SoIn previews the Boomtown Ball.

A consortium of downtown restaurant and bar operators have spent quite a lot of time preparing for next Sunday's Boomtown show, both by seeking to make the event equitable for all downtown businesses, and moreover, by accepting the responsibility for the alcoholic beverage vending at the event. It would be nice if we were to be mentioned somewhere along the way; if not in a single one of the city's press releases, than perhaps in this otherwise excellent newspaper preview. Alas, in New Albany, we're all here because we're not all there.

Kudos, then, to Production Simple for getting it right in last week's Fb blast. We appreciate it, guys.

LIBA's Buy Local Fair is at Water Tower Park today, and NABC beers will be there.

Coming on the heels of NABC's dominating 11-keg performance at RiverRoots on Friday and Saturday, we're equally delighted to be a part of today's 6th annual Buy Local Fair.

Louisville Independent Business Alliance’s annual Buy Local Fair helps Keep Louisville Weird. It is held from noon to 6:00 p.m. at Louisville Water Tower Park, and NABC will be on hand along with other Louisville-area breweries.

Interestingly, some news portals have identified the Buy Local Fair's beer pouring component as being that of the Kentucky Guild of Brewers, while LIBA's own event page omits mention of craft beer entirely.

That's strange, but rest assured that as dues-paying members of long standing in LIBA, and consistent daily supporters of the independent business ideal for more than a quarter century, our Black & Blue Grass and Beak's Best Bitter will be there to represent our metro neighborhood.

Cuts for a Cure: Roger's hair will disappear on Friday, May 23 at Strandz & Threadz.

On Friday, May 23, the ponytail is coming off, and I'm getting a utilitarian haircut with considerable metaphorical properties.

The act will occur at Strandz & Threadz, 322 Vincennes Street, as part of the salon's 7th Annual Cuts for a Cure. The event runs from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., and here's the program.

• Help us raise Money by taking pledges to have your head shaved, pony tails cut for Wigs for Kids or Hair Chalked.
• All proceeds to benefit Camp Quality, a free camp for kids with cancer and Mrs. Mary Briscoe a local teacher.
• Keith Kaiser with WDRB will be here
• Many area businesses with their mascots will be around entertaining.
• Showtime Photo Booth
• Snacks, drinks and more!
• Call 812.945.5480 for more info or visit Facebook Event

Why do you think politicians like roads and bridges so much?

This article gives whole new meaning to considerations of the usual suspects.

The impact of public officials’ corruption on the size and allocation of U.S. state spending, Leighton Walter Kille (Journalist's Resource)

 ... A 2014 study in Public Administration Review, “The Impact of Public Officials’ Corruption on the Size and Allocation of U.S. State Spending,” looks at the impact of government corruption on states’ expenditures.

The study’s findings include:

Construction projects find particular favor because they present a wealth of corruption opportunities: “First, construction involves large, complex, nonstandard activities, so the quality of construction can be very hard to assess. Second, domestic and international construction industries are dominated by a few monopolistic firms. Third, the industry is closely linked to the government. Governments have major roles as ‘clients, regulators, and owners’ of construction companies. It is very common to bribe government officials to gain or alter contracts and to circumvent regulations related to construction.”

As symposiarch, I intend to guide the conversation. We'll need an agora, or Lloyd's Landing.

You may recall that I attended a symposium earlier in the year, and now, after a nudge from the Bookseller, I've come to the conclusion that we need to begin scheduling symposia at the new and evolving Bank Street Brewhouse.

For one thing, without a kitchen, and absent the prerequisites attendant to food service the way we had been doing it, there is liberation and perfect freedom to pursue other options.

Then there's the beer. The Greeks may have used wine for intellectual lubrication, but we have session ale.

Finally, I really want to use the title Symposiarch.

---

online.com/index.php?term=symposium">symposium (n.)
1580s, "account of a gathering or party," from Latin symposium "drinking party, symposium," from Greek symposion "drinking party, convivial gathering of the educated" (related to sympotes "drinking companion"), from assimilated form of syn- "together" (see syn-) + posis "a drinking," from a stem of Aeolic ponen "to drink," cognate with Latin potare "to drink" (see potion).

The symposium usually followed a dinner, for the Greeks did not drink at meals. Its enjoyment was heightened by intellectual or agreeable conversation, by the introduction of music or dancers, and by other amusements. [Century Dictionary]

The sense of "a meeting on some subject" is from 1784. Reflecting the Greek fondness for mixing wine and intellectual discussion, the modern sense is especially from the word being used as a title for one of Plato's dialogues. Greek plural is symposia, and the leader of one is a symposiarch (c.1600 in English). Related: Symposiac (adj.); symposial.

Footsteps in cement, from Sarajevo to Bank Street.

When I saw the footsteps (since ineptly "repaired" by Vectren's hired street assassins) ...

 ... in front of Muscle Monkey ...

... I thought about these famous footsteps in cement.

The Sarajevo footsteps were intended by the Yugoslav government to show where Gavrilo Princip stood one hundred years ago (this June 28) when he shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I saw them in 1987. During the Yugoslav civil war in the 1990s, the steps were obliterated by besieged Bosnians.

Princip stood in front of a delicatessen. I have no idea what the steps in front of Muscle Monkey were intended to symbolize, apart from someone like me, pissing on the concept of one-way streets.

The best fate ever for Bob Caesar's crown jewel.

As it has been explained to me by a city official, the verdant green mounds scattered through Bicentennial Park are what happens when a nearby resident walks his dogs and refrains from scooping his poop.

For once, these letters are utterly appropriate: LOL.

Historic home for sale in Georgetown. DNA probably approves this message.

From this ...

... to this.

Among other things, the past few weeks have been spent transitioning my mom into her new assisted living quarters at the Silvercrest development. She's up on the top floor. Remember when Silvercrest's future was uncertain? Now it's plush; as the Rutles sang, all you (or Matt Chalfant) need is cash.

Anyone looking for a home in the country? The house pictured in the first photo above is on the National Register of Historic Publican Places as the acreage where the Potable Curmudgeon was raised -- not, as was pointed out earlier, where I "grew up." The Paul Kiger Metro Group is listing it, and the pertinent information is available on-line. I hope the house lands in the right hands.

What a year, and it's only May.

Brewery events season starts now, with RiverRoots in Madison, and next weekend's Boomtown Ball. Next thing we know, it'll be Harvest Hellcoming. There's a downtown taproom business to reinvent, and last week, one of our cats (Veronica "Bugg" Buggsworth) passed away. She'll be missed.

Perhaps by autumn, there'll be time to properly mourn, but the curious thing about all of it is that mourning does not seem merited. Rather, new beginnings seem to be popping up everywhere. Amid the understandable disappointment as it pertains to Bank Street Brewhouse, there is a feeling of liberation and renewal. We tend to pay lip service to the need for change, but often find it difficult to embark on the journey, except that some times, the journey comes to you, whether you requested it, or not.

Many thanks for the many comments, memories and critiques. I'm trying to read and acknowledge each one; apologies if I've missed yours.

Keith Olbermann on Tommy John surgeries ... and all about Steve Dalkowski.

To put it mildly, this story goes all over the place.

Let's start with a commentary yesterday by Keith Olbermann on ESPN: Video: All The Tommy John Surgeries Are A Good Thing. Olbermann's consideration of an increasingly common surgical procedure closes with a reference to the legendary pitcher Steve Dalkowski.

And who was Dalkowski?

Delving into the Dalkowski depths, by Steve Treder (The Hardball Times)

... He is a figure from the deepest heart of baseball legend and lore. In his every aspect, of electrifying performance and of gargantuan struggle, on and off the field, he appears far more plausible as an invention, as a character of baseball fiction inhabiting the same imaginary universe as Ring Lardner’s Jack Keefe, Bernard Malamud’s Roy Hobbs and George Plimpton’s Sidd Finch, than as historical reality.

Dalkowski's legend probably dates to Pat Jordan's classic piece from Sports Illustrated in 1970.

The Wildest Fastball Ever

... Stories of Dalkowski's speed and wildness passed from one minor league town to another. Inevitably, the stories outgrew the man, until it was no longer possible to distinguish fact from fiction. But, no matter how embellished, one fact always remained: Dalkowski struck out more batters and walked more batters per nine-inning game than any professional pitcher in baseball history.

In the 1980s, Jordan penned a follow-up essay in Inside Sports, picking up the Dalkowski story at its lowest ebb, as described here in SI, circa 2003:

Where Are They Now? Steve Dalkowski, by Pete McEntegart

 ... Soon he was in the California fields, picking cotton and sugar beets, beans and carrots. Dalkowski's drink of choice was cheap wine, which he would buy when the bus stopped on the way to the crop field. Often he would place a bottle in the next row as motivation.

Dalkowski doesn't remember much of the next 30 years. He suffers from alcohol-related dementia, but the gaps in his memory don't start until about 1964. "I keep trying and trying to remember," he says. "But I don't."

In the course of reading about Dalkowski, it occurred to me that there is an oblique point of convergence with my father's brief baseball career, in that they both played at Kingsport, Tennessee, eight years apart; my dad in 1949, and Dalko in 1957.

For this incredibly strange reason, I stumbled via Google across the byline of Vince Staten, former Louisville-area barbecue specialist and columnist for the now degraded Gannett paper. As of 2009, Staten also was in Kingsport.

Steve Dalkowski - The Real Nuke LaLoosh

Steve Dalkowski, the fastest pitcher in baseball history, and the wildest, spent the 1957 season with the Kingsport Orioles.

ON THE AVENUES: Changes in latitude, changes in attitude.

ON THE AVENUES: Changes in latitude, changes in attitude.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

I’ve never thought of myself as a gambling man, and probably never will.

The next dollar I lose at a casino will be my first, and I may have bought as many as a dozen lottery tickets in the past two decades. Poker puts me to sleep, and I’ve been to Churchill Downs on an actual day of racing precisely once in 53 years of habitation hereabouts.

However, as an aficionado of food and drink, who in the past has enjoyed pursuing these activities in faraway places, trust me: There are plenty of ways to spend money apart from spinning a roulette wheel or playing the ponies. Verily, you can’t take it with you.

In the wake of NABC’s announcement earlier this week that we’re suspending food service at Bank Street Brewhouse, some have asked me whether walking away from a big chunk of food sales revenue represents a gamble for my company. I understand how it might appear that way, and of course, only time will tell.

But to me, what we’re doing speaks far more to a liberating opportunity than any undue risk. After all, the previous five years haven’t always provided sufficient tulips for tiptoeing.

Lately, this particular socialist has had a lot to learn, grudgingly, about the game of chance called capitalism, up close and personal, and to make a painfully long (and dreadfully boring) story as short as humanly possible, undoubted culinary achievements and stubborn force of will alone are not sufficient to suggest good odds for continuing what, in effect, has been a variable coin toss since BSB first opened in 2009.

Eternal thanks to those of you who supported the food concept at BSB. When our menu was on, it was great, and even when it wasn’t, it was good, and yet even the Beatles broke up – and they were better still. Call it cold turkey, or term it shock therapy; either way, costs had to be eliminated, because betting on next week’s roll of the dice was not always the best return, and by doing so, we’ve been starving ourselves of necessary reinvestment. Stripping one business plan down and building a second one back seems a far better course for us than persisting with unpredictability.

Instead, it’s about recommitting to what we do best. We’ll still have revenue, off-site from the damned fine brewery in back as well as from yet-to-be-determined beer sales in front. While revenue from beer sales in front will be less in the beginning, at least selling the beer we brew in back is sustainable and expandable in a way that the kitchen simply could not be.

That’s where a bit of community-oriented placemaking comes into play. The taproom model without a kitchen allows the indoor and outdoor areas to become a venue for creativity and activities, and places where things happen. The beer being consumed while these things happen is profitable. If we succeed in attracting customers in this fashion, there’ll be an opportunity to encourage other food-focused entrepreneurs to deliver food, or park a food truck, or set up a weenie cart.

And then … yes, then there’ll be food once again at BSB, but this time on terms more financially favorable to my company, even more diverse and eclectic – and fun – and potentially enabling the wetting of affiliated beaks all around, which is my more personally favored mode of capitalism, anyway.

---

There have been two supremely difficult aspects to these changes.

The first is knowing that however great the effort getting out the word, there’ll be customers who’ll drive out of their way to find us, expecting a meal we’re no longer capable of offering. In advance, permit me to apologize to them for their trouble. Our job now is to point them toward the many other eateries downtown.

The second is knowing that we had to let people go in order to reformat the business. Jobs are people, and that’s real life. This part of it isn’t easy, isn’t fun, and can’t be explained in any other way than “it’s the rules of the business game as we all play it.” This doesn’t mean I have to like it. I hope they all land on their feet, and that we can have a beer together some day in the future, and think about the good times.

Of which there were many, thankfully.

---

Looking back on my pronouncements in 2009 as we prepared to debut Bank Street Brewhouse, and comparing them with the record of BSB’s evolution since then, produces a sensation not unlike the one we feel while viewing leisure suits and hair styles in the late 1970s, as depicted in Throw Back Thursday photos.

Here’s a groaner.

NABC annually ranks highly in “best of” lists published by web sites such as www.ratebeer.com and www.beeradvocate.com, and furthermore, co-owner/beer writer Roger A. Baylor is regarded as one of the region’s foremost champions of the better beer movement.

These days, I detest Rate Advocate. Here’s another head-scratcher:

At the Bank Street location, there will be a limited Belgian-style café menu of food prepared by a Josh Lehman, a professional chef. A small on-premise shop will sell t-shirts, other advertising wearables, glassware and souvenirs.

Ah, the limits. Josh did great work and was far ahead of his time, but the “limited” descriptor is decidedly archaic given the levels of cost and inventory we eventually managed to reach by the year 2013, in a futile effort to “grow” a concept that lacked money and space.

As for the souvenir shop, it’s déjà vu all over again in 2014, and we’re hoping that finally, we’ll accomplish the goal. Arguably, these three broader planks from the 2009 mission statement come closer to the mark. Our aims were …

To be leaders in the craft beer segment and in the community, not followers.

To be progressive, not regressive.

To challenge and to educate, not to pander.

As far as I’m concerned, NABC surely achieved these objectives with BSB, and in 2014, we can move forward with the same points in mind. As Al Gore once noted, “You win some, you lose some – and then there’s that little known third category.”

In our case, it means we keep on going: Reinvent BSB as we go, brew beer, drink beer, and sell what’s left. The food will come.

Thanks again for your support.

Brčko.

Perhaps the Balkans have held such enduring fascination to me precisely because of the excerpted sentence from the article below: "Bosnia's bloody history."

Certainly the centuries-long Ottoman occupation had something to do with it. Immersed as I've been lately in books about the origins of World War I, it is difficult not to return again and again to pre-war Serbia, the Black Hand, the Russian Empire's indirect complicity ... and it always comes back to these dark, brooding mountains and a Hatfield-McCoy dichotomy which may or may not be relevant.

Then there's Brčko. Success or failure?

Are there such things as EDIT funds in Bosnia?

Welcome to Brčko, Europe’s only free city and a law unto itself, by Peter Geoghegan (Guardian)

Unshackled from Bosnia's bloody history, seemingly thriving as a beacon of multi-ethnicity, is Brčko a model for urban success?

Education has not been the only success for Brčko. In its early days the international community, keen to make the free city work, pumped in cash. Brčko was rebuilt. Between 2001 and 2004, more than 200km of roads were built and 8,000 jobs created. Thousands returned to city. Better pay and conditions paved the way for radical reforms in education and policing.

Yes, but ...

Corruption, too, is a particular problem of the free city. Because so many "national" powers are concentrated in a small cadre of people, graft is even worse than in the rest of Bosnia, where it is endemic. "This is a very small community, everyone knows everyone," says police chief Goran Lujić. "That can be a problem."

Municipal hypocrisy shifts into unmistakable gear with 20 mph speed limit on Rosenbarger Allee, sidewalk repair rationalization.

Where the rest of us live.

Wes Christmas thought it through, and now the traffic displaced from Main will "whiz" even faster on Spring, and as the sincerely myopic Mr. Hawkins correctly notes, it's the city's responsibility to enforce it.

But, as we know, Main Street is "special," and those residents who live along Market, Spring and Elm, who have brought precisely this same complaint before city officials numerous times before as it pertains to the situation on their streets, continue to be ignored.

And Jeff Gahan's team cannot begin to explain why, and has not even tried. 

Then there's the sidewalk upgrade issue presented by Bill Cash, who evidently does not live close enough to Rosenbarger Allee to merit the lavishness.

If I have any say in the matter while writing the history of New Albany's contemporary era, Warren Nash's quote in response to Cash will never be forgotten: "That’s our goal. To not have blighted areas."

Really, Warren? If so, the scale by which you'll be graded might not resemble the curve you assume. 

But that's okay. As long as the Democratic Party doesn't give a damn, why should you, or for that matter, anyone else?

Speed limit lowered to 20 mph on Main Street in New Albany

Speed limit lowered to 20 mph on Main Street in New Albany; Affected area includes work zone

By Chris Morris (Tuscaloosa Plain Dealer)

 ... Wes Christmas, with Clark Dietz Inc. — the engineering firm which designed the East Main Street improvement project — asked the New Albany Board of Works on Tuesday to lower the speed limit from 30 mph to 20 mph in the work zone, from East Fifth Street to Vincennes Street. The board unanimously approved the request (after) J.B. Hawkins, who lives off East Main Street, told the board he was concerned with vehicle speed with construction crews working nearby.

“People need to get in the habit of slowing down on Main Street,” Hawkins said after the meeting. “People are still whizzing down Main. Now it’s a matter of the police department enforcing it.”

Dude, couldn't you just buy a house by the Culbertson Mansion?

Resident raises concerns about sidewalk conditions in New Albany

Resident raises concerns about sidewalk conditions in New Albany; Man calls stretch of East 18th Street one of the worst in city

By Daniel Suddeath (Coupon Digest of Montgomery)

NEW ALBANY — Sandwiched between East Main Street and the Ohio River, New Albany resident Bill Cash said a stretch of roadway needs sidewalks and other improvements ...

... With the city undertaking a $2.3 million improvement project to East Main Street, Cash said other areas should also be considered for upgrades.

“If you could do a whole street of Main Street, can’t you do one block of 18th Street,” he asked ... Warren Nash, president of the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety, said the city has the opposite aim.

“That’s our goal. To not have blighted areas,” he said.

Just like ours, "The World Cup slogans are a mess."

World Cup slogans?

I had no idea, although NABC has a World Cup Trilogy coming in June.

Just imagine how some of these might slogans be translated into made-for-Dudgeon atrocities marketing atrocities; for instance, consider Australia's sloganeering translation into New Albanian:

Australia
Socceroos: hopping our way into history!

New Albany:
Come to Kangaroo

Some of the many comments are hilarious. Here's the link, followed a few other personal favorites.

Can you think of better World Cup slogans for the 32 teams? – open thread (Guardian)

The England team are not 'the heartbeat of millions', real men do not 'wear orange' and since when did 'heroes play like Greeks'? The World Cup slogans need a rewrite. Can your wit help?

Cameroon
A lion remains a lion

Costa Rica
My passion is football, my strength is my people, my pride is Costa Rica

Ivory Coast
Elephants charging towards Brazil!

Honduras
We are one country, one nation, five stars on the heart

Portugal
The past is history, the future is victory

"The bleak future facing many parts of rural America is enough to make you weep – or get to work."

I confess to thinking little about the rural side of the story, primarily because I harbor no desire to be rural. But one can't help thinking about the other side of the coin, especially while out in the country.

Speak Your Piece: Dry Your Eyes, Revitalize, by Timothy Collins (Daily Yonder)

... So, let’s turn the idea of subsistence on its head and consider an alternative for rural communities. Can we envision a basic, but clear public and private commitment to provide everyone with tools for a comfortable life? Can we assure that basic human needs will be filled: food, shelter, clothing, health care, education and fulfilling life’s work with adequate wages?

Subsistence — defined here as treading lightly on the earth while living a good life — can be a positive alternative and a lifestyle choice supported by rural communities and state and federal policymakers.

Let’s banish the notion of global competitiveness as the primary goal for rural areas and communities. Let’s focus on capacity building and improving the quality of life. We need to create jobs with adequate pay for bountiful, but sustainable subsistence. We need to consider the crucial importance of reversing environmental damage and building small, manageable, and sustainable communities.

Updated: Steve Coomes on Bank Street Brewhouse's reinvention.

I spoke with Steve Coomes at length, because he gets things right. It might be easier for me to post first, and comment later. At the moment, it's a pinball machine effect on the iPhone.

We're improvising an opening schedule. Tuesday - Thursday hours for beers at BSB are 3 - 9 p.m., with weekend hours yet to be determined. When we say food's gone away, it's what we mean. Of course, we'll adhere to the ATC rules, and the kitchen remains fully licensed by the health department, pending the latter's periodic policy coin tosses.

No food means no brunch on Sunday; no brunch means no Bloody Mary bar, at least for now. The exciting part of all this is that we get to create a whole new program from the ground up. It will be confusing, but it will evolve, and at some point, it will make sense. As it evolves, we'll do our best to keep people informed.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments so far. We achieved aesthetic success; if it just wasn't for those damned, pesky numbers.

Bank Street Brewhouse ends foodservice, will serve beer only after midweek shutdown, by Steve Coomes (Insider Louisville)

... Despite the cost, Baylor said he’s glad to have helped shepherd the process of revitalization in downtown New Albany. Since its opening, multiple restaurants have moved in and turned the once-tired area into a lively entertainment and retail district. Baylor said BSB also needed to adjust better to the neighborhood competition and play to its own strengths: great beer and socializing.

Changes coming at NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse.

Just the facts for now. Here is the press release making the rounds, explaining that Bank Street Brewhouse henceforth will be a taproom and not a restaurant. I have the distinct impression that I'll be answering the phone quite often these next few days, and I'm eager to begin plotting the next course. We'll be leaving some things behind, even as numerous fresh possibilities are opened. Reinvention is liberating, so stay tuned.

---

Changes coming at NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse.

“You could knock me over with a feather, because it turns out that the numbers don’t lie, after all.”
--NABC co-owner Roger A. Baylor

Effective Tuesday, May 13, the New Albanian Brewing Company will indefinitely suspend food service at Bank Street Brewhouse, its downtown New Albany location.

NABC’s brewing operation and our original location at the Pizzeria & Public House are entirely unaffected by these changes.

In the days to follow, we’ll remain open for business (exact schedule TBA) for “beers only” while planning, painting and remodeling, and BSB will continue to regularly function as the brewery’s downtown New Albany taproom – altered yet ongoing.

The future taproom format will include NABC beers served on site, and NABC beer for carry-out in growlers and 22-oz bomber bottles. We’re planning an expanded souvenir shop. There will be enhanced opportunities to use the facility as a venue and host for special events.

There may even be nibbles at some point, and we hope to play an ancillary role in animating food truck culture in New Albany, but we don’t intend to be a restaurant as before.

That phase has passed, for now.

Long live the many fond memories.

We had a great five-year run at BSB, and did our bit to shepherd the process of revitalization in downtown New Albany. We actually accomplished many of our aesthetic and ideological goals, but now we need to indulge in some updating and reinvention of our own, because the targets have moved and the competitive climate always is changing -- as it pertains both to the food and drink scene in downtown New Albany, and the market for better beer at home and in the world outside.

We must change along with the rest, and so we will. We intend to remain part of the downtown fabric, just differently than before. It’s a reinvention, not a departure.

Profuse and sincere thanks to everyone who supported the founding BSB concept, whether employee or customer. We are grateful.

Rock on.

Roger Baylor
Kate Lewison
Amy Baylor

One surreal afternoon at a rental property on Spring Street.

There was a weird occurrence about a week ago. At 3:00 a.m., an ambulance and three fire trucks loudly converged on the rental property directly across the street. I was awakened, expecting the meth lab to blow at any minute. Why else would there be three trucks? But I went back to sleep, and forgot about it.

Yesterday, an ambulance, single fire truck and police car arrived there around 2:00 p.m. Eventually they left, with the policeman staying longer than the other two. An hour and a half later, I looked outside and saw a van-like vehicle out in the middle of the street, angling to back in toward the house. In due time, two men who could have been Jehovah's Witnesses or undertakers unloaded a gurney, then a body bag.

Into the rental property they went, and then out they came again, with the body bag now filled. It was heaved onto the gurney, strapped down, and loaded back into the van. They drove off.

It was surreal, especially since I was preparing to walk down the street and preside over an important meeting at Bank Street Brewhouse.

On Mac Spainhour and the independents.

On the same day as a meaningless, hegemonic two-party partisan primary financed by the 87% skipping it, Mac Spainhour declared for Clark County sheriff as an independent.

Mac's a stand-up guy, and if I lived in Clark County, he'd get my support. His candidacy points yet again to the stifling inadequacies of America's two-party duopoly, and raises questions of independent campaign viability along the lines of those discussed in On the Avenues two weeks ago.

Hmm; 600-odd signatures. That's not hard at all. Here are two excerpts. First, the lead:

Spainhour enters Clark County sheriff’s race; Independent candidate gets community support, by Gary Popp (The Eclectic Observer)

JEFFERSONVILLE — Mac Spainhour is officially in the race for Clark County sheriff.

He filed a petition Tuesday with more than 650 signatures collected from area residents that allows him to enter the race as an independent candidate.

To become eligible to file as an independent, Spainhour said he was required to get 636 signatures, or 10 percent of the votes cast in the most recent Indiana Secretary of State election.

Spainhour, 53, Clarksville, retired from the Department of Natural Resources in 2011, after serving more than 27 years as a conservation officer in Clark County. He said he’s running as an independent because he believes that strict partisan ideologies can result in inefficient governing.

Now, try imagining a candidate in Floyd County conceding publicly that diversity is stimulating.

Spainhour said he has even been inspired by his own campaign committee, which is as diversified as it is dedicated.

“They are from different political parties, races and genders and it is really, really cool,” he said. “It makes you believe that the system can work. That people can get things accomplished. It is a great feeling to see Democrats and Republicans coming together.”

Good luck to Mac. I met him at IU Southeast, and he always had a clear idea of who he is and what he wants to be. He'd make a fine sheriff, assuming Clark Countians can get past that ridiculous "Democratic vs. Republican" impediment.

Speeding as it is facilitated by the city's street design.

New Albany's one-way streets are built to encourage lawlessness, to which the city responds by utterly flaccid enforcement, issuing as many as one speeding ticket a day in the entire city, if that.

Is it that the people we elect (and the ones they appoint) are this astonishingly uncomprehending, or they simply don't care?

Apart from the seemingly bottomless vapidity of Bob Caesar, exactly where is the opposition to law enforcement and street reform? Can anyone find it? Hint: Look first at the Democratic Party's politburo.

The following account is provided by Bluegill, and was posted at Fb on Saturday morning.

I drove up New Albany's Market Street about 11:15 last night doing the speed limit. I was passed like I was sitting still on every block from 7th to 14th. Why? Because the other drivers had an extra lane going the same direction and faced no oncoming traffic. Their decision to speed was well facilitated by the City. If Market Street were two-way and there was oncoming traffic present restricting the ability to pass, my adherence to the speed limit would've meant that everyone behind me would've been adhering to it, too, whether they liked it or not. Without even getting into issues of sprawl subsidy, multimodal use, and the like which could be easily fixed as well, those sorts of things are not difficult to figure out.

Here is how the ABA's Kentucky Colonels lead to the NBA and Donald Sterling, and it isn't pretty.

Bear with me. I'll begin with an article that isn't about sports, but opens with a look back at the scene almost 40 years ago when the Kentucky Colonels, owned by fried chicken magnate John Y. Brown (and his wife at the time, Ellie), won the team's only American Basketball Association championship against its arch rival, the Indiana Pacers.

A tale of three cities: Is Louisville keeping up with its neighbors to the north and south?, by David A. Mann (Louisville Business First)

It was May 22, 1975.

Perhaps the best of times.

A crowd of 16,622 filed into Freedom Hall that evening to watch the Kentucky Colonels host the Indiana Pacers for the fifth game of the 1975 American Basketball Association championship finals.

The Colonels were ahead 3-1 in the best-of-seven series going into that Thursday night affair and were looking to close the deal. A few nights earlier the team had traveled to Indianapolis only to be dealt a 94-86 loss.

Denied again. But not for much longer ...

 ... That night fans in Freedom Hall celebrated feverishly after the Colonels won a 110-105 win to claim their first and only ABA championship.

Team owner Ellie Brown and then-Gov. Julian Carroll took to mid-court for a trophy presentation. And the crowd roared for players including Dan Issel, Artis Gilmore and Louie Dampier ...

The ABA's "merger" with the NBA came a year later, and the Colonels were not part of it, primarily because the wheeling, dealing sleazebag Brown had other machinations in mind. Bizarrely, there are fewer than six degrees of separation between the long-dead Kentucky Colonels and currently besieged Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, via a man named Irv Levin ... as illustrated here.

Clippers for Sale, and the Owner Who Was Desperate, by John Branch (New York Times)

 ... So, between meetings, (Levin) worked out a deal with John Y. Brown, the owner of the (Buffalo) Braves.

Brown had made his fortune by buying Kentucky Fried Chicken from Harland Sanders in the 1960s, turning it into one of the country’s top fast-food chains, then selling it. He then owned the A.B.A.’s Kentucky Colonels. With Coach Hubie Brown and players like Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore, they won the 1975 A.B.A. championship.

But rather than spending several million dollars to join the N.B.A., Brown had accepted $3 million from the league to fold the Colonels. The money had helped him buy the Braves.

The Braves made the playoffs three years in a row, from 1974 to 1976, under Coach Jack Ramsay with a roster that included Bob McAdoo, Randy Smith and Ernie DiGregorio.

But by 1978, after two years of hands-on ownership by Brown, they were losing and looking to move. Dallas, Miami, Birmingham, Ala., and Minneapolis were reported as possible destinations.

Levin and Brown had a brazen plan: Swap franchises. Brown would get the Celtics. Levin would get the Braves and move them immediately to San Diego. No money would change hands. The deal was announced on June 29, 1978.

Later, Sterling bought the Clippers from Levin, promised to keep the team in San Diego, and promptly moved it to Los Angeles, where he enjoyed exactly one winning season in his first 23 years at the helm, while making money hand over fist ... not unlike a slumlord.

Brown's career as a soulless huckster, ranging from disgusting franchised fast food to inept sports management -- and not to forget a thoroughly dismal term as governor of Kentucky -- has always repelled me, but in the context of the preceding, deals engineered by Brown (Colonels to Braves to Celtics), Levin (he made money off the Clippers sale, after all) and Sterling (a $13 million investment now is worth close to a billion) pale in comparison with the all-time champions, Ozzie and Daniel Silna, who quite literally have made money from nothing.

255 million reasons why this is the shrewdest deal in American sports history.