate whatsoever to take Scotland out of the EU.”

She made a direct appeal to EU citizens – a group expected to be given a vote in any independence referendum, saying the SNP would protect and champion their interests. “I will fight with everything I have to protect your right to call Scotland your home.”

Canon on independent local voting: "You vote not for the party but for the candidate you know; your friend, your neighbor, your friend’s neighbor, someone you went to elementary school with."

Some fine points by Dan Canon, who lives among us right here in Nawbany.

National Politics Taint Local Races And Lay Waste To Societal Norms, by Dan Canon (LEO Weekly)

... In years past, there was not a lot of daylight between Republican and Democratic candidates at the state and municipal levels in Indiana and Kentucky; you often still can’t distinguish one from the other if they don’t tell you. It is not uncommon for a local politician to switch parties depending on who is likely to get more votes at the top of the ticket. So, to a degree, national-level politics have long influenced what goes on in small towns.

The degree has gradually increased over the last few decades, as federal wedge issues have been made the focal point of every political contest in America, from the Clarksville dogcatcher to the Rabbit Hash dogmayor. This shift has not happened by accident; the GOP was shrewd enough to localize national issues in order to dominate state legislatures and redraw the federal map, a strategy that has proved stunningly successful ...

Allow me to skip to the conclusion.

... The real question is: Given that these are the devils we know, what does a (Matt) Bevin victory or a (Bob) Hall victory say about the degree to which people have adopted the national lens as the one through which all politics should be viewed? Dissembling, insulting teachers, bulldozing family homes or outright insane behavior — do these still matter to heartland voters on Election Day? Or, has our collective attention span been whittled away to the nubs of abortion and immigration, with no room for anything else?

If the former, then I think there’s real hope for our fragile republic and for the Midwest in particular. Nearly a hundred years ago, an editor of the Terre Haute Tribune said of iconic socialist Eugene Debs: “Ninety-five percent of the people [in Terre Haute] don’t like his ideas, but they worship the man.” For now, it is still acceptable — even desirable — to cast yourself as an independent voter in small-town Indiana. You vote not for the party but for the candidate you know; your friend, your neighbor, your friend’s neighbor, someone you went to elementary school with. You couldn’t imagine them doing anything too nefarious. As long as this is still true, there is a chance, however slim, that progressives who’ve laid roots in their communities can win municipal offices and state legislatures. In red states, the image of left-wing populists has needed rehabilitation at least since the McCarthy era, and mainstays of small towns are just the people to do it. Alas, it seems this cycle will be more about expelling the worst devils we know and meeting some new ones. Let’s hope we can at least do that.

Of course, it depends on what is meant by "progressive," given that the differences between Bob Hall and Jeff Gahan are paper-thin at best, but I'll refrain from quibbling with a thought-provoking essay.

As LEO reminds us: Dan Canon is a civil rights lawyer and law professor. “Midwesticism”is his short-documentary series about Midwesterners who are making the world a better place. Watch it at: patreon.com/dancanon.

Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast 2019: "That is one hell of a big tent right there!"

Unity of purpose at the 2019 Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast: (left to right) State Representative Ed Clere: former city councilman, former county commissioner, longtime small business owner and current mayoral candidate Mark Seabrook: scruffy beer guy and iconoclast who sneaked in via the kitchen, then crashed the photo op; and Irv Stumler, whose CV is far too long to list here.*

The combined years of service offered by these three men to our community simply boggles the mind. 125? That's probably a low estimate.

I've disagreed with each of these men in the past, at times vehemently, and yet we still communicate with each other. Making sense isn't an activity confined to one side of an imaginary "aisle."

Some readers remain mystified at recent headings like this:

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

They shouldn't be puzzled at all. This one isn't hieroglyphics, either.

Democrat David White: "I am asking ALL the people who have supported me over the years to help Mark Seabrook put People First!"

The coda goes to Kelly Feiock, in a photo taken at last week's chili cook-off at the Calumet Club.

Kelly wrote: "I LOVE this pic! Roger, Scott (Whalen) and I formed a friendship based on a desire to make our city a better place."

THAT'S the point, isn't it?

---

* Thanks to Steve LaDuke for the "tent" quote.

But Roger, there's no phrenology in New Albany -- that's a 4-syllable word, and consequently an ordinance violation.

A sketch of the Phrenological Cabinet (1860)

Presumably each and every skull specimen in the Fowler family collection voted dutifully for carefully chosen municipal candidates; it's just our luck that Slick Jeffie and Tricky Dickey decided to take notes in THIS history class.

How Profit and Prejudice Built a Family’s Human Skull Collection, by Peter Leman (Atlas Obscura)

Fowler & Wells created a “Phrenological Cabinet” on the racist belief that skulls held secrets about human nature.

ON APRIL 15, 1841, THE day before his execution, Peter Robinson welcomed an artist to his New Jersey prison cell. A possible inspiration for Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Robinson was sentenced to death for killing his creditor and hiding the body beneath his floorboards. He turned away clergymen offering to pray for him, but he didn’t seem to mind the artist, who had been sent by a family of skull-obsessed pseudo-scientists. Whatever his hesitations about preserving his soul, he submitted willingly to the messy procedure of preserving his head as a plaster cast.

Robinson was hanged the following day. The authorities delivered his body to friends and family, as he had requested, hoping to evade the corpse-hungry medical school market. The artist, meanwhile, delivered the cast of his head to the New York firm of Fowler & Wells.

The brothers Orson and Lorenzo Fowler, their sister Charlotte, and her husband Samuel Wells were phrenologists who believed the size and shape of the human skull contained secrets about human nature. They eagerly acquired cranial “specimens” of infamous men like Robinson. Their collection was enshrined in the “Phrenological Cabinet,” a display of casts, busts, portraits, and skulls that eventually grew to nearly 2000 items ...

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Syndicates, elections and big fun with pots and kettles.

Over the weekend something unusual happened. After what seems like decades of non-engagement, suddenly a handful of Tricky Dickey's robotically programmed Democratic Party candidates veered from their scripts and began improvising on the digital hustings.

The ensuing scene wasn't pretty, although it was highly instructive.

Surely Squire Adam worried that one of them might actually slip up and be truthful, and sure enough a fair measure of testy bile oozed through the cordon. It appears the Democrats genuinely do picture themselves besieged in the sacred Alamo, with barbarian enemies steadily closing in, endangering Jeff Gahan's only true masterpiece during a career of consummate time-serving mediocrity: Slick Jeffie's Astroglide-Driven Pay-to-Play Political Patronage Viagra Superstore.

Hence the following exchange at The Book.

Let's get down to words. We see that at-large city council candidate Sam Charbonneau is using the world "syndicate" as a noun.

syndicate
sin-di-kit
noun

1. A group of individuals or organizations combined or making a joint effort to undertake some specific duty or carry out specific transactions or negotiations:

The local furniture store is individually owned, but is part of a buying syndicate.

2. A combination of bankers or capitalists formed for the purpose of carrying out some project requiring large resources of capital, as the underwriting of an issue of stock or bonds.

3. Journalism. An agency that buys articles, stories, columns, photographs, comic strips, or other features and distributes them for simultaneous publication in a number of newspapers or periodicals in different localities.

As an amalgam of the first two definitions, it isn't a stretch to suggest that any organized political party* functions as a syndicate of sorts.

After all, they're engaged in specific undertakings toward a desired end, and as we know all too well, large resources of capital are necessary to achieve their goals. To belong to one of these political party entities is to accept, whether implicitly or explicitly, a syndicate-like state of engagement.

Consequently, if incumbent councilman Al Knable is involved with a syndicate, so is Charbonneau. Taking it a step further, in purely municipal terms, Charbonneau's political party syndicate holds almost every lever of power in the city; if not through diminishing electoral performance, then through appointed board fiefdoms like the board of works, redevelopment, the sewer board, and so on.

Gahan has nurtured a highly effective syndicate, hasn't he?

Charbonneau seeks to become a cog in Gahan's syndicate, doesn't he?

Perhaps "syndicate" is a poor choice of words, after all, but it's fascinating to watch as Gahan's and Dickey's cash-infused machine is unfurled at high snark for all the world to see. It's an instance of rising pique as so many of us strive to #FlushTheGahanClique.

---

* "I'm not a member of any organized political party ... I'm a Democrat."
-- Will Rogers

Here are Nick's New Albany election predictions at The Aggregate.

Over at The Aggregate, Nick Vaughn has registered his New Albany Election Predictions. So far NA Confidential has issued endorsements (below), but not predictions as such.

I'll be getting around to those during the next few weeks.

New Albany Election Predictions

With the immense amount of nationally focused articles running in and around Southern Indiana, I felt that it was important to provide some more locally focused analysis of the upcoming municipal elections in New Albany.

The predictions outlined here are just that and can be taken however you'd like them to be. While no empirical data was used in determining these predictions, my experience in local politics, friendships with candidates and voters, and my gut feeling, were used to make these predictions.

These predictions will be categorized in the following ways: 1. Toss-up, meaning the race is a dead heat and could go either way, 2. Leans Republican, Democratic, or Independent, meaning the race leans between 2-4% points in one directions, and 3. Solidly Republican, Democratic, or Independent, meaning the race is 5% points or higher leaning in one direction.

---

NAC Endorsement Compendium:

• Vote Stefanie Griffith for New Albany City Council District 1.
• Vote Scott Stewart for New Albany City Council District 2.
• Vote for Thunder the Wonder Ferret as a write-in for New Albany City Council District 3.
• Vote Cisa Kubley for New Albany City Council District 4.
• Vote Josh "JT" Turner for New Albany City Council District 5.
• Vote Scott Blair for New Albany City Council District 6.
• Vote Al Knable and Christina Estill for New Albany City Council At-Large.
• Vote your conscience for New Albany City Clerk, as both candidates are excellent.
• ON THE AVENUES: Socialists for Seabrook, because we desperately need a new beginning in New Albany.

Vote your conscience for New Albany City Clerk, as both candidates are excellent.

To be perfectly honest, I've agonized over the question of an endorsement for the city clerk's race.

The incumbent Vicki Glotzbach (D) has been unfailingly courteous and professional since she became city clerk in 2012. Prior to her two terms in office, she was a deputy city clerk. Obviously experience favors her.

However I greatly admire challenger Kelly Feiock (R) for her relentlessly fact-based involvement with the Mt. Tabor Road Project resistance movement. It's very important for all seats to be contested, and she's a powerhouse activist and a solid candidate -- and the only candidate to whom I've personally donated.

At the grassroots level, I tend to believe two terms in office are enough. Then again, the office of city clerk has yet to be overtly politicized.

The major imperative in this year's municipal election is to drive a garlic-lubed stake through the heart of the Democratic Party's pay-to-play political patronage machine, but I can't make the case that the city clerk's race is central to this civic necessity.

So there. I'm stymied. Glotzbach or Feiock; vote your conscience, and I'll vote mine.

---

Endorsement Compendium:

• Vote Stefanie Griffith for New Albany City Council District 1.
• Vote Scott Stewart for New Albany City Council District 2.
• Vote for Thunder the Wonder Ferret as a write-in for New Albany City Council District 3.
• Vote Cisa Kubley for New Albany City Council District 4.
• Vote Josh "JT" Turner for New Albany City Council District 5.
• Vote Scott Blair for New Albany City Council District 6.
• Vote Al Knable and Christina Estill for New Albany City Council At-Large.
• Vote your conscience for New Albany City Clerk, as both candidates are excellent.

Vote Al Knable and Christina Estill for New Albany City Council At-Large.

Call it an endorsement if you will, or think of it as my personal support, backing, seal of approval, recommendation or advocacy.

This 2019 election endorsement series began last week. Thanks to those who've read the picks in city council districts 1 through 6. Before looking at the at-large council field, a reminder:

Municipal candidates who are not endorsed in this space are welcome to offer their counterpoint. I will publish your statements in this space sans commentary of my own.

The entire city votes for three at-large city council seats. The three Republican Party incumbents are Al Knable, David Barksdale and David Aebersold (in descending order of vote totals in 2015). Their Democratic Party challengers are Christina Estill, Sam Charbonneau and Jason Applegate. Voters may choose as many as three candidates from this list of six -- or two, or one.

(As an aside, do independents and libertarians ever run for at-large seats?)

I intend to vote for Knable and Estill, and to leave the third slot blank.

---

Al Knable's record of service speaks for itself. Agree or disagree with him -- and I surely HAVE disagreed with him -- the conversation remains thoughtful and respectful. In addition, Knable is transparent and approachable. His work ethic as a council representative is exemplary.

In retrospect, perhaps the biggest mistake Knable made during his first term in office was trying to be non-partisan, and to cooperate with Gahan's Goons during 2016 and 2017. Through no fault of Knable's, it proved to be a phony detente, and bipartisanship served only to subject him to an attempted kneecapping by the Dickeyites.

I believe Knable learned a valuable lesson about the Bud Light Lime Mafia from this experience in early 2018.

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

Christina Estill is a welcome rarity among local Democratic Party candidates in that she's genuinely working class and self-made, which is the sort of thing the gentrifying Gahanites can't truly grasp. She is who she is, and that's refreshing. As such, here is Estill's pitch in her own words.

My name is Chrstina Estill, and I am your candidate for New Albany City Council At-Large. I am the single mother of 3 sons, Anthony 21, Alexander 18, and Adrian 13. I am a social worker by trade, and a community advocate by passion serving on the Board of Directors of Let Us Learn, and Community Action of Southern Indiana where I serve as the boards Secretary. I am a graduate of Spalding University with two bachelor's degrees in Social Work and Psychology.

As a professional Social Worker, I use my training and experience in conflict resolution and effective individual group process to make change happen in the lives of my clients, and I will approach my job as your city councilperson the same way with a focus on embracing diversity, and seeking community input and involvement in decisions before us as a body. By focusing resources and time to issues facing all of our citizens, and advocating as a voice for social justice, I will bring my full attention to bridging the gap for a stronger, safer, and compassionate New Albany.

That means looking forward for sustainable development and infrastructure repair that keeps business owners big and small and taxpayers concerns and needs in mind, accountable and transparent service as your council person being your voice at the table, and being a good steward of taxpayer dollars with an eye on responsible governance. This is of the utmost importance to me because as an advocate for diverse representation in government we must also act with future generations social, economic, and environmental needs in mind.

Lastly, I will work to be a consensus builder. In these times of divisive rhetoric emerging nationally, I will never shy from bold and dynamic solutions while still working for the best result possible. Elections are debated on the campaign trail, but after taking office a true public servant works to lead. Strong and spirited debate is essential, but we must not allow that to be a roadblock to what is right for our citizens.

A lot has changed in the years since I came to New Albany, and great changes lie ahead in the years to come. My passion for people, our community, our environment, and future generations is always in the front of my mind in all that I do. We need leaders who represent the community they serve in all aspects. The city council is in need of a more diverse perspective, and I can provide that voice.

Knable and Estill; that makes two. For me, that's all. At this juncture, there are reasons why I cannot vote for any of the four remaining candidates, although to reiterate, they are welcome to contribute their rebuttals to this space. Maybe I can yet be convinced.

Charbonneau and Applegate are both interesting and personable fellows, and I've enjoyed chatting with them. I like them personally. However, because they've enthusiastically chosen to be joined to the mayor's duplicitous, catastrophic hip, I must rule them out as candidates. Politically they're on the wrong side of municipal history ... and I can't go for repeating the same old lines.

This leaves Republican incumbents David Aebersold and David Barksdale, and both are problematic in the political context.

Aebersold has lengthy experience as an independent small business owner, and of course that's a good recommendation in my world.

Unfortunately he also has proven to be an uninformed advocate of car-based urban infrastructure to the exclusion of other non-automotive users, and of course that's very bad. Truthfully, I'm on the fence with Aebersold, but unless new evidence surfaces I'm forced to refrain. It might be a last-minute decision.

Barksdale's lapdog support of the Reisz city hall project simply cannot be excused, especially his breathtakingly far-fetched comment to the effect that government workers situated in a plumbed, climate controlled City-County office building with elevators, cushioned seats and WiFi somehow are being subjected to "inhumane" working conditions.

There's no doubting that Barksdale has done many positive things for the city, and yet this comment is a singular nadir in local political history, and plainly it disqualifies him to represent residents, roughly 25% of whom exist south of the poverty line, whose working conditions really are physically and mentally demeaning in ways that Barksdale evidently cannot fathom.

---

Endorsement Compendium:

• Vote Stefanie Griffith for New Albany City Council District 1.
• Vote Scott Stewart for New Albany City Council District 2.
• Vote for Thunder the Wonder Ferret as a write-in for New Albany City Council District 3.
• Vote Cisa Kubley for New Albany City Council District 4.
• Vote Josh "JT" Turner for New Albany City Council District 5.
• Vote Scott Blair for New Albany City Council District 6.
• Vote Al Knable and Christina Estill for New Albany City Council At-Large.

My personal election endorsements are answerable. Rebuttal space is yours, if your party chairman will allow it.

Lest there be any misunderstandings, and sadly acknowledging that the Democrats seem to have an official policy against discourse and debate, municipal candidates not endorsed in this space last week are welcome to offer their counterpoint.

I will publish your statements in this space sans commentary of my own.

At-large council endorsements are next, followed by the city clerk race. My mayoral endorsement will constitute Thursday's ON THE AVENUES column.

---

Endorsement Compendium:

• Vote Stefanie Griffith for New Albany City Council District 1.
• Vote Scott Stewart for New Albany City Council District 2.
• Vote for Thunder the Wonder Ferret as a write-in for New Albany City Council District 3.
• Vote Cisa Kubley for New Albany City Council District 4.
• Vote Josh "JT" Turner for New Albany City Council District 5.
• Vote Scott Blair for New Albany City Council District 6.

Final thoughts on fireworks: Score Slick Jeffie's veto as a slight boost for the GOP.

In New Albany, the Democratic Party's intellectually exhausted bait 'n' switch brand of politics is making some mighty strange bedfellows out in the hoods.

It reminds me of the old socialist-realist script in the Soviet Union's cinema and literature: Boy meets tractor; boy falls in love with tractor; boy and tractor live happily ever after.

Back here in anchor-laden New Gahania, non-ironic dishonesty on the part of the ruling elite has accomplished one noteworthy feat of erasure: tractors no longer are needed. Instead, we have mirrors -- cracked rear view mirrors, to be sure, but it doesn't stop the Dickeyites from admiring their twisted, impotent reflections in the debris.

---

The city council's recent vote on a Republican-sponsored fireworks ordinance, which might be described as a cautious attempt to lightly restrict the bedlam of explosive civil liberties celebrations, was bipartisan in both directions.

Two Republicans voted for, one against. Two Democrats for, and two against. And, one independent for, one against. That's about as even a split as can be imagined given the state of our legislative body's usual rigid partisan alignment, and as a result, the measure proved vulnerable to a veto.

Mayor Jeff Gahan's argument against the litmus test of an only slightly restrictive fireworks ordinance was conveyed to the body by police chief Todd Bailey, a reliably pliant spinner of Dear Leader's self-serving party line.

It was yet another matter of such supremely overriding community importance that Gahan couldn't be bothered to attend; in all probability, our Genius of the Flood Plain shuns the council chamber because it gives him flashbacks to those eight long years spent there as a woefully underpaid savior of humanity, before a visit with former (now deceased) East Chicago mayor Robert Pastrick resulted in Gahan learning the real tricks of the patronage trade.

Chief Bailey said fireworks complaints were down this year (if true, it's because most people have given up on any hope of relief) and that enforcement of the ordinance would be a terrible burden.

(As such, it should be noted that there are few if any known instances of the police enforcing existing fireworks regulations, this laxity owing to the ruling Democrats viewing fireworks as example of usefully distracting "circuses" -- "bread" is what Rally's does, after all -- allowing the lower orders to entertain themselves so they won't get involved with questioning the Democratic Party's patronage machine.)

The posturing mayor's hasty "trampling on our God-given right to make noise" laugher was attached cynically and belatedly, only when publicizing his veto, and it most certainly WAS a political expedient on the perennially unimaginative Gahan's part.

I'm guessing this won't help him in electoral terms.

Those New Albanians citing the civil liberties argument in favor of unrestrained fireworks make up two broad groupings: right-leaning libertarians in the suburbs near the fringe area, and apolitical inner-city residents, a majority of them young, and probably a fair number renters.

The suburban libertarians vote, but while they're possessed of a worldview that enables agreement in principle with Gahan's veto, this alone won't change their antipathy toward the mayor in countless other instances.

Meanwhile the majority of inner city neighborhood folks I see and hear detonating fireworks are either youthful and transient, or ignorant of municipal election cycles, although they might turn out for presidential elections. In short, they're unlikely to vote in terms of prevailing demographics.

The most probable POLITICAL outcome of the vetoed fireworks ordinance is a slight boost for Republican candidates on the part of (a) older neighborhood stakeholders, who (b) value order and stability and (c) actually do vote. Just my two cents.

Feel free to disagree.

"Not a Cool Kid in High School? Study Says You Should Probably Be Relieved."

In NA politics, it’s all about sitting with the Cool Kids at lunch.
-- attentive blog reader D

In high school, I would have liked to be considered one of the cool kids. It took quite a lot of effort trying to fit their standard, and I could never quite pull it off. I'd always land somewhere outside the in-crowd.

I'm a slow learner and a late bloomer. It took a while for the truth to sink in: I'm neither pretty nor pedigreed, and fashion is beyond me. For me, the objective had to be either abandoning ephemeral appearances and using my brain, or dooming myself to eternal annoyance.

It's a lesson I'm very thankful for having learned, although it has left me severely allergic to cliques and elites. I dearly love puncturing their pretentiousness.

After all, we all need hobbies.

Not a Cool Kid in High School? Study Says You Should Probably Be Relieved, By Jessica Stillman (Inc Dot Com)

Outcomes for the popular kids are not good.

High school can be brutal on kids that don't quite fit in. But if you think the bullying and social isolation of not being popular is bad, you should see what happens to the captain of the football team or chief Mean Girl after they graduate.

Science actually suggests that, as nasty as high school social competition can be, you should probably be relieved if you (or your kids) weren't exactly homecoming king or queen.

The dangers of chasing cool ...

ON THE AVENUES: Unless you open your eyes, “resistance” is an empty gesture.

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

British politician Winston Churchill and economist John Maynard Keynes both have been credited with this phrase or variants of it, although their attribution does not survive scrutiny. Probably it dates to a 1970 interview with an economist named Paul Samuelson, who may or may not have thought he was quoting Keynes:

Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?

Rest easy, dear reader. I’m not about to endorse Slick Jeffie for a third term. Actually the phrase came to mind this morning when I caught myself saying, “Well, I used to think that … “

There’s no need to complete the sentence because I say it at least once daily, as pertaining to a wide range of topics. It fits nicely with “there was a time when” and “I was absolutely clueless back then,” emphasizing a never-ending learning curve as a planetary inhabitant.

I suspect the vast majority of human beings are readily capable of acknowledging the need to adjust their thinking to changing circumstances, so long as doing so constitutes perceived material benefit. If not, millions of smart phones would be packed away in Asian warehouses, untouched. Doctors would be treating broken legs with leeches, and instant Ramen noodles might never have been invented.

However far fewer are willing to hold the same yardstick to what they’d undoubtedly refer to as their core “beliefs.” This word alone should tell us something.

Tangible, tactile reality is infinitely swappable, whether mutating from horse-drawn carts to automobiles or insipid Lite beer to an inspired Bavarian Kellerbier. Those only vaguely verifiable (if at all) “beliefs” are tantamount to the enduring human stain, as writer Philip Roth tagged it. Religion, race relations, the role of the sexes; occasionally we’ll permit experiential evidence to erode our pre-conceived notions, but far less often than we “upgrade” our redundant devices for communicating – ironically, a task that renders us increasingly isolated from human all direct contact.

Rock music radio commentator Eddie Trunk was talking about this a few days ago in response to a question about the future of rock as we know it. Trunk offered pros and cons in response, and in my view he correctly identified the digitalization of music in the internet era as a double-edged sword.

It makes all music available at any time, thus theoretically broadening exposure to different types of music and educating listeners about it. Maybe they’ll stop listening to hip hop after hearing Ten Years After or Ratt – or so this notion goes.

At the same time, according to Trunk, the digital revolution has deprived listeners of the joy of waiting anxiously for new music to be released, then rushing to the mall (his reference) to be the first in line for an album or CD, before hurrying back home with friends to crack the cellophane and listen while enjoying a microwaved pizza roll.

Trunk previously has lamented the evolution of outdoor music fests, observing that young attendees seldom are riveted to the music; instead, they’re wandering the grounds consuming gourmet food, craft cocktails and multimedia experiences – if not spending every moment documenting the scene for “live” transmission.

Why don’t they care about the music? I’d say they do, albeit in a different way than during my own youth. The problem is that no one these days wants to pay for it (see journalism, death of), including me, even though I know better.

It occurs to me that while Trunk’s perspective is as dated as my own (he’s in his early 50s), he’s also missing the central element that ties together his case: the communal joy of pre-digital listening.

For better or worse, rock and roll -- the post-WWII cultural phenomenon that morphed into the voice of the Vietnam and Cold War generations worldwide --- became the musical equivalent of a mass political rally, perhaps reaching its apogee in 1985 with the global transmission of Live Aid by means of just then emerging satellite technology.

It is said Freddie Mercury was reluctant for Queen to appear until Bob Geldof reminded the singer that the gig was what he’d always sought: the whole world as attentive audience.

So it was, and one’s like or dislike of Queen aside, Live Aid made possible the band’s subsequent career, before and after Mercury’s untimely death in 1991. By then the baby boomers were well along their way toward rejecting the political and economic lessons of the 1960s, maintaining cultural bona fides with an attachment to increasingly corporate rock while otherwise subscribing to fascism, or Live Aid with swastikas.

But I digress.

All of Trunk’s lamentations point to the same phenomenon, beginning in the 1990s with the availability of home computers and expanding exponentially in the 2000s with smart phones and the like: Progress is isolating us from the communal, shrinking our sense of the collective, and diminishing human contact.

It’s an isolation born of the digital revolution, but it is sadly abetted each time an angry white male (and yes, that’s what they tend to be) sprays a crowd with gunfire. Of course your fear of shooters, Muslims, diseases, dark people and gays cannot be completely dispelled in the comfort and safety of your home, where statistically most accidents continue to happen, with or without purposefully discharged weapons.

Rather, we seek to be reinforced by those of like mind, which in turn means cocooning with Netflix and the Imbecile Supremacy Channel of the moment, handily closing ourselves off from facts capable of changing our minds.

As for me, well, when the facts change, I change my mind.

What do you do?

---

It shocked me at first that Donald Trump had been elected president, although in time the accumulated evidence convinced me to change my mind because Trumpism is not shocking at all. It isn’t an exception, a mutation or an aberration.

Trump as a poster child for capital accumulation, and consequently as the best available conduit for every evasive maneuver in history deployed by the oligarchy to maintain its pre-eminence, is in fact the fruition of American history to the present age, a sum total of founding hypocrisies about race, money and power, as supported full-throat by the GOP, the political party singularly better suited to elites, and only nominally “opposed” by the second of two monopolist political parties, which suckles the very same teats but has grown damningly adept at pretending it doesn’t.

It sucks, and loudly, yet it’s exactly who and what we are.

This brings me to the notion of “resistance,” a word I’ve heard less often as Trumpism has become normalized – and don’t kid yourselves; it has.

To repeat, Trumpism is a natural consequence of our survival-of-the-fittest variant of capitalism. You see, one needn’t have studied botany to know that tomato seeds seldom produce asparagus. Systemic conditions presupposing the manifestations to which one objects cannot logically be altered by any single presidential election cycle.

Most of us, myself ruefully included, have spent the past few decades accepting a default way of living which supports the superstructure of oppression with virtually every transaction. How exactly does one resist a system while continuing to live according to the system’s dictates – with which we otherwise remain in full cooperation?

If you’re in full cooperation with the purely intentional exploitation engendered by robber baron capitalism in its current form, exactly how can you resist it?

You’re accepting and opposing at the same time, but your compromises invariably result in acceptance, not resistance. So, while you’re prattling about your rights, perhaps it might be time to pause and consider whether Americans possess an inalienable right to be entertained around the clock to the exclusion of consciousness about the real nature of things outside, beyond reach of your streaming device?

“Trumps sucks! Oh, by the way, I’ll be holed up for the next 18 hours gaming, screwing and binge-watching pure fiction, and I simply can’t make time to toss a Molotov cocktail at yonder one-percenter.”

Please.

In many places and at various times in history, those undertaking to resist, dissent or rebel have gone into the fight with a clear understanding of the sacrifice involved – often although not always the “supreme” sacrifice, but at the very least grasping the potential price of non-conformity. They’d be giving up comfort, security and much else in order to bring about necessary change and secure a future for their kids.

Returning to social media to make yet another slam-dunk of a riposte visible only to the denizens of our hand-elected silo didn’t free the slaves or bring down the Berlin Wall, yet for today’s “resistance” it’s the risk-free strategy for … what?

You can color me skeptical.

---

Here in New Albany our self-styled local “progressives” surrendered any notion of “resistance” to The Donald when they refused to acknowledge that one of their own is just as capable of being foul as one of “theirs.”

Local “progressives” surrendered the moral high ground as fast as their minivans would carry them by refusing to get involved in Jeff Gahan’s public housing takeover … and David Duggins giggling about TASER jokes … and more recently, the demolition of the homeless camp by Silver Creek as ephemeral beautification projects everywhere are endowed with fat cat funding … and yet again by looking the other way at Gahan’s cash-stuffed political patronage machine … and seriously, the list of Dear Leader’s undemocratic transgressions stretches from Rustic Frog to the loading docks at Mejier’s, and while just about every component of Gahan’s reign has included set pieces borrowed from right-wingers, these so-called “progressive” Democrats can’t move themselves an inch to see how ridiculously little their snarling darling has done when it comes to supposedly core Democratic platform values like seeing to the betterment of the community’s most vulnerable citizens.

Of course, these purportedly “Democratic” platform planks guaranteeing the right to luxury are tethered just as tightly to moneyed elites as the GOP’s. At the end of the day I suppose the cognitive dissonance is just too much for otherwise well-meaning folks who have no intention of negotiating their privileges, irrespective of imagined party affiliation, because after all, the two aisles share common roots by regarding as inevitability of the well-off confiscating value from the underprivileged (capitalism) rather than the other way around (socialism).

As a wee lad, I bought into the bilge. I’ve been changing my mind ever since, not because the facts have changed all that much, but because eyes wide open are capable of seeing far more than when they're glued shut.

Consequently, when it comes to the approaching round of municipal elections, I'll be voting for ... nah, let's wait another week or two for that.

---

Recent columns:

August 1: ON THE AVENUES: The whys and wherefores can drive a man to drink; our lives just ARE, and that's that.

July 25: ON THE AVENUES: Until philosophers become kings, beer and food work just fine.

July 18: ON THE AVENUES: I'm a citizen of the universe, but I can't take a photo to save my life.

July 11: ON THE AVENUES: Trieste, New Albany and the meaning of nowhere.

Three eyewitness viewpoints as Governor Holcomb stumps for Mark Seabrook.

Photo credit: Kelly Feiock for City Clerk.

Earlier today we earnestly congratulated the News and Tribune for being transparent about Mark Seabrook, identity.

Mark Seabrook's identity is restored in the newspaper as Governor Holcomb comes to New Albany.

See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Following are three perspectives of last night's Mark Seabrook for Mayor fundraiser at the Calumet Club, written by Josh Turner, Dale Bagshaw and Nick Vaughn.

---

Floyd County Republicans The Party For The People, by Josh "JT" Turner, candidate for city council from the 5th district.

Last night, in a room with over 100 people in attendance, mayoral candidate Mark Seabrook along with special guest Governor Eric Holcomb, stressed the importance of getting back into the neighborhoods and putting the people first.

One of the more notable things from last night is the improved health of Mark Seabrook, who stood for the entire event and gave a high quality speech to a very upbeat crowd. During the speech, he mentioned his health scare earlier in the year and that he was cleared by his doctors to continue the campaign.

Mark made the statement “I have planted my flag and will defend it against anyone who wants to attack it.” It’s 2019, and we are witnessing a very focused and energized Republican Party with a group of candidates the likes of which have never been seen before, focused on one thing, the people.

---

This is my take, by Dale Bagshaw, at-large county councilman

The event was well attended, with probably 100-150 people. I have not seen as much enthusiasm at a local political event since I’ve been involved. Mark acknowledged his health issues, but indicated that’s behind him and he’s ready to lead.

Governor Holcomb was well received and hung around to talk and shake hands, and he stood for pictures with all who wanted to. I’m very encouraged by our slate of candidates.

---

The energy in the room was palpable, by Nick Vaughn (The Aggregate)

In a room filled with one hundred or so supporters, Governor Eric Holcomb spoke on behalf of Mark Seabrook and the other candidates for city office in New Albany. Earlier in the month, Holcomb announced his intention to seek reelection as governor, and unveiled his new campaign slogan “Putting People First.” This message, while not always explicitly stated, was felt through the remarks of all of the speakers: Floyd County GOP Treasurer Andrew Takami, City Councilman Al Knable, State Representative Ed Clere, Governor Eric Holcomb, and former Commissioner Mark Seabrook.

Holcomb’s presence at a fundraiser for Seabrook this early is a sign that the state GOP sees the upcoming city elections as very winnable. No doubt, this derives from the strong (and full) slate of candidates us Republicans have put on the ballot this year, beginning with Mark Seabrook and Al Knable. With that being said, the energy in the room was palpable as if everyone could sense just how “different” this campaign feels.

When Seabrook was introduced by the Governor, the room was electric. Seabrook spoke along the same lines as the previous speakers, and offered a nice anecdote about his time at the funeral home where he always ensured the families he worked with were treated fairly. As the campaign heats up, look for the energy derived from this event with Governor Holcomb to propel the GOP towards the finish line.

More News and Tribune gimcrackery: 336 words about the importance of voters listening, two of which are not "Mark Seabrook."

The Jeffersonville newspaper's editor wants you to know that governor (and now candidate) Eric Holcomb is coming to town.

Column: Listen up, voters, by Susan Duncan (Tom May's Evangelism Primer 101)

He’ll fit right in at the Clark County Fair this evening, crunching the grass with his trademark boots as he shakes another hand. Those are his constituents, after all, and would-be voters he’s courting.

He is Indiana’s top elected official, Gov. Eric Holcomb, who is seeking re-election in 2020. The public announcement of his intention was made Saturday, as his words echoed off the walls of the hallowed Knightstown gym, where parts of the famed-film "Hoosiers" was shot.

Duncan also wants you to know that Holcomb has lots of money.

Holcomb has more than $6 million in his political war chest, more than any previous governor at this point in his re-election bid, according to the Holcomb for Indiana campaign.

Duncan dismisses as unnewsworthy NA Confidential's surveys of Jeff Gahan's campaign larder -- but I digress.

At this point, Holcomb appears likely to win a second term as governor, but the campaign season is a long one. Now’s the time to listen closely to what the candidates have to say — not about their opponents, but about the future of Indiana.

It's a perfectly valid sentiment, and because Duncan has informed otherwise absentminded readers that Indiana's governor is named Eric Holcomb, we know exactly where to look and to whom we should be listening.

Then it gets weird.

Tonight, Holcomb’s bringing his message first to the fair and then to the Calumet Club in New Albany, where he’ll be talking with Republicans and stumping for the GOP mayoral candidate. Republican or Democrat, we all should listen to what the governor has to say, and to his opponent. Only then can we make informed voting decisions.

Gahan's name appears on a daily basis in Duncan's newspaper, and as we've noted oft times before, many of these mentions come from various advertisements bearing Gahan's image; they're all campaign ads at root, though most are paid for by taxpayers.

But Duncan cannot bring herself to identify the "GOP mayoral candidate," who is Mark Seabrook. That's a de facto cheap shot, isn't it? The sentence might have made informative, reading: "GOP mayoral candidate Mark Seabrook, who is challenging incumbent mayor Jeff Gahan."

Recall also that neither the News and Tribune nor the City of New Albany will divulge how much money travels in the newspaper's direction for Gahan's myriad, thinly-veiled campaign ads.

Note to candidate Seabrook: It may be time for the ol' fruit basket envelope so as to preclude the potential unpleasantness of an ink-stained kvetch.

Introducing MOVING FORWARD, a new op-ed column by Randy Smith.

I've long admired Randy Smith's writing, and consequently it is a great pleasure to publish his new op-ed column here at NA Confidential. We'll get to a publication schedule in time. For now, kindly allow Randy to provide an overview of what's to come. 

---

I want to thank my friend Roger Baylor for his work over the past 15 years in making NA Confidential the most reliable source of news, analysis, research, and opinion. Though his readership only numbers in the low thousands, that still towers over the New Albany circulation figures of the Jeffersonville newspaper. I still don’t understand why Roger doesn’t accept advertising.

For more than a century, New Albany had a newspaper. The Jeffersonville paper, owned by a pension fund in Alabama, pays rent for an office here, but if one wants honest coverage of local government, NA Confidential is pretty much the only remaining source for consistent reporting and analysis.

As for me, I’m a daily reader of NA Confidential. Over the last eight years, I’ve reduced my public participation in civic affairs to a whisper. But that does not mean that I have lost interest. I remain engaged and (mostly) silent.

NA Confidential allows me to stay engaged.

As we enter the stretch run of 2019’s municipal elections, I find myself seeking candidates who can bring about a better New Albany. I’m a Democrat for life (DFL?), but when it comes to New Albany politics and policy, I’m the ultimate pragmatist.

As it stands, I can’t bring myself to vote for any of the incumbents, least of all the incumbent Democrats. And yet, I yearn for a city led by Democrats who deserve to carry the party banner.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have not ruled out running for public office this year or in the future. Obviously, I am ineligible to run under a party label. But unless and until I make that decision, I’ve decided to lay out a few very specific legislative and/or executive actions that I would like to see put into effect.

Over the coming weeks, I will be submitting long-form policy proposals that constitute my own limited platform. Where possible, I will endorse and vote for candidates who can show an understanding of and a basic support for these specific proposals.

There was a time that I felt I could influence as many as 200 voters. By retreating from the arena, I have surrendered that influence. Nonetheless, I am a voter. At the least, I have one vote and this voter would like to see candidates who can and will respond to my proposals.

There was a time when a mayor and some members of the city council were responsive to things like this. Personally, I lament the loss of these leaders. For example, John Gonder, a former member of the council, was the first to propose a city-led revitalization of the Colonial Manor shopping center. Gonder and former council member Jack Messer proposed a rational program to create a city-only administrative center that would have cost this city far less than the abomination that Roger calls the Reisz Mahal.

I chose to live here in New Albany. I was not born here. I did not graduate from high school here. It can be theorized that New Albany’s future is dependent on people like me who choose to live here, for if people like me don’t choose to live and work here, our prospects are limited. Indiana stands out as one of the states where the highest percentage of people living here were born here. That’s not a plus.

For the first eight years living here, I was the ultimate optimist, the most vigorous of promoters for New Albany and its potential. At this point, my business (15 years here) qualifies as one of the oldest downtown businesses. That, in itself, is a terrible indicator.

Mayor Gahan has done great damage to New Albany. Having been advised by a man known as the worst mayor in New Albany’s 203-year history, he has climbed to the pinnacle and taken that title as his own. As November approaches, he seeks a third term. That is almost unprecedented. I am certain that Gahan would reject every single one of the proposals you will read over the next several weeks. Accordingly, you will reasonably expect that I will not be endorsing nor voting for Gahan this year.

Again, I want to thank Roger Baylor and the editors of NA Confidential for accepting these modest (but serious) proposals as op-eds. I look forward to any feedback. Roger will decide the publication schedule, of course, but I invite any of the nominated candidates to contact me if they would like to hear more about these proposals as the campaign for city office continues. I would like nothing more than to see candidates adopt these proposals and commit to a progressive future for the city I’ve chosen to live in and invest in.

ON THE AVENUES: Another year older and deeper in debt, so let's doo-doo it all over again.

ON THE AVENUES: Another year older and deeper in debt, so let's doo-doo it all over again.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.
-- Ulysses S. Grant

End-of-year compendiums taunt as much as they tempt. While at times an adequate teaching tool, the glibness of 20/20 hindsight usually gets in the way of instruction.

Apart from the planetary scourge known as Homo sapiens, there are no neatly printed numerical calendars, just natural cycles of life and death, recurrence and the dialectic. Nothing ever really ends on December 31, or begins the following day. All of it is a continuum, until the final pervasive darkness overtakes us all. After that, calendar pages no longer turn.

Encouraged yet?

Awesome, so let’s begin the year’s end housekeeping with thoughts pertaining to the life of ON THE AVENUES itself. In short, there’ll need to be a slight adjustment.

That’s because speaking personally, the single biggest story of 2018 was the official debut of Pints&union on August 1, which put an end to three and a half years of my semi-retired underemployment. As the pub's advent followed the long delayed final settlement of my NABC buyout, it became a judiciously considered exclamation mark affixed to what I view as a personal rebirth.

During my hiatus there were ups and downs, births and deaths, frustrations and exhilaration, but in the main it was a gratifyingly productive period. I’ll look back on those years as a cherished time to learn and grow. It was like earning a second undergraduate degree, or perhaps finishing a master’s program in creative synthesis.

Just as in an overall daily sense I’ve no idea where I’d be without my wife Diana, in professional terms this accolade now fully extends to my friend and employer Joe Phillips, to whom I’m grateful for the opportunity to reinvent a career in beer. We’ve had six-months to build a foundation, and in 2019, the beer program’s going to fly high.

It’s about time – and it’s all about time.

My work routine became established fairly quickly, but it has taken me a few months to sort through the scheduling implications for my sidelines of writing and blogging. Since the advent of ON THE AVENUES in 2011 it has been my weekly goal to publish the column on Thursday. However, my work week at Pints&union is front-loaded, falling largely at the beginning of the week (from Monday through Wednesday, and into Thursday).

Perhaps a better course in 2019 would be to publish ON THE AVENUES on Tuesday, giving myself the weekend to prepare -- and what better day to begin than Tuesday, January 1, New Year’s Day?

---

Bernie Sanders tweeted on Friday.

The American people are tired of a president who is a liar, a fraud, a narcissist and a bully. They want leadership which unites us, not divides us. They want policies which work for all, not just the wealthy few.

I hastened to comment on this.

Welcome back to Nawbany, Bernie. We have one of those charlatans, too.

Because New Albany is similarly afflicted, it was another long, strange civic journey in 2018, and it’s going to be twice as annoying in 2019.

Fortunately, unlike the chaotic situation three decades ago in the People’s Republic if Romania, my fellow New Albanians will have the lawful opportunity next year to exercise their power of the ballot and remove our own under-educated, egotistical, image-replicating, cash-in-the-service-of-special-interests, bullying and personality cult curating Nicolae Ceausescu wannabe, along with the bootlicking clique of vapid lackeys drooling in his general vicinity.

We can get to Trump later. He’s minor league by comparison. First, it’s time to pluck the Genius of the Flood Plain from the comfy projected office chair in his palatial Reisz Mahal, and put him back into peddling veneer.

Wait …

Veneer: A thin decorative covering of fine wood applied to a coarser wood or other material.

That’s it: Potemkin veneer. Come to think of it, the ideal epitaph for eight long years of toxic Gahanism.

Bring out your brooms, citizens. Behind the bright shiny Disney images, this place is a mess. Granted, it won’t be easy beating a campaign-finance-engorged narcissist of the 19th-century Tammany Hall model who genuinely believes his face must adorn Kroger shopping carts right next to where consumers toss their Metamucil, condoms and Rice Krispies Treats, but working together, we can do it.

---

Brevity may be the soul of wit, although it isn’t typically my specialty. Today I’ll play against type and keep it relatively short.

Returning to those pesky compendiums, a summary: It’s been a year, and next week there’ll be another one. Throughout the past year, I’ve struggled first to discover, and then maintain a balance between the varying public roles I’ve written for myself. Privately, I’ve confided in some of you why this has been the case.

Paranoia may be the big destroyer, but when you’ve no doubt the threat is real, there’s an obligation to calculate risks. That’s because bullies are cowards, and cowards often are disinclined to target the source of their rancor. Rather, they nibble maliciously at the periphery – family, friends, employers – rather than come straight to the source.

In this specific instance that source is me, and so kindly allow me to close the year by encouraging all those having something to say to me to cut out the middle man and come directly to … that’s right, me.

Mano a mano is the one thing they seem utterly terrified to try, preferring instead various chicaneries from afar to silence dissent rather than engage it through direct dialogue.

Yes, I can be a handful.

Yes: I say what I think, believe in what I say, and fight for what I believe. I care deeply about justice, fairness and equality of opportunity for all, not only those playing their big fish/little pond games. It’s not a switch or spigot capable of being turned on and off, although I’ve tried mightily to do so.

But you see, facts are the end game for me. My "side" has legions of them, and in the coming year, the facts will continue to be enabled to speak for themselves – with the necessary polemical assistance from the likes of me.

After all, that’s why I'm here.

Readers, thanks for another fine trip around the sun.

---

Recent columns:

December 20: ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2018 Remix).

December 14: A joyful noise? The six most-read ON THE AVENUES columns of 2018.

December 6: ON THE AVENUES: Straight tickets, unsociable media and whether Democrats should rally around Gahan's gallows pole.

November 29: ON THE AVENUES: "That's why I voted no," explains Scott Stewart, pausing to duck rocks feebly lobbed by Team Gahan's propaganda pygmies.

Community First: Nick Vaughn will not seek office in 2019, but he's writing a book.

While I was overjoyed and overwhelmed with the immense outpouring of support (including a very respectable amount of money raised), I would not have been able to mount the kind of race I wanted to in 2019.

For a refresher, go here:

Nick Vaughn forms exploratory committee, then joins anti-KKK protesters in Madison.

Nick would have been a vital presence in the 2019 municipal campaign cycle, but he has ample time to push his boat into the water.

Meanwhile, he's writing a book.

ANNOUNCEMENT: The idea of Community First is something I have been thinking about for a long time. What does it mean? How do we put our Community First? What does putting our Community First look like, specifically in Small Town America?

With that being said, I am pleased to announce that over the past year, I have been writing a book. This book is going to consist of ideas, policy suggestions, and an overall vision I have developed not only for New Albany, but all small towns and cities like New Albany.

I hope that you will join me on this journey and look out for more information. A free chapter will be coming soon along with pre-order information.

The official web page is sparse as yet, but bookmark it for future reference.

COMMUNITY FIRST: A VISION FOR SMALL TOWN AMERICA, by Nick Vaughn

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Are NA's dwindling Democrats seeking to wrest control of city elections from the county? Lame, but at least they're not suggesting HWC Engineering do it.

When the Green Mouse drained his double well Scotch in one gulp, I knew something was on his mind.

"I keep saying that Gahanism can't possibly get any weirder, or the Floyd County Democrats any more panic-stricken, and I keep waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, hearing Rod Serling's voice."

"What's he saying to you, Mouse?"

"It goes something like this: 'New Albany is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Gahan Zone.' "

"That's purely terrifying."

"Horrible! You know, I need a little break from Dickey World. Someone told me Saudi Arabia's great around Christmas. Wanna go check it out?"

"Nah, think not. At this point I'm paranoid about leaving the elevator on the third floor."

---

Eventually the Green Mouse settled down and passed along the latest morsel from the rumorama -- and he wasn't joking when it comes to weirdness, panic and Democrats coming undone.

The rumor goes something like this: With the Democratic Party's hold on local power having dwindled to the mayor, four council lackeys (five if you count Neville Barksdale) and the city clerk, with the 2019 municipal election cycle fast approaching, and with His Gahanic Majesty's system of fruit-basket-laden political patronage threatened with an entirely unexpected loot-by date, the party's zany elders have resolved a protocol to shift the authority for conducting local elections from the county clerk to city clerk.

I know; the idea is nutzoid, and maybe we can chalk it up to a steady diet of Rice Krispies Treats and Kool-Aid, but then again, the Democrats are donkeys on the edge. They're hanging by a thread in the normally secure urban stronghold, and the party's about to lose control of the county clerk's office, which runs elections.

On November 6, Danita Burks, a Republican, defeated Christy Eurton, the Democrat. Vicki Glotzbach (D) is city clerk; she's up for re-election in 2019, and may not even be aware of the brain bland trust's scheming over Bud Light Lime Pomegranate-A-Ritas at the Roadhouse.

The state of Indiana has this to say about it:

County:

Indiana’s local government includes election administration and voter registration offices in each of the state’s 92 counties. Each county is divided into election precincts, with a total of more than 5,000 precincts in Indiana. All 92 counties have a circuit court clerk elected by the voters and a county election board, which includes the circuit court clerk, to administer local elections.

According to IC 3-5-3-1 the counties and municipalities are responsible for the payment of election expenses including “expenses of voter registration and for all election supplies, equipment and expenses out of the county treasury in the manner provided by law.”

County Clerk, County Board of Registration and County Board of Elections can be found on the Secretary of State’s website, www.sos.in.gov/elections.

The exact formula for the alchemy by which our increasingly intemperate municipal Democrats might secede from their firmly Republican state's own election rule book remains obscure.

Can anyone remember a time when city Democrats maligned the management skills of a county clerk when the latter was a Democrat?

Are Democrats implying that clerk-elect Burks is dishonest when she's yet to be sworn in?

And, if so, isn't the Political Hypocrisy Meter sounding furiously given the self-contradictory chicanery foisted by municipal Democrats on John and Jane Q. Public at every turn?

Speaking personally, this rumor is far-fetched even by New Gahanian standards. Still, the hell of it is that is sounds precisely like something the ruling elites might try to do.