ON THE AVENUES: How has the 3rd district councilman fared since this question from 2015: "Et tu, Greg Phipps?"

ON THE AVENUES: How has the 3rd district councilman fared since this question from 2015: "Et tu, Greg Phipps?"

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

It's coming around again, isn't it?

Since the column reprinted today first was published on April 27, 2015 councilman Greg Phipps (D-3rd) has blithely cast Jeff Speck to the dire pleasantries of HWC Engineering, in the process supporting and defending a long delayed and thoroughly botched Gahanian two-way street reversion so hideously disfigured that random speedway band-aids still are being applied ... by HWC Engineering.

That's no plus. More importantly, given Phipps' previous stated interest in transparency, analytical analysis and political integrity, these theoretical priorities have long since been subordinated to the fix-is-in needs of Jeff Gahan's pay-to-play political patronage machine.

Has Phipps held a single public forum during the past seven years?

Then there's this, from 2011: “I have no desire to become a career politician.” Except now Phipps wants four more years, which would total 12. Matt Nash, Bob Caesar and Pat McLaughlin also want extra time: respectively, 2nd, 4th and 4th terms.

Extra time? I can't agree. All their terms combined have totaled previous little in terms of genuine achievement, although Mayor Gahan surely appreciates their assistance in feathering his own nest.

It's time for a change, isn't it? 

#FreeDistrict3

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ON THE AVENUES MONDAY SPECIAL: Et tu, Greg Phipps? Or: Anger and the electoral variability of transparency.

I’ve been thinking about 2011, when Greg Phipps defeated Steve Price in the primary, and then won the 3rd district city council seat against Jameson Bledsoe in November. For one shining moment, there was dancing in the streets; then we met the new boss, but I won't look back in anger.

On October 26, 2011, Daniel Suddeath previewed the contest in the News and Tribune.

Phipps was unable to be reached for additional comment, but stated in his election questionnaire submitted to the News and Tribune that some council members have been more interested in “playing politics than finding solutions to our city’s problems.”

“Integrity needs to be restored to the city council,” said Phipps, who is a 50-year-old senior lecturer and coordinator of sociology in the Indiana University Southeast School of Social Sciences.

It is Phipps’ first campaign for elected office, but he’s the president of the New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals and was president of the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association in 2007.

He said better transparency is needed in local government, and said he would hold semi-annual public forums, if elected.

“I honestly believe I can provide new and progressive leadership for the residents of the third district and the city as a whole,” he said.

The calendar reads 2015, and Phipps is running for re-election. He is unopposed in the May 5 primary, and has little reason to be substantive, but last week, on April 21, he offered a genuine bolt-from-the-sky, out-of-the-blue revelation, posting a Facebook assessment of Mayor Jeff Gahan's position on street grid reform in New Albany, which centers on Jeff Speck’s downtown street network proposals, whether they’ll ever come to fruition, and if so, when.

Note that like Phipps, Gahan seeks re-election.

Mayor Gahan is committed to making our downtown streets more friendly to drivers and walkers. Three concepts are being developed to address this issue. What makes it great is that the federal government is going to cover 80% of the cost. Soon we will have options to improve the way we move, which will include more 2-way streets, better signage, and safer crossings. I’m sure downtown residents and businesses will be pleased with the results. Two additional items must be considered before moving forward: 1) the cost of the project. 2) There must be a plan to allow trucks in and out of downtown.

Why is this noteworthy?

To date, Gahan has made no verifiable or attributable public statement suggesting a positive position on the topic, openly and for the record. The mayor has made numerous private comments, most of which have come with “not to be repeated” warnings appended.

Love or hate Jeff Gahan, this much is beyond dispute: He has maintained a rigorous, non-committal public neutrality on street grid reform. At least on this one topic, he has been transparently non-transparent.

Consequently, for Phipps to suggest mere days prior to the primary that Gahan now advocates street grid reform, albeit as a bizarre milquetoast on the down-low, whimpering in a watered-down variety of bureaucratically-worded pablum, constitutes real news.

As such, given months of mayoral silence, we must ask for proof.

Exactly when did Gahan say this, and to whom?

Where can I read it in his words?

Can you show me?

How do we know it’s really true?

More than once since last Tuesday, I've asked the Phipps camp to verify the source of this statement with something (anything) attributable to Gahan himself.

I've received no answer, and yet as a university instructor and sociologist, surely Phipps understands that the validity of any affirmative claim is suspect if it cannot be verified and attributed in precisely the same fashion as my requests for proof of mayoral street grid intent, on the record, in the open, for all to see.

Without such standards of evidence, academic research would be rendered moot. They’re also questions any reputable journalist would ask, aren’t they?

Obviously, politics constitutes a different set of rules, most of them dubious, and yet during his first run for office, it was Phipps himself who raised the bar and said he'd approach such issues “analytically,” adding that “I have no desire to become a career politician.”

And yet four years later, certain shoes seem to have shifted feet -- and it's getting ugly.

Some might say that by asking reasonable questions, I’m unfairly stalking or bullying Phipps. It isn't true. My satiric references to yard sign sizes aside, what I’m doing is requesting intellectual accountability from a university professor who has chosen to be a public official, and who has previously indicated with explicitness that he accepts precisely such scrutiny.

Except when they're my questions,

Moreover, I’m asking for accountability from Phipps as it pertains to his specific role as public official. After all, I remain a constituent. If Phipps wishes to explain which questions from constituents are deemed proper for his response and which are not, it’s an explanation of potential interest to all voters in his district, and not just me.

He should offer this parsing of  constituent service now … verifiably, openly, and for attribution. That’s what greater transparency in local government is all about, right?

In my insistence on making these points, is there negativity, cynicism or anger?

Not much, if any. It may resemble the act of trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle in a pea soup fog while wearing mittens, but I’m not angry about it. Providentially, my colleague Jeff G. has helped me understand this “oversimplification” of anger with an excerpt from an interview with the late comedian, George Carlin.

April 3, 2004: Dirty old man: George Carlin on obscenity in the age of Ashcroft, by Charles Taylor (Salon)

... When people say, “What are you so angry about?” Well, that’s a terrible oversimplification because I don’t live an angry life as people who know me for five minutes or five years will say. They rarely see me in an angry mood. I get irritated like anyone else, in traffic or in a long line that’s not moving. But I don’t carry anger around. What I feel is a sense of betrayal by my species and by my culture — that they lost their way and misled me, too, to a degree.

I’m a disappointed idealist. I think of myself as a skeptic, a realist. I think the cynics are the people who left the gas tank on the Ford Pinto, companies that kill people and just cross them out because they can’t afford to retool. That’s a cynical position. But the saying goes, if you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist, and that’s what’s going on with me. Down deep and underneath, the flame still flickers. I wish for an idealist, utopic world but the realist in me says it’s never gonna happen because of the way they’ve structured power and money and control and the hierarchies they’ve established.

I'm not angry.

But I'm quite capable of voting my disappointment.*

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* If I were to rewrite this sentence in 2019, it would go like this: "But I'm quite capable of filing my disappointment."

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Recent columns:

January 22: ON THE AVENUES: Democrats should judge city council incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 by their regressive deeds, not their progressive words.

January 15: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

January 8: ON THE AVENUES: In the 3rd district, that "stepping aside" time finally has arrived.

January 1: ON THE AVENUES: As a new year dawns, I’m existentially yours.

A metaphorical tale of compassion, honesty and integrity in photos, thus updating the East Main Street Improvement Project.

It's how the circle of nourishment works. Go here for more on this topic.

Top Ten posts at NA Confidential for May 2018.

Puffed-up pillars' pilferage landed at No. 1.

Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we enjoy reconnoitering the neglected periphery for uniquely local perspectives on life in New Albany.

City Hall's allegations to the contrary, it can be grasped quite clearly that hundreds of you are reading, and we believe this fact attests to a keen ongoing interest in grassroots New Albany stories, perhaps because they're being chronically under-served elsewhere. After all, fawning stenography and inexorably multiplying religion columnists can get a newspaper only so far.

The May list begins with five "honorable mention" posts, before concluding with the Top Ten, escalating to No. 1. These statistics are derived from Google's internal accounting.

MAY HONORABLE MENTION (5)

488

Gahan Money Machine: The Beam, Longest and Neff firm takes its turn at the wheel of the mayor's gravy train.

As you might expect, crumbs from the absurdly titled Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project (did Pinocchio Rosenbarger coin that gem of purely Orwellian Newspeak?) conveniently landed in the mayor's re-election piggy bank.

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550

"Kevin Hammersmith loved the local community and Floyd County Parks system."

I'm a cynic by inclination and preference, but it doesn't preclude me from being happy that there's a park named for Kevin Hammersmith.

I'm also glad the county pushed and completed this project. If Gahan had gotten hold of it, the park probably would be called the Lanz Dome.

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551

You keep singing "My Old Kentucky Home." I do not think it means what you think it means.

“It was a fantastic way to market Kentucky, which at the time had this reputation of being violent and corrupt and poor and a mess.”

The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same ... look, I'm always reluctant to trouble the revelers with facts, but here goes.

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628

Comments to city council: "Let’s talk about Develop New Albany’s second edition of the Taco Walk."

I’d like to ask at what point this organization, which I believe still receives a funding tithe each year from the city, is held accountable for matters like these – like cultural appropriation and infringement of intellectual property rights, or is it fine so long as that mayoral anchor seal of approval is hanging around their necks?

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712

This just in: "I urge We Are New Albany supporters to back LaMicra Martin in tomorrow's primary."

Moments ago, We Are New Albany posted two social media statements. Above is the list of candidates in tomorrow's primary who have made a public statement addressing the future of pubic housing in the wake of Mayor Jeff Gahan's hostile takeover of the New Albany Housing Authority.

MAY TOP TEN

744

Voter turnout yesterday in Floyd County was marginally better, but still pretty bad.

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765

Following up: "An Indiana county is paying a steep price for burying toxic coal ash." That's us, folks.

Kudos to Bob Frederick for keeping this story alive. He went through a fair amount of crap, but today's piece in the CJ has to feel like vindication for him.

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871

Panel of polemicists proposes an exciting non-Reisz city hall relocation idea.

These adaptive reuse pieces took a while to come together, but now it's my pleasure to offer an viable alternative to David Barksdale's City Hall's plan (or is it David Barksdale's City Hall's plan -- so very confused) to deploy millions of back-scratching dominoes (and dollars) so that the neglected/dilapidated Reisz furniture building might be used for city offices.

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897

On Spring Street today by Breakwater, a bicyclist riding in a bike lane was hit by a driver.

A friend just wrote that her husband was riding his bike home from work this afternoon on Spring Street and was hit by a driver, who claimed to be "watching for cars, not bikes" while pulling into Spring from a side street.

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1,031

Bicycles and sidewalks? As always, New Albany's legal stance is as clear as mud -- and City Hall gazes at the ceiling.

We've all been here before, but the fake factoids never cease, so let's have another look at the question of whether it is legal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk in New Albany. Not unexpectedly in a state with its own contradictory laws, sections of the official code of ordinances in New Albany don't jibe.

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1,176

From the makers of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey: "The old Pillsbury Plant becomes the new home for Sazerac Company."

The devil remained firmly within the nooks and crannies of the details, and until we know how much Sazerac's arrival will cost us, prudence is the rule. This noted, Sazerac's investment at the former Pillsbury has the potential to be a good thing.

Let's take a brief look at Sazerac. First, the company.

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1,624

Remembering Chloe Allen -- and the unfinished task of making streets safe for all users, not just drivers.

As the late Chloe Allen's former neighbor pointed out yesterday, the second anniversary of her tragic death fell on squarely on Mother's Day.

It's also the second anniversary of Mayor Jeff Gahan's refusal to say her name aloud, or even to acknowledge her passing.

I'm sure that's just a coincidence. I thought it prudent to wait a bit before mentioning it, and asking: Is the intersection in question safer now? Perhaps marginally. It's still a terrifying place to watch the very worst that drivers can be.

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1,908

The former Comfy Cow location will become a bar, but we have no further details.

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2,709

Let's all eat at Israel's Delicias de Mexico Gourmet on Saturday, May 19.

If you're not planning on Taco Walking and still need to eat at some point on Saturday, May 19, allow me to suggest that while it isn't located in the epicenter of downtown New Albany, Israel's Delicias de Mexico Gourmet (1515 E. Market Street) would be a great place to have a meal.

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3,459

"This girl’s idea was not hers anymore": Taco Walk's real founder explains how Develop New Albany stole her idea, as Jeff Gahan looked on, grinning.

Kelly's to be commended for channeling her anger into positive action. What happened to her last year makes me want to start tossing Molotov cocktails. Team Gahan's unaccountable cliquish minions keep empowering DNA's unaccountable bad behavior, which is embarrassing by junior high school standards, much less coming from an organization that purports to "lead."

How do these people sleep at night?

If Lee Hamilton's point about the secrecy of public officials is valid, he may wish to reconsider last year's Gahan for Mayor endorsement.

As a friend pointed out on Facebook ...

What a timely article considering the County narrowed down offers for the hospital sale from over a dozen down to one, all in secret without public meetings, and seemingly in violation of open door laws.

All this and Team Gahan too; luckily, we have a Fourth Estate watch ... dog ... er, never mind.

Cooking school!

HAMILTON: There's too much secrecy in government, by Lee Hamilton (This Is Jeffersonville)

We have a secrecy problem. This may seem odd to say during an era in which the most intimate details of individuals’ lives are on display. Yet government is moving behind closed doors, and this is definitely the wrong direction.

In fact, I’m dismayed by how often public officials fight not to do the public’s business in public. And I’m not just talking about the federal government.

From 04/29/15, at NA Confidential, some background.

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Just wait until Lee Hamilton sees the credit card bill.

We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.
-- Lee Hamilton

Jeff Gahan's latest mass mailer touts the mayoral candidate's endorsement by much beloved former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton. On the front, there is a Hamilton quote: "Leaders make things happen -- things that otherwise would not happen."

He probably meant to say "TIF bonds make things happen -- things that otherwise would not happen."

The implication is that Hamilton's quote refers to Gahan, but before we come back to that, let's look at an a ready illustration of the way that desperation and circular logic can invade the lives of sycophants, one of whom promptly offered this interpretation:

When Lee Hamilton speaks well of your leadership, you know you've done something right.

Which is to say, if you belong to the same political party as a former congressman and he endorses you, then you're doing something right -- something like belonging to the same political party as a former congressman ... and so on.

My first thought upon glimpsing the mailer was skepticism. Given Team Gahan's ongoing disregard for transparency and intellectual honesty, were Hamilton's actual words of endorsement to be found anywhere in the mailer? Was the quote on the front intended to apply specifically to Gahan?

In fact, Hamilton's letter of endorsement is to be found on Gahan's campaign page at Facebook, because a politician like the incumbent can be relied upon for transparency only when it involves praise and adulation.

Unfortunately, the letter is boilerplate partisanship, with interchangeable bullet points. To reference just one of them, Hamilton praises Gahan for investing "significant sums" into "aging infrastructure, including the Main Street project, "which added needed improvements to New Albany's historic district."

Uh huh.

And the Hamilton quote on the front of the mailer? It isn't to be found in the letter, although reference is made to Gahan's ability to make things "happen," which sounds suspiciously like an advertisement for a credit card.

And it is.

Nash, Bored of Works to downtown merchants: Shut up, stop complaining, consider selling nice carrots.

Got tomatoes?

Let's see if I have this straight.

Business owners who have invested in downtown New Albany with the reasonable expectation of a level playing field, and who conduct their transactions all year-round, observe that temporary unannounced street changes necessitated by a politically-motivated farmers market capital improvement project -- one not once discussed or vetted publicly in any coherent way -- interferes with their operations on a profitable day of the week.

They follow the instructions handed down to them from above, and make space in their work day to come to the Board of Works  (it not being an option to hold meetings any other time than mornings on a Tuesday, or to communicate with the public in any other manner) so as to make this point: In the absence (yet again) of transparency and communication, and while not questioning the utility of the farmers market itself, why are year-round bricks 'n' mortar merchants inconvenienced for the sake of businesses (i.e., the farmers) that are located outside the city?

It's hardly hoisting the black flag: Shouldn't they have been part of the conversation, and shouldn't they have been informed?

The board chews its cud for a week, and then predictably, instead of providing answers to the earnest questions asked, it expresses outrage at being inconvenienced, and abruptly transforms the requests into a referendum on the farmers market itself. The usual suspects are assembled to pledge fealty, denounce the interlopers, and provide vapid theater of the absurd. The Democratic party chairman takes notes, better to bring Redevelopment onto the side of "fundamentally better" conformity.

Not only is this entire charade intellectually dishonest -- and I risk insulting the word "intellectual" by connecting it with a politicized appendage like the board of works -- but it speaks to the core vindictiveness of the Gahan administration. 

There'll never be a "zero-budget" consideration of top-down assumptions, which if questioned, will result in the discrediting of the questioner (see: Dan Coffey vs. Diane Benedetti in the 5th).

The only thing missing at yesterday's by-the-numbers show trial was Warren Nash selling popcorn and admission tickets, with a percentage of the proceeds going directly to Jeff Gahan's re-election fund.

Perhaps Antiques Attic can purchase penance by paying its Temerity Tax directly to the mayor.

Board gives vote of confidence to New Albany Farmers Market, by Chris Morris (Repel the Interlopers Digest)

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany Farmers Market isn’t going anywhere — at least not for the next nine weeks.

The New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety gave the market a vote of confidence Tuesday, which means Bank Street, from Market to Spring, will remain closed from 6 a.m. to around 1 p.m. each Saturday for vendors to sell goods until the Farmers Market pavilion renovations are completed in July.

Just wait until Lee Hamilton sees the credit card bill.

We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.
-- Lee Hamilton

Jeff Gahan's latest mass mailer touts the mayoral candidate's endorsement by much beloved former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton. On the front, there is a Hamilton quote: "Leaders make things happen -- things that otherwise would not happen."

He probably meant to say "TIF bonds make things happen -- things that otherwise would not happen."

The implication is that Hamilton's quote refers to Gahan, but before we come back to that, let's look at an a ready illustration of the way that desperation and circular logic can invade the lives of sycophants, one of whom promptly offered this interpretation:

When Lee Hamilton speaks well of your leadership, you know you've done something right.

Which is to say, if you belong to the same political party as a former congressman and he endorses you, then you're doing something right -- something like belonging to the same political party as a former congressman ... and so on.

My first thought upon glimpsing the mailer was skepticism. Given Team Gahan's ongoing disregard for transparency and intellectual honesty, were Hamilton's actual words of endorsement to be found anywhere in the mailer? Was the quote on the front intended to apply specifically to Gahan?

In fact, Hamilton's letter of endorsement is to be found on Gahan's campaign page at Facebook, because a politician like the incumbent can be relied upon for transparency only when it involves praise and adulation.

Unfortunately, the letter is boilerplate partisanship, with interchangeable bullet points. To reference just one of them, Hamilton praises Gahan for investing "significant sums" into "aging infrastructure, including the Main Street project, "which added needed improvements to New Albany's historic district."

Uh huh.

And the Hamilton quote on the front of the mailer? It isn't to be found in the letter, although reference is made to Gahan's ability to make things "happen," which sounds suspiciously like an advertisement for a credit card.

And it is.

ON THE AVENUES MONDAY SPECIAL: Et tu, Greg Phipps? Or: Anger and the electoral variability of transparency.

ON THE AVENUES MONDAY SPECIAL: Et tu, Greg Phipps? Or: The electoral variability of transparency. 

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

I’ve been thinking about 2011, when Greg Phipps defeated Steve Price in the primary, and then won the 3rd district city council seat against Jameson Bledsoe in November. For one shining moment, there was dancing in the streets; then we met the new boss, but I won't look back in anger.

On October 26, 2011, Daniel Suddeath previewed the contest in the News and Tribune.

Phipps was unable to be reached for additional comment, but stated in his election questionnaire submitted to the News and Tribune that some council members have been more interested in “playing politics than finding solutions to our city’s problems.”

“Integrity needs to be restored to the city council,” said Phipps, who is a 50-year-old senior lecturer and coordinator of sociology in the Indiana University Southeast School of Social Sciences.

It is Phipps’ first campaign for elected office, but he’s the president of the New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals and was president of the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association in 2007.

He said better transparency is needed in local government, and said he would hold semi-annual public forums, if elected.

“I honestly believe I can provide new and progressive leadership for the residents of the third district and the city as a whole,” he said.

The calendar reads 2015, and Phipps is running for re-election. He is unopposed in the May 5 primary, and has little reason to be substantive, but last week, on April 21, he offered a genuine bolt-from-the-sky, out-of-the-blue revelation, posting a Facebook assessment of Mayor Jeff Gahan's position on street grid reform in New Albany, which centers on Jeff Speck’s downtown street network proposals, whether they’ll ever come to fruition, and if so, when.

Note that like Phipps, Gahan seeks re-election.

Mayor Gahan is committed to making our downtown streets more friendly to drivers and walkers. Three concepts are being developed to address this issue. What makes it great is that the federal government is going to cover 80% of the cost. Soon we will have options to improve the way we move, which will include more 2-way streets, better signage, and safer crossings. I’m sure downtown residents and businesses will be pleased with the results. Two additional items must be considered before moving forward: 1) the cost of the project. 2) There must be a plan to allow trucks in and out of downtown.

Why is this noteworthy?

To date, Gahan has made no verifiable or attributable public statement suggesting a positive position on the topic, openly and for the record. The mayor has made numerous private comments, most of which have come with “not to be repeated” warnings appended.

Love or hate Jeff Gahan, this much is beyond dispute: He has maintained a rigorous, non-committal public neutrality on street grid reform. At least on this one topic, he has been transparently non-transparent.

Consequently, for Phipps to suggest mere days prior to the primary that Gahan now advocates street grid reform, albeit as a bizarre milquetoast on the down-low, whimpering in a watered-down variety of bureaucratically-worded pablum, constitutes real news.

As such, given months of mayoral silence, we must ask for proof.

Exactly when did Gahan say this, and to whom?

Where can I read it in his words?

Can you show me?

How do we know it’s really true?

More than once since last Tuesday, I've asked the Phipps camp to verify the source of this statement with something (anything) attributable to Gahan himself.

I've received no answer, and yet as a university instructor and sociologist, surely Phipps understands that the validity of any affirmative claim is suspect if it cannot be verified and attributed in precisely the same fashion as my requests for proof of mayoral street grid intent, on the record, in the open, for all to see.

Without such standards of evidence, academic research would be rendered moot. They’re also questions any reputable journalist would ask, aren’t they?

Obviously, politics constitutes a different set of rules, most of them dubious, and yet during his first run for office, it was Phipps himself who raised the bar and said he'd approach such issues “analytically,” adding that “I have no desire to become a career politician.”

And yet four years later, certain shoes seem to have shifted feet -- and it's getting ugly.

Some might say that by asking reasonable questions, I’m unfairly stalking or bullying Phipps. It isn't true. My satiric references to yard sign sizes aside, what I’m doing is requesting intellectual accountability from a university professor who has chosen to be a public official, and who has previously indicated with explicitness that he accepts precisely such scrutiny.

Except when they're my questions,

Moreover, I’m asking for accountability from Phipps as it pertains to his specific role as public official. After all, I remain a constituent. If Phipps wishes to explain which questions from constituents are deemed proper for his response and which are not, it’s an explanation of potential interest to all voters in his district, and not just me.

He should offer this parsing of  constituent service now … verifiably, openly, and for attribution. That’s what greater transparency in local government is all about, right?

In my insistence on making these points, is there negativity, cynicism or anger?

Not much, if any. It may resemble the act of trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle in a pea soup fog while wearing mittens, but I’m not angry about it. Providentially, my colleague Jeff G. has helped me understand this “oversimplification” of anger with an excerpt from an interview with the late comedian, George Carlin.

April 3, 2004: Dirty old man: George Carlin on obscenity in the age of Ashcroft, by Charles Taylor (Salon)

... When people say, “What are you so angry about?” Well, that’s a terrible oversimplification because I don’t live an angry life as people who know me for five minutes or five years will say. They rarely see me in an angry mood. I get irritated like anyone else, in traffic or in a long line that’s not moving. But I don’t carry anger around. What I feel is a sense of betrayal by my species and by my culture — that they lost their way and misled me, too, to a degree.

I’m a disappointed idealist. I think of myself as a skeptic, a realist. I think the cynics are the people who left the gas tank on the Ford Pinto, companies that kill people and just cross them out because they can’t afford to retool. That’s a cynical position. But the saying goes, if you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist, and that’s what’s going on with me. Down deep and underneath, the flame still flickers. I wish for an idealist, utopic world but the realist in me says it’s never gonna happen because of the way they’ve structured power and money and control and the hierarchies they’ve established.

I'm not angry.

But I'm quite capable of voting my disappointment.

---

Recent columns:

April 23: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Anachronisms and intellectuals, here and there.

April 16: ON THE AVENUES: Say a prayer for NA Confidentialas it conducts this exclusive interview with Councilman Cappuccino.

April 9: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Complexities and simplicities in Boomtown.

April 8: ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL: The proper separation of church and council.

April 2: ON THE AVENUES: On brewing economic development.

Develop New Albany's on-line farmers market "poll" is a reeking, juvenile cesspool of intellectual dishonesty.

NAC suggests you go to the DNA rigged polling page and disrupt its bush league tactics by voting for the parking garage. Sadly, doing so may be the only chance we get to register a viewpoint.

From the same old suspects, playing the same old childish fix-is-in games, comes this absurd "choice" in an on-line poll about the future of the farmers market.

I'll have more to say about this on Thursday morning. Until then, just remember DNA's statement of principle back in 2010, when it was asked to take a stand on bridge tolls, and produced a statement of pure, unadulterated, unalloyed cowardice. It's reprinted below.

While you're reading it, just keep asking yourself: From the inception of DNA's farmers market expansion boondoggle, through its surreptitious placement in the city council budget, right up through this insulting poll -- the poll's insipidity quite possibly is the only transparent act DNA had ventured in a decade -- has any one thing the organization has done to advance the idea of overspending on the farmers market NOT BEEN POLITICAL? 

Rather than forward yet another payback to farmers market management (ye Gods, when will it ever be enough?), couldn't we take the $270,000, pay someone $10K a year to run it at whatever location might be deemed of best interest to the entire city, and buy ourselves 27 years of restful nights?

Why is DNA opposed to having an intelligent community discussion about the farmers market and its place in a revitalizing downtown without resorting to the misconceptions and scaremongering?

If the farmers market is genuinely important, maybe we need to take it back from DNA's clutches and do something important with it.

World classics of bureaucratic evasiveness: DNA's 2010 tolling "position" announcement.

NA 1st's position on bridge tolls is much appreciated in the indie business community, which a full year and a half later still looks to the self-endowed, self-described local revitalization leaders for leadership. And, a year and a half later, pins drop, crickets chirp, and somewhere, a beaten cur moans in pompous resignation.

Develop New Albany releases statement regarding bridge tolls.

We support the success of downtown merchants.

Develop New Albany will continue to observe the progress of the construction of new bridges and the proposal for tolls on existing bridges and release statements as they pertain to the economic development of the historic business corridors. The organization is a tax exempt charitable organization and IRS rules state Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. As a non-political organization we are in favor of anything that supports the success of New Albany business owners and favor policy that advances economic development. We encourage a transparent effort on the part of the Bridge Authority and political leaders.

This Corporation was organized with the mission to promote and encourage the economic revitalization and historic preservation of downtown New Albany. Therefore, actions that contribute to these goals have been, and will be, welcomed by Develop New Albany. Actions that are a detriment to these goals have not been, and will not be, welcomed by Develop New Albany.

Develop New Albany: Develop New Albany, Inc. is a non-profit organization composed of local businesses and community volunteers. Develop New Albany is committed to the economic revitalization and historic preservation of Downtown New Albany. Develop New Albany proactively markets New Albany to organizations and businesses to encourage the continued renaissance of Downtown New Albany.

Develop New Albany Contact:
Mike Kopp, President

Republican conservatives? "The avatar, the exemplar, the paradigm" of intellectual dishonesty.

Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s ostensible target is Mitt Romney, but his description of "intellectual dishonesty" as practiced by Republican conservatives is priceless.

Republican conservatives make intellectual dishonesty an art form

If you're a regular here, you've heard me rant from time to time about intellectual dishonesty. By this, I mean more than just your garden-variety lie. No, to be intellectually dishonest means to argue that which you know to be untrue and to substitute ideology for intellect to the degree that you'll do violence to language and logic rather than cross the party line.

Yes, we're all intellectually dishonest on occasion. But no one does it like Republican conservatives. They are to intellectual dishonesty what Michael Jordan was to basketball or The Temptations to harmony: the avatar, the exemplar, the paradigm. They have elevated it beyond hypocrisy and political expedience. They have made it ... art.

REWIND: Playing by the rules means just saying "no" to plagiarism, doesn't it?

All this anonymous talk of late comparing me with Reverend Jeremiah Wright is worrisome.

What if folks begin to think that I'm religious? I'd never be able to live that one down.

Meanwhile, on the recurring topic of attribution and intellectual dishonesty, it should be noted that permission to publish someone else's words is meaningless if attribution is not provided.

Let's go back to September, 2007, and consider anew what it means to pretend ... and to be a very bad actor.

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Playing by the rules means just saying "no" to plagiarism, doesn't it? (9/11/07)

I’m always amused when people who “play by the rules” aren’t able to follow them.

Yes, it’s time to revisit Vicki Ann Denschak’s bilious Freedom to Screech blog and read “Professor Erik’s” original thoughts about … wait … it now seems that they’re not exactly original.

As the noted noted linguist Gomer Pyle once observed, "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise."

09. 11. 01

The imaginary lecturer’s first two paragraphs are cribbed in their entirety (sans attribution, which is the faux academic’s longstanding, loathsome habit) from an essay by John Peters.

Poignantly, Ms. Denschak inserts her own leadoff sentence into the second paragraph. Not only is it grammatically incorrect, but she misspells singer Shania Twain’s name.

Further along, there’s another whole paragraph stolen from an article by Stacey Colino published in 2002.

And, the sentence following the paragraph originally written by Colino can be found here.

What was that about rules? Consider this random definition from the Northwestern University website:

Northwestern's "Principles Regarding Academic Integrity" defines plagiarism as "submitting material that in part or whole is not entirely one's own work without attributing those same portions to their correct source."

Gee, you’d think a college professor would know that.

(thanks RS)

The “Dork & Mindy” bitch-slap theory of local politics.

When America’s free-falling President Shrub and his GOP bunker mates publicly refer to the Democratic party the “Democrat party,” does it mean that they’re syntax-challenged dolts, or is it being done intentionally as a not-so-subtle means of disparagement?

Perhaps both. Here’s a handy explanation, as offered by Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo (I sincerely thank my source, who is in enough “trouble” already):

Matt Yglesias has an interesting series of posts on his site about just what the big deal is when Republicans call the Democratic party the 'Democrat party'.

As it happens, a few months back I got an email from a TPM Reader who I think was a linguist. And he explained that there is something about the concatenation of syllables, the sound or structure of the phrase 'Democrat party' that actually sounds somehow inherently grating or awkward on the ears. When I got the note I think I was busy with something else. And I never really got a chance to work through and understand just what the guy was saying. I think I'll probably try to dig it up.

But that is a secondary point. The whole issue of 'Democrat' party -- other than as an example of Republican infantilism -- is an issue of respect or rather intentional and repeated expression of disrespect as a means of asserting dominance.

There's a certain conservative columnist named James X. who shall remain unnamed. At some point a few years back I had cause to exchange an email with him. And I called him 'Jim'. I don't think I gave it a second thought. I'm Josh or Joshua -- doesn't matter to me. But a short time later I got a half questioning, half barely repressed anger email from the guy asking whether I was intentionally disrespecting him by addressing him as 'Jim', the diminutive form of the name. Now, as I say, it was accidental. I apologized and explained that it was totally unintentional. And if he preferred to be called James I would certainly do so. As it happens, in the intervening years, my lack of respect for him has grown apace. But I'd still always call him James and not Jim. And this is the point. You address people the way they choose to be addressed. You address them by what they consider to be their name. In the ordinary course of life, when people do otherwise, we rightly recognize that they're trying to pick a fight or demean the person in question.

It is, as Matt points out, another illustration of the 'bitch-slap theory of politics'. You assert dominance over someone by mangling their name and continuing to do so even after the correct pronunciation or style is pointed out. It's right off the schoolyard and it's no surprise that it's a stock and trade of this president.

Locally, we refer to this same phenomenon – one so appropriately summarized by Marshall as “infantilism” -- as the “Dork & Mindy” bitch-slap theory of politics … and, for that matter, of all troglodyte blogging.

Accordingly, when Ms. Denhart refers to Mayor James Garner as “Jimmy” at her gasbag shrine, does it seem to you – as it does me – that her strategic choice of diminutive has far less to do with any personal deficiencies in social grace than it does with the patrician Republican peering over the fake academic’s shoulder, who artfully impels the trogosphere’s most pathetic puppet to dance?

NAC wanted to find out, so we dispatched our purely fictional roving correspondent Gordy Gant to Primrose Lane, where he succeeded in capturing a brief interview with prominent businesswoman and GOP stalwart Auntie V. We offer it here in the spirit of outrageously contrived satire, lest undiscerning readers mistakenly miss the joke and believe that the following account is somehow real.

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Gant:
You must be a special person to move to a new city and win the hearts and confidence of the populace with your first impression.

Auntie V:
I took on a project to create a quiet zone and kept trying to get the mayor to participate, as was a requirement by Norfolk Southern. He blew off five meetings, one which was even at HIS office. Norfolk Southern rep flew in from Roanoke for three of the meetings and it was getting embarrassing. I wrote a letter to a local senator and enrolled her assistance (one short pointed letter of support) and that ingratiated the railroad enough that they gave me $360,000 which enrolled INDOT (IN dept of Transp) to toss in the $180,000 balance I needed to upgrade our historic RR corridor.

SO, I went to the council meeting on Jan. 5th and explained the series of events which got me to the point that I called him a coward, a liar, a bully, wreckles, lacking in integrity, etc. and then I turned around and said, JIMMY, YOU WORK FOR ME And IF I was the boss I would fire you. For insubordination. His name is James and little did I know how upset he would be for calling him Jimmy, which I did on purpose to put him down, but didn’t realize I’d get such a rise out of him, which back fired on him worse, on top of making him look stupid. It’s much more involved than that, but that’s the nutshell explaination.

I had a video guy there to film the whole meeting. When I finished my speech, the entire room was cheering and clapping, as we are all fed up with him, and then I walked toward the door and one of the councilmen stood up and said, V, that is the most courageous thing I have ever seen anybody do. And the audience went crazy again applauded and all that stuff.

Gant:
I can't wait to hear the stories as to how that happened ... (muffled sounds … coughing ... we think that Gordy has fallen ill and will be taking a few days off ... )

Trognonymous local blogger called out for plagiarism responds by blaming the mayor.

Regular readers will recall that earlier last week, NAC took note of Ms. Denhart’s latest in a seemingly endless series of unattributed Internet plagiarisms, as regurgitated at her “Freedom to Screech” troglodyte rant blog: In which we check the facts, since she won't.

In case you were wondering, a substantial portion of the text used in the Freedom of Speech blog entry dated Wednesday, January 24 (but actually published on Tuesday, January 30) was purloined without proper attribution (or even scant acknowledgement) from a far more coherent political blog called Tennessee Ticket.

Now we’ve learned that the Volunteer State blogger from whom our laughably fictitious “Professor Erik” pilfered her material has taken public note of the theft, and references it here: Why Crib the Goofball Stuff?

Wow! A blogging member of higher education quoted this little site. Except, well, he didn't so much quote me, as use my words, without attribution, with every indication that he meant for a reader to think they were his own. In the quintessential sophomoric plagiarist's manner, he inserted two lines of his own, and "edited" text to a grammatically poorer result.

Alert! From one responsible blogger to another: Not only is our “Erik” not a professor, but “he’s” also not a “he,” and disingenuous gender confusion is only part of the recurring entertainment value proffered by this daily spectacle of an embittered, semi-literate, faux “academic” aspiring to trognonymous stardom. Please, don’t draw any conclusions about the state of Indiana’s educational system, which suffers from its own problems quite distinct from Erika's playground cluelessness.

Know that we fully comprehend the childish nature of her charade, and laugh at it – not with it.

In which we check the facts, since she won't.

In case you were wondering, a substantial portion of the text used in the Freedom of Speech blog entry dated Wednesday, January 24 (but actually published on Tuesday, January 30) was purloined without proper attribution (or even scant acknowledgement) from a far more coherent political blog called Tennessee Ticket.

Seems that the non-existent Professor Erika didn’t backdate her entry sufficiently far, as the original was published on January 22.

The preening professorial poseur is fond of demanding that rules be followed, and yet she’s entirely unable to consistently follow simple standards of honesty when it comes to identifying and attributing sources. Of course, this sort of serial misbehavior damages one’s credibility, but then again, credibility’s never been in ample supply at Dork and Mindy’s random character assassination generator.