A word from our sponsor (sort of): What's happening at NABC.

Over the next month and a half, the New Albanian Brewing Company will be completely revamping the main company website. In the interim, www.newalbanian.com remains accurate insofar as basic information, menus, hours and routines at the Pizzeria & Public House and Bank Street Brewhouse are concerned. 

At the Pizzeria & Public House, we’re gearing up for Gravity Head 2013. The 15th edition of Gravity Head begins on Friday, February 22. Here is a mid-January update.

At BSB, the WCTU Reading Room gradually is being outfitted, and work can begin soon on Lloyd’s Landing, our evolving outdoor seating and events area. On Sundays, Bank Street's brunch, build-your-own Bloody Mary bar and carryout growler sales are unchanged, as is the strength of Chef Matt Weirich's menu.

Meanwhile, NABC’s beer and brewery event calendar is filling, even this early in the year.

NABC's core lineup for distribution in 2013 is stable: Black & Blue Grass, Elector, Hoptimus and (at present) Hoosier Daddy. Naughty Girl comes back on board in April. Beak's Best and Bob's Old 15-B are available to outside accounts on request.  

As for seasonal our beer releases, Solidarity Baltic Porter currently is pouring at both NABC locations, and because this year’s 22-oz bomber bottling of Solidarity was limited, bottles are available ONLY at the Pizzeria & Public House and Bank Street Brewhouse.

Draft-only Old Lightning Rod (Benjamin Franklin's Colonial-style dark ale) also now is on tap at both NABC locations. ConeSmoker is next to come on line, probably between now and Super Bowl. After that, there is Bonfire of the Valkyries, which has been brewed and is maturing. Bonfire will be kegged for distribution.

As a final note: NABC will soon be shipping 22-oz “bomber” bottles into Ohio via Cavalier Distributing Ohio. We're more than happy to be working with old friends at Cavalier Ohio. 

Here is a quick look at the company calendar.

The Brewers of Indiana Guild holds an annual indoor festival at the state fairgrounds; here is NABC's beer lineup at Winterfest in Indianapolis, coming on Saturday, January 26.

The Varanese/NABC beer dinner is Thursday, February 7, and I'm particularly excited about this opportunity because Varanese is a personal favorite among Louisville's many fine restaurants.

The tradition of NABCieged tap takeovers continues at Four Pegs Beer Lounge on Thursday, February 7.

It's rare to have even one cask-conditioned beer paired with food, and rarer still for the pairing to be on a romantic holiday, but ConeSmoker and Hoosier Daddy are on the menu for Valentine's Day at the Garage Bar in NuLu (Thursday, February 14).

Note that the year's first quarterly Food and Dining magazine (February/March/April) is just about due to be published. My column in the coming edition is about six craft beer trends to watch in 2013. 

Lastly, my two most recent columns at LouisvilleBeer.com, with another on the way next week:

"Getting Our Shift Together."

"Take It Off! Take It Off!" 

NABC's 70+ employees thank our patrons, and we all wish you a great year to come. 

"Lack of any correlation between a tableau of traditional family life and the values, character and skills it takes to govern effectively."

Can you shack up and be president? Who really cares, anyway?

Love, Marriage and Voters, by Frank Bruni (New York Times)

ANDREW CUOMO doesn’t dally. If he deems something important, he pounces on it. Last week he did that with gun control, signing sweeping new legislation.

He’s also ambitious. A 2016 presidential bid may be in the offing, especially if Hillary Clinton doesn’t jump in. And the national profile that he’s forging — trailblazer on gay marriage, guardian of public safety — almost surely reflects his sense of where the country is heading and what voters will and won’t reward.

How, then, are we supposed to read his romantic situation?

"Once Upon A Time," but this time, in Anatolia.

I've never been able to stomach most of the cinematic fluff churned out in America, and if this makes me an elitist, then go tell it to the troglodytes.

"Once Upon A Time in Anatolia," a serious Turkish film, is my kind of brain-engaging viewing. Not so much entertainment in the juvenile car chase sense, but a genuine exercising of human consciousness.

You can Google the reviews if you wish, but better to open a bottle of wine, watch, drink and think. This one is highly recommended, and available on Netflix.

NAC Guest Columnist Randy Smith: "Don’t Rush to Build Outdoor Swimming Pool."

For analysis of the 'Bune's editorial take: see Before the meeting, let's think about differing qualities of life. Thanks to Randy for writing.

---

Don’t Rush to Build Outdoor Swimming Pool

As a person of a decidedly communitarian bent, I’m usually one of “them people” who are first to call for public funding of projects and facilities that both benefit the public at large and whose costs can best be borne by the taxpayers as a whole. That is, usually I’m for it.

But I’m filled with dread at the thought that we’ll wake up some Tuesday or Friday morning and discover that the New Albany City Council and Mayor Jeff Gahan have put this community into debt to build an outdoor swimming pool.

The administration estimates that an outdoor water recreation facility will cost in the neighborhood of $9 million. Mayor Gahan has already asked the Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County to divert a portion of their charitable giving to help foot the costs of a swimming pool.

It appears that the city wants to float a bond of about $20 million to build an outdoor pool facility, multiple fields for the local Little League affiliate, and a soccer complex at the inner-city Binford Park.

But do the people of New Albany need, or even want, a new outdoor pool? As we blow through the second decade of the 21st Century, is building a swimming pool a legitimate and equitable use of tax money?

One might say that if the nearby casino wants to pay for it (an unlikely prospect, but who knows?), then the city should immediately accept the money and build an outdoor swimming pool. I contend that even if a benefactor were to cover some or all of the costs, New Albany would be better served to spend that money on something other than an outdoor pool.

Those who might say this is a premature voice in opposition just don’t know how New Albany government works. Rather than persuade us, the mayor is relying on a long-past and little-contested campaign as his mandate to build a pool to replace the Camille Wright facility. I hardly think the voters saw Mr. Gahan’s election campaign as a referendum on whether we should go $20 million in debt for recreation projects, or even as a vote to sever the city parks from the joint city-county system.

And nothing says that the city council will do any more than the bare legal minimum before authorizing the issuance of municipal bonds to fund what may well be an obsolete project from day one.

Both Clarksville and Jeffersonville have outstanding outdoor aquatic centers. With the amount of money being proposed for a new pool in New Albany, the city could provide free admission at and free transportation to either of those facilities for every likely user of a new city pool—with no additional annual operating or capital costs, to boot.

A “spray park” along the riverfront or even multiple such parks scattered strategically around the city would be a better use of tax dollars. Let’s face it. In this day and age, an outdoor swimming pool is an albatross and I believe it’s a wasteful public expenditure.

It’s time to start a long public conversation about this to build a consensus on whether we need or even want a new outdoor pool in New Albany. Unless we have that, and unless people let their representatives know that they don’t want a new pool, my nightmare may become a costly reality. And for goodness sake, there’s no need to rush this decision. I don’t think a bond referendum would stand a chance of passing public muster, but a council that listens only to its own counsel might believe otherwise.

Note: I put a lot of skin into the game supporting the public investment in the YMCA and New Albany-owned indoor aquatic center. My wife and I fought for it politically and also made a significant (for us, at least) financial contribution toward its construction.

Altered logos, Volume 1. Munchin' on Poruba.

Sloppy, but it gets the point across.

The Nation: "The Message and the Meaning: Is 'Pro-choice' Passé?"

That's exactly my view: I believe that whether or not a woman keeps a pregnancy is up to her.

Indeed, language, words and meanings are crucial. They define humanity beyond the cave, and I see no reason why redefining them need be some exclusive right of the Right.

The Message and the Meaning: Is 'Pro-choice' Passé?, Katha Pollitt (The Nation)

... I often find public relations a bit bewildering, so maybe it’s my problem that I worry when people say the term “pro-choice” is “oversimplifying” and “extreme” and call for “moderation” and an acknowledgment of “gray areas.” To me, “pro-choice” means you believe that whether or not a woman keeps a pregnancy is up to her—the position most Americans say they support when asked about Roe. That is the “moderate” position. The exact opposite of the pro-life position would be to override the woman’s will and let others—parents, doctors, social services, the government—decide she must have an abortion, as is happening in China. An “extreme” pro-choice position would be the one pro-lifers falsely claim Roe protects: it would permit abortion on demand up until the day before birth. No pro-choice organization calls for that.

Photo of the week: Rat bastards at Indiana-American Water proffer blood money as disgusted populace looks on.

Bar none, my favorite photo of the year to date.

In it, the local representative of the utility monopoly known as Indiana-American Water Company presents two checks, one to the police department (for protection from the monopoly's numerous irate victims??) and the other to the bicentennial junta for an "old-timers baseball game" ... seriously, to the Coup d'Geriatrique, could there be any other kind? You weren't expecting a "future stars" game, I take it.

The money pictured above constitutes roughly 1/3 of the sales deprived from my company by the thieving, incompetent bastards at IN-AWC on that glorious spring day back in 2010, when the water monopoly's long-term and congenital neglect of its own infrastructure led to an enforced day-long shutdown of the Pizzeria and Public House on a Gravity Head Friday.

Recall also that last year, our city council was compelled to write legislation clearly requiring IN-AWC to repair the extensive damage it does to streets on a regular basis, destruction generally commenced only moments after the street in question has been repaved by the city for the very first time since the Carter Administration.

I repeat: NAC is in complete agreement with any elected official, unelected official, ordinary citizen or random footloose Chia pet who wishes to eliminate any and all loopholes permitting those unsupervised rat bastards at Indiana-American Water to run roughshod over taste, decency and recently paved streets. 

That's because you really can trust IN-AWC -- trust the water monopoly to screw you every single time.

May 11, 2012: Rat bastards at Indiana American Water are running amok.

May 10, 2012: Annals of destruction: Hurricanes, tornadoes and now Indiana American Water Company.

January 18, 2012: Indiana-American Water, utility monopolies, street despoiling and why Robespierre was right.

January 27, 2011: At home or at work, Indiana-American Water Company just doesn't give a damn. Hint: Few monopolies do.

March 5, 2010: No State Police poaching at the Pizzeria & Public House tonight, because IN-AWC learned "routine" in Pyongyang.

(Photo credit: City's Facebook page)

White bread, skim milk, light beer.

From the safe distance of Jeffersonville, the 'Bune's editor peels away no layers, asks no questions, and accepts a council expenditure at face value. Sounds almost like a corporate policy ... or a council habit.

CHEERS

... to the New Albany City Council approving $75,000 to help restore Second Baptist Church, another important part of black history in New Albany.

Commonly called Town Clock Church, the building served as a link in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War.

Preserving it will help tell a vital lesson for the city and its residents and visitors.

— Editor Shea Van Hoy

Here's a clue, albeit it one outside the box of the 'Bune's business as usual: Future site of church steeple viewing zone.

The Guardian: "Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa?"

Thought-provoking weekend reading about what you eat, where it originates, and why it matters.

Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? Ethical consumers should be aware poor Bolivians can no longer afford their staple grain, due to western demand raising prices, by Joanna Blythman (guardian.co.uk)

... But there is an unpalatable truth to face for those of us with a bag of quinoa in the larder. The appetite of countries such as ours for this grain has pushed up prices to such an extent that poorer people in Peru and Bolivia, for whom it was once a nourishing staple food, can no longer afford to eat it. Imported junk food is cheaper. In Lima, quinoa now costs more than chicken. Outside the cities, and fuelled by overseas demand, the pressure is on to turn land that once produced a portfolio of diverse crops into quinoa monoculture ...

... Omnivores have it easy. Britain excels in producing meat and dairy foods for them to enjoy. However, a rummage through the shopping baskets of vegetarians and vegans swiftly clocks up the food miles, a consequence of their higher dependency on products imported from faraway places. From tofu and tamari to carob and chickpeas, the axis of the vegetarian shopping list is heavily skewed to global.

Jim's Gun Room, then and now.

Resch Construction continues to strip it down so the rebuilding can commence.

January 26 Shadow Gala at BSB: Last call for ideas.

The New Albany Bicentennial Gala will be worshiping the past to the exclusion of the future on Saturday, January 26, at the Grand.

Given that a gal a day always worked fine for me (thanks, Groucho), it's one of those paint-by-numbers, big-ticket, business-as-usual productions that we'd expect from the Coup d'Geriatrique, and I simply cannot muster the energy to care very much.

By the way, exhaustion with the irreversible mandates of genteel opinion is why NABC will skip brewing its Bicentennial beer, and instead fashion one for the Tricentennial in 2113. Drink now, celebrate later. That's a full one hundred years away, and so once again, the city has at least a fighting chance to get a commemorative right ... next time.

Does anyone want to have a Shadow Gala Party in the Reading Room at Bank Street Brewhouse on the evening of the 26th? If so, should there be a theme? Maybe "Hoptimus Vs. the DAR"?

A midnight walk to piss on Rent Boy Park as a sort of baptism, pre-birth?

Or, maybe just drink some beers? Let me know, either here or at the usual channels.

Future site of church steeple viewing zone.

At last evening's council gathering, the third reading of a bill to tithe $75,000 from EDIT against  matching grants to repair the steeple of the Second Baptist Church was approved. Greg Phipps and Scott Blair voted against it, and Kevin Zurschmiede was absent.

Earlier in the day, I took the above photograph. To the rear left, the Reisz building can be glimpsed; last year, 2nd district council person Bob Caesar worked assiduously to prevent it and adjacent neglected buildings from being redeveloped.

In the upper right, there's Bill Allen's eternal pile of moldering rubble; recently, the city's movers and shakers suddenly became pro-active after thirty years of detached silence and encouraged him to paint (that's right) part of the dilapidation as a form of action, penance, or more likely, hurried masturbation. Not unexpectedly, the paint job has done little to arrest the slumlord's masterpiece of decay, but sometimes -- as with the entirety of the city's Doris Day-worthy Bicentennial plan -- it's only about appearances, to the exclusion of content.

In the middle of the photo there's a big, gaping, garbage-strewn, chronically unaddressed vacant spot just out of view, and the seedy sidewalk, perhaps last considered during the Eisenhower administration, occupies center stage. This is the spot where people will gather to stand and admire the church steeple, deemed so vital when SO MANY OTHER THINGS IN THIS TOWN NEED TO BE DONE.

(thanks to LM for the subject heading)

At Destinations Booksellers, there's an $8 Hardcover Sale.

Plus tax, it's less than nine bucks per hardcover book. That's the price I paid a couple nights ago for "Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America," by James Green. Destinations Booksellers is located at 604 E. Spring Street in New Albany. Follow the link below for more information.

---

$8 Hardcover Sale

Hurry. We’re putting some great titles on sale like never before to make room for new books. Claim yours now as we work our way through the sections from front to back. Hundreds of titles will be on sale as we cull the herd. Of course, all of these books are new, most are first printings, and many are First Editions.

If you have a new tablet, do you know you can buy your e-books from us? And now, we are selling the elegant Kobo Arc, a 7″ tablet that’s great for e-reading, movies, music, e-mail, and more. Come see our dedicated e-readers or see how you can use your existing device and buy from Destinations Booksellers.

Before the meeting, let's think about differing qualities of life.

In today’s ‘Bama Ad Coagulator, Chris Morris considers the millions of dollars transferred from Horseshoe Casino (formerly Caesar’s) to Floyd County over a 13-year period.

Echoing recent words in the same forum by career politician and chronic board sitter Mark Seabrook, Chris placed the Horseshoe Foundation, dispensing agent of the gaming largesse, at the very pinnacle of local indispensability.

Honestly, I don’t know where we would be as a community without the grants handed out by the Horseshoe Foundation. Obviously, there would be no YMCA, no college scholarships and many organizations would have had to learn to do without a new furnace, a church steeple or funding for a baseball league for disabled children. The organization has made such a positive impact on this community, a community that not once, but twice said no, we don’t want you.

In a way it screams hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy?

Is that what it’s called when pundits like Chris remain aloof from politics until it’s time to “scream” their blanket refusal to pay a penny more in higher taxes, and then, spinning on a thin dime, commend the casino for filling their own funding voids?

But I digress.

Chris’s purpose in writing is to note that Mayor Jeff Gahan has asked the Foundation for “major moves” monetary assistance in financing an aquatics center and/or a little league baseball complex.

I have no idea whether Mayor Gahan will have his wish granted. If he does, it would help New Albany move forward with building a new aquatic center or Little League park. That would be nice since Jeffersonville and Clarksville have state-of-the-art swimming facilities and Little League complexes. New Albany always seems to be a step behind when it comes to quality-of-life projects, with the YMCA a notable exception.

It took me a second reading before I realized why this paragraph is so annoying – and it isn’t restricted to Chris Morris's phrasing.

Rather, it’s this persistent, unquestioned notion on the part of self-assigned movers and shakers that the highest civic priority when it comes to “quality-of-life” issues is the same old kneejerk-as-usual pablum: The benign “niceness” of swimming and baseball, and the accompanying tendency of the powers that be to lapse into dazed stupor at the very suggestion that prioritizing basic everyday infrastructures of living, from transport to design to neighborhoods, addresses “quality-of-life” issues far more comprehensively than parks and recreation force-fed into a vacuum.

Me? My quality of life is reflected by whether I can bike or walk city streets that are just as much mine as yours, and do so without being struck by chaotic cars. Complete these streets, and my quality of life skyrockets, and at a fraction of the cost required to build and maintain aquatics centers and ball fields.

In this scenario, the quality of life improves for everyone who lives in our urban neighborhoods, not just those who do the backstroke or swat horsehide. Make the whole city a recreational area, and we’re getting somewhere, as well as attracting the like-minded to move here and be a part of it.

I’m constantly reminded of my irrelevance by people with the surname Anonymous, and so it may or may not matter to anyone that I’m opposed to these grandiose ideas of aquatics and baseball until the current administration takes the time to explain its plan (there is one, right?) for finishing the work we’ve begun downtown; for completing the streets and preparing for the toll evasion dullard onslaught to come; and for improving our neighborhoods.

Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.

And Horseshoe Foundation board members who may be reading: Some tough love, please.

ON THE AVENUES: You can call me Che.

ON THE AVENUES: You can call me Che.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?

The sensation of which I speak isn’t an irrational state like paranoia, which in the case of our New Albanian milieu is a condition monopolized to such an impressive degree by the founder of the Cracked Kitchen Linoleum Blog that it might as well be patented as a brand name – perhaps Yvonnanoia?

No, what I mean is the suspicion that you’re being toyed with, prompted and set up, suddenly confronted with a situation so weirdly surreal that a hidden camera surely must be aimed your way, primed to capture your dumbfounded, flailing reaction for speedy editing into a video, and posting on YouTube, where it will be greeted virally with the guffaws of the uneducated, addled masses.

My former manager at Scoreboard Liquors must have felt this way on that infamous day thirty years ago when a stranger walked in, pointed at the door to the rear office, and asked, “Do you mind if I go back there and change my pants?”

YouTube obviously didn’t exist back then, but Lloyd “Duck” Cunningham’s unprintable reply would have played well on Candid Camera, with Allen Funt suffering the brunt of the beeped-out epithets.

---

As the first week of the New Year unfolded, my inbox disgorged a question.

A little while ago I noticed there was a room that had pictures of several mass murdering, genocidal, tyrannical dictators on the walls. As a customer what meaning should I take from that? In my opinion it seems to show support from the owner of New Albania of these tyrants?

I enjoy the pizza at NABC but I don't enjoy the thought of supporting someone that idolized people like the pictures and posters you seem to proudly display. Maybe I misunderstand their meaning.

My initial reaction was anger: Who’d gone and pulled down my Commie posters, and replaced them with fascists like Hitler, Mussolini and Idi Amin? Then I realized he was referring to Red Room stalwarts like Lenin, Castro and Gus Hall. Well, fair enough, because it all depends on where you’re standing.

Here’s what I told him in reply.

It isn’t necessarily a misunderstanding on your part, but what I can tell you with certainty is that there is no idolatry on mine.

I remain a leftist, broadly speaking, and I traveled in the East Bloc and USSR as a young man in the 1980s, but while I found these countries fascinating from a number of standpoints, they were not places where I ever wished to live.

Your question is asked every now and then, and my answer always has been the same: The Red Room means whatever the observer wishes for it to mean: Kitschy poster art emporium, as spoils of Cold War victory or a shrine of reverence.

However, the primary intent for me is for it to serve as a talking point to help keep a piece of still-recent history living, in the sense that with each passing year, fewer (mostly younger) customers have any idea what the era even was about.

The verdict of history is fairly clear when it comes to the legacy of Stalin and Mao, and I have confidence that interested parties will reach that conclusion, as you and I surely have. But they must first be interested, and motivated to investigate. In my view, the Red Room periodically serves that purpose.

To the best of my knowledge, the preceding explanation is true. As for what I might have been thinking twenty years ago with regard to the space now known as the Red Room, it’s also true that my prime motivation at the time was to have a place to display the many period propaganda pieces hauled home from travels abroad. One thing led to another, and there it was.

I’m the first to admit there is as little to idolize on Stalin’s part as Hitler’s, but to repeat, the point lies elsewhere. Now that decades have passed and the older generations have departed, precious little discussion takes place about the “-isms” dominating the entirety of the 20th century … and sorry tea-baggers, but loud ranting amid voluminous spittle about communism in the context of “Obamacare” does not suffice as earnestness.

Forgetting history begets repeating it, as either Santayana or Carlos Santana once said. It is my intention not to do so.

---

But my favorite example of work- and history-related consumer behavior occurred not at the Public House, but at Bank Street Brewhouse not long after we opened in 2009.

One of our servers was asked to explain Roger’s political beliefs in light of the red stars and leftist images on the shiny new brewing equipment visible just past the window.

Our man on the floor at the time, who’d studied some history and poli-sci, made a game effort to interpret these complex threads of geopolitics, economics and the art of brewing, and to phrase them in snappy sentences reproducible on bumper stickers for a Lexus, and yet the customer remained unimpressed, writing this on his charge card receipt:

“Tell your Commie boss to share the wealth.”

In order to accentuate his displeasure with my cheeky political proclivities, this rather boorish scion of an identifiably Falangist regional family left the gratuity column empty, thus stiffing the server while doing me no harm whatever.

Classy.

Not only that, but the customer was utterly mistaken; in fact, I share the wealth of my knowledge every day, as teachers are wont to do, and in this vein, permit me to repeat my advice to the server should such a question ever be asked again:

“We don’t care what sort of ‘ist’ Roger is, just as long as he keeps signing our paychecks.”

Update: Urban Fusion Community Garden.

When last we heard news from the Urban Fusion Community Garden, it was May of 2012.

"I will be returning to work at this site when it has been made safe for children."

In short, the 707 site was kicked back over to Keep New Albany Clean and Green and Landmarks, and now Jerry Finn tells us what will be happening next.


---

Urban Fusion Community Garden

Greetings, Friends!

I wanted to give you a quick update on the plans for the Urban Fusion Community Gardens at 707 Culbertson Avenue in New Albany. The cedar planting boxes have been built and installed. They look great. We hope to have the soil/compost mixture delivered by the end of the month. Next job will be to get the boxes filled with soil and ready for your planting. It won’t be too far out that cold crops can be planted!

The Board of Directors of Keep New Albany Clean and Green will meet on the 4th Friday of January. We will put together a process for people to reserve garden boxes. If you are interested, please send me your name, phone, and e-mail. I will have more details for you after the board meeting.

This past weekend, I was harvesting turnips, broccoli, kale, spinach, beets and onions out of my garden at home. It reminded me how important a garden can be for fresh, healthy food. If anyone is interested in being the lead person on this initiative, please let me know. That would be incredibly helpful.

Also, our Citywide Spring Beautification date is April 27th, so please mark your calendar and help if you can. Pass the word to interested groups, Neighborhood Associations, Scouts, etc.

Michele Finn is very close to her due date for her baby, so send good thoughts her way. Here are some of her favorite seed catalogs to get you thinking about spring planting! Sure to get the ideas for a garden plot in motion! :)

http://rareseeds.com/

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/

http://www.seedsofchange.com/

Thanks so much for helping make this a reality. A special thanks to all those who donated money for the purchase of materials for the raised beds.

Morrison: "Who knew? New Albany more progressive than most of Kentucky as it (very quietly) passes gay-rights law."

Somehow, Curt manages to steer the Insider Louisville discussion away from Lynn's Paradise Cafe recriminations onto an as-yet low key little something that New Albany is quite rapidly becoming renowned for possessing. Apart from the splashiness of aquatic proposals, human rights protections genuinely matter. Does the city itself "get it"?

Who knew? New Albany more progressive than most of Kentucky as it (very quietly) passes gay-rights law, by Curtis Morrison (Insider Louisville)

You probably have already heard, in the 3-1 vote Monday, the city of Vicco, Kentucky has adopted an ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Vicco is in Eastern Kentucky, and has 334 residents.

But what three mile-stretch of Louisville’s Ohio River shoreline can one swim across, with the comfort of knowing discrimination protections for gays, lesbians and transgendered await on the banks of the other shore?

If you guessed West End frontage opposite the city of New Albany, Indiana, you are correct.

The Potable Curmudgeon at LouisvilleBeer.com: "Getting Our Shift Together."

If you're just tuning in, I'm still writing beer columns: Twice monthly for LouisvilleBeer.com, and quarterly for Food and Dining Magazine.

When it comes to craft beer, the implications of economic localization and shift are increasingly obvious.

You needn’t digest them all at once. Little sips work just fine.

Getting Our Shift Together

Political stump speeches differ very little from religious sermons, and that’s probably why we call it a bully pulpit, not a milk crate.

However, a soapbox might be useful, or better yet, a couple cases of Bud Light in tall cans, because if the pet shampoo is too disgusting to drink, at least you can stand atop it and preach.

(By the way, President Theodore Roosevelt was the originator of the “bully pulpit” usage. Roosevelt was one of the last and best examples of a species now extinct, the progressive Republican)

During these past few years at the bully pulpit, I’ve endeavored to echo two important, recurring themes – economic localization and shift – because both notions should be of interest to the well-informed craft beer drinker, even if their foundations are rooted elsewhere.

We got your 2013 Clere Channel legislative survey, right here.

State Representative Ed Clere's 2013 Legislative Survey arrived in the mailbox just the other day. Here it is, courtesy of the web version.

---

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey. The questions are intended to reflect issues that may come before the legislature. The questions included should not be interpreted as a reflection of my views on the issues. Your input will help me gauge the opinions of House District 72. Please don't complete this on-line survey if you plan on returning the mailed survey.

(Editor's note: 1 - 10 are name, address, rank, serial number and the like)

11. We currently pay an Indiana gas tax of 18 cents per gallon. In 2007, that gas tax produced $570M in revenue for road funding. In 2011, it only produced $543M. Do you support increasing the gas tax as a way to generate additional revenue for road funding or should the legislature find another solution?
Increase the gas tax
Find another solution
No Opinion

12. Do you believe that a driver’s license, registration and insurance should be required of people who operate mopeds on public roadways?
Yes
No
Undecided

13. Do you support allowing local officials to raise income taxes to fund mass transit, such as a commuter bus or light rail system?
Let local officials vote on it
Require a referendum to authorize local officials first
No Opinion

14. Do you believe that there is enough transparency with your local government and local schools?
Yes
No
Undecided

15. Would you support allowing the sale of cold beer by retailers other than liquor stores, such as groceries and convenience marts?
Yes
No
Undecided

16. Would you support changing Indiana law to allow the carry-out sale of alcohol on Sundays?
Yes
No
Undecided

17. Do you think that we need to reduce sentences and/or rely more on alternative sentencing, such as home incarceration and probation, for non-violent criminal offenders due to the fact that we have limited space in our prisons?
Yes
No
Undecided

18. Do you think schools should have the flexibility to hire professionals, such as engineers and chemists, to teach even if they did not go through the traditional teacher training as long as they demonstrate proficiency in teaching methods?
Yes
No
Undecided

19. Early educational success can lay a strong foundation for success in the future. Last year, the legislature agreed to fund full-day kindergarten for all eligible students. Would you support a state funded preschool program for low-income families?
Yes
No
Undecided

20. I am interested in what you have to say! Enter any comments you may have here:

Salute! Language and grammar casualties as Erika picks her fave gals.

Read about these ten great women, as presented on a boilerplate list repeated year after year.

Notice the merry juxtaposition of caps, bolds and italics, so often heedless of playing by the (grammatical) rules, but then again, them little folks tend to have their word allergies, eh?

Giggle softly when the "alphabetical" list isn't alphabetical ... er, twice.

Cherish your Freedom to Screech, folks. To whom would we laugh aloud, if not that nutty faux transgendered trognonymous professor?

FREEDOM OF SPEECH SALUTES 10 OUTSTANDING WOMEN OF 2012 ...

These 10 Outstanding Women have embarked on becoming a new class of leaders for the City of New Albany and that means "Commitment to our community."