But Roger, there's no phrenology in New Albany -- that's a 4-syllable word, and consequently an ordinance violation.

A sketch of the Phrenological Cabinet (1860)

Presumably each and every skull specimen in the Fowler family collection voted dutifully for carefully chosen municipal candidates; it's just our luck that Slick Jeffie and Tricky Dickey decided to take notes in THIS history class.

How Profit and Prejudice Built a Family’s Human Skull Collection, by Peter Leman (Atlas Obscura)

Fowler & Wells created a “Phrenological Cabinet” on the racist belief that skulls held secrets about human nature.

ON APRIL 15, 1841, THE day before his execution, Peter Robinson welcomed an artist to his New Jersey prison cell. A possible inspiration for Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Robinson was sentenced to death for killing his creditor and hiding the body beneath his floorboards. He turned away clergymen offering to pray for him, but he didn’t seem to mind the artist, who had been sent by a family of skull-obsessed pseudo-scientists. Whatever his hesitations about preserving his soul, he submitted willingly to the messy procedure of preserving his head as a plaster cast.

Robinson was hanged the following day. The authorities delivered his body to friends and family, as he had requested, hoping to evade the corpse-hungry medical school market. The artist, meanwhile, delivered the cast of his head to the New York firm of Fowler & Wells.

The brothers Orson and Lorenzo Fowler, their sister Charlotte, and her husband Samuel Wells were phrenologists who believed the size and shape of the human skull contained secrets about human nature. They eagerly acquired cranial “specimens” of infamous men like Robinson. Their collection was enshrined in the “Phrenological Cabinet,” a display of casts, busts, portraits, and skulls that eventually grew to nearly 2000 items ...

We Are New Albany's Political Social is this Saturday morning, April 7, at 11:00 a.m.

We Are New Albany came together last year as the principled local counterweight to Mayor Jeff Gahan's putsch (the hostile takeover of public housing), and to give public housing residents a voice in their future.

Gahan acted as he did because he had the power to do so, reasoning there would be only token opposition to his opportunism. He was mistaken; there's nothing especially "democratic" in any of it, and the best way to remind him of this fact is the exercise of one's vote.

April 9 is the last day to register to vote in the May 8 primary. Here's the information about WANA's event this Saturday, one in a series of mobilizations aimed at delivering a message to Gahan and his functionaries: "No demolition without a plan to replace!"

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It maybe the first time you've ever registered to vote or the first time in a long time. This is the time to be heard.

We are New Albany is sponsoring a one time event. The Political Social is a relaxed social that will be the best thing you've done. Come talk to State and Local Candidates about topics and concerns that effect you and your Community. Enjoy appetizers and light refreshments. Volunteers will be on site to help you get registered to vote. Transportation provided if needed.

April 7th, 2018
11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
800 E 8th Street (Clean Socks Hope)
New Albany, IN 47150

Schlock and awl: Duggins' captive NAHA to meet the candidates, prepare voter lists for future persuasion, and play-act some make-believe democracy.

But are they registered to vote?

Over at the New Albany Housing Authority, Commissar David "125K" Duggins is getting into the spirit of democratization, announcing that President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has endorsed Duggins' bid to become Executive Director for Life.

Not only that ... a party!

But seriously, there really will be a pre-primary candidate panel and loyalty oaths voter registration rally on Thursday, March 29, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Erni Avenue gym.

Structural engineers have affirmed that the gym should be able to withstand the shock waves of hypocrisy emanating from Team Gahan members in attendance.

Below, the text of the letter announcing the event. As a friend observed, "As you can see, an uninformed reader might come to the conclusion that Duggins cares about the residents."

NA Confidential readers know better, of course, as do South Seas islanders and the woman in the moon.

#FireGahan2019