BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Whether sheep stealer or highwayman, he was hanged just the same at Cannards Grave.

How this for a pub sign?

Bud Light drinkers used to feel this way when they wandered by mistake into the Public House. The illustration comes from a 1972 book called British Inn Signs.

Where five roads meet on the A37 near Shepton Mallet (Somerset) is a gruesome sign of a man hanging from a gibbet.

The back story takes on a number of versions, which are considered in this modern update.

The Story of Cannards Grave

To the south of Shepton Mallet is the oddly named Cannards Grave, where, according to legend, the ghost of 17th century publican Giles Cannard still walks.

Tom Kennard, often called either Giles, or Tom the Taverner, was the landlord of a public house which stood on the crossroads between the Fosse Way and many other roads to the West Country. Opposite the inn stood a grim reminder of the relative lawlessness of those times, a gibbet, on which smugglers, highwaymen, bandits and other miscreants met their end ...

It looks as though there's still a pub on or near the site: The Highwayman, Cannards Grave, although the first review expresses annoyance.

Was not impressed with this pub. The beer (St Austell) was cloudy and didn't taste good. Changed it for the other one on, can't remember what it was, and it was the same. The Landlord or Manager said it had recently been changed and was the top of the barrel! Top of the barrel?? Real Ale isn't served from the top!!

A glorious St. Austell cask ale, mishandled?

That might well be a hanging offense.

ASK THE BORED: Elm Street reversion rollout? Don't ask, because it's not the city's top priority, or something like that.

It looks like the newspaper's Elizabeth Beilman drew the short straw for the Board of Works meeting this morning, seeing as usual Bored observer Chris Morris was otherwise occupied urging precipitate vigilante action against the owner of 519 Hausfeldt Lane.

MORRIS: Time has run out on New Albany house

 ... But that black walnut tree would be a welcome site to the folks who live near 519 Hausfeldt Lane in New Albany. Instead of a walnut tree they have junked cars, trash, mosquitoes and yes rats running around the neighborhood. You see 519 Hausfeldt Lane is a junkyard sitting in a residential area. The house and both front and back yards are full of junk. And due to an ongoing lawsuit, nothing can be done about it until a judge rules on the matter or tosses it out for having no merit. But something needs to be done with it, like now. It needs to be bulldozed ...

... So there are legal hurdles to clear. But it sounds like the city is determined to do something about the property. That is a good thing. This should be the city's top priority as we close out 2017. Whatever it takes to speed up the process needs to happen.

I understand due process, but it's a joke that in 2017, in a civilized society on a street visible to many and near a large industrial park and college campus, this is allowed to continue. It seems like no judge could look at this property and say it's not a health hazard or just wrong. Something has to get done.

"I understand due process, but ... "

Wait -- wasn't this Donald Trump's subliminal campaign slogan?

Morris is a member of the News and Tribune's editorial board, which was unable to muster a coherent response to DNA's recent Sombrero Stereotyping Walk, perhaps because speaking out about unaddressed racial stereotyping might insult the (naturally) well-intentioned "right" type of people, not the "wrong" evil straw men -- like the owner of this admittedly nasty suburban property-value-lowering house.

"This should be the city's top priority as we close out 2017."

Seriously?

This one house?

Granted, there is absolutely no defense for the noxious schlemiel wreaking havoc on his neighborhood -- nor for dozens of other similar buttwipes around town, those with the good fortune NOT to have one of Morris's favored grandees living right next to them so that the nearby afflicted won't have a better-connected voice to argue their case, as Larry Clemons has been doing with regard to 519 Hausfeldt.

And yet even Clemons has insufficient strings to pull as they pertain to a legal system rightly or wrongly accepted by most of us in 95% of instances, so just this one time, let's discard due process and just do what's "right."

I feel for the neighbors, but please, can everyone read a few American history books? In this case, as in so many other areas of the human experience, it's wise to be very careful what you wish for.

Others might decide it's time to abandon due process, too, and in circumstances of far more pressing impact. Vigilantism is a dangerous concept, isn't it? And can the editorial board muster some energy for explicating the multitude of local examples wherein actual human beings are subject to oppression?

It's doing a fairly uniform, consistent job of it in Charlestown and Jeffersonville, and less so in New Albany. Maybe that's because the newspaper's eyes on the ground in NA wear blinders.

But, predictably, I digress.

So, by the way, BoW doesn't know when Elm Street will carry two-way traffic because of this railroad and that luxury housing development.

Note also that BoW deems pedestrian amenities like crosswalk signals a "minor" part of the two-way reversion.

Think so?

By the time the first such pedestrian crossing finally becomes operational, it will have been a month since Spring Street went modern, for what was supposed to have been enhanced walkability.

It's okay. The irony probably was lost on every last one of them.

Market Street in New Albany now two ways — Elm is next (Beilman; 'Bune)

No date yet for Elm Street Conversion

NEW ALBANY — Market Street in downtown New Albany is now converted from one way to two, leaving just one street left to change as part of the city's grid modernization project.

City officials were told at the New Albany Board of Works and Safety meeting Tuesday that Elm Street will switch before the end of the month, though no date has been set. Contractors are waiting on a couple unrelated road projects to finish first.

A storm sewer is being replaced at Elm and 15th streets, which is expected to be finished by next week, if not by the end of this week.

Heavy equipment is maneuvering around the under-construction Breakwater apartments to install metal siding on the structure. Contractors working on the grid modernization project wanted to wait until that work was finished, fearing the equipment would tear up a newly paved Elm Street. Paul Lincks, senior project manager with HWC Engineering, said the Breakwater work should be complete by Sept. 22.

Once all five downtown streets have converted to two ways, there will still be some minor portions of the project to complete, such as pedestrian-activated crosswalks.

"Why Are States So Red and Blue?"

I'm not sure what this theory says about Indiana, 2008 notwithstanding, although it's easy to explain New Albany as an extension of the antebellum South. Perhaps we have insufficient Great Lakes coastline.

Why Are States So Red and Blue?, by Steven Pinker (New York Times)

Regardless of who wins the presidential election, we already know now how most of the electoral map will be colored, which will be close to the way it has been colored for decades. Broadly speaking, the Southern and Western desert and mountain states will vote for the candidate who endorses an aggressive military, a role for religion in public life, laissez-faire economic policies, private ownership of guns and relaxed conditions for using them, less regulation and taxation, and a valorization of the traditional family.

Northeastern and most coastal states will vote for the candidate who is more closely aligned with international cooperation and engagement, secularism and science, gun control, individual freedom in culture and sexuality, and a greater role for the government in protecting the environment and ensuring economic equality.

Whatever happened to the Potty Police, anyway?

Ever since we learned of the Gahan administration's decision to "end sewer privatization," something's been nagging me, and finally I've realized exactly what it is.

New Albany's vigilante Potty Police have released no crayon-encrusted communiques of potted pontification, that's what.

In fact, what has happened to the Potty Police? Our local sewage spotters haven't been mentioned here in more than a year. Perhaps they've taken to the depths and are crashing on the Phantom of the Dope-ra's mattresses.

The New Albanist's Dictionary (compiled by your friendly blog host) provides a helpful definition:

Potty police
Self-deputized sewer enforcement officials with a localized Freudian twist who await the arrival of the g-man in the sewer submarine, who’ll come up from below and require a full audit.

Just think about those long years; as the city coped with the EPA's ongoing mandates, the Potty Police were there, tossing nickels around like blown manhole covers. Now they're gone. Or are they? Could this be their best undercoverground operation yet? Only time will tell.

From November, 2005, this might be the first mention of the Potty Police at NAC:

New Albany's POTTY POLICE take the LOW road, but only because that's the one leading DOWN to the sewer.