SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS BONUS: "What is the difference between nationality and citizenship?"

Currently it's a hot topic at the 1117 East Spring Street Neighborhood Association.

Is it Britican or Americlish?

Are we New Albanian, or New Gahanian?

I must differ with Mrs. May, as I may be an American, but it doesn't preclude world citizenship. Edwin Moses taught me the difference during the 1984 Olympics, and I've never forgotten it.

The Economist explains: What is the difference between nationality and citizenship?

The two concepts are closely related but not quite the same

... In general, to be a national is to be a member of a state. Nationality is acquired by birth or adoption, marriage, or descent (the specifics vary from country to country). Having a nationality is crucial for receiving full recognition under international law. Indeed, Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that “Everyone has the right to a nationality” and “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality” but is silent on citizenship. Citizenship is a narrower concept: it is a specific legal relationship between a state and a person. It gives that person certain rights and responsibilities. It does not have to accompany nationality.

Out and about: In America, Europe and my cups.

Cambridge, England, 1998

Yesterday at Facebook, I asked a serious question.

Why is it even necessary for the United States to be the "greatest" country? Break into factions and discuss.

This we did, and it was spirited. My closing comment is brief statement of my own principle.

Someone always has to say "love it or leave it." I'd rather stay and help render (America) more lovable and more in keeping with the unfulfilled promise, if for no other reason than to prove that old white males need not be angry quasi-fascist reactionaries. But to bring it full circle: "Greatest" about anything strikes me as unnecessary. I consider myself to be a citizen of the planet first, an American second. The planet's natural realities are the binding. We start small: A two-way street in front of my house. That really would be the greatest thing.

The exchange brought to mind one of my very first columns for the pre-merger Tribune (February 5, 2009), which at the time generated a surprising degree of rancor. It went as far as my being denounced by a friend, who subsequently refused to patronize the pub in protest.

He since has returned, but that's not the real issue. I never dogged him for it, because if there's any one thing I've skilled at doing, it's being patient and waiting for the right time.

Five years later, I stand by this essay -- and at the same time, I want to remain right here, in New Albany, doing what I can at the grassroots level to make this a better place to live on a daily basis. It's about every day, not every now and then.

---

BEER MONEY: Out and about.

But the whole point of liberation is that you get out. Restructure your life. Act by yourself.
-- Jane Fonda

Shouldn’t the act of writing be as personal as it ever gets, especially if the results are intended for public, not private, consumption?

Shouldn’t one’s own words be inextricably linked to one’s own identity, with the writer endeavoring to honestly address matters like self-realization, personal liberation, and all those little acts of defiance, mourning and acceptance that go together to make a life?

Certainly this was the general condition for much of human history prior to the electronic immediacy of modern times. Either a person was literate, retaining at least the possibility of leaving a tangible record of existence for posterity, or he wasn’t, in which case a life passed unnoticed -- unless one was part of the tiny minority deemed suitable subjects for biographical renderings.

In those earlier times, when something of significance needed to be said, those few who were literate were expected to compose manifestos, polemics, confessionals and apologetics. Just like Martin Luther’s famous tract, these were intended to be nailed both literally and figuratively to the cathedral door for all to see.

In the current age of ephemeral solipsism, you needn’t know any more than the method of posting a self-made YouTube video, then sit back to count the hits as they mount through e-links, and finally calculate the extent of your newfound (and short-lived) notoriety.

It just isn’t the same.

These themes of personal freedom and written expression today compel me to broach a difficult topic, and yet it seems to me the right time to tackle it: Who am I as an individual, where did I come from, and where am I going?

For me, the one achievement reasonably attainable in my lifetime is self-knowledge. Random serendipity deposited me here, and I was issued one non-renewable life with second chances rarely if ever permitted. There is so very much of it that cannot be controlled, time is short, and as an atheist, I don’t look elsewhere for answers. But each of us spends every single moment of our lives inhabiting our own bodies, so doesn’t it make sense to come to terms with who we really are?

I can’t remember when it first occurred to me that I was different from the others.

There was neither a singular epiphany nor an earth-shattering revelation, only a dawning recognition that my attractions and desires were directed toward other places than those taken for granted as "normal."

For almost a quarter of a century, I’ve known the truth. The immensity of it overwhelmed me, and the implications usually blinded me to the realities of my situation. I kept going both directions, there and back and forth, never willing to admit that my orientation might be other than that considered typical for a male of my upbringing in a small Southern Indiana town and in a conservative, traditional society.

As a youth I wanted nothing more than to be like my friends, and after all, in those days we were not readily exposed to alternative lifestyles as part of our formative educational experiences. One might by chance read about such matters in books and see the issues skirted on television, but here? It really was the sort of thing that dared not speak its name aloud.

I was tormented by the usual doubts and questions. Was it nature or nurture? Had I done something wrong? Was I being punished? Did I have control over my real feelings and possess the ability to change them, or were they hard-wired and non-negotiable?

After much soul searching and heartfelt discussions with loved ones, dear friends, longtime customers, local politicians, cherished teachers, and even that pleasant fellow in White Castle the other day whose name I can’t remember, I’ve come to a momentous decision, and I’m able finally to reveal it to you, my faithful readers, and to the world.

I’m really a … a … a European.

There, I’ve said it. European. Not American.

Apparently the stork erred, and I’ve spent 48 crazy-quilt years trapped in this hamburger-eating, swill-slugging, mindless patriotic church-going, television-gazing country. It’s just so profoundly unfair.

I should be riding on bicycles or affordable public transportation through thoughtfully planned, human-scale communities to important soccer matches, and then vacationing in Madagascar or Bali or Cuba.

I might be drinking Belgian ale, Greek ouzo and Spanish wine from the appellations of their origins, and gratefully choosing between many more than just two political parties, among them one that actually reflects my own belief system.

I could be enjoying competent, universal, cradle-to-grave health care and never having to worry about the harmful encroachment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy, with religion restricted to debating the architectural merits of charming church buildings in Rome and Kiev.

I would be refusing to own a firearm, seeing that the crime rate is low and I needn’t affix my status as genuine citizen and "real man" on gunshot cadences … speaking a full half-dozen languages fluently … and understanding that my tax burden, while high, is being distributed to the benefit of my community as a whole, which benefits me as an individual.

Surely the delivery error can be rectified with a revised document of authenticity.

Anyone seen that damned negligent stork?

Roger A. Baylor votes Social Democrat, and will continue to blog at www.cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com until the immigration forms arrive.

ON THE AVENUES: Idiot wind.

ON THE AVENUES: Idiot wind.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

America’s recently concluded election campaign proved yet again that we seem incapable of bipartisanship, but in one significant “absentee” sense we stand as one: Americans seldom pay the slightest attention to developments elsewhere on planet Earth – otherwise known as the place we all inhabit – until the moment our troops are headed to an isolated place stuck somewhere on the face of it.

Perhaps understandably, the campaign was ripe for fervent exclamations of American exceptionalism, birther lies, varied white male minority fictions, and numerous other USA-centric arguments about local matters on our own side of the planetary street. A discussion about the global economy and our place in it, contrasted with the advancing merits of localism and self-sufficiency, might have made an interesting topic for reflection. Unfortunately, apart from shared China bashing, it’s a discussion that didn’t occur.

It’s a given that we know almost nothing about emerging nations like Brazil, India and assorted locales in Asia. The African continent is just as mysterious to us now as it was when Kurtz sailed up the Congo, except for Libya’s current voguish usefulness as opportunistic right-wing propaganda, and who cares if a few tiny South Sea island sandbar principalities are swept away by rising tides?

Amid the political arm wrestling, we’ve missed plenty of noteworthy news items from abroad. Seeing as I’m a Europhile, I’ll focus there.

Most of what we’ve heard about Europe lately has been focused on the woebegone, profligate Greeks, and the pressing question of whether German taxpayers eventually will pay for recalibration even as the cradle of democracy emaciates itself back to fiscal rectitude. Paul Ryan will note that there is little interest on the continent as to Greece’s prospects for re-establishing an economy pushed back to the Stone Age by austerity – save for the unions and leftists marching as this column is being written.

Meanwhile, France elected a dangerous ideologue who genuinely is a socialist, as opposed to so many misbegotten right-wing caricatures of Barack Obama. François Hollande possesses a crazed tendency to speak about justice, workers’ rights and quality of life issues, and financial markets tremble in fear, lest the contagion spread from the Élysée Palace to a fast food chain outlet in the exurb outside Dubuque.

But give me Pere Hollande over Papa John, any day.

The former Soviet Union (now called “Russia” to everyone not named Mitt Romney, who evidently remains a devotee of hoary John le Carré novels) admittedly remains a cornucopia of governmental and societal dysfunction, with Vladimir Putin flipping job titles more often than Romney’s 2012 platform planks. Nowhere in the former USSR is everyday life worse than Belarus, where a one-party dictatorship has created its own super-majority by brutally suppressing dissenting voices, and enforcing political conformity the old-fashioned way: Job by job, block by block, school by school.

Any resemblances to beet-red Indiana, in the context of former Civil War states on the Union side gone Southern-fried totalitarian, are purely intentional.

---

These are small beer compared to a resurgence of European regionalism during these recent recessionary years, something we all might examine more closely, especially in the aftermath of Obama’s climactic re-election, as the tone of dispatches emanating from the American Right increasingly resembles those of South Carolinians following Abe Lincoln’s presidential victory in 1860.

You’re probably already aware that Belgium’s Flemish and Wallonian cultural and linguistic halves have been teetering on the edge of divorce for many years. Northern Italians see themselves as productive, modern and superior to the Mafioso-ridden southern provinces, and periodically make noises about splitting.

Spain for the Spanish? Not exactly, because many Catalonians fancy Barcelona as the capital of a Catalan free state.

While these continental peoples speak different languages and remain obscure to Americans, who generally speak only wretched English, there exists an example of an independence movement far closer to home in terms of white cultural legacies.

It’s Scotland.

Surprised? Don’t be, because the Scots will be holding a referendum on independence in 2014, and this is not a cultural autonomy proposal, but one that could enable full blown status as a separate country, following in the footsteps of Ireland a century ago, sans violence (we certainly hope).

Yes, the devil remains firmly ensconced amid future details, and each of these cases is different from the others. A full inquiry would be merited, and perhaps some day I’ll have time to do the necessary research. The overarching point, at least to me, is this: As people living in these places actively contemplate the implications of possible independence, few if any are advocating migration out of the larger, inclusive European Union. Flanders, Wallonia, Catalonia, Northern Italy and now Scotland are proclaiming blessed freedom … and future membership for themselves in the EU.

Talk about hedging one’s bets: A Scotsman eager to retain more of what remains of his North Sea oil wealth, so as to shield it from the grasping claws of Westminster, is not proposing to abandon the dreaded redistribution of wealth made possible by the EU. He’ll have his haggis, and eat it, too.

---

Perhaps this is why my eyebrow keeps arching as I hear the embittered voices of GOP voters screaming the secession word as they plot vengeance on demographic trends they regularly reject. It’s been surreal from the very outset, all these presumably “real” Americans turning back to the Confederacy’s dubious business model after all these decades, and only a considerable degree of weird, post-modern karma helps to explain why after several hundred thousand males, most of them white, died to preserve the Union and free the slaves, their ancestors now insist they’d be happy in opting to re-marginalize – in effect, oddly, to enslave themselves in a new “homeland” that would be the dumbest, fattest and most superstition-ridden imaginable.

Me? I’m delighted to discuss the prospects for their departure, but only after today’s new breed of secessionist recognizes that because it is they who seek to exit the federal structure, they’re the ones who’ll be forfeiting onerous government “handouts” like social security.

Military installations? I’ll be needing those back, as well. You keep telling me you’re armed to the teeth, and that’s fine, because you’ll not be keeping the jets. Remember to take plenty of shotguns when you defend your subsidized oil in the Middle East; them Hummers, they’se guzzlers for sure.

How many new secessionists will persist in D-I-V-O-R-C-E proceedings when it becomes clear that their own pensions are dependent on the combined weight of a modern industrial nation – you know, the manifest American destiny they cited by rote whenever challenged, right up until November 6, 2012, when the all-powerful God formerly on their side instead endorsed a solid victory by the Kenyan Islamic, and now, belatedly, their fortress turns out to have been not so damned mighty in the first place?

Of course, today’s secessionists are bluffing, pure and simple, although their clamor causes me to wish the nation had more wind turbines.

Energy sufficiency. That’s the thing, eh?

ON THE AVENUES: Hauntingly multinational.

ON THE AVENUES: Hauntingly multinational.

By ROGER BAYLOR
Local Columnist

According to the dictionary, “to haunt” is to visit or inhabit as a ghost. Not unexpectedly, “to be haunted” is to be visited by these spectral non-corporeals, or to be inhabited by them.

Seeing as in theory, ghosts are immaterial spirits – more prosaically, we think of them as having been alive (in the past tense) and now dead (in a passed sense) – it’s probably neither incorrect nor particularly original for me to suggest that ideas have the power to haunt, too.

And there are memories, too; shadowy recollections of things passed, subjected to the human brain’s self-protecting preference for airbrushing, and often regurgitated as nicely pruned and tidied nostalgia.

In short, one glosses over the bad parts. Because of this safety mechanism, it is my view that memories themselves often are hazy hauntings, adorned by remnants of ideas propelling actions, which in turn prefaced the memories.

Ideas endure and are less adaptable than memories. They’re stubborn this way, and perhaps the haunting emanates from the dissonance. With distance from the source and the time, the spookiness is compounded, perhaps even exponentially, and that’s why aging is about more than mere physical deterioration.

---

It is now clear that my 50th birthday last year qualifies as a watershed event (I wrote about it at the time). In the realm of thoughts and ideas affirming and animating my interior world, something as yet indefinable keeps churning, collating and coagulating. I sense future change, and seek to remain alert to its possibilities. Just the same, I’m haunted by the past.

It is a cliché, but the only constant is change. It occurs. Most of the time, it comes slowly and imperceptibly. Given the age of the planet and the “deep-time” pace of evolution, none of this is a surprise, and yet we humans are creatures of otherwise irrelevant habit, locked blithely into our daily personal and cultural constructions, and surfacing only periodically to notice the alterations in our landscape, be it local or global.

Then, belatedly, we exclaim: “What happened?”

Usually, whatever it is actually has been happening for a long, long time. We didn’t notice the gradual transformation, because as John Lennon presciently noted, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

---

So it is with me. I am midway through my second year of circumstance-enforced absence from the European continent. As the time passes, my attitude evolves.

From 1985 through 2009, I generally took one trip each year, longer and less frequent journeys in the beginning, and then as the years passed, shorter jaunts taken more often.

After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the intense geo-political lure of the prevailing Cold War climate disappeared overnight, even if history did not stop, and the focus of my subsequent travels increasingly was applied to beer’s European contexts in history and culture.

The current travel hiatus owes to an absence of time as well as financial and philosophical realities coming in the aftermath of Bank Street Brewhouse’s inception in 2009. Briefly stated, my company’s expansion project has required herculean efforts, drained all the coffers, and led to an unexpected top-to-bottom rethink of my personal and professional position in the world of beer and brewing, some of which I’ve shared previously.

There’s also been an obvious dove-tailing between NABC’s growth and an escalating interest in the community where I live, culminating in my recent failed candidacy for city council. As a result, a temporary suspension of European visitation has been the most practical course, and my wife and I fervently hope that in 2012, we’ll be able to make a trip overseas.

Less obviously, perhaps remaining stateside for more than six months at a time, exploring my own terrain and experiencing various epiphanies in my 50th year have combined to produce an altered outlook. It is retrospective, yet also forward-gazing.

I’ve come to realize that during my early trips to Europe, whether I accurately fathomed it or not, an era was coming to a close. There’s a considerable difference between the 40th anniversary of war’s end in 1985, and the 65th in 2010. Obviously, a whole generation has passed on since then.

The Cold War’s end hastened European integration, and European unity has profoundly altered the landscape in every conceivable way, including in the areas of beer and brewing. We’re now a full thirty years removed from the traditional European beer culture described so lovingly by the late Michael Jackson in his seminal volumes.

Much of what Jackson documented, which inspired so many of us to emulate him, is now as obsolete as his “Beer Hunter” series on VHS videotape, decimated by consolidations, familial sagas, changing tastes and just plain time inexorably passing.

---

Naturally, there are certain lamentations, but in truth, the mind reels at the joyous extent of what has arisen to take the place of the disappeared.

Craft breweries and brewpubs are seemingly everywhere, from Scandinavia to Italy and beyond. American brewers like Stone are making plans to brew American-style craft beers in Europe, for a local niche market.

Being part of a business in the midst of such an unprecedented flowering means more to me than money, although of course, a small piece of the largesse would be nice.

The final verdict remains murky, but goes something like this: I’ll always be a European, and I’m haunted by the ideas and past experiences that compelled me to comprehend this nationality, but during the course of transitioning NABC to a position of emphasizing its brewing operation, I’ve been serendipitously rediscovering something inside, which is about being an American.

Is it time for dual citizenship?

REWIND: Out and About (2009).

This one of my columns isn't in the newspaper archive, and apparently was never published here in its revised entirety. Until now. It's from February 5, 2009.
---

BEER MONEY: Out and about.

By ROGER BAYLOR Local Columnist
But the whole point of liberation is that you get out. Restructure your life. Act by yourself. -- Jane Fonda

Shouldn’t the act of writing be as personal as it ever gets, especially if the results are intended for public, not private, consumption?

Shouldn’t one’s own words be inextricably linked to one’s own identity, with the writer endeavoring to honestly address matters like self-realization, personal liberation, and all those little acts of defiance, mourning and acceptance that go together to make a life?

Certainly this was the general condition for much of human history prior to the electronic immediacy of modern times. Either a person was literate, retaining at least the possibility of leaving a tangible record of existence for posterity, or he wasn’t, in which case a life passed unnoticed -- unless one was part of the tiny minority deemed suitable subjects for biographical renderings.

In those earlier times, when something of significance needed to be said, those few who were literate were expected to compose manifestos, polemics, confessionals and apologetics. Just like Martin Luther’s famous tract, these were intended to be nailed both literally and figuratively to the cathedral door for all to see.

In the current age of ephemeral solipsism, you needn’t know any more than the method of posting a self-made YouTube video, then sit back to count the hits as they mount through e-links, and finally calculate the extent of your newfound (and short-lived) notoriety.

It just isn’t the same.

These themes of personal freedom and written expression today compel me to broach a difficult topic, and yet it seems to me the right time to tackle it: Who am I as an individual, where did I come from, and where am I going?

For me, the one achievement reasonably attainable in my lifetime is self-knowledge. Random serendipity deposited me here, and I was issued one non-renewable life with second chances rarely if ever permitted. There is so very much of it that cannot be controlled, time is short, and as an atheist, I don’t look elsewhere for answers. But each of us spends every single moment of our lives inhabiting our own bodies, so doesn’t it make sense to come to terms with who we really are?

I can’t remember when it first occurred to me that I was different from the others.

There was neither a singular epiphany nor an earth-shattering revelation, only a dawning recognition that my attractions and desires were directed toward other places than those taken for granted as "normal."

For almost a quarter of a century, I’ve known the truth. The immensity of it overwhelmed me, and the implications usually blinded me to the realities of my situation. I kept going both directions, there and back and forth, never willing to admit that my orientation might be other than that considered typical for a male of my upbringing in a small Southern Indiana town and in a conservative, traditional society.

As a youth I wanted nothing more than to be like my friends, and after all, in those days we were not readily exposed to alternative lifestyles as part of our formative educational experiences. One might by chance read about such matters in books and see the issues skirted on television, but here? It really was the sort of thing that dared not speak its name aloud.

I was tormented by the usual doubts and questions. Was it nature or nurture? Had I done something wrong? Was I being punished? Did I have control over my real feelings and possess the ability to change them, or were they hard-wired and non-negotiable?

After much soul searching and heartfelt discussions with loved ones, dear friends, longtime customers, local politicians, cherished teachers, and even that pleasant fellow in White Castle the other day whose name I can’t remember, I’ve come to a momentous decision, and I’m able finally to reveal it to you, my faithful readers, and to the world.

I’m really a … a … a European.

There, I’ve said it. European. Not American.

Apparently the stork erred, and I’ve spent 48 crazy-quilt years trapped in this hamburger-eating, swill-slugging, mindless patriotic church-going, NASCAR-gazing country. It’s just so profoundly unfair.

I should be riding on bicycles or affordable public transportation through thoughtfully planned, human-scale communities to important soccer matches, and then vacationing in Libya or Bali or Cuba.

I might be drinking Belgian ale, Greek ouzo and Spanish wine from the appellations of their origins, and gratefully choosing between many more than just two political parties, among them one that actually reflects my own belief system.

I could be enjoying competent, universal, cradle-to-grave health care and never having to worry about the harmful encroachment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy, with religion restricted to debating the architectural merits of charming church buildings in Rome and Kiev.

I would be refusing to own a firearm, seeing that the crime rate is low and I needn’t affix my status as genuine citizen and "real man" on gunshot cadences … speaking a full half-dozen languages fluently … and understanding that my tax burden, while high, is being distributed to the benefit of my community as a whole, which benefits me as an individual.

Surely the delivery error can be rectified with a revised document of authenticity.

Anyone seen that damned negligent stork?

Roger A. Baylor votes Social Democrat, and will continue to blog at www.cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com until the immigration forms arrive.

Out and about: At long last, a staggering admission.

But the whole point of liberation is that you get out. Restructure your life. Act by yourself.
-- Jane Fonda

Writing should be about the intimate link between personal liberation and public defiance, shouldn’t it?

This certainly was the case prior to television. In earlier times, when something important needed to be said, you were expected to compose manifestos, polemics, confessionals and apologetics. Like Martin Luther, these were intended to be nailed literally or figuratively to the cathedral door.

In the current age of solipsism, you need do no more than post a self-made YouTube video, sit back to count the hits as word circulates through e-links, and calculate the extent of your newfound notoriety.

It just isn’t the same … is it?

No, it isn’t. My topic today is difficult, but it’s the right time to discuss it, and what better way than in writing … especially since I don’t know how to make an Internet video.

I can’t remember when it first occurred to me that I was different from the others. There was neither a singular epiphany nor an earth-shattering revelation, only a dawning recognition that my attractions and desires were directed toward other places than those classified as "normal."

For more than twenty years, I’ve known the truth, but the immensity of it overwhelmed me, and the implications blinded me to the realities of the situation. I kept going both directions, back and forth, never willing to admit that my life’s orientation might be other than that considered typical for a male of my upbringing in a small Southern Indiana town and in a conservative, traditional society.

As a youth I wanted nothing more than to be like my friends, and after all, we were not readily exposed to alternative lifestyles as part of our formative educational experiences. You might read about such matters in books and see them on television, but here, where you were born and raised? It was the sort of thing that dared not speak its name aloud.

I was tormented by the usual doubts and questions. Nature or nurture? Had I done something wrong? Was I being punished? Did I have control over my real feelings and possess the ability to change them, or were they hard-wired and non-negotiable?

To be blunt, I can’t go on this way.

After much soul searching and heartfelt discussions with loved ones, dear friends, longtime customers, local politicians, cherished teachers, and even that dude whose name I can’t remember in White Castle the other day, I’ve come to a momentous decision, and I’m able finally to reveal it to you and the world.

I’m really a … a … European.

There, I’ve said it.

European. Not American. Apparently the stork erred, and I’ve spent 47 thoroughly depressing years trapped in the body of a hamburger-eating, swill-slugging, mindless patriotic church-going, NASCAR-gazing idiot (sans savant), one reviled throughout the civilized world and for fairly good reason.

It is profoundly unfair.

I should be riding on affordable public transportation through thoughtfully planned, human-scale communities to important soccer matches; vacationing in Libya or Bali or Cuba; drinking Belgian ale and Greek ouzo and Spanish wine from their sources; gratefully choosing between many more than two political parties, and ones that actually might reflect my own belief system; enjoying competent and universal cradle to grave health care; having no reason to fear the harmful encroachment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy or to argue for the usefulness of religion apart from those pretty church buildings; refusing to own a firearm because my status as genuine citizen and "real man" isn’t predicated on it; speaking a half-dozen languages fluently; and understanding that my tax burden, while high, is being distributed to the benefit of my community as a whole.

I need a document of authenticity.

Anyone seen that damned negligent stork?

(Note: The preceding was originally blogged over at the author's MySpace site, where he's been rehearsing new material on a smaller stage. You're cordially invited to peek in.)