More bullies and bullying from the Sunday summit of the bully pulpit.

What's a bully, anyway?

bully

[boo l-ee]

noun, plural bullies

1. a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.
2. Archaic. a man hired to do violence.
3. Obsolete. a pimp; procurer.
4. Obsolete. good friend; good fellow.
5. Obsolete. sweetheart; darling.

In fact, definitions vary. Teddy Roosevelt used the word one way (below) and my anonymous correspondent (above) another.

The applicability of these many definitions to examples in real-life also is variable. H.L. Mencken spent decades (a) eloquently writing truth to power, or (b) spewing intemperate vitriol at respectable pillars of society.

Was Mencken a buffoon or a bully? A man in love with his vocabulary or a muckraking ray of sunshine? Would he be accused of "cyber-bullying" today, if his columns appeared on-line and not on newsprint?

We all cross the lines on occasion, and I have done so, too. At the same time, this notion of my writing as bullying is strange to me, and perhaps it reveals a different issue, in that some folks probably don't know what to make of me. I don't fit into a convenient box, and I like it that way, but defying categorization bothers some of them.

If they can't tell exactly what my "job" is, they can't typecast me -- and they can't tell me how to go about doing "my job," whatever it might or might not be. Furthermore, in the absence of any willingness on their part to interact, the usual policing levers aren't effective.

What am I? Blogger? Politician? Business owner? Drunkard? Vocabulary deviate? Polemicist?

Why not just plain citizen, exercising that elusive concept of citizenship?

Is this really so hard to grasp? I have demonstrable principles. I'm able to state them cogently. I take part in the process even when it's futile. As a citizen, I'm just trying to do my small part in making this city a better place -- and all these hidebound, antebellum fogies stand in the way of progress.

It's enough to make a man curmudgeonly. Of course humans are fallible. We can't be perfect. Were always learning. I just try to tell the truth as often and consistently as possible, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. I hope you like it, and I'm not sorry at all if it bothers you. It's my art. You may cease reading at any time.

After all, I'm not at the homeless shelter commanding the occupants to get better. I'm at city meetings demanding openness, transparency and accountability of elected officials, and chiding the supposed journalists when they're to busy promoting cooking school to bother.

I'm not cruel to kids or dogs. Rather, I'm delighted to offer an alternative viewpoint as it pertains to self-assigned community "leaders" with more money and power than brains, and who really did learn everything they need to know way back in kindergarten.

The kids and dogs make better company, anyway -- and have you ever noticed that when a dog offers his territorial pissing, he confines it to a sustainable zone?

If you think Jeff Gahan knows more about a city's street grid than Jeff Speck, I'm not going to miss your comments about the theory and practice of my art as a polemicist. However, I'll remind you that your belief is foolish, and falls into the category of palpable absurdity.

In reverse chronological order, here are a few blog references to Bully Baylor over the past three years. Surely these began prior to 2013, and if you have examples, add them to the comments or at Fb.

August 6, 2015:

ON THE AVENUES: Money is the ultimate bully.

 ... Even this heretic knows that Goliath was the big bad bully, and not the dude with the spot-on slingshot, and accordingly, I’ll continue to speak and write openly about the way things are in New Albany, because when it comes to underdogs, sleepers, dark horses and the man in Tiananmen Square blocking a column of tanks with his briefcase, you won’t find any of them in the $100,000 mayoral suite overlooking one-way Spring Street.

September 27, 2014:

Bully for you, bully for me. Let's have a bully pulpit in every foyer.

 ... Like Harding’s “normalcy” and Kennedy’s “vigor," the phrase with which Roosevelt begins this letter, “Bully for you” will forever be emblematic of his presidency.

April 24, 2014:

RUMOR MILL..... (at Freedom to Screech)

... Our final thoughts: A message to Mr. "Bully" Baylor. Hell would freeze over before Freedom of Speech would EVER Support or Endorse you. Sorry Rog the only thing your good at "is kissing ass or bullying people...

August 24, 2013:

My second favorite News and Tribune reader comment yet.

... Without question, Roger Baylor's a bully. Like the previous post says, he would post something like what the Health Dept posted on him and laugh his head off and get his gang of bullies to laugh with him. This person is a menace of the worst sort. He incites anger and hatred. Nothing more.

August 19, 2013:

My favorite News and Tribune reader comment yet.

 ... No question Baylor is a bully. He would, without so much as a wink, put together some sort of picture just like the one on the Health Dept. site and feature this on his blog. He would do this while sneering and jeering, and he would spout venomous comments with his loyal followers who would gush all over the remarks with similar refrains of their own. Then, he would promote such a picture/blog entry on every website he frequents, Twitter, Facebook, other blogs. And he would guffaw and drink while adding one lie on top of the next in his self-righteous screed.

All together now ...

C-J report: Spiting Speck, Jeff Gahan still thinks that one-way traffic on Spring and Elm might be good for the city.

"If New Albany courageously changes its streets from one-way to two-way, it will pay for itself with higher home values and better downtown business."
-- John Gilderbloom

Mayor Jeff Gahan tells the C-J's Lexy Gross that it has taken him a very long time to believe his own two eyes ... and yet, after the street grid facts produced by Jeff Speck and John Gilderbloom (among others) are stacked higher than the Elsby Building, he still cannot embrace them publicly.

If any portion of Gahan's wavering "position" strikes you as pro-active in a sense of recognizable "leadership," then please do us the pleasure of explaining exactly how.

 ... The mayor and city officials are on board for the conversion of some streets, but they're waiting to see how much it would cost the City of New Albany before proceeding.

John Rosenbarger, New Albany public works projects supervisor, said Terra Haute, Ind., firm HWC Engineering is currently examining the city's options and how much it could cost to implement changes. Gahan said 80 percent of the project would be funded through the state and federal departments of transportation.

HWC has given the city two options: Spring Street and Elm Street would stay one-way from the interstate to Vincennes Street, or all of the downtown grid streets – from Oak to Main – would convert to two-way.

Gahan and Rosenbarger said they expect the analysis to take at least a few more months, then the city will release plans and costs for public discussion.

Gahan said he doesn't expect the project to be complete until after the bridges start tolling.

$20 million for parks, and the same old nickels and dimes for essential infrastructure. But at least we know that whatever private assurances continue to be made by City Hall to gullible elected officials, our city still believes one-way traffic on Spring and Elm might be conducive -- and they're going to let us be pounded by pass-through tolling evasion before doing anything at all.

Which means in turn: They're being willfully blind.

Greg Phipps owes us an explanation, doesn't he? Don't hold your breath waiting for it. Here is the link: Will New Albany get 2-way streets before tolls?

Gahan's signature pettiness ensures we'll not see a mayoral debate with all three candidates present at once.

(Update, 5:24 p.m., Sept. 4: Several of you have rightly pointed out that the NAHA is not owned or governed by the city. I was and remain aware of this, and should have done a better job with language intended to convey irony. Apologies for the muddle)

It genuinely sickens me to report this information to you.

Earlier today, I told you this.

In letter, Jeff Gahan confirms intent to snub Leadership Southern Indiana and bypass LSI's mayoral debate (includes my return letter).

Now I know why.

I've learned that Republican mayoral candidate Kevin Zurschmiede will be out of town during the week of the New Albany Housing Authority candidate forum (September 22) and League of Women Voters coronation softball toss (September 24).

The reason?

His son is getting married in a destination wedding.

In my world, that's a damned good reason, and knowing this puts a completely different spin on Jeff Gahan's letter, doesn't it?

Yes, Gahan is perfectly content to appear on a Tuesday at a forum staged by a "department" of his own city government, and then again two days later at what amounts to a fluffed-up photo op in a building he bonded to have built, as organized by an employee he appointed to her position.

But when it comes to appearing at the sole debate -- a real debate, at that -- at which all three candidates might appear together, Gahan is quick to decline.

If that's not textbook moral cowardice, I'm hard pressed to offer a better definition. Local Democrats should be hanging their heads in shame, but if the past is any guide, they're looking the other way.

ON THE AVENUES: When even Mitt Romney can run to the left of New Albany’s Democrats, it's a very big problem.

Trucks, speed, children and institutionalized moral cowardice.

Arranged in no particular order below are eight photos I snapped from a seat on the front porch, while smoking a cigar and drinking coffee, on Wednesday afternoon, September 24. The first four look left (east) on Spring Street, and the second four face to the right (west).

They don't do the scene justice, so I'll supplement them with background.

The rental properties across the street from our house (south side) currently house several small children, and in just a block and a half stretch on our (north) side, three new homeowners also have kids, albeit older than the ones in the rentals.

It's the most children we've glimpsed in this vicinity since moving here in 2003, and being kids, they're often out playing on the sidewalks -- and yes, there usually are adults nearby, so they're not entirely unsupervised.

The sequence below was taken in a couple of minutes. You can see a guy walking his dog, but not the children across the street on the east and west, who were out on the sidewalk just moments before the cavalcade of heavy trucks began speeding past, and to the east, during it.

I know this is tiresome, but hear it again: Truck traffic has exponentially increased, they should not be on this street in the first place, these trucks move very fast, we have lots of kids near the street, and while Mayor Jeff Gahan persists in advocating the demolition of buildings here and there on random public safety grounds, his perplexing refusal to acknowledge that escalated truck traffic, when entirely unregulated by ordinance enforcement or simple civic common sense, is just as much or more a threat to public safety is a red flag of epic dimensions.

Why is Jeff Gahan and his minions being so willfully blind to this?

Who are they serving, anyway?

Is Is it the citizenry, or Tiger Trucking?

These kids playing within yards of flashing steel, or J & J Pallet?

Why the silence, arrogance and refusal to acknowledge what their own eyes would reveal ... if they decided to climb out from behind the controlling stone wall, take the smallest look around, and actually see what's obvious to the rest of us?

We'll just wait a little bit longer for Jeff Speck's political cover, won't we? I suppose we'll have to, because we don't possess the collective cojones to take action before the Democratic Party is appeased.

Let's hope no one gets killed before it finally is proffered ... and that the prescription isn't ignored.

Rick Fox on marriage (in)equality: "The only people that benefit from this situation are the lawyers."

Really?

Lawyers benefit from things like this?

Speaking of which, how many different governmental agencies has Rick Fox represented, sometimes simultaneously?

Did you see how I didn't use the word "competently"?

As a side note, given that Bill Hanson now has you clicking twice in order to read whole documents, do you think this is intended to double the ad exposure?

I wonder how much traffic I've sent to be monitored by Hanson's ad-sniffers these last ten years?

I wonder if I've ever once been given credit down in Montgomery for doing so?

Notice all the questions I'm asking?

But there isn't any question that marriage equality ranks up there among the most basic of human rights and freedoms, those of which the likes of Rick Fox, Greg Zoeller and Mike Pence are determined to remain unaware.

Don't worry. They're on the wrong side of history, and with the passing of time, it will become increasingly obvious.

And rectified.

FOX: A measured take on gay marriage, by Rick Fox (Government Lawyerin' Cheap)

... I advised the clerk not to issue marriage licenses until I had an opportunity to review what was going on. I told the News and Tribune that I needed to review what was going on before I could advise Floyd County regarding this matter.

Human rights on the down-Iow: If not for New Albany's city council opposition to the HJRs, we'd already be constructing the gulag.

As we await the GOP's inevitable legislative hijinks with regard to HJR-3 (formerly HJR-6), otherwise known as the Hoosier Stain  ...

HJR 3 vote delayed NUVO (NUVO)

Analyst breaks down details of HJR-3 (WANE.com)

 ... let's look back to December 3, and those 12 mayors in Indiana who took a bipartisan approach in speaking out against the brown shirts.

Indiana Mayors Stand with Freedom Indiana, Speak Out against HJR-6

Today, Mayors from across the state of Indiana stood with Freedom Indiana and spoke out against HJR-6, the proposed amendment to the Indiana Constitution that would permanently define marriage and would remove existing protections under law for same-sex and unmarried couples and families.

Let's see. I don't see the mayors of New Albany and Jeffersonville on that list. But I probably just missed them. Maybe they used invisible ink.

The Indiana Democratic Party seems solidly and publicly against HJR-3. That's fitting and proper. Meanwhile, glancing at the Floyd County Democratic Party's web site and Facebook page, I find several references (on FB only) to HJR-3, including a link to a Democratic legislator's sound viewpoint, but no actual statement opposing the Hoosier Stain's spread.

But hey -- I probably just missed it.

Of course, here in Floyd County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans, and Republican presidential candidates win the vote in landslides, there's a good deal of getting down with the down-low. Apparently the Dixiecrat contingent is easily offended ... eh, Adam?

Elsewhere in Southern Indiana, we've seen moral cowardice rise to the top as Jeff CM, Tech educator, River Ridge flunky and One Southern Indiana chief all ducked and covered on HJR-6, HJR-3 immediate predecessor.

However, in November, the New Albany city council stood tall: A "principled" Blair votes no, but council approves resolution condemning HJR-6.

Afterward, I wrote CM Blair, asking him to explain his non-vote.

I'm still waiting for the reply. That's how we do it, down here, on the down-low, where the headlights of speed-crazed oncoming one-way arterial traffic aren't the only phenomenon freezing politicians dead in their tracks.

Moral cowardice rises to the top as Jeff CM, Tech educator, River Ridge flunky and One Southern Indiana chief duck and cover on HJR-6.

Nope. No answers, not then, not now.

They've all had years to consider HJR-6, otherwise known as "The Hoosier Stain", but now that the bigotry has come home to roost, none of them have thought about it yet.

Nathan Samuel doesn't have "a feel" for the view of his constituents, primarily because he's already opted out of the discussion with swirling casuistry exceeding that deployed by New Albany's CM Blair.

David L. Clifton, a professor at Ivy Tech Sellersburg, blithely repeats the hoary stereotype to the effect than we business folks think only about profit, and harbor no interest in matter of lowly social conscience -- although he makes no effort to explain why powerhouses like Cummins and Eli Lilly oppose HJR-6. Maybe it's just our retrograde business thinkers down here in One Southern Indiana's constituency.

Notably absent from weighing in on the matter were several of Southern Indiana’s major employers. The News and Tribune requested comments from Clark Memorial Hospital and American Commercial Lines Inc. on their stance on the resolution, but neither of the entities responded as of press time.

One Southern Indiana's Wendy Dant Chesser typically wiggles out from any hint of coherence on the topic by citing her organization's failure to reach "consensus," which naturally didn't stop it from advocating for the Bridges Boondoggle, or joining the far right over affordable health care, but the single best evasion of all comes from Jerry Acy of the River Ridge Commerce Center, which owes its very existence, as well as its current status as the Mecca we're all compelled to worship five times daily, to political maneuverings:

“That is something our board has not even entertained,” said River Ridge Executive Director Jerry Acy. “Typically, we don’t take a position on political matters.”

These are the "leaders' in the community -- but is it a community, or an Adam Sandler flick? Ye Gods, EVEN BOB CAESAR GETS IT. Here it is at The 'Bune, if you can slip through the Hanson Wall: Local officials weigh in — or don’t — about gay marriage amendment; Area business agencies say they haven't formed an opinion.