Video: "They really enjoy their cars. They think the street belongs to them, and they just don't want to share the road."

"A new video from Streetfilms assembles the most head-scratching attacks employed by bike-lane foes, such as: Don’t let the terrorists win!"

Watch Bike Advocates Vent About the Silliest Anti-Bike Lane Arguments, by Laura Bliss (CityLab)

Shake, Prattle and Troll, Part 3: "Sign o’ the rabid times" newspaper column (2009).

From the Tribune guest column archives on July 30, 2009, comes an examination of the pathology of "no" as compared with "yes," not just when erecting signs, but all of the time in New Albany, where we're all here because we're not all there. 

Shake, Prattle and Troll, Part 1
Shake, Prattle and Troll, Part 2

---

BAYLOR: Sign o’ the rabid times

This is the year my family reunion came to town. Annual hosting privileges rotate between the cousins, who are the sons and daughters of my mother and her seven brothers and sisters, five of whom now have passed on. With my oldest cousin nearing 70 and only a handful younger than me, it appears that a passing of the torch is imminent. Until then, we soldier on.

Roughly 40 people turned out for Saturday’s picnic-style finale at our house along East Spring in New Albany. Visitors came from as far away as Boston, El Paso, Texas, and South Florida. A half dozen massive pizzas were trucked in, group photos were taken on the porch and then we held the annual family meeting, catching up on events of the past year and previewing the reunion to come in 2010.

When the formal program ended, a few attendees indicated interest in checking out the Bank Street Brewhouse, which is only nine short blocks west of the house. It was between afternoon rain storms, and with skies sunny, we decided to go by foot.

I asked them to meet me on the sidewalk, and we set off down Spring. After about four blocks, it occurred to me to look back and see who else had decided to come, and to my shock, I saw that the small group had grown to more than 20. Only the teetotalers stayed behind. My hunch is they weren’t very happy about it, but then again, teetotalers never are.

Feeling variously like the Pied Piper of beer and the helpful fellow on the Verizon Wireless commercials, I duly escorted this huge group of family members of all ages to the corner of Spring and Bank, made the northern turn, and presently we were examining the shiny new brewing equipment and indulging in scientific sampling. The pitchers were lined up on the counter, sweaty and beckoning, and everyone had a beer in hand.

I have to admit that it made me proud.

Only a handful of those attending the reunion live in Floyd County, and throughout the brewhouse visit there were many questions about life and times in New Albany: What’s that building, and why’s the roof gone? Where’s the Greenway? Is your city council as loopy as ours? Why doesn’t someone make them clean that mess up?

And, perhaps my favorite: Isn’t there a rule against those tacky signs?

•••

They’re not exactly yellow ribbons tied ‘round the old oak tree, those white yard signs scattered around town with the big red “NO” in screaming caps. I see them, and I shrug.

To me, they’re the plaintive wail of the inarticulate and congenitally disaffected, those unable to describe what they’re “for” in the sense of a positive contribution to the community, only to squawk about what they’re “against” as a negation of unity.

What they’re really against is the whole of modernity, although they express it in terms of money. I find that unspeakably sad.

Since the overwhelming percentage of temporary signage posted hereabouts falls into categories of plainly illegal or trespassing, with handwritten day-care touts duct-taped to city-owned traffic signal stanchions, absentee slum lord solicitations stapled to wooden utility poles and political signs never removed after last year’s fall election, I tend to regard them as little more than obtrusive garbage.

Not only do I believe they should be removed, I’m perfectly willing to remove them myself and will continue to do so whenever the mood strikes me. Nationwide, this blizzard of ugliness is known as “street spam,” and those who volunteer to remove it are “street spam sharks.”

But in the case of the raggedy, pestilential, malice-laden “NO” placards, most of them seem to be located quite properly in the yards of obstructionists. These are safe havens, perfectly legal, and the signs should be permitted to stand where they are as an indicator of bile within.

Several of us in the progressive bloc have concluded that matching “YES” placards should be created, although we’re mindful that describing what you’re “for” is sometimes more difficult than just screaming “NO” and holding your breath until you’re properly purple.

Among the “YES” suggestions that were made last week at the NA Confidential blog were these, in no particular order:

• Rule of Law

• Education

• Fairness

• Affordable health care

• Sustainability

• Code enforcement

• Preservation

• Green buildings

• Friendly streets

• Neighborhood schools

• Craft beer

• Bicycles

• Gay Bars

• Neighborhoods

• Craftsmanship

• Human-centered design

• Communitas

• Democracy here, now

• Downtown

• Native hardwoods

• Participation

• Redistricting

• Two-way streets

• Locally owned businesses

“YES” signs currently are being printed and will mimic the design of the “NO” ones, except that green is used instead of red. Some will have items we’re “for” already printed in the spaces, while others will be left blank to encourage public participation. If you’d like to have one and support the notion of positive participation in the community, let me know.

•••

Two hours after the group left to walk to the brewhouse, we ambled back home, and the reunion began winding down just before the rainfall at 8 p.m. I smoked a cigar to celebrate a successful conclusion to a familial obligation that I’ll not be revisiting until some time around 2017, when I’ll be ... a bit older than I am now. Who’ll be coming then, and who will not?

There’s no way to know, and that’s why we play the game, same as with life in downtown New Albany.

Two way streets: A Seinfeldist dialogue about nothing, but not for want of trying.

Last week when I provided this link at the NA Confidential FB page, a strange chat broke out:

John Gonder forcefully advocates two-way streets and traffic calming.

(The matrix above comes courtesy of "Downtown Streets: Are We Strangling Ourselves on One-Way Networks?" by Walker, Kulash and McHugh)

Quite soon, this two-way conversion discussion finally may begin in earnest. As such, it's important for us to grasp the leaden reasoning behind the obstructionism, even if -- as in this instance -- there's very little actual reasoning to it; rather, it's a collection of emotional responses.

Two way streets are good for business, good for pleasure, good for neighborhoods, good for walkers and bikers ... and yet bad for someone who has seen it all? Maybe he/she hasn't seen nearly enough.

---

NA Confidential
John Gonder forcefully advocates two-way streets and traffic calming.

Corydon Pike
What for???????????? To eat, drink and be merry.............

NA Confidential
What do you mean? If you have questions, I may be able to answer them.

Corydon Pike
Thanks, Roger, for responding. I know your thoughts already. I don't share them......

NA Confidential
I'm curious why you don't. There's lots of sound evidence to support two-way streets and slower traffic in urban areas. I live on Spring Street, and calmed traffic would be beneficial for the neighborhood.

Corydon Pike
Like I said. You have your opinion and I have mine. This is all I have to say...........

NA Confidential
Okay. But I am compelled to suggest that facts trump opinions. If they didn't, we'd still be insisting the earth was flat. I've tried very hard to document my case. I'm eager to hear from you and other opponents who can offer documentation for yours. Thanks.

Corydon Pike
I have lived in NA all my life. I've seen it all..........

NA Confidential
I remain curious as to your reasoning, that's all. Two hundred years ago, sewage poured through the streets in ditches. People thought about it, and realized it wasn't healthy. I can muster numerous reasons why the same thinking applies to one way streets. What are yours in the opposite sense? If you've seen it all, surely you have some. Thanks.

Corydon Pike
How long have you lived here, Roger.............

NA Confidential
Bearing in mind that length of tenure has nothing to do with reasoning, I'll answer: Born in NA, raised in Floyd County, worked and lived in NA for the past 25 years. In short, I've been in Floyd County my entire life. Now, why does it matter?

Corydon Pike
I have my thoughts about why you want the streets changed. Could it be that it's easier to get to your business.............

NA Confidential
So, I have to explain my position even further, although you say you're familiar with it, while you haven't yet provided me with a single reason? But okay, fair enough. I support two-way streets because they're better for (a) all the people, not just the ones driving, and (b) they're better for all the businesses in an urban setting like our downtown, not just my own. I regularly offer reasons in support of these positions. Completing streets is a step toward furthering revitalization. Now, if you have any cards at all, why not play one?

Corydon Pike
Like I SAID. I have MY THOUGHTS and you have yours.. Nothing is going to change yours and nothing is going to change mine..

NA Confidential 
You are entitled to your own thoughts and your own opinions. None of us are entitled to our own facts. I'm genuinely interested in what your reasons are, and the reasons for others who feel the way I do. Maybe I'll see something I'm missed. That's why I ask. I spend time finding facts to support my case. You can do as you wish, and in fact, you are -- but those who tell me the sun rises in the west and sets in the east have some explaining to do. Don't they?

---

This is where it ends. Oddly, my "thoughts" remain the same (see matrix above).

"Why a Romney win would be bad for America."

The plutocrats beg to differ. Perhaps that's the best reason of all to vote for Barack Obama.

Why a Romney win would be bad for America ... It's not necessarily about ideology; It's about the destructive opposition party behavior his victory would reward, by Steve Kornackim (Salon)

... The basic problem has to do with the behavior of Romney’s party over the past four years – reflexive opposition and obstruction rooted in electoral strategy, not ideology – and the lesson that politicians from both parties would draw if it results in a one-term Obama presidency.

2011 Highlights & Lowlights: “Pearl Street will NOT be one-way.”

Two-way street conversions were a full-bore campaign promise back in 2007, but after four years of the third England administration, how many of New Albany street's had been converted to two-way traffic? That'd be none, and perhaps part of the reason was the desperate opposition on the part of community pillars filled with old-fashioned Kool-Aid, but not a dollop of reasoned contemporary urban thought.

Merchant Mixer notes (2): Empty storefronts, Harvest Homecoming and Bob Caesar's all-way street confusion.

Amazed, I wrote at the time:

I realized (yet again) how so many of the older generation of merchants sincerely believes that whatever works out yonder in the soulless exurb should be implemented downtown, whereas the way I see it is that whatever can be done to create the polar opposite atmosphere downtown – including people-friendly, slower-moving traffic to accommodate humanity, and alternative modes of transportation apart from the automobile – should be the desired goal.

Two-way traffic: A city permitted to function as designed is good for business.

Really? I didn't know she had a brother.

It was 2005, or maybe 2006. It's hard to remember the exact year when the song always remains the same. The placards were constructed for wielding during the Harvest Homecoming Parade party at the homestead. I found them yesterday while toting boxes into storage downstairs.

Another year, another destructive Coffey Plan ... and the madness goes on, and on, and on ...

The agenda for tonight's city council meeting, which Dan Coffey will remember in years to come as his very last unimpeded breath of political job security, is mercifully light.

And yet, it's hard to imagine a council night anti-climax mere hours before the dominoes start falling on Tuesday. Perhaps Li'l Stevie will conjure imaginary Nazis, or CeeSaw will produce a last-second appropriation for One Southern Indiana.

Anyone going?

REWIND: The Faux in all of us (2010).

It you really want to know the roots of the epic 1st district council mud rasslin' battle currently being waged by Dan Coffey (Cappuccino) and Vicki Denhart (Erik), as the well-mannered Theresa Timberlake patiently seeks voters repelled by the persistently foul humor of both her opponents, you might return to this column of January 28, 2010. Timberlake can win the primary with 34% of the vote. Wouldn't that be delicious?

---

BEER MONEY: The Faux in all of us.

By ROGER BAYLOR, Local Columnist

We interrupt today’s scheduled examination of TIF areas, EDIT funds, CDBG grants and UEZ legislation in order to add a few more acronyms to the raging bonfire of troglodyte discontent, in the form of this Disassociated Press (DP) dispatch.

New Albany, INDIANA -- Citizens Faux Accountability (CFA) has announced that it will file an emergency remonstrance against Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

“Time must stop, and it must stop right now,” reads a crayon-stained press release from the shadowy, selfishness-first cult that has been noteworthy in its fetish for garish “NO” signs, habitually (and illegally) placed in public rights of way.

“The city of New Albany can no longer afford to move ahead to the following day. We see no future in the future, and as long as clocks continue to move forward into time and space, rather than backward into our rose-tinted pasts, local rate payers won’t be able to feed their families with another sack of unnecessary Chinese plastic trinkets sold at Wal-Mart.”

According to city police and anti-aphorism experts, CFA is the political wing of the local clockstopper movement, one that harbors another, more radical faction responsible for an audio message dropped by aging carrier pigeon on the doorstep of a local watch repair shop, which the pigeon apparently mistook as the village of Greenwich on Thames.

The chilling message, hastily dubbed onto an 8-track tape that formerly featured Ray Conniff’s Easy Listening Hits of the 1970’s, is from a fringe operative calling herself Commandante Erik. She says that her group has determined that calendar pages must start turning backward, or she’ll “put the big hurt” on GMT and its foremost local patron, New Albany’s mayor. Here is an excerpt:

“What we property owners, don't understand is why we are being lied, too. Who should the Little People of New Albany trust, hour own absolutely positivity that we can’t desist in this modern world, or the England administration’s puppetheads at Greenwich Mean Time?

“Kill the clocks! Kill ‘em all! We’ll be young and free again!”

NA Confidential has its own spies, who tell me that when Commandante Erik agreed to a surreptitious meeting with Councilman Cappuccino to discuss the theories and principles of contemporary obstructionism, aides for both camps agreed that the summit conference take the form of a two-bagger.

There was a bag over the councilman’s head in case the bag over the sign planter’s head broke.

They decided to get together out by Li’l Stevie’s cement pond, and were led into place by their handlers, Legal Bagel and Copper D. Head. It got ugly, and fast.

“You’re in the mayor’s pocket just like all the rest,” thundered Commandante Erik.

“That’s not true, sir, I mean ma’am,” countered Cappuccino. “I’ve tried my darndest to obstruct the mayor’s plans just like you have. I do my best, and them – them – people get in the way.”

As Cappuccino gestured in what he imagined might be the general direction of East Spring Street, the Commandante spat, which was fine, except the bag had no pie hole.

“Progressives put on their pants just the same way that you do,” she said, somewhat soggily. “You are wearing pants, aren’t you Cappuccino?”

Suddenly the tuneful guitar pickin’ from the porch stopped, and a familiar voice rang out:

“No!”

Cappuccino and the Commandante answered as one: “Li’l Stevie, is that you?”

“No it ain’t – I mean, yes, it is. It’s me, it’s me – just like Ernest T. What I meant was that you fellers are gettin’ close to the edge of the cement pond. Best be careful.”

“I can swim, you know,” hissed Cappuccino. “I learned how at Bazooka Joe University.”

“Of course you can,” said Li’l Stevie, “it’s just that you can’t swim in the cement pond.”

“And why not?”

“I can’t afford to fill it with water on my rental property residues.”

Had the bag not been firmly in place, there’d have been a pained expression on the Commandante’s face.

“Li’l Stevie, you mean ‘revenues’, don’t you?”

“Aiyeeee,” screamed the porch player, “She said ‘revenuers’! Quick, let’s run for it. They’re coming to take our corn likker and video poker machines – and raise our property taxes!”

Li’l Stevie grabbed a handful of tea bags from the pickle barrel, all five commenced to running, and they didn’t stop until they reached the root cellar at the Luddite Bar & Grille.

---

Mercifully, we leave our clockstoppers, both elected and appointed, to cower with their teabags in the basement of the only bar in town that still has a rotary dial telephone.

Me? I’m bullish about the future, if for no other reason than my lack of a choice in the matter.

Perhaps there always will be the lure of a nostalgic past, with its low prices, minimal taxes, simpler restaurant menus without all those foreign words, three television networks, two beers, gay people too scared to come out of the closet, back alley abortions and Sheriff Andy keeping the peace.

However, I’m not sure I want to revert to my 1983 pay scale, or to relive the bile-infused Nixon era, or to wake up one morning to find myself too young to get served alcohol on a regular basis without risking the use of a fake ID.

Maybe, when I finally hit the CFA demographic and become bitter about the senseless desperation of my life, it’ll all make sense.

Until then, I support GMT, and think that you should, too.

REWIND: Unrecognizable to a Scribner (2009).

When I referred in jest to an early Scribner slumlord, my reward was a letter to the editor from a vigilant Daughters of the American Revolution member. But it never was about the personal mores of early inhabitants, was it? The essay dates from June 25, 2009.

---

BEER MONEY: Unrecognizable to a Scribner.

By ROGER BAYLOR, Local Columnist

Successful coping in New Albany requires which of the following skills?

A. Appreciating the subtle nuances of irony, as when a city council that serially wastes economic development monies on sewer rate subsidies earnestly debates using more of the same monies for extra police manpower – and the only thing missing is any semblance of consensus as to the nature and practice of economic, as opposed to petty political, development.

B. Appreciating the plainly surreal, as when the amount of economic development money annually squandered on politically-motivated sewer rate subsidies would pay for far more police manpower than even the police have ever requested.

C. Appreciating progressive ale, as when copious draughts are absolutely required to make sense of an elected, self-blindfolded entity ruling on matters of economic development when it is quarterbacked (1/32nd-backed?) by a council president, Dan Coffey, who habitually opposes economic development in his own electoral district.

D. Appreciating them all, as with a corn liquor chaser.

If you picked “D”, then go to Fairview Cemetery, glance at the tombstones, and ponder: Where did it all go wrong?

----

It’s time to throw a slab of barbecued bologna between two slices of clammy white bread, check the mountains on your blue-cold can of Coors Light, and crank up the Victrola with some red-hot Benny Goodman, because New Albany’s bicentennial is fast approaching, and assuming that Steve Price doesn’t lead the fight against celebrating it (too few nickels and dimes in grandma’s cookie jar), here are some bicentennial basics.

In 2013, it will be 200 years since the Scribner brothers washed ashore at the Falls of the Ohio, surveyed the wilderness and concluded that this riverbank would be a fine locale for commemorating their hometown back east … and the city of Albany in New York has never forgiven its wayward sons for the ensuing guilt by association.

The Scribners built the city’s first proper structure in 1814, and the Scribner House was soon followed by two cheaply built rental quadplexes up on the future East 15th, which Joel Scribner promptly flipped. Pocketing the proceeds, he skipped on his bar tab at Ye Olde Luddite Inn, thumbed his nose at the hapless code enforcement officer, and fled town for a redeye steamboat ride to New Harmony for the hottest craps tables this side of the Louisiana Purchase.

Okay, that’s imagined, but it made you pause, didn’t it?

The point is that while New Albany’s earliest settlers may or may not have been angels, they succeeded at city building, something that eludes many present-day citizens and their underachieving political kingpins.

Early inhabitants of New Albany seemed to genuinely believe that progress was possible in their lifetimes. If not, would they have ventured into the fledgling republic’s sprawling interior, staked claims to the largely uncharted, and taken daily risks far graver than those ever contemplated by the air-conditioned obstructionists of today?

Clearly, New Albany’s founders thought it feasible to construct a city, sustain it, and prosper in the process. Stranger still, they did just that, plotting, building and improving an urban foundation that a full two centuries later is capable of serving as a blueprint for efficient, civilized living in a modern world beset with challenges.

An entire city is ripe for adaptive reuse, if only we could transcend New Albany’s sizeable municipal inferiority complex. This bizarre and enduring aversion to science, knowledge and modernity is the polar opposite of our ancestors’ obvious grit and determination to evolve and not devolve. When did we begin settling for the penny-wise, pound foolish lowest common denominator?

Today’s rant isn’t about tax rates, free enterprise, “don’t tread on me” or Ayn Rand’s positivist philosophy. It’s about paralytic dissenters, Lilliputian naysayers and the corrosion wrought by the knee-jerk instinct of voters to anoint oblivious ward heelers whose only discernable platform is abject surrender to the debilitating defilements of urban decay management.

As local political parties stand predictably mute, these second-raters wail, thrash and moan: “We can’t … we shouldn’t … we won’t,” with this mantra of futility and despair endorsed by a minority of sullen voters who find inexplicable solace in civic regress. Given the landslide accorded hereabouts to the fossilized John McCain last year, perhaps this isn’t a surprise, although people residing outside the city limits understand, as the brilliant national columnist Frank Rich explained recently in the New York Times:

“A sizable minority of Americans is irrationally fearful of the fast-moving generational, cultural and racial turnover (Barack) Obama embodies — indeed, of the 21st century itself. That minority is now getting angrier in inverse relationship to his popularity with the vast majority of the country. Change can be frightening and traumatic, especially if it’s not change you can believe in.”

---

By the narrowest of margins last week, the city council passed a resolution approving the use of economic development monies to hire more police officers.

We need them. Generation after generation of citizens and their nanny ward heelers, both Democratic and Republican, have consistently ignored socio-economic root causes of crime, preferring to sustain a parasitic, short-term slumlord culture by means of perpetual non-enforcement rather than enable a long-term ownership society based on the rule of law.

While America experiences change, New Albany’s political class counts its spare change and snarls. If New Albany’s founders were to check back on the state of their creation, this glorification of regression is surely what would confuse them the most.

Today's Tribune column: "Teetotalers, ward heelers and us."

After all, it's noon somewhere ... except when Councilman Cappuccino forgets to wind his Bazooka Joe wristwatch.

BAYLOR: Teetotalers, ward heelers and us

Hallelujah! After long decades of discrimination, a resident of New Albany finally will be able to enjoy a perfectly legal glass of beer — whether standing at the bar, seated in a restaurant, or reclining on the floor of his parlor.

It's one option, but ...

... I hope Cappuccino didn't use a novelty lighter. That's illegal.

Today's Tribune column: "Unrecognizable to a Scribner."

BAYLOR: Unrecognizable to a Scribner

Successful coping in New Albany requires which of the following skills?

Today's Tribune column: "One track minds and derailments."

Here's the link (will be inserted when the article in on-line)

Once upon a time in New Albany, there lived an offbeat, duck-tailed mayoral hopeful. At this late date, his precise identity isn’t important, so I’m arbitrarily dubbing him the Manchurian Candidate.

The Manchurian Candidate lost resoundingly in the primary and then abruptly disappeared, briefly re-emerging a few years later as perpetrator in an unfortunate scandal, a disgrace that ultimately rendered him tantamount to our local Eleanor Rigby, redolent with sad imagery of man’s futile existence on earth.

Before all of that depressing existentialism, the Manchurian Candidate was asked by the Tribune what he intended to do if elected mayor, and his reply remains so quintessentially New Albanian that it deserves enshrinement somewhere amid the approaching bicentennial’s historical detritus:

“Return square dancing to downtown.”

----

It’s an amazing answer. The hapless Manchurian Candidate did not promise to bring square dancing to downtown, but to return it, meaning that it had been there once before. When? Why did square dancing leave downtown? Who took it, and where did it go? Were the city fathers of the era blind to the toll that square dancing’s removal exacted on downtown’s prospects? Was square dancing’s absence the final nail in downtown, or a mere harbinger of further losses to come?

Sadly, we have no solid answers to these and other queries, and a quarter century later, the significance of square dancing to downtown redevelopment remains frustratingly elusive. The Manchurian Candidate surely had his own reasons, which like the ill-fated Rigby’s were taken to his grave, although I persist in believing that he painstakingly recorded his thoughts in the form of a coded, handwritten tract left hidden in the floorboards of his house, and subsequently lost to posterity when his home was bulldozed to make way for a strip mall festooned with tacky vinyl fleur-de-lys.

But there is a darker interpretation of the Manchurian Candidate’s downtown square dancing solution, for it may well have manifested the symptoms of a condition known as monomania:

Monomania is a condition in which the sufferer is so focused on one idea or emotion that it is impossible to function normally … people who exhibit monomaniacal attributes become so focused with a single emotion or concept that the majority of their waking hours are devoted to this single subject. In most cases, paranoia is increasingly present …

The Manchurian Candidate’s monomania may have caused him to focus exclusively on square dancing as his chosen panacea. Undoubtedly he was sincere, and saw the issue in plain, simple black and white, without the pesky shades of gray that confound certainty. Square dancing made the Manchurian Candidate feel good; therefore, it would help all others feel good, too. It was self-evident, and any further argumentation would have been a waste of prime square dancing time.

----

Caution is merited before we chuckle at the Manchurian Candidate’s odd legacy, because his monomania epitomizes one of the most enduring features of New Albanian political culture, this being a lockstep tendency to focus attention on only one personal obsession to the exclusion of all others, thus providing the means for local politicians to keep the only campaign promise that ever really mattered to them:

“I vow to accomplish as little as possible, to the greatest dramatic effect come re-election, while forever pointing to the failures of the past as an inexhaustible excuse for underachievement.”

As a stellar example of this political monomania, look no further than our Common Council, where by tradition virtually nothing is expected of incoming members save the solemn commitment to use one exculpatory phrase, if necessary recording it on their wrists with a flaming red Sharpie:

“It’s all the fault of the sewers.”

Now you can see the truth. The Manchurian Candidate knowingly violated this central precept of New Albany’s moribund political culture. Subversive and untamed, he refrained from enumerating the reasons why the sewers forever act as the impediment to forward progress, hinting instead at what might be accomplished through the saving grace of square dancing, and while this may have constituted his own monomaniacal, naïve fixation, it possesses the singular virtue of expounding a positive rather than wallowing in the negative.

Accordingly, the Manchurian Candidate had to be shut down – and you’ll notice that square dancing has yet to return to downtown.

Unsurprisingly, certain of our current council haven’t neglected their statutory duties to blame the sewers whenever Pavlov’s bell rings.

At the underachieving body’s special paving meeting on May 28, Dan Coffey referenced past sewer misadventures as cause for mistrust of city hall’s request for paving funds, and then Steve Price added a delightful new twist to the prevailing dysfunction by insisting that any such appropriation come with an ironclad assurance that not one cent of the money will be spent on two-way street conversions.

Never mind that neither sewers nor two-way street conversions were ever any aspect of the paving debate, because the point of this conjoined rearguard action against modernity is that rationality needn’t apply in New Albany, because facts count less than the dictates of political monomania.

Either it’s the fault of the sewers, or a conspiracy of “them people,” but whatever the final calculation, the most important job of all is to affix blame elsewhere, thwart the city’s progress and stroke the senseless Luddite bloc.

Might square dancing have improved downtown and softened the narrow monomania of our congenital obstructionists? What did the Manchurian Candidate know?

May he rest in peace.

A successful First Tuesday puts the lie to conjoined posturing.

Yesterday marked the third time that Develop New Albany has sponsored a “First Tuesday” networking event. It was held at Liz at Home on Main Street, and was attended by roughly 150 people. Seeing as I have a pocketful of business cards, I’d say that the premise is more than valid.

Considering that the number in attendance yesterday doubled that of the inaugural event in May, others apparently agree with this assessment.

There was a wonderful spread of nibbles assembled by Liz at Home and the Main Street Café & Treats (never ignore smoked salmon and a dusting of capers), plenty of wine, and NABC beer. More importantly, there was a good vibe afoot, and that’s important, because while there’ll always be naysayers, positive thinking and simple optimism on the part of those willing to work hard – and who put their money and names on the line every single day – cannot be overestimated in terms of ultimate achievement.

You can’t win the game without believing you can win. It’s trite, but it’s true. Events like yesterday’s after-work networking gathering help to instill and perpetuate positive thinking in both a business sense and in terms of civic sentiment. They help make things happen.

Of course, for some, making things happen rates a scarlet letter … and it’s unfortunate.

In the political sphere, the coming weeks are going to feature a great deal of histrionic, theatrical grandstanding on the part of those lesser lights in the locally elected firmament, whose preconceived notions of limited personal aptitude compels them to constantly work against success on the part of others.

Having done all they could to rig failure and induce chaos, they’re happy to mount their respective soapboxes and point to previous dire warnings of doom as evidence of Nostradamus-like skills of prognostication.

It’s all bunk, and nothing could be further from the truth. With each passing month, Boner & Jethro’s jihads against modernity grow more shrill and repetitive. As forthcoming items are considered here at NAC, always remember that a steady stream of “no” votes emanating from the likes of Dan Coffey and Steve Price have never been accompanied by alternatives, further options or a platform of their own.

Like the Wizard’s tiresome and self-aggrandizing council chamber monologues, all of it amounts to little more than an ongoing filibuster against the future.

Too bad, then, that alongside sure things like death and taxes is the sad knowledge that neither of the conjoined councilmen will ever be caught dead at a First Tuesday function. Not only would they be forced to chat with far too many of “them people,” whom they loathe, but they’d be confronted with the damning cognitive dissonance of consorting with the capable, with the doers, and with those who can. Like the Wicked Witch, there’d be summary melting of obstructionists, and it would be ugly.

Not unwelcome, though.

Tighten your seatbelts: The Coffey is boiling, and the scene is set for another round of self-inflicted wounds.

Wikipedia observes:

In the United States of America's (U.S.) history, "waving the bloody shirt" refers to the demagogic practice of politicians referencing the blood of martyrs or heroes to inspire support or avoid criticism.

NA Confidential paraphrases the bloody shirt thusly:

In the city of New Albany, "boiling the bitter Coffey” refers to the demagogic practice of politicians attacking the source of ideas, innovations and hope for the future to inspire support or avoid criticism.

For the foreseeable future, you’re going to see a high volume of Coffey being mercilessly boiled, because the embittered troglodyte councilman’s offensive against the current administration’s infrastructure repair program is going to be highlighted each and every time by snide references to two-way streets, with the obvious implication being that “them people” – i.e., those generally non-natives eligible to be feared and loathed precisely because they’re capable and willing to effect change – are callously demanding something effete and unaffordable that the saintly “little people” oppose, primarily because they don’t understand what’s at stake … and aren’t likely to do so any time soon so long as their sources of information remain the likes of Coffey, conjoined CM Steve Price and the inhabitants of the Coup d’Geriatrique elder hostel.

All of it is pretty far from the truth, but the Coffey Coterie is hardly renowned for letting facts stand in the way of cultural bile, and we’re all looking forward to another nickel and dime ride on Danny and Erika’s Crazy Train through the Open Air Museum of Superstition and Ignorance rather than anything approximating meaningful dialogue.

After all, we've been there and done that. Way back on December 27, 2005, we were discussing two-way street conversion at NAC. Then, we thought the idea might be sufficient to unite the city, but it would seem that our optimism was misplaced. Here’s the rewind, as posted earlier today.

REWIND: Return of two-way streets in NA: Might this constitute an idea that unites?

On December 13, 2007, Bluegill offered this consideration on adaptation to new ideas, which also was reposted earlier today:

REWIND: Up for adoption

Readers, we'll soon be entering a whole new epoch of Hail Mary, Luddite disinformation. Enjoy the ride ... but be informed. The future may very well be now.

Luddite obstructionists mobilize to fight parking garages -- the latest atheist Commie threat.

Proposal: New Albany builds garage, developer builds on top, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

A local group wants to build a second component to downtown New Albany’s public Scribner Place development, city administration officials say.

A proposed deal would see the city build a parking garage immediately east of the under-construction YMCA and aquatic center. The private developer would then build a structure atop the garage, obtaining a unique view of the Ohio River.

At the most recent city council meeting, as Dan Coffey and Bill Schmidt outlined their newest old plans for an obstructionist jihad against the 21st century, in this particular instance by renewing the battle against the parking garage that's already been built, Mayor James Garner requested (and in a quite effective deadpan, no less) that the council wait to do so until it hears the proposal outlined by the Tribune's Campbell in the article above.

However, by the informal Gang of Four protocol specifying that the council's lead opposition to progress come from within the council district "threatened" with progress, the logical candidate to lead the Luddite battle against this latest perfectly sensible proposal isn't Coffey, but fellow conjoined councilman Steve Price. The location of the new garage would be just east of Scribner Place (itself located in Coffey's 1st district), which should place it within Price's long-suffering 3rd.

Given the intimate link between rental properties and "Re-elect Steve Price to City Council" yard signs, perhaps the best way for the city to approach the new parking garage would be to pretend it is a massive slumlord empowerment property. Dave Thrasher's art students could disguise the architect's drawings by adding cheap vinyl siding, porch appliances and nice, homey touches like virtual graffiti (for example, numerous "Property tax crisis" slogans) to the cement. Instead of the formless metrosexual people that typically populate such renderings, there could be shirtless meth users with pants around the ankles, unsupervised children in the streets, and unregulated boom cars running them down.

One can only imagine the pride swelling Price's chest as he votes in favor or assisting the constituency that benefits most from his, er, stewardship.

Once approved, the project can be changed back to its original form and the city of the future, as opposed to the past, can reap the benefits. Yes, the Gang of Two will spend the next four years bitching and moaning, but that's okay. They would, anyway, and we'd have another piece of the downtown revitalization puzzle in place.

Get 'em started, Dave. And make it comfy, will ya?

Day 38: Whatever it is, CM Price is against it.