Soup Is Good Food.

Coverage by Nick Vaughn at The Aggregate on the topic of Riverview Tower's impending demolition. Shouldn't we invite Ben Carson to cut the ribbon on the implosion?

News Flash: Riverview Tower Slated for Demolition

And this opinion piece.

VAUGHN: Is Anyone Really Surprised?

Funnily enough, the Director of Public Housing, Dave Duggins, stated at the end of the Tribune's story about the demolition of Riverview Tower that there are currently no plans for the property after the tower is torn down. If there isn't plans for a luxury apartment complex there within six months of demolition, I'll eat my hat.

Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) ... or, Larry Flynt bids a final farewell to the Falwells.

"The Hustler publisher, who won a landmark First Amendment legal battle against Jerry Falwell Sr., writes about Jerry Falwell Jr.’s fall from grace—and the Trump of it all."

In civics class my senior year of high school, we were divided into groups and chose topics for the big class project. Seeing as Theatair-X (in its original drive-in format) was in the news at the time, and a local group had been formed to combat obscenity (one of many before and since), we chose smut as our focus.

Well, someone had to do it. 

A woman representing the Citizens for Decency committed to addressing the class, and then one of my stablemates reached Theatair-X by phone. A fellow calling himself the manager (Tim?) said sure, he'd come and speak, too. Alas, Tim was a no-show, and later that summer he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting as he was mowing his lawn.

Seriously.

In the meantime, someone acquired source materials for our research; it was the dawning age of the VCR, but they as yet they were very expensive, and we opted for the print medium: Hustler, Penthouse, et al. Why not Playboy, I asked? "Too many words for the money," came the reply.

Now, to the real point.

In this 1978 edition of Hustler, Larry Flynt had a photo spread to the effect of "War: the Ultimate Obscenity." There were truly gruesome, horrific photos of battlefield mutilation, such that I can still "see" one of them today, 42 years later.

However, I can't recall a single one of the nude shots.

This isn't to issue a blanket defense of obscenity, or to express a preference for pornography ... whatever THOSE words actually mean in the context of freedom of speech and expression, which of course are the components of the real discussion.

I understand it's complicated, and as with racism, sexism is destructive.

At the same time, Flynt was absolutely right. War strikes me as the ultimate obscenity, and this includes violence of all sorts, war or non-war, directed against human beings.

All too often those hypocritical pastors in the mold of Falwell Pere have blessed the destruction, and it strikes me as poetic that Flynt has issued his final farewell.

Larry Flynt: My Final Farewell to the Falwells, by Larry Flynt (The Daily Beast)

When I heard that Jerry Falwell Jr. had resigned the presidency of Liberty University in disgrace, it struck me as the belated ending to a long personal saga with the Falwell clan—and an essential footnote to the role of religion and free speech in America. For those unfamiliar with ancient history, it began in the 1970s, soon after I started publishing Hustler.

Jerry Falwell Sr., then head of the Moral Majority Christian interest group, sued me for libel and the “intentional infliction of emotional distress” over a Hustler parody of a Campari ad that used the liqueur’s slogan: “You’ll never forget your first time.” The parody featured an interview with Falwell waxing nostalgic about his “first time”—with his mother in a Virginia outhouse.

The legal battle lasted five years, from 1983 to 1988, including three decisions against me in federal courts. There was an important principle at stake: the right of artists, writers, and publishers to satirize public figures. Finally, I was vindicated by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision written by conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist. This case is often cited as a landmark ruling for the preservation of our First Amendment rights to free speech.

Ironically, Falwell Sr. and I actually became friends later. We enjoyed many cordial visits, participated in debates across the country, and even exchanged Christmas cards. I have to concede that his friendship with me proves that, for the most part, he was practicing an essential tenet of his faith, forgiveness, and was a sincere Christian.

Which is more than can be said for many of his fellow televangelists—the sorry parade of charlatans like Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Paula White, and all the other prime-time Elmer Gantrys—including the son, Jerry Falwell Jr. They’re obsessed above all with sexual behavior, ignoring and subverting the core message of Christianity—humility and compassion for the downtrodden—while embracing “prosperity gospel,” which is to say the gospel of greed above all other values.

They support Republican politicians eager to gut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and other programs designed to do what Jesus Christ strived for: the reduction of human suffering in this vale of tears. They live in multimillion-dollar mansions and fly around in private jets, while fleecing their flock for “prayer donations” guaranteed to cure incurable diseases and afflictions. They forget that Jesus Christ only lost his temper and acted violently once: when driving the money-lenders from the temple. But they are not troubled in the least by the banksters on Wall Street, who hoovered up millions from middle-class Americans, granting the 1 percent a get-out-of-jail-free card to do it all over again. Instead, these evangelists reserve the whip for gays, women who want to control their own bodies, pot smokers, and other “heretics” who are only trying to lead fulfilling lives. They actually work to increase the sum of human suffering. They are peddlers of religious snake oil ...

As an addendum (2013):

Al Goldstein and New Albany DVD (Cleopatra's) both are dead. Somewhere, a dog barks.

ASK THE BORED (IN EXILE): It appears that street sweeping is suspended through April 7, although it should be eliminated altogether.

From a thousand years ago ... or 2015.

Word has come via 5th district councilman Josh Turner: "No street sweeping through April 7th and subject to change."

Thanks for asking, Josh. After all, the Bored of Works hadn't gotten around to the press release.

This brief suspension of inanity is pleasant enough, given the strange new world of coronavirus containment. Should residents being urged to stay inside also be compelled to go outside and move their cars?

In spite of Mayor Gahan's ongoing efforts to purge learning in favor of the alphabet according to HWC Engineering, words do have meanings, ideas actually matter, and in New Albany street “sweeping” hasn't ever been an issue of cleanliness.

Rather, it is a political hypocrisy issue, fully exposing this city’s historic tendency not only to tolerate selective law enforcement, but to double down, institutionalize and celebrate it as a civic birthright.

A few years back Bluegill perfectly summarized the prevailing idiocy:

A wasteful program is getting more wasteful. As a Midtown resident. I wish they'd stop rather than expand. This is a parking ticket revenue grab, hounding locals for cash while truckers and other passers through speed by unhindered. We're continually told the city can't afford this or that but we can always afford to pay people to ride around in circles all day writing ridiculously expensive tickets to residents. They even write them when the sweeper isn't sweeping, when people have blocked absolutely nothing. It's a joke.

To repeat with clarity: street “sweeping” should not be expanded. It should be ended. The physical process of “sweeping” is largely futile, and there is no United Nations storm water “law” stipulating dust cloud creation as a workable corrective to anything. Genuine drainage impediments like leaves and garbage barely are addressed by “sweeping.”

Bluegill again:

We'd be better off spending the time and money on drain cleaning and waterway improvements. Instead, the City has chosen the least effective (but most profitable) system to expand.

However, when it comes to profitability and effectiveness, the most profound outrage of all is that parking regulations supposedly applying to all city residents are enforced in some instances, as during street “sweeping,” and not in others, as in the entirety of the historic downtown business district.

When I ran for mayor, my team tackled this one (July 6, 2015).

---

Campaign Diary, Chapter 2: A Baylor Paper on Street Sweeping.

Wednesday is street sweeping day at my address.

Being a good citizen, I'll go out and make sure the car is moved from the north side of Spring Street, lest I receive a citation for blocking the street sweeper.

Meanwhile, a few blocks west across an imaginary line somewhere, it's theoretically possible to park for weeks on end, in front of a downtown business, taking up a parking space without the slightest worry of being penalized. That's because we don't enforce parking regulations ... unless we do.

You'd need a Ouija board to know when, where and why -- and this must stop.

I'm not convinced the street sweeper has come past for a very long time, judging by the appearance of the parking lanes and the chronically unaddressed instances of road kill in the bicycle path, but when it does, the results are frankly ridiculous. Little of note is removed, and much of it is shifted from curbside directly into the bicycle path or out onto the traffic lanes themselves. All the while, citations are being written.

I have a few ideas on how we might improve this situation. Please read, and give me your feedback. Unlike the current occupant, I'm eager to listen.

---

A Baylor Paper on Street Sweeping.

HISTORY: In selected portions of New Albany, from March through October, city crews operate large vehicles with rotating brushes that are designed to “clean” the streets. A complex system of schedules make on-street parkers subject to citations and fines if they leave their cars along the curbs of these selected streets at specific times.

It is important to note that what gets “swept” are the parking lanes – not the streets per se. Although clearing the streets of litter, brush, debris, and deposited oils is a valiant goal, this ongoing program produces onerous side effects while being mostly ineffective at cleaning the selected streets.

Ostensibly, the program is part of an agreement with the EPA as part of this city’s efforts to comply with The Clean Water Act. The sweeping trucks are assumed to be keeping detritus from reaching our streams, including the Ohio River.

PREMISE: In fact, the sweeping program merely rearranges dirt while depositing it up onto sidewalks and onto nearby buildings. In addition, residents are subjected to inconvenience and financial loss. The program is almost universally considered to be a nuisance and to be ineffective. That conclusion is reinforced when we consider that many other streets that drain into our waterways are not subject to any kind of regular street sweeping program.

Further, the inclusion of this street sweeping program into our Clean Water Act compliance protocol is a fraud.

Petroleum products are the most toxic pollutant likely to be transferred from our streets into local waterways. Yet, we do not even attempt to clean the streets themselves – only the parking lanes.4

Perhaps, with other and/or better functioning equipment, a street cleaning program would be effective. But as currently constituted, the program is little more than an expensive make-work project and a scheme to extort money from those who must park their vehicles on city streets.

PROPOSAL: Effective immediately and by executive order, I will declare a 1-year moratorium on the existing street sweeping program. During that year, my administration will explore the implications of the existing program and maintain a regular inspection and reporting program on the cleanliness of the streets within the program area.

We will also inspect those streets outside of the existing program during this moratorium year. As most debris and deposited oils enter our waterways via storm drains, our stormwater professionals and advisers will be heavily consulted.

In addition to routine storm drain clearance, we will operate a crash program of drain clearing before impending storms and after known storms.

If we decide to resume the program in calendar year 2017, we will only do so if it can be proved to be effective.

Democrat John Gilkey reveals himself to be a drooling automobile-centric Luddite. That's just too bad, isn't it?

Stay strong, Clarksville. Redesign Brown's Station Way for safety and modernity, and implement this street grid reform plan.

See, here's a positive comment to add to John Gilkey's purportedly universal negative reactions. But don't expect me to help you grease your knob, John. Can't say I like your stick shift quite that much.

The onetime journalist Gilkey well knows how to work a crowd of mouth-breathing car fetishists. Heroically making love to both your vehicles and his, John has opted for the high-speed populism of the eight-cylinder gas-guzzler, while still ridiculously posturing as a "liberal" in matters of state and national importance.

Don't we deserve the same consistency locally, John, not easy potshots at roundabouts, which you know will sell like Mountain Dew to the motorists whose sole consideration is to pass through your town quickly?



Gilkey displays not only ignorance as it pertains to street grid modernity, but political hypocrisy; then again, we already knew hypocrisy isn't restricted to Republicans.

A Biden guy, eh? Or maybe Bloomberg.

Let's just hope those in Clarksville who get it will do it.

GILKEY OP-ED: Road project takes wrong turn in the News&Bune

Clarksville has taken a wrong turn with its Brown’s Station Way road project. Spending just under $17 million to solve problems that don’t exist is the wrong course of action in my opinion.

I represent Clarksville’s 2nd District on the Town Council and serve on the town’s Redevelopment Commission in addition to the Plan Commission and the town’s Technical Review Committee, so I have a reasonably good idea of what is happening in town. Since the proposed road project was first unveiled last year, I have heard nothing but negative comments about the venture. To paraphrase a colloquialism, I could count the number of positive comments I have received on one hand and have enough fingers left to open a greased doorknob.

The project proposes turning a major traffic artery through town into a residential 2-lane street with a 35 mile-an-hour speed limit, interjecting two roundabouts, removing the overpass at Brown’s Station Way and Lewis and Clark Parkway and replacing it with an at-grade traffic light-controlled intersection, and replacing the pedestrian overpass near Randolph Avenue with a profoundly upscaled crossing.

In my mind, the project is an absurd expenditure of money to solve problems that mostly do not exist ...

Editor, Heal Thyself: The NewsBune's management gets all touchy with me, and it's hilariously revealing.

Newspapermen and women can be relied upon to down a few shots of Old Self Righteous, and then remind the remainder of us on the "outside" about the absolutely vital and valiant role their publications play in holding influential interests accountable to the people, whether these are governments, oligarchs or any other human contrivance that finds secrecy helpful in perpetuating connivance and preserving power.

But if you're looking for some really cheap laughs, lay off the hootch and ask the newspaper itself to be accountable to its own purported mission of accountability. You'll notice the walls against scrutiny going up faster than you can say "Look, is that investigative journalism's corpse floating over there in Silver Creek?"

To me, it's not at all an unreasonable question to ask: How many reporter salaries are made possible by municipal advertising purchases?

I raised this and a few other points in a letter to the News and Tribune, and someone -- the editor, the publisher, or maybe the guy delivering sandwiches from Jimmy Johns -- couldn't help but append a visibly annoyed answer, seeking to attack me as a hypocrite while predictably refusing to address my concerns.

This is displacement and evasion, and rhetorical weakness of this degree probably isn't deserving of comment, but because I'm transparent, here goes: I no longer own a business, but when I did, I'd have had absolutely no issue whatever with releasing our financial records, because there wasn't anything in them to hide. In fact, we always thought it would be quite informative for folks to see just how much money we weren't making in the food and drink business.

Of course the newspaper's situation is far different. We claimed only to be serving food and drink. The newspaper depicts itself in heroic terms, willing at the drop of a hat to stress its own critical importance as a quasi-ombudsman (supposedly) comforting the afflicted and affilcting the comfortable.

Neither will that dog hunt, nor is the escape clause to avoid self-accountability convincing: "Wait, we're a private, for-profit, non-locally-owned business, and you'll receive no answers from us."

Phooey.

Given the amount of ads run by New Albany and Jeffersonville alone, both from classified placements that cities are compelled to make (the rates for which ALL newspapers continue to raise extortionately) and the discretionary self-glorification memes preferred by Jeff Gahan and Mike Moore (read: political ads in all except the fudged invoice descriptions), this money is a potential conflict of interest, plain and simple.

Deflect all you wish, Susan, Bill and the gang. The light's pointed at you, not me.

---

Reader expected records editorial

Mike Moore kicked off the year in a blatant fit of sheer greed, and it wasn’t very pretty.

The Jeffersonville mayor’s inelegantly stage-managed bid for a 30 percent raise was so egregious that even our local chain newspaper took note, and rightly mounted the soapbox in protest.

Naturally, later this year at the annual shill ceremony concocted by its corporate master, the News and Tribune will win an award for best coverage of municipal events occurring just outside the office door, before adjourning to attend mocktail party for Alabama pensioners.

Just as predictably, in New Albany our City Hall expended six full months in a coordinated effort to rebuff “sunshine law” public information requests before being called on the carpet and fined by a judge.

Nope, not a peep from the principled editorial team at the News and Tribune.

It’s worth repeating that one of the information requests spurned by New Albany’s spigot-smothering city functionaries sought clarity about the amount of money spent each year by City Hall via its contract with ProMedia for purely discretionary advertisements, often thinly-veiled mayoral campaign ads, with this money flowing to places exactly like the News and Tribune.

Not one of the three links in this chain of taxpayer cash — city, contractor or newspaper — will tell us the answer to a simple question: Exactly how much money is involved?

Where’s the transparency in this situation, exalted newspaper editorialists?

Thankfully one of these links, city government, is subject to Indiana state law pertaining to the necessity of honoring information requests, and yet instead of obeying the law, it threw a tantrum and delayed compliance until after the election, and only when forced to do so by the judiciary.

If the newspaper won’t call out this sort of behavior, who will?

— ROGER A. BAYLOR

New Albany

EDITOR’S NOTE: There is no statute of limitations on encouraging office holders to be transparent in their dealings, including allowing access to public records. New Albany erred and was compelled by a judge to provide the requested records. We are encouraged that city officials — finally — did the right thing and urge them to comply with records requests more expediently in the future. Their misstep will no doubt be fodder for future editorials dealing with transparency in government.

We aren’t aware of any business, though — including yours, Mr. Baylor — that opens its financial records to the public. We do not discriminate against people or entities — including cities and politicians — who want to advertise with us.

Just a damn rant about "democracy grief."

It's a bit confounding to watch as Americans like Ms. Goldberg mourn something that barely ever existed. I've no use whatever for Donald Trump, and yet Trump has done nothing "to" America apart from accurately divining the obliviousness of its occupants as to eager culpability in their own oppression, which has far more to do with refusing to follow the money than visiting a therapist.

Democracy Grief Is Real, by Michelle Goldberg (New York Times)

Seeing what Trump is doing to America, many find it hard to fight off despair.

Lately, I think I’m experiencing democracy grief. For anyone who was, like me, born after the civil rights movement finally made democracy in America real, liberal democracy has always been part of the climate, as easy to take for granted as clean air or the changing of the seasons. When I contemplate the sort of illiberal oligarchy that would await my children should Donald Trump win another term, the scale of the loss feels so vast that I can barely process it.

Trump grasps the efficacy of following institutional weakness and native American anti-intellectualism to their logical conclusions, because that's where the money is.

But what if those "universal ideals" were little more than a chimera to begin with, mere window dressing to keep the inmates passive as they buy more articles they don't need and worship the palpably untrue?

Obviously, this is hardly the first time that America has failed to live up to its ideals. But the ideals themselves used to be a nearly universal lodestar. The civil rights movement, and freedom movements that came after it, succeeded because the country could be shamed by the distance between its democratic promises and its reality. That is no longer true.

Was it true even then?

There is nothing more authoritarian and oligarchic than all-encompassing consumerism -- and this is our national religious. It's who we are and what we do.

We make choices as consumers every day that buttress capital accumulation and income inequality far more efficiently than Trump's ability (itself questionable) to enhance further injustice.

We do it to ourselves, don't we? It's the economic system, and the ability of some to position themselves within it to the exclusion of others. We keep paying them, and they keep getting more powerful ... and it's not trickling down, is it?

But Trump’s political movement is pro-authoritarian and pro-oligarch.

Look, if you want to repel the nasty bully, why are you handing the nasty bully most of your money every single day? It might be a better idea to take away the money from the oligarchs. Hit the oligarchs with your wallet for a change.

Since when are "democratic ideals" even measured by the amount of debt you've accumulated on your credit cards?

“The only other option is to quit and accept it, and I’m not ready to go there yet,” she said. Democracy grief isn’t like regular grief. Acceptance isn’t how you move on from it. Acceptance is itself a kind of death.

Generally speaking, didn't we accept it long before Trump became a factor? Conceding that to quote Thomas Jefferson puts one at great hazard, I persist in thinking that he had one indisputably great insight.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Yep; the Declaration of Independence (except for the enslaved).

Imperfect, but there it is. Move past this facile notion of "democracy grief" and ask yourself the pertinent questions: Are these evils sufferable? Are the forms to which you are accustomed still adequate?

If yes, then buy another car and head to the multiplex for another dose of Marvel comic movies.

If no, then you just might have some thinking to do. Lots of you keep talking about resisting the part of the iceberg that's visible. Maybe it's the system beneath the surface that needs alteration.

Not a Tom May topic: "Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values."

As The Economist noted in 2017 (photo credit above), the secret of evangelical support for Donald Trump lies in the prosperity gospel.

The idiocy of the "pastorpreneurs" -- or, the prosperity gospel, as lifted straight from the corporate capitalist playbook.

Money, power.

Is anyone detecting a trend?

The Immoral Majority review: how evangelicals backed Trump – and how they might atone, by John S Gardner (The Guardian)

As a scandal-ridden presidency lurches towards impeachment, Ben Howe offers valuable insight into how it came to this

In his new book, Ben Howe attempts to explain something that should never have occurred: why most white evangelicals voting in 2016 chose Donald Trump.

Many observers thought Trump could not win because evangelical Christians could not support someone whose life (and tweeting) was so at odds with their beliefs and practices. Indeed, Trump failed to win a majority of evangelicals in any Super Tuesday primary.

Howe’s subtitle tells the tale: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values.

snip

As Howe notes, “Trump evangelicals are very fond of binary choices”, many of which are in essence “false dilemmas” in which a supposed “greater moral consideration takes precedence”. This “whataboutism” was key. Could one have opposed Trump and Clinton? Of course – and Trump would have lost. Yet, as Howe reminds us, “putting God in one compartment” and politics in another “is clearly out of step with Christian tradition”.

This provides a further clue. Howe writes extensively about the impact of social media and cable news in deepening the political divide in America and intensifying it to fresh levels of vitriol and “hyperbolic outrage”, largely based on the idea of victimization. This had dramatic effects: a spirit of bitterness and a “persecution complex” on the right meant that “ [a]s the clicks came, and the ideas were reinforced through group dynamics, they became even more pronounced. Anger had become a currency.”

snip

Trump promised power. “In the end,” Howe writes, “It’s what many absolutely believe Trump as president has given them.”

Power was one of the temptations the devil offered Jesus. He refused.

This is a deeply introspective, at times anguished book ...

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Divisiveness, or the condition wherein your opponent disrupts, but never you.

You may have noticed that the Floyd County Democratic Party seldom has anything positive to say about Republicans hereabouts ... and quite often the other way around, too.

Not exactly a revelation, but a factoid worth noting.

It's not a stretch to suggest that Democratic Party chairman Adam Dickey's default setting on the urban hustings is to dissent from Republican-dominated county government, disparage the dastardly opposition, mobilize city voters and seek to produce a majority of a single ballot from the discord thus engendered. 

Rather divisive, wouldn't you say?

Well, of course it is. Divisiveness is a hallmark of the two-party system. Both "sides" do it -- and if "unity" is the aim, why are there sides on the first place?

The whole point of politics is to divide the pool of voters into more or less likely groups for delivering a sales pitch, then to secure the support of the ones who seem to lean toward one's own side rather than the opponent's. Divisiveness is inevitable, isn't it? The trick is to reunify once the election's through, and that's a can of worms in itself.

None of this is particularly novel. I raise the topic of divisiveness (a four-syllable word, and consequently illegal in New Albanian political discourse) because we gadflies -- as well as our fellow dissenters, apostasists, resisters, contrarians, non-conformists, dissidents, skeptics, objectors, protesters, refuseniks, heretics and just plain stubborn yokels -- aren't being divisive at all.

Rather we're questioning the established order, examining the prevailing power structures and exercising free speech to do precisely what a newspaper would do if we had one: To ask questions of the pillars and expect sensible answers from them.

When the emperor prances about without any clothes, shouldn't we point out the absurdity? And shouldn't someone get him a damn robe, or something?

Telling the truth isn't divisive at all. It's obligatory, and an antidote to the prevailing Kool-Aid. The closer to the grassroots you are, the more necessary it gets.

No one ever said it would be easy. The path of least resistance is to accept the platitudes and go along to get along.

But what's the fun in THAT?

The idiocy of the "pastorpreneurs" -- or, the prosperity gospel, as lifted straight from the corporate capitalist playbook.

Don't worry -- Bill Hanson's own personal pastorpreneur is back on duty in today's News and Tribune, evangelizing on a platform of mass shooting aftermaths.

Now about those ten-percent tithes to keep the one-percent ensconced on their thrones ...

A Grift From God, by Meagan Day (Jacobin)

The prosperity gospel promises material riches to believers. It’s on the rise, and no wonder: it’s the perfect religious expression of capitalism, especially in the age of Trump.

Forty percent of Americans are liquid asset poor, which means that if they don’t receive their next paycheck they have no means to make ends meet. Why?

If you’re a socialist, the answer is that society’s capitalist minority is exploiting the working-class majority. People are broke because they are dependent on wages to survive, and their bosses are paying them as little as they can get away with. Low labor costs yield high profits, and the compulsion to maximize profits is the driving principle of capitalism. It’s baked into the economic system and exacerbated by low levels of organized working-class resistance.

If you’re a believer in the prosperity gospel, though, the answer is very different. The prosperity gospel is a movement within American Christianity, also known as the Word of Faith, that says God wants you to be rich, but you have to will his financial blessing into being. Forty percent of Evangelicals are taught the prosperity gospel, according to which the root cause of poverty is faithlessness.

Barbara Ehrenreich took a glance at the prosperity gospel in her book, Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America. She links it to the overall trend of “positive thinking” that emerged first in self-help and business literature and has bled over into religion. According to the laws of positive thinking, writes Ehrenreich, “You can have all that stuff in the mall, as well as the beautiful house and car, if only you believe that you can.”

From a socialist perspective, it’s cruel enough that the prosperity gospel locates the potential for economic uplift somewhere else besides mass politics and united class struggle, distracting and demobilizing people, and making it harder for them to actually win real society-wide victories. But it gets worse.

Prosperity gospel ministers don’t usually stop at urging positive thinking. To manifest financial success, believers can’t simply have faith. They must demonstrate that faith — preferably in the form of a tithe to the person doing the preaching. As rapper Ice-T put it, “The preacher says, ‘I know God a little bit better than you. If you pay me, I’ll hook you up.’”

Like payday lenders, prosperity gospel ministers see the broke and struggling as a consumer market. Their target demographic is those who suffer from lack, and their product is the promise of abundance, or at least relief. Financially, the prosperity gospel is nothing but a swindle, prying money from people who by definition have very little and desperately wish they had more.

Ideologically, the prosperity gospel dovetails perfectly with right-wing ideology, which views poverty as a consequence of individual failure rather than rigged economic and political structures. As Ehrenreich writes, “Always, in a hissed undertone, there is the darker message that if you don’t have all that you want, if you feel sick, discouraged, or defeated, you have only yourself to blame.”

When times are hard, it’s because you didn’t think positively enough, pray hard enough, or tithe enough. It’s a spiritual spin on meritocracy, the ideological handmaiden to neoliberal capitalism.

The prosperity gospel is one of America’s greatest grifts. Little wonder, then, that it’s made its way to the White House, currently occupied by a master con artist himself ...

"One simply can't speak truth to power without breaking a few eggs, preferably right between the powermonger's eyes."

Earlier this evening I took the time to peruse a few social media discussion threads about tomorrow's mayoral election. I was happy to see more than a few references by voters to their dismay with Gahan's governing record.

Can't vote for someone (Gahan) who refuses to work with the county (he and his administration go out of their way to not work with the county on anything), is in bed with business (city contracts with campaign donors ... hmmmm), and is spending too much on projects that don't need to be done (aka city hall).

Of course, issues like these have been a passion of mine, and it's all very flattering to hear folks talking about them -- because the local chain newspaper hasn't exactly been breaking a sweat to beat a lowly blogger to the punch, eh?

I just go out there and work my side of the street.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL: Take your cult of personality and shove it, Dear Leader.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Money is the ultimate bully (2015).

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: No more fear, Jeff (2015).

You can help put an end to all this by voting for David White tomorrow. As a prelude, a brief comment on today's fan mail. 

I wrote this column in March.

ON THE AVENUES: Gahan's hoarding of power and money is a threat to New Albany's future.

Here's an excerpt, dedicated to all the Gahanites who believe they have some sort of "right" to define terms of engagement.

Ask any guerrilla who ever lived. They don't.

---

Whenever Gahan's family members, their former co-workers and other mindless fans prattle about loathsome stalkers hating on the epitome of mayoral perfection, a reminder is in order.

One simply can't speak truth to power without breaking a few eggs, preferably right between the powermonger's eyes.

In the face of so much power, money and control, those of us in the political opposition have a perfect right to seek counter-balancing power where and as we find it. It is Gahan's objective to hold power, and the opposition's to modify his grasp of power, or when necessary, to seek to deprive him of it. His tools for exercising power are considerable and entrenched. By necessity, ours are improvisational.

My own chosen tools are words.

They may not seem like much compared to money and authority, but I believe the bully pulpit still matters when used consistently and creatively. Then again, I'm literate; the illiterate might disagree, because lacking the words, they're deprived of power, at least my kind of power.

In 2019, an election will decide whether Gahan's reign is furthered, or the city returns to self-government. I'm looking forward to it. My own "obsessive" recommendation on May 7 is to vote for David White in the Democratic mayoral primary and #FireGahan2019.

No equal billing for David White? That's because Tricky Dickey is playing favorites again, ceding the party's HQ window space to the highest and only bidder, Jeff Gahan.

In October of 2018, it looked like this.

But then it changed.

Same power-brokering slumlord still owns the building.

Same underachieving political party still claims the building as its headquarters.

2003 photo?

Same Democratic chairman still wants us to believe he's democratic.

Maybe the Floyd County Democratic Party sold naming rights to a party member's campaign as displayed on the window of the party member's building.

 

Well, at least they can pay the utility bills this way.

Be that as it may, or may not -- the fun begins soon, as we undertake the dissection of the Gahan campaign's expenditures -- we're left with a question: As it pertains to fairness and impartiality in a primary election, does the county party chairman have a responsibility to assure that all party candidates are treated the same? 

Neither the state nor local party rule books seem to address this, but the Democratic National Committee's charter and bylaws do.

 
The Floyd County Democratic Party's platform ends with this passage, implying that the local party must defer to the national party in matters undefined.

David White is a Democrat, and he's running for mayor in the Democratic Party's 2019 primary.

And yet, for White to get a sign at his own party's downtown headquarters, he has been forced to hang it across the street.

How is Adam Dickey administering a fair and impartial primary election on behalf of the Democratic Party if only one candidate for mayor (hint: the $438,000 candidate) is accorded every square inch of the window at the party's headquarters?

Isn't this level of hypocrisy intense even by Dickey's lofty standards?

Maybe the best explanations are here.

If you're one of those gung-ho local Democratic party members waking each morning to coffee, then hurling abuse at Donald Trump for sleaze and corruption before you've even used the toilet, howzabout while you're in there you take a glance at the mirror and observe exactly who is condoning bad party behavior right here in Anchor City?

Not a pretty sight, is it?

(thanks J)

Inhumane working conditions then and now -- or, can you explain to us again why David Barksdale deserves another council term?

Without Barksdale's help, how could Gahan
have achieved luxury in our time?

Remember last summer when at-large councilman David Barksdale somehow managed to keep a straight face while insisting for the public record that municipal employees at the City-County Building were laboring under "inhumane working conditions"?

It was all part of ensuring that Jeff Gahan and the Democrats got their Reisz Mahal luxury city hall in advance of the 2019 municipal election cycle.

Problem is, Barksdale claims to be a Republican.

Has he said anything aloud lately about whether it's inhumane to punish Federal employees during the current shutdown? I didn't think so. After all, such a statement would suggest a logical consistency of thought.

Why is it again that Barksdale deserves another term?

But as it stands, there'll be only one contested primary election race on May 7 between the two major political parties, this being David White's run against Big Daddy G.

By the way, as of Thursday's council meeting, Barksdale's appointment to serve as council liaison with Develop New Albany has ended. Incoming council president Scott Blair unceremoniously replaced Barksdale with Dan Coffey. The city's remaining trees wish he'd have done the same v.v. the Clearcutting Board.

Apparently Blair (an independent) gets it.

Do the Republicans?

Where Republicans are Democrats,
and trees are scared.

His wooden nose swells and the hypocrisy meter bursts into a noxious mushroom cloud as Adam "Tricky" Dickey previews the coming election season.

Republicans will convene today at 12 noon at Kolkin Coffee (2736 Charlestown Road) for a "joint announcement of Republican Mayoral and City Council candidates for the City of New Albany 2019 election." The announcement will be followed by a meet and greet.

Pending the forthcoming espresso jitters, here is a look at the local chain newspaper's coverage of Filing Day One, or a place where follow-up questions crawl off to die.

31 file for candidacy on first day in Clark, Floyd counties, by Chris Morris and Melissa Goforth (Tom May Reunion Tour 2019)

SOUTHERN INDIANA – While the dust has barely settled from the 2018 mid-term election, all eyes now are focused on the 2019 municipal elections in both Clark and Floyd counties. Wednesday marked the first day candidates could file for the May 7 primary, and seven took advantage of the opportunity in Floyd County and 24 did the same in Clark County. Candidates have until noon Feb. 8 to file a declaration of candidacy to run in the primary election.

Let's scroll straight to the dismal, reeking propaganda from the Democratic Party chairman, whose tenure has been marked by an ever-lengthening honor roll of defeat.

At this juncture, all that stands between the party's cherished municipal patronage machine and political oblivion are four city council minions, their defaults generally set to "power grovel," and perhaps the most corrupt mayor in the city's post-war history -- who was unable to comment about this or much of anything else owing to the necessity of frantically administering as high a volume of pay-to-play limbo dancing as possible with special interests before the wheels fall off.

Floyd County Democrat Party Chairman Adam Dickey is confident heading into the 2019 municipal election.

“Overall I feel pretty good. I understand several incumbents will file for re-election and we’ll have a few newcomers as well,” Dickey said. “I think we have a lot to show the city of New Albany … a balanced budget, we have focused on improving the quality of life for our residents. We have a lot to run on and we expect to have a pretty good year.”

Although he has yet to announce, Gahan is expected to seek a third term. He would have primary opposition again in May in a rematch of the 2015 showdown with White.

Dickey said Democrats gained two seats in New Albany Township last November which shows their strength in the city.

“We don’t take it for granted. We will continue working for the citizens of New Albany,” he said. “Some people focus more on control and power; we are focused on getting things done for the citizens.”

Welcome to peak doofusness, but where are the curative Rice Krispies Treats?

"The Pieties of the Liberal Class," wherein Democrats decry Trump's policy actions even as they hide their own like deeds.

To me, this sentence summarizes my experiences with the hallowed American two-party system.

"We could only take leaders at their word if they opposed a policy not only when the enemy was implementing it, but when their own side was implementing the same policy."

Hence another timely reminder that condemning Republicans for what Democrats do themselves fails to resonate, whether nationally or down the street, up on the third floor.

The Pieties of the Liberal Class, by Jason Hirthler (CounterPunch)

 ... In his excellent polemic, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Vladimir Lenin wrote that we could only take leaders at their word if they opposed a policy not only when the enemy was implementing it, but when their own side was implementing the same policy. On this score, all the Obama liberals fail the test, as do the equally haughty conservatives. Their fake outrage, their pious contempt, and their theatrical astonishment are forms of political posturing and, as the conservatives themselves say, “virtue signaling”. Power evidently corrupts us so thoroughly that when we gain power, our singular value becomes retaining power. We are often principled until our principles confront the opportunity to increase our power. Then they are deprioritized. How does an electoral system that votes on federal seats just twice a decade militate against this human frailty, a moral infirmity we all share?

As Chris Hedges remarks, we still have the “iconography and language” of democracy, but we are made to “kneel before the dictates of the marketplace” and “structure our society around the primacy of profit.” We are left with an institutional “facade.” Which is why it is so proper to treat with derision the reeling hysteria of politicians who claim, in comical hand-wringing interviews, that “our democracy” is under attack. Why it is so perfectly appropriate to mock the mastheads of our major newspapers, which admonish us that, “Democracy Dies In Darkness,” as though the Washington Post, owned by a CIA contractor and the richest man on earth, is some kind of bulwark against corporate fascism. It is the very vanguard of corporate fascism. It is not a barricade being manned by scruffy journalists firing lead at would-be usurpers. What a farcical notion, yet one embraced by the liberal class, who fail to see the corruption of their party as a summons to revolution.

This human capacity for self-delusion may be the final nail in the coffin of our species.

Hanson issues tepid apology for botched political ad on the cover of Harvest Homecoming's guide, but Democrats might think twice before tittering.

This one's been a spellbinder, with most of the egg fragments splattered in the vicinity of News and Tribune publisher Bill Hanson's face.

I'll get back to that in a moment.

Over the years NA Confidential has had much to say about the peculiar local institution known as Harvest Homecoming, not all of it positive.

However, even critics must concede the usefulness of the Harvest Homecoming organization's stance on political neutrality, especially during election cycles. Given the festival's business model, neutrality makes perfect sense. It's better for inclusiveness, and inclusiveness is better for the bottom line.

So it transpired that local Democrats started tittering at having stolen a march on the dreaded GOP by sneaking a blatant "Vote Democrat" campaign ad onto the cover of the Harvest Homecoming guide, as published by the News and Tribune, which didn't think for even a millisecond to consult the festival's leadership before cashing the check -- thus doing something never previously done, and quite visibly breaking faith.

It's worth noting that it was Clark County's Democrats financing the ad for a Floyd County event, which tells us two things: First, though mistaken in this instance, at least Clark County Democrats have a pulse; second, that Floyd County Democrats must still be behind on their office phone bills, and they might even owe their landlord back rent.

Their landlord being Warren Nash, party guru and human rights commission doorstop, it must be hard looking at the stack of greenbacks in the mayor's campaign fund and knowing you'll be recycling aluminium soda cans to keep Duke Energy at bay.

Harvest Homecoming quickly issued a statement reasserting the organization's political neutrality, concisely and correctly throwing the newspaper under the bus.

For many years that space has been purchased by a local car sales company. This year, they opted to not purchase the ad. With the space up for grabs, The Tribune sold the ad to the Democratic party. This is was completely out of our control and I was not aware of the advertisement until it was published.

By the way, the subtle dig is stupendous: it's not the Tribune any longer, after all, but the News and Tribune, a compound name reminding us daily about the way New Albany is routinely shortchanged in coverage by a newspaper doing business in Jeffersonville.

Shamed into public comment, Hanson couldn't even manage to pen a personal apology. Instead, Chris Morris was enlisted to "interview" his own boss (below), which tells you everything you need to know about the shambles overtaking this persistently misdirected enterprise.

Meanwhile, the social media response of most Democrats has been to defend the ad placement and deride Republicans who have complained about it.

Really?

Can you imagine what these same Democrats would be saying if the advertisement looked like this?

The hypocrisy isn't surprising at all, just indicative of the depths we're plumbing.

The point remains: Harvest Homecoming has the right to declare political neutrality, and the News and Tribune has a professional responsibility to honor it. Hanson's masked apology is maladroit, but at least he did what he should have done.

The rest of it is the usual partisan fluff, which should be deposited in history's dustbin prior to the inevitable excursion to Harvest Homecoming to ingest sugar doughnuts and rolled oysters.

And now, the editor who typically asks no questions interviews the publisher who'd rather not answer any.

News and Tribune apologizes for political ad on cover of Harvest Homecoming guide, by Chris Morris

The Harvest Homecoming Festival is preparing for its 51st year in downtown New Albany. It has grown from a few tables set up along Pearl Street to become one of the largest festivals in the state of Indiana. People look forward to it each year.

The Harvest Homecoming means a lot to the people of Southern Indiana.

But throughout its history the volunteers who operate the festival have never endorsed a candidate or one political party over another. The Harvest Homecoming Festival is independent and appreciates support from Democrats, Republicans, independents and others. It has never been thrown into the muck and mud of politics.

This year the News and Tribune published its annual Harvest Homecoming guide on Sept. 28. The tab is full of festival information, including a schedule of events, booth listings and photos of past festivals.

But it’s the cover that has gotten the most attention, and it has nothing to do with the photo of Mr. Pumpkin. The confusion is with the banner advertisement, paid for by the Clark County Democrats, reads “Vote Democrat” and runs along the bottom of the cover.

The ad’s background color is dark brown, the same as the rest of the cover, so it blends in, making it look like the festival is asking readers to vote Democrat or that the guide was produced by the Clark County Democrats. Neither is true.

“The tab is a product of the News and Tribune and reflects in no way the beliefs of the Harvest Homecoming committee or the event itself,” News and Tribune Publisher Bill Hanson said. “The News and Tribune regrets the uproar it has created among some and accepts all blame anyone wishes to assign.”

The cover is prime advertising space, and in the past has been sold to an area car dealer. In the future, no political ads will be sold on publications such as the Harvest Homecoming guide to avoid confusion.

“I want to apologize for our lack of good judgment in allowing a political party to purchase the ad space on the cover of this year’s Harvest Homecoming special edition,” Hanson said. “Given our current political climate, we should have been more discerning. Lesson learned at the News and Tribune.”

— Assistant Editor Chris Morris

If local "progressives" aren't holding City Hall's feet to the fire about Housing Choice vouchers, are they really progressive?

According to the Green Mouse, the last time a News & Tribune reporter was allowed into the inner sanctum for an interview with Mayor Jeff Gahan, there was a precondition that all questions first be submitted for approval by City Hall.

The answers were printed and ready when the reporter entered the mayor's office, and after a few moments of small talk, so ended the "interview."

Welcome to non-transparent governance, Nawbany-style.

Way back on March 16, 2017, the newspaper's then-reporter Elizabeth Beilman provided an overview of Gahan's recently facilitated hostile public housing takeover. While only Beilman herself knows whether her questions required City Hall pre-approval, here's a paragraph of interest.

(Gahan's NAHA seizure) will also signal a paradigm shift that more closely mirrors the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s changing model for public housing — fewer “brick-and-mortar” options and more affordable housing flexibility through a voucher system. Gahan believes this will position New Albany for better success when applying for tax credits and other applications.

Beilman also spoke with David Duggins, appointed by the mayor to serve as Gauleiter of the annexed NAHA territories.

New Albany is instituting measures meant to open up more opportunities for affordable housing that will accept Housing Choice Vouchers, Duggins said.

The city’s recently updated comprehensive plan states any new private housing development that receives incentives from the city, such as tax breaks, would be required to set aside 8 percent of its units for voucher holders, Duggins said. The plan was passed unanimously by the city council.

The council also approved an ordinance requiring landlords to register their rental units with the city. An inspection component of the ordinance was removed by the council, but city officials hope registration of units will increase communication with property owners to prevent deterioration of homes.

“If we start now encouraging affordable development, if we work now and enforce 8 percent [reserved units for vouchers], then there are units that will be available as this goes through,” Duggins said. “It will simultaneously work together, but it is a process.”

And if voucher holders can’t find eligible housing in New Albany when the time comes?

“I think we’re happy that they would go and find any place — if it’s in the city, great, if it’s outside the city that makes them happy and gives them a quality of life that they’re looking for, I think that’s the whole concern,” Duggins said.

It's almost as if both Gahan and Duggins knew their words about the utility of Housing Choice vouchers were meaningless drivel even as they uttered them -- as Chen discusses below.

Someone should ask them.

The newspaper, perhaps?

Better yet, shouldn't the so-called local Democratic Party progressives -- who insist against all prevailing evidence that Gahan and Duggins are somehow "one of them" -- be the ones to ask the occasional hard question?

Or must those queries, too, be approved in advance?

Our Housing-Voucher Program Is Broken, Michelle Chen (The Nation)

Landlords regularly refuse to rent to voucher holders, defeating the point of the program.

For many families in impoverished communities, their best hope for escaping poverty is to just move out of it. But often, the poverty follows them: They struggle to find a better neighborhood they can actually afford in crowded, expensive local housing markets. Today, with poverty and underfunded schools so intensely concentrated in isolated enclaves, the nationwide housing crisis is as much a crisis of segregation as a crisis of affordability.

The federal department of Housing and Urban Development has sought for years to help poor families relocate to lower-poverty areas through the Housing Choice program, which provides rental vouchers as a one-way ticket out to a healthier and stabler environment, resettling families in peaceful, integrated neighborhoods with more job and educational opportunities. Housing Choice vouchers are a major resource for cash-strapped public-housing authorities, currently supporting about 2.2 million households nationwide. Calculated according to income, the subsidies allow tenants generally to pay no more than 30 percent of income for rent. That could mean the difference between a roach-infested studio and a sunny single-family duplex with a $400 higher monthly rent. Those savings have a way of trickling down to the next generation, too: Research has linked a better home environment to healthier child development, less social distress, and greater economic stability. But as Congress weighs a modest expansion of the program, researchers have found that the Housing Choice recipients tend to face stiff barriers of stigma and implicit bias.

According to an extensive field study by the Urban Institute, many voucher holders are thwarted by landlords who simply won’t rent to them, regardless of the subsidy. Although some cities have laws that explicitly ban landlords from denying someone solely on the basis of being a voucher holder, researchers say subsurface biases still color first impressions and shape housing opportunity. It seems that people with vouchers are, ironically, perceived the same way landlords would view a bad credit check or a criminal record—a sign of a potentially troublesome tenant ...

The Kaepernick-Nike alliance is a "teachable moment, illuminating our relationship with brands."

Nike sweatshop in China.

The Great Nike Wars of 2018 are fascinating, but neither because of Colin Kaepernick nor the "post-purchase boycott" shredding of gear.

Rather, it's about a tacit admission that by now, we're all branded by brands. We accept corporate America's framing of the terms of consumer engagement just as totally as peasants in medieval Europe did the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

We're resisting the wrong thing. You can't burn your Nikes, then grab a bite at Chick-fil-A. You can't make Kaepernick's ad your Fb cover photo, then trot over to Target. Of course, you can -- but there's more than a little hypocrisy in the choices.

In a few minutes, I'll be publishing this entry. Quite a lot of you will open fire from both angles on social media without the essential component of reading the linked essays. Just be aware that in this day and age, genuine resistance takes the form of actually doing homework.

Just saying.

Following are three takes; first, a veteran columnist from the Bay Area.

Nike backs Kaepernick: A declaration of war? by Scott Ostler (San Francisco Chronicle)

Nike has made Colin Kaepernick the face of its 30th anniversary “Just Do It” campaign.

From its vast roster of superstar endorsers, Nike is shining its gigantic spotlight on an unemployed quarterback who is taking legal action against the NFL, and whose kneel-down protest against police brutality has split America roughly down the middle.

Nike’s campaign means war. Cultural, political, economic, social.

Writing for The Nation, Dave Zirin finds the center of the target.

Global, multibillion-dollar corporations that run an archipelago of sweatshops don’t underwrite rebellions. They co-opt and quash them. If anyone can navigate this snakepit, it is Colin Kaepernick, but it won’t be easy. The revolution will not be branded. We should be honest about that. The message of standing up to police violence and racial inequity shouldn’t end up in a swoosh-laded graveyard. That’s the risk that comes with this sponsorship. But if anyone has earned the right to take that risk, it’s Colin Kaepernick.

But it's The Baffler for the win.

Something for Nothing, by Nathaniel Friedman (The Baffler)

If corporations come off as sinister and oppressive, brands convey a message that’s relentlessly personable and accessible. We’re haunted by the aloof, godlike specter of corporations whenever we pay our bills or contemplate our election-season choices; we engage with brands on a daily basis, allowing them to define us even as we reciprocally try to define their uses and significations. And perhaps most essentially, we ascribe meaning to them apart from what they actually are. In what one might terms the Citizens United style deregulation of commerce in our psyches, we relate to brands as if there were an ideology, agency, and governing sentiment underlying them. Brands are companions, friends, and allies. The alternative—that we’re all dupes incapable of imagining a life not circumscribed by our relationship with these entities—is absolutely grim and raises all sorts of difficult questions in its own right.

Viewed in the context of the charged psychic minefield of brand symbolism, the embrace of the Kaepernick ad as an unconditional triumph is a gesture of self-preservation. The current state of debate surrounding putative loyalty to the national anthem and the NFL—both patriotic brands cultivating a similarly charged sort of signification among a very different consumer demographic—requires us to interpret the Nike-branded message as a token of progress because otherwise we would have to admit how cut off we are from any real version of dissent or meaningful opposition. Our own capacity to trust Nike belies an underlying sickness that we would rather not address. That we are okay with a politics mediated by brands puts the onus on us—which is to say, where it should ultimately belong. Unless Nike stuns everyone by expanding its partnership with Kaepernick to the point of adopting his worldview to influence corporate practices, we should view these efforts neutrally. Having Kaepernick around is good for the discourse; but our own ready inclination to pat Nike on the back for the culture-war troubles it’s now fending off largely by design points to some disquieting truths about ourselves.

Being pro-Kaepernick doesn’t require you be anti-capitalism. Nor does seeing value in the ad make you a sinister sell-out. Ideally, though, the ad’s appearance can serve as a teachable moment, illuminating our relationship with brands even as the Kaepernick-Nike alliance also highlights the consumer psychology at work in establishing and cultivating our loyalty to consumer brands: their agendas, their putative virtues, or their capacity for political action. Corporations wield real power. But brands are a figment that we feed every day—and if we ever we plan to reckon with them, we must also truly reckon with ourselves.

But Ms. Duncan, when will the News and Tribune begin to "speak out" on relevant local issues and "challenge" local leaders?

Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The newspaper manages the first half of the equation, but seldom the second.

Editor, heal thyself.

DUNCAN: The meat matters, by Susan Duncan (Tom May's Soapbox)

Silence is complicity — no matter the realm.

Failing to speak up — about anything — indicates a level of acceptance.

As long as Jeff Gahan keeps spending taxpayer money on this ...

... will the newspaper ever "challenge" the mayor as those demonstrators did Mitch?

People who yelled at U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as he dined in Louisville last weekend — it happened twice at two different restaurants — had reached the point where they could no longer keep quiet.

People in leadership positions understand, or should realize, they will be challenged. Not everybody is going to agree; unanimous consensus is elusive.

Here's a friendly hint, editor. Follow the rivulets feeding Gahan's Money Machine.

You'll feel like yelling, all right.

Our civility today has been diminished, but not our civic responsibility. We should speak out. And circumstances sometimes demand we speak up at a decibel that reaches yelling.

The CJ's remarkably consistent terminal decline: No news in the Indiana Newsletter, and plenty of blue-bagged litter to clog the city's storm drains.

Friday was the 4th straight day of a Romeo Langford college choice story with top billing in the CJ's "Indiana Newsletter," finally supplanted today by the opioid crisis, another recurring chestnut that at least constitutes genuine news.

This vacuous irrelevance was accompanied by a fresh spate of unwanted blue-wrapped street spam.

Ah, but we have all been here before.

The Courier-Journal's "Indiana Newsletter": More Indiana coverage, perhaps, but is any of it really news?

When I think of all the possible news of the world, and all the conceivable news in Southern Indiana, and then this being a fairly typical "Indiana Newsletter" via e-mail ... the CJ's terminal decline gets even sadder.

It the best they can do: Sports, entertainment and celebrity hokum.

It's profoundly depressing.

And here:

Down with the Courier-Journal's blue-bag-recycling-hypocrisy. Fact is, it's litter.

Free speech my ass: The Courier-Journal can spin this any way it likes, but it's litter, plain and simple. Why do we allow representatives of the newspaper to trash the city? I'm not sure, but perhaps the city council's forthcoming litter ordinance will take this into consideration.