ON THE AVENUES: PourGate (the Great Beer Pour War of 2013): "Kneel and Kiss My Ring, You Degraded Alcoholic."

Last evening (1 December 2020) two of three Floyd County Commissioners declined to certify another four-year term for Dr. Thomas Harris as county health officer. 

John Boyle has the story at 89.3 WFPL, noting "none of the three commissioners, all Republicans, discussed the matter before the vote, and all have been vague about their reasoning to move away from Harris, the county’s top health official."

Speaking for myself, I've no complaints about Dr. Harris's handling of pandemic-related. He may have done too little, but that's a result of the right wing's hold on state government; doing anything at all in a proactive sense during a public health emergency automatically placed Harris far above every other county and city official of either major political party in this miserably reactionary vicinity.

ON THE AVENUES: Doc Harris and the Commissioners at the No Clue Corral.

Yet again, a complete lack of transparency and openness on the part of local elected officials means we must read tea leaves as to the whys and wherefores, but there is one scenario that might rationally explain the tight lips of the commissioners, and this is the expectation of a lawsuit (or multiple lawsuits) against the county pertaining to the workplace environment at the health department. 

This has been a persistent rumor for a long time, and allow me to stress that while there is no proof, such an eventuality would justify the prevailing reticence. As a caveat, let it be understood that none of this is to be construed as criticism of the front line health department workers. The shop floor is working hard. As oft times before, we speak here of upper management's inadequacies, and the buck stops with Dr. Harris.

Recalling the dominance of the Republican Party in Floyd County government, as opposed to Democratic Party control of the city of New Albany, the Green Mouse asked around and was told in essence that behind-the-scenes factions have been applying pressure for Dr. Harris' removal. 

At the risk of oversimplification, these factions comprise a center-moderate wing (yes, it does exist) with at least one candidate in mind, and the lunatic fringe of pandemic-denying Trumpist idolatry (you KNOW they exist). The position of the commissioners seems to be that whomever is inserted into the job by the health department's board will pay sufficient heed to COVID automatically, as if by magic, leaving them to juggle factions and tend to their own warring power elites.    

So it goes, and here we are. I've expressed support for Dr. Harris, and see no reason to backtrack, but now it's moot. More than one reader expressed shock and amazement with regard to my advocacy of Dr. Harris amid this politics-first kerfuffle, no doubt recalling PourGate, the Great Beer Pour War of 2013, when he tried to grab authority that wasn't his for the taking, and was rebuffed at every level of state government, rightfully so. 

Let's revisit.

On June 14, 2013, the New Albanian Brewing Company was peaceably vending beer at Bicentennial Park, by means of a supplemental catering permit issued by the company's governing agency, the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission.

The Floyd County Health Department arrived and said that NABC also needed a temporary food serving permit.

I said no, that's entirely incorrect. They persisted and a two-year-long struggle commenced. For a complete compendium of NAC links telling the excruciating story of PourGate, go here:

May 20, 2015: PourGate 2013: It took two years, but this new law silences Dr. Tom Harris and the Floyd County Health Department.

It's all plague under the pustules now, but don't be surprised if this inscription appears on my tombstone: "He Helped Vanquish the Health Fascists in the Great Beer Pour War, Then Died Anyway, Just Like Everyone Else."

To connect PourGate with the current situation, especially the recurring gossip about Dr. Harris' management style, here's a reprint of what remains the single most read "guest column" in the blog's history (August 1, 2013). Say what you will about my reputation for stridency, but the fact is that I can have a conversation with just about anyone on any side of this or the other divide. 

Except Dr. Harris. Insert "shrugging" emoji here.

---

ON THE AVENUES:  "Kneel and Kiss My Ring, You Degraded Alcoholic."

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor. Today's guest columnist is Dr. Thomas Harris.

In the interest of fairness, I've invited Dr. Tom Harris, much decorated generalissimo of the Floyd County Health Department, to write this guest column offering his side of the recent unpleasantness. Looking at the whole situation dispassionately, Dr. Harris and I have quite a lot in common. Both of us were born, grew up, went to school, and received college degrees. I'm a professional in my field, as he is in his. In fact, it is to be imagined that we undulate, conjugate, ejaculate and defecate in similar ways, if not exactly the same -- unless, of course, he’s a space alien, and he is, and so the following is satire, pure and simple.

If you assume I’ll begin this essay by thanking a lowly brewer for affording a rebuttal to his serial insolence, think again.

One should never assume -- you'll make an ass out of yourself, certainly not me, because after all, I'm a doctor. The grandeur of my medical world view inevitably comes with the position, i.e., the rarefied territory of my critical role as guarantor of public health and safety.

The rest of you should just get the hell out of my way.

Let's get right down to brass tacks. Baylor, how dare you suggest that beer and brewing constitutes a “profession” in the same sense as a board-certified emergency medical pioneer like me. Every single day, our trained medical elites soothe suffering and save lives.

And you? You slouch at the tavern, sink into your cups, ruin your liver and foster bitterness toward those laudable over-achievers who possess my skill set and sheer dedication to public health and safety – whether the public understands any of it or not.

Because they seldom do, and mine is a tireless task, indeed.

It probably has escaped your notice, since not one of you care very much about public health and safety, not to mention your own disgusting standards of personal hygiene, but vast numbers of our fellow Americans are clueless sheep wallowing in a medieval squalor of bacteria. If not for the efforts of selfless heroes like me, you'd doubtless be bathing daily in your own raw sewage.

You really must see yourselves some time. Your filthy, germ-ridden body parts hang flabby and exposed from inadequate, scant clothing. You continue to smoke cigarettes even after we kicked you outside. You have sex before you’re married, refuse to use condoms, decline to exercise, and “dine” regularly on Big Gulps and Fritos. Any of you ever met a whole fried chicken, deep-fried Twinkie or fat-laden burger you wouldn’t stuff by the dozen into your gaping pie holes? I didn’t think so.

We try our best to ban all these substances that hurt you, but do you thank us? No, you just keep babbling about your right to determine your own destiny and live your own lives, as though we can tolerate free will when pathogens are everywhere. What have we become in America, a nation of philosophers?

And when it comes to the crux of the recent episodes, and why on earth we’d need anyone’s permission at all to regulate temporary beer pouring or any other activity deemed appropriate for saving you from yourselves, has it ever occurred to any of you that all of these dreadful materials you insist on ingesting are manufactured by food producers with an even lower opinion of you than me?

Furthermore, they have absolutely no respect for us as regulators and preservers of public health and safety. Every single one of those restaurants, lunch counters, taquerias, hot dog stands, food trucks, bistros and sushi joints bring in money hand over fist.

Do you think for one moment that local government funds the health department the way ordinary people throw money at some guy wrapping bacon around a cream puff? Not that local government has any money, because a lower tax burden is better for all of us, and the more golf you play, the more you know that if not for the GOP, we’d have even less funding for inspections. But we’re all white folks here, and I needn’t remind you of your obligations.

That’s what galls me about my own health department board being all namby pamby and saying Baylor doesn’t have to pay fees for his temporary permits.

When I said during the hearing that money doesn’t matter, what I meant was that I know far better how money matters and doesn’t matter than any of you cretins. As without doubt the leading element in society, we doctors are in the best position to make such judgments, and that’s why this whole shakedown started, anyway, because if New Albany’s mayor says it’s okay for ambulances to go to any hospital, and not be forced to use Floyd Memorial, then how’re we going to maintain the monopoly … er, I mean the monopoly on public health and safety, of course.

Why can’t you pathetic maladroit plebes grasp what I’m telling you? After me, it’s the deluge. You prattle on and on about answers, and how you’re entitled to the truth about the health department’s comprehensive program to control what goes down your gullets, so let me tell you something.

You can't handle the truth!

Baylor, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with syringes. Who's gonna do it? You? Lee Cotner? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for the ATC, and you curse the health care supermen. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that my random personal opinions about food safety, while unsupported by Indiana law or precedent, saves lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at beer parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall.

We use words like "honor," "that’ll be $20," and "superior intellect." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a drunkard who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very public health and safety that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up some hand sanitizer and stand the post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think you're entitled to!

I do the job I was chosen to … and you're god damn right I made it all up on a whim! Now, be a good little boy and obey your elders.

After all, there’s no pluralism in a foxhole, juvenile.

---

November 30: ON THE AVENUES: A few thanks to give as we eagerly await Trump's forthcoming eviction.

November 24: ON THE AVENUES: Doc Harris and the Commissioners at the No Clue Corral.

November 15: ON THE AVENUES: Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon (The Big Bang Remix).

November 7: On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after. 

ON THE AVENUES: A few thanks to give as we eagerly await Trump's forthcoming eviction.

Consider it a quasi-retired blogger’s fallback credo in times of holiday-inspired gluttony.

"Cutting and pasting leaves more time for mandated eating and drinking."

Over a period of years, I'd pause only momentarily to update the previous Thanksgiving Day column before rushing off to Vietnam Kitchen for the Baylor family’s holiday tradition of K-8 or clay pot catfish, and often both.

Ironically, this habit of appending something topical to hurriedly regurgitated past musings soon came to resemble the procedure at family gatherings occurring throughout the nation during this uniquely American celebration.

Unfortunately, Vietnam Kitchen ceased being a factor in 2015, when the restaurant commenced a fresh tradition of its own and began closing on Thanksgiving Day. 2016 found us vacationing in Catania, Sicily, where I swapped Southeast Asian staples for Pasta alla Norma, followed by a delectable mixed grill of horse meat.

With each bite I dreamily pondered revisionist Kentucky Derby thoughts.  

Abroad again in 2019 (be still, my throbbing heart), our Thanksgiving meal was taken at Gostilna Pri kolovratu, a cafe and eatery in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Located strategically opposite the cathedral, this restaurant dates to 1836 and has been recently revitalized by new ownership. 

The food at Gostilna Pri kolovratu was impeccable: barley soup with sausage; Vodnik salad from the 1799 "classic" Slovene cookbook (local greens, beets, cauliflower, hard boiled egg); lamb knuckle (sun-dried tomato and balsamic reduction); ribeye steak. The wine was Slovene merlot and the parting glass Pelinkovac, a bitter herbal liqueur. We actually had our dessert of Prekmurska gibanica (layered cake) and štruklji dumplings earlier in the day while strolling, not realizing an evening return was in the offing.

This year we'll be cooking at home with the help of a stuffed, deboned turkey from Taylor Cajun Meat Company, and to prepare for the task I've already gone to the store — the package store, that is. No sense interfering with THAT most noble and enduring of traditions. I have been, and always shall be, a practitioner of the drinking arts, whether on Thanksgiving or any other delightfully pagan day.

---

It will surprise no one to learn that it isn't my habit to "give thanks" in clichéd terms to non-existent deities using code language I personally find meaningless, although from each according to his credulity, to each according to his needs.

This isn’t to imply that I refrain from thankfulness.

Top billing goes to Diana, who is my rock, followed closely by friends both old and new. They comprise a diverse extended family and are greatly appreciated. With the advent of Pints&union in 2018, the family has grown.

I can’t put into words what this pub-building experience has meant to me. In the aftermath of my career at NABC, it was understood that a stint in the wilderness would be necessary to purge and cleanse. Joe Phillips needed a rhythm guitarist, and here I am, doing what I do best. It has been redemptive, and I’m very appreciative.

Three years of civic notoriety as an under-employed dissident and "non-person" afforded me unprecedented opportunities to learn. It felt like a graduate degree without the onerous tuition — and I'm thankful for the education. Any day is wasted without an opportunity to learn, and a whole new stack of books awaits. I've read more of them in 2020 than ever before during a single year, owing to COVID-19 and spending a great deal more time than usual at home. 

Thankfully, we've both made it through the pandemic healthy, so far. 

Overall, I’m constantly reminded of my good fortune after six decades on this planet. There has been lots of dumb luck, and I’ve also “made” some of my own breaks. Serendipity and opportunism both have played roles. I’ve worked, worried, absorbed and forgotten in equal measure, with time still on the clock for restorative boreassing.

Balance. That’s always the most important thing.

For a quarter-century, until the ownership coalition at NABC dissolved, I was able to make a living from drinking beer, most often in my natural preferred habitat of the public house. It was a business, but at the end of the day intangibles and ideas mattered far more to me.

They still do, which is another reason the Pints&union gig is such a good fit.

Being in a position to educate and challenge always was the real motivation, because the pub truthfully remains the poor man’s university. I tried to make my former workplace perform this function as often as humanly possible, and I’m doing my level best to reformat the experience at our new venue. 

What we've learned at Pints&union this year amid the pandemic's many foundational challenges has been a post-graduate course in survival. It isn't over, but Joe has put us in a very good place to make it through to whatever follows. 

One thing I don’t regret at all is the absence of filthy lucre. 

There were times when a higher percentage of it might have been useful, but I remain a reluctant capitalist. I've never been rich and likely never will be, but I’m delighted to stand on my record when it comes to teaching, agitating, creating lasting memories and trying to get to the heart of the matter – whether it’s beer, localism, travel, complete streets, running for mayor, music or all the above, tied together as they should be, sensibly and coherently, because absolutely nothing exists in a vacuum.

Legacies needn’t depend on wealth. They’re about doing what you can, while you can, as best you can, and producing a body of work impervious to calculations of interest, percentages and historical revisionism. Twenty years on, if someone smiles because they recall good times at the pub, then it’s the very best return on my time and investment.

---

As an aside, there aren’t many parts of my first career in business that I genuinely miss. It was time to go, and I went.

However, I do miss some of the crazy things we were able to organize during the “imperial” period, such as Saturnalia, the annual celebration of winter seasonal and holiday beers. From 2004, Saturnalia was calibrated to begin each year on the day after Thanksgiving, and to run through Christmas. I liked it far better than Gravity Head.

In pre-Christian Rome, Saturnalia was the annual winter solstice celebration coinciding with the feast days for Saturn (the god of sowing and the harvest), Consus (god of the storage bin) and Opa (goddess of plenty). Many of our contemporary winter holiday traditions derive from Saturnalia’s pagan roots, including the hanging of wreaths and garlands, donations to the needy, prayers for peace, time off work to be enjoyed with family, and of course eating, drinking and merriment.

There was a resonance to Saturnalia because so many fine people return home for the holidaze. It always seemed to me that winter seasonal beers provided the most suitable accompaniment to the joys of reconnecting, sharing war stories, and remembering those who no longer are with us -- the folks I’m very thankful to have known while they were here on earth.

As this column heads for the stretch, it’s time for some boilerplate.

A few years ago in the Jeffersonville Tom May Good News Bugle, I made an observation.

There’s never any better time than Thanksgiving for an iconoclast’s thoughts to be made public.

Naturally, it's futile to expect anyone to read my outpouring of words Thursday, on the holiday itself. Given the inability of many New Albanian readers to wade through my commentary without scratching their heads in confusion, it’s plainly impolite to ask them to waste valuable time gnawing leftovers to engage in a frustrating, household-wide search for seldom-used dictionaries and thesauruses.

But I am nothing if not stubborn, so let’s revisit the notion of “iconoclast”:

1. A breaker or destroyer of images, esp. those set up for religious veneration.

2. A person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., as being based on error or superstition … rather like your humble correspondent.

Regular readers know my heroes have always been iconoclasts. From Socrates through Tom Paine, and not exempting 20th-century polemicists like H. L. Mencken, there’s nothing as thrilling as an iconoclast taking a headlong swipe at unexamined assumptions.

The most wonderful aspect of iconoclasm is that personal dissipation does not pre-empt the message. It actually may enhance it.

Consequently, it is my duty to remind you that Thanksgiving, while perfectly enjoyable from a hedonist’s standpoint, and wholly conducive to this bibulous trencherman’s standards, actually stands for something of importance.

This certain “something” isn’t the prevailing pastel-colored viewpoint of Puritans and Natives merrily gathering for a quaint New England picnic, pausing only occasionally from the consumption of corn chowder and non-alcoholic cranberry wine to pray before their respective deities.

The need for apologetics aside, and whether or not Squanto miraculously facilitated a peaceful first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock, the subsequent history of the white man on the North American continent featured the unabated slaughter of Native Americans, incessant pillaging of the environment, and an exculpatory doctrine of “manifest destiny” interwoven with prevailing religious belief, as intended to ease the consciences (if any) of those pulling the triggers.

We’ll leave the open approval of African-American slavery, emanating for many generations from Christians occupying American pulpits, for another day of faux “thanks.”

In the context of real American history, and to the exclusion of mythology and wishful thinking, the holiday we term “Thanksgiving” is ironic, to say the very least. I prefer reflections on all human history to be in accordance with the record, and as events actually occurred, without the tidying impulse to obscure and sanitize them.

I accept that people in all places and times do what they can with what they have, and believe that the best we can hope for is to learn from the past in the hope of learning worthwhile lessons and avoiding mistakes. In my opinion, the worst error of all is to misrepresent the historical record to justify theological needs.

Like what happened to Jeff Speck’s traffic study when it finally was “implemented” beyond recognition for maximum monetization by New Albany's resurrected, non-book reading Orwellian cadres.

Yes, I observe Thanksgiving, too. It’s just that I do so realistically, dispensing with personality cults and fake facts.

Meanwhile, America’s Christmas shopping season started on July 4, and it will reach a crescendo on the day frenzied pop culture vultures have dubbed Black Friday.

Pavlov’s overworked and fever-ridden mutt can be expected to salivate continuously as university economics school analysts (I’m gazing at you, IU Southeast) read imported tea leaves to guess whether holiday season retail sales will be sufficient to keep Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot and Meijer’s solvent for another year as Amazon’s dark clouds continue to roll ever closer toward a One Store State.

I prefer the idea of Plaid Friday, and shifting my shopping to independent small businesses. But at least there’s food on Thanksgiving, even if the Vietnamese joints are all closed. Iconoclasm aside, I always enjoyed the traditional Norman Rockwell bird-spread. This year we'll enjoy a scaled-down version. In 2021, who knows? 

After all, to each his and her own tradition. May yours be peaceful, and not harmful to others.

As they say in Haiphong: Một hai ba, yo! The phrase means "cheers" -- or maybe it's "someone bring me the leftovers."

---

November 24: ON THE AVENUES: Doc Harris and the Commissioners at the No Clue Corral.

November 15: ON THE AVENUES: Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon (The Big Bang Remix).

November 7: On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after. 

October 8: ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult. 

October 1: ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential. 

ON THE AVENUES: Doc Harris and the Commissioners at the No Clue Corral.

Ah, the foolish delusions of youth.

Displaying the guileless eagerness of a fresh military recruit going into battle for the very first time, I began attending New Albany city council meetings in 2005, concurrently submitting to engagement in all sorts of grassroots public meetings.

After a few months thrashing through this stinking, fetid swamp, my only goal in life became finding a nice, dry branch to hang on to.

My persistence in indulging this gavel-pounding, head-throbbing, BDSM-like fetish for social dysfunction subsequently extended far past the point when most normal people would have been forcibly loaded onto the padded taxi for a no-expenses-paid visit to Fantasy Island.

It’s a testament to my sheer, stubborn cantankerousness that I never became one of the zombie drones, although not unlike formaldehyde, copious quantities of beverage alcohol certainly helped preserve my sanity.

Then in 2019, lest the gateway martinis lead me down a path to heroin, I withdrew from the fray. After 15 years, I finally reached a sensible conclusion that as long as undemocratic Democrats ruled the municipal roost, there’d never be improvement. Rehabilitation proceeds apace. 

But those outlandish nightmares of King Larry Kochert ogling my leotards?

They’ll last forever.

One lesson from this era of trauma and self-harm also stays with me, because whenever Floyd County politicians belonging to either major political party suddenly cite an alarming lack of information as a reason to delay acting, even when the vital information deemed essential has reposed for weeks and maybe months atop a case of Bud Light Kumquat-A-Rita in their dens—in Bob Caesar’s case, immediately adjacent to the “missing” crate containing his Bicentennial Commission financial records—it invariably leads to two closely related outcomes.

Their sleeves are being tugged by self-appointed pillars (read: fixers) of the community … and as a result, an embarrassing retrograde maneuver is in the offing.

Given my pre-retirement history of gleefully exposing the dismal antics of New Albany's DemoDisneyDixiecrats, currently extinct beyond city limits, many heads will be nodding in anticipation of the usual verbiage directed against Adam’s Ants. 

Not this time. 

Instead, let’s take a journey to the other side of the aisle, and consider our information-deprived county commissioners, Republicans all: Shawn Carruthers, John Schellenberger and Tim Kamer. 

---

Dear reader, unless you’re a complete imbecile, you've grasped with clarity and certainty that the COVID-19 pandemic has entered a particularly gruesome stage as the holiday season approaches.

Consider the self-inflicted wounds of Indiana’s governor, Eric Holcomb. After more than seven months of futility spent trying to thread the GOP’s culture-wide needle of pandemic denial, even as his predecessor Mike Pence stood off to the side, maskless, breathing vapid scripture into his eyeglasses, Holcomb opened, then partially closed, and finally conceded his own impotence in declaring a new color-coded system to put COVID mitigation measures into the hands of local county officials.

Just think how much Holcomb’s late autumn devolution might have helped had it been implemented in April. Perhaps he was frightened by the Libertarian insurgency in the gubernatorial race. Pence might have been distracted by the need to find a new job. None of it would matter if not for the potential for a worse pandemic than we already experienced, and presently are witnessing.  

Now, in November, for all intents and purposes, COVID-era devolution means that local unelected county officials are being charged with formulating and enforcing policies pertaining to the pandemic.

There’s the rub.

With the vast majority of Indiana’s elected Republicans, as well as a far larger percentage of minority Democrats than you might imagine, all unwilling to risk leadership during an election-year public health crisis, but yearning to preserve their electoral viability for future pandering, the magical solution is to put unpopular decisions in the hands of folks like Dr. Thomas Harris, chief of the Floyd County Health Department.

Frequent readers will recall the infamous "Pour Gate" scandal in 2013 (see here for a full account), when Dr. Harris sought to exceed his agency’s statutory limitations and was wrestled to the ground and repelled by a holy coalition of Hoosiers. Obviously, Dr. Harris and I are not bosom buddies, and quite likely won’t ever be.

However, 2013 and 2020 are one hundred and seven years apart.

It was reported last week that Dr. Harris has been approved to serve another term by the health department board, a decision customarily "certified" by the three Floyd County Commissioners (as noted, all are Republican).

However, the certification was tabled, with Kamer, the least experienced commissioner, stepping forward as de facto spokesman to cite the telltale absence of critical information. Carruthers and Schellenberger merely confined themselves to disinterested nods, and transparency crawled off to die.

The optics of the unanticipated delay couldn’t be much worse for the commissioners, given that earlier in the week Dr. Harris has announced tighter pandemic restrictions on restaurants and bars, still more timid than those taken in surrounding states, and yet a step in the right direction.

Unless, of course, you’re among the whack-jobs who still deny the efficacy of any pandemic restrictions, or the existence of COVID itself. Whether the three commissioners do or don’t embrace science is a question we can’t answer, although their haste in stalling Dr. Harris’s reappointment seems to me an irrefutable clue. After all, one of them is the Republican Party’s county chairman.

Scuttlebutt meanwhile suggests their arms are being twisted by Republican grandees besotted with lunatic fringe Kool-Aid and evangelical Christianity; perhaps Dr. Harris failed to properly fill out the Right to Life questionnaire, or forgot to put a MAGA sign in his yard.

Or, as my friend Occam suggests, it’s exactly as it seems, and local Republicans are terrified lest they be viewed as surrendering to nasty masked liberals who worship George Soros. 

Freedom! Liberty! Mass infections and an early death to grandma! 

Well, you know, the stock market rules.

---

As many of you are aware, I’m employed part-time by a restaurant, and have another part-time job writing about restaurants. When Dr. Harris usurped his department's power in 2013, I spent two years fighting against him, and winning, because he was wrong—and quite a few Republicans agreed, and did the heavy lifting required.

However, I fully support the measures announced last week by Dr. Harris to address the pandemic’s spread. They’re something, as opposed to nothing, and also necessary, as opposed to Disney World.

In point of fact, Harris’s actions during a single day last week shot this unelected official straight to the top of the local leadership board, seeing as leadership from elected officeholders has been even more AWOL than usual since March.

Yes, city council passed a toothless resolution, and two weeks ago, the mayor attached his name to a ludicrously belated social media pronouncement divulging his lightbulb-above-noggin recognition of the pandemic, and urging citizens to mask up and distance themselves. News travels slowly into the shadowy bowels of the bunker, and it only took hundreds of days, but better late than never.

We needn't elaborate as to what local elected Republicans have done concerning COVID, since as Billy Preston once reminded us, nothing from nothing leaves … nothing.

Dr. Harris exercised a semblance of leadership, and his Republican handlers immediately hung him out to dry. It isn’t a coincidence. They inhabit a political belief system that would have exiled Dr. Anthony Fauci before Memorial Day if not checked. Many of them are entangled in religious superstition that would have been right at home in Spain during the Inquisition. We stream music via weird and mysterious invisible waves; they spin 78-rpm discs coated with shellac. 

Dear reader, if you espouse human reason, and respect the veracity of the scientific method, I suggest you query the commissioners as to what sort of petty game they're playing, and who is issuing their marching orders. Their phone numbers are here, although not their e-mail addresses.

Not surprising, is it?

---

November 15: ON THE AVENUES: Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon (The Big Bang Remix).

November 7: On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after. 

October 8: ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult. 

October 1: ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential. 

ON THE AVENUES: Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon (The Big Bang Remix).

Pedestrians being hit by cars is a car problem. Car congestion is a car problem. Noise and air pollution from car exhaust is a car problem. The solution is less space devoted to cars and fewer cars.
-- Momifornia on Twitter

Nawbany was awash in cascading waves of irony the past week, and seeing as we’re not the sort of city that appreciates the variety of honesty that irony elicits, my brief return from internal (infernal?) exile is merited.

According to reliable reports on social media, it appears that Mayor Jeff Gahan was involved in an automobile accident on Monday afternoon at the contested intersection of Klerner Lane and Mt. Tabor Road.

First and foremost, we believe no one was hurt. Had there been an injury, and if any of it had been relayed by the picked-over carcass of deceased local media, I would not discuss the accident in this space. 

So, disclaimers aside, it was reported that on Monday the armored mayoral SUV (Nawbany lacks Saudi-sized oil reserves, but galdurn it, we have a sewer utility cash cow) t-boned a smaller car, with a photo clearly showing the mayor talking on his cell phone, probably with Rudy Giuliani (or the city attorney, whichever one picked up first), and absent the pandemic face covering timorously beseeched by his safely captive city council.

The witness who broke the story added that the mayor then left the scene before police arrived.

Wait -- you may be asking, “forget bad driving, Roger, but why is the intersection contested”?

Thanks for asking.

Originally the mayor sought to place a roundabout at this precise location, as part of a barely plausible multi-million dollar “improvement” project for Mt. Tabor Road, which local residents spent something like five years contesting, at their own expense, accurately characterizing it as an expensive boondoggle, constructed in such a way as to attract even more speeding cut-through traffic in a residential area, thus contradicting the claims of proponents in City Hall (and nowhere else) that traffic would be slowed and calmed for all time.

These neighborhood advocates, those fated to live adjacent to the “improvements,” felt strongly that with increased traffic there’d be even more instances of vehicular mayhem, a prediction scornfully rejected by the mayor, who blamed partisan politics, and in essence asked residents whether they believed the mayoral clique or their own two eyes.

As documented during the past two years, and now proven in 2020 by the automobile-supremacist mayor himself, their own two eyes proved plenty accurate. 

 

Naturally the residents were never once asked whether they wanted road “improvements.” The project was imposed from above, by the elites.

Welcome to Nawbany, pilgrim -- and if you don’t have a car, you’re not really welcome at all. 

---

In fact, as this baleful year of 2020 limps to the finish line, motor vehicles of all stripes are moving way too fast all over town.

In response, City Hall continues to insist with a straight face that we should believe the increasingly illusory, North Korean-style press releases, which breathlessly laud the unprecedented achievement of universal street grid calming and pervasive lawfulness, as achieved throughout the city by the shining wonder of perfect governance.

But I live on Spring Street, and can attest that these claims are utterly fictitious, or as my father might have put it, “bullshit.”

Apart from obvious examples like chronic speeding at all hours of the day, there’s the noisy and disruptive HyperCar auto polishing and sales lot located in my East Spring Street neighborhood, which in the beginning claimed it would be servicing cars only, and not selling cars, at least for a very long time, but forgot the promises almost immediately as city officials yawned, and currently has so many fancy souped-up race cars crammed into its lot that some of them must always be parked (illegally) on 13th Street, with HyperCars employees and customers getting their jollies by taking all these cars on cacophonous spins around the block, dozens of times each day, while shifting, revving, squealing tires, screeching and emitting bursts of metallic flatulence that I’m guessing combine to produce something akin to an orgasm.

As such, and in an instance of profound irony that comes close to matching the mayor’s Mt. Tabor mishap, on Thursday evening one of hyper-diaper’s cars parked illegally on 13th Street was creamed by a hit-and-run driver, who paused long enough for nearby residents to emerge from their homes and chase the fleeing driver to Market Street.

I considered risking bad karma by laughing my ass off, but didn't. A better response is crying in frustration at the perennial backwardness displayed by Nawbany.

Here we are in Midtown, supposedly a municipal showplace for genteel “blue” progressivism, and instead of urbanism we have hyperactive race cars on one side of Spring at 13th, and the failed candidate Oxendine’s clown-car discount funeral home on the other.

And our presumed neighborhood leaders? They’re AWOL, as always.

---

What makes the irony of the mayor’s recent driver’s ed fender bender even more delicious is that it transpired in the yard of a neighborhood resident who helped leaded the opposition to the Mt. Tabor “improvement” project.

She heard the crash and snapped a photo of the two damaged vehicles, with unmasked mayor (literally and figuratively) standing in her yard. Upon publishing the photo of a public event that occurred in front of her house, the ruling elites circled the wagons and commenced slagging, leading to the usual drooling defenses of the mayor as a wonderful human being on a par with Gandhi, or perhaps even the departing humanitarian Donald Trump.

Pfui. It’s all irrelevant.

Again and again I’ve pointed out that quite a lot of New Albany’s foot dragging pertaining to complete streets, walkability and all-purpose urban modernity -- the city’s abject refusal to so much as try leveling the playing field via mobility solutions not reliant on internal combustion engines -- stems from the abysmal and persistent ignorance of elected and appointed public officials who, in effect, have neither been anywhere nor seen anything, and who wouldn’t be caught dead reading a book if the pages slapped them in the face like the palm fronds adorning their hard seltzers.

City Hall has willfully botched these equations ever since Gahan began consolidating power, because power in little-pond Nawbany is about campaign finance funding from pay-to-play skimming, the proceeds from which simply cannot be generated by walking or biking projects. Rather, automobile supremacy equals cash. It’s unfortunate, but true.

At least the mayor now has direct experience of what it’s like to run afoul of city streets he’s done so much to curate in his own image, and I can only hope that some sweet day he’ll take the debacle a step further and attempt to use one of his favored push-button (un)controlled urban crosswalks, with their tiny flashing yellow lights ignored as hot rods roar and tow trucks cruise at 60 mph on “calmed” stretches of Gahanesque speedways, learning in accordance with those of us who walk, and despairing of making it to the other side alive.

Maybe then, at last, he’d grasp the profound disconnect he has imposed on those without cars. Yes, it means he’d have to go out for a walk, and admittedly that’s about as unlikely as a Democratic Party grandee being spotted on a bicycle. But a boy can dream, especially when dreams are all we have in the complete and unmitigated absence of principle.

The errant politician probably won't have to answer for it; his handlers will shelter him, and the super-duper-hyper-racecar place will deny that it creates daily mayhem on residential streets, but I'm just happy with any dent, real or metaphorical, placed in our local default of automobile supremacy.

Maybe we’ll get a clue, some day. After all, even a stopped pre-digital clock is right twice each day.

---

November 7: On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after. 

October 8: ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult. 

October 1: ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential. 

September 24: ON THE AVENUES: Magic and loss. 

September 17: ON THE AVENUES: Stuck inside of Nawbany with the Flanders blues again.

On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after.

What I do want to nudge you to consider is this: everything you are passionate about at the national level has a local analog that needs your attention. 

-- Charles Marohn (Strong Towns; "It's All Local Now")

No, there haven't been any columns lately, and very few posts. This is to be considered a status report. 

As confided previously, this blog is being allowed to wither on the vine. There's a place and time for everything, and 15,000+ posts during 16 years are enough. This particular soapbox is being dismantled. Another will be erected elsewhere, although it will not be entirely the same. ON THE AVENUES will make the transition. Beyond that, I'm unsure.

It is an oft-told story, but worth a quick rehash. NA Confidential arose from my deep frustration with the (seeming) pointlessness of political involvement at the "macro" level of nation state. Hours, days, and years arguing about what should happen "up there," but no real way to be heard or to influence the outcome. It's actually easier that way; it absolves the individual from doing anything about it except talk.

This was in 2004, and as the presidential contest approached (W's re-election would be a bitter disappointment), I decided to look out the front door, down the three-lane, one-way racetrack running past our house, and see what could be done at the grassroots "micro" level. 

As noted, this change of focus played out over an unexpectedly lengthy period. Here's something I wrote at Fb yesterday, as we await confirmation that Trump has been dumped:

I thought this would be an excellent time to announce a return to active local participation, much like the Dick Nixon account at Twitter, given that I feel little different than I did in 2004 when W's re-election turned my interest toward the street outside. 

Then it occurred to me that it took 13 years of local participation to turn this one-way street to two ways. That's right: 13 years. 

Furthermore, since I'm not a Republican and am still effectively blackballed (blackmailed?) into silence by reigning DemoDisneyDixiecrats -- whose stripes haven't changed since Tuesday -- there's no pathway available to me to do much of anything apart from coded commentary, a nice reading list, plenty of alcohol and the occasional sausage. 

Okay, so be it; consequently, the new web site will be called Expatriate in Place, or Open Air Exile, or something like that. I'll be delighted when Trump departs. But it's the same unforgivingly stupid Nawbany outside these four walls.

It appears Joe Biden will win the election, but I'm not "celebrating" one damn thing beyond the singular and profound relief afforded by NOT being compelled to listen to Donald Trump's nonsensical, narcissistic bleating and babbling every single day of my life.

I have almost no confidence that the Democratic Party, as currently configured, can do much of anything positive in the years to come. My position has been, and remains, that in spite of differing appearances, our two major political parties are conjoined in their duopoly. If they both can’t be vaporized at once, one must collapse and the other will soon follow. 

And I don’t care which one goes first.  

Consequently, I have as little interest now, as in 2004, in wasting time debating broad macro topics with no conceivable way of being heard. But locally, the pillars of the community have me effectively blockaded, scourged and blacklisted, primarily because of the past 16 years I've spent reminding them of their tendency to be utterly without clothes (politically and in terms of consciousness, not -- heaven forbid -- in the sense of public nudity).

They're all in favor of truth, until the truth is they're undereducated, incompetent, and in many instances outright venal. It shatters their self-delusions, and they get touchy (but not feely). Tough shit, although I'll concede there's a price to be paid when you're the one spotted holding a ball-peen hammer. 

What happens next? I don't know, and neither do you. 

History has shown, time and again, that absolute certainty is a fool's errand. The pandemic already has proven that everything we take for granted and flip overnight into an entirely different reality. 

So I plan to be loitering around the perimeter for while, working my two jobs, scanning the landscape, and forever mindful of the year 2015, when the incumbent mayor tried ineffectually to take a swipe at me: "Roger’s never done anything in a positive manner to help the city of New Albany.” 

In 2017, I explained why he's completely full of shit in making this assertion, because he never spent a single day in his life being entrepreneurial with his own money, and I mention his haplessly ignorant words now only because they're a powerful reminder that there are numerous ways outside ruling elites, social cliques and "the HWC fix is in" to be involved, accomplish things, make a difference and agitate for change. 

One of my favorite W.C. Fields stories may or may not be true, but it's a good one about the comedian on his deathbed. 

As the end approached, on that Christmas Day in 1946, an old writer-friend named Gene Fowler entered the hospital room and there was Fields, a self-admitted agnostic, thumbing through a Bible. 

 “What are you doing, Bill?” asked the incredulous Fowler. 

 “I’m looking for loopholes,” Fields whispered.  

Pretty much. NAC can die, because it will make the dipshits happy, and as such, it's my loving gift to them. 

Me? I'm looking for loopholes.

Update: NAC is heading for the exits, but we're not there quite yet.

ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult.

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential.

Marc Murphy and Dan Canon on Tuesday's election.

Marc Murphy is an attorney, freelance cartoonist and the editorial cartoonist for the Louisville Courier Journal. His comment appeared at Facebook.

---

Broken.

Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, America is broken in a way the removal of Donald Trump alone cannot fix. In the way cell phone video has exposed the brutal racism of our nation to those who are finally willing to believe with their eyes what our black neighbors have been telling our ears for generations, the pandemic has exposed our economic and social infrastructures for the wealth-serving, draconian frauds they have been at least since the rich convinced the white poor that taxes exist only to build a road to communism. The so-called political “division” hasn’t for a long time been between citizens of good faith with differing strategies to create a better country, there is in most respects now simply a right side, and an irredeemable wrong side.

Even if he loses - and in the unlikely event he concedes without trying to finally execute our democracy - millions upon millions of Americans will have voted for a man who has moved past pretending to care about the truth, about the Constitution, about the world, or about anything other than his own immoral interests. These millions, many of whom you know, work with, attend soccer games with, and even celebrate holiday meals with, will have voted for him for reasons well known and well-explained elsewhere. For some of them increasing their own wealth through the stock market, by lowering taxes, and even by protecting their suburban property values is the limit of their interest in the “politics” they otherwise sneer at because they are insulated from the cruel world for others they help build.

Far more of those millions of Trump voters, however, are either the unwitting victims of the very economic and social strategies they support, or have decided that protecting what has become their white Christian (in name only) world is worth the sacrifice. These are broad descriptions but more detailed analyses paint these voters in no better light: The Catholics, for instance, dishonoring the Church’s social justice - truly Christ-like - tradition by supporting a man and a party who violate the Commandments and The Beatitudes daily in exchange for a so-called Pro-Life vote.

The pandemic rolled into the United States like the Germans into Poland because this nation - without universal health care, without guaranteed basic income, without even a national impulse to care for others institutionally - was quite literally the least-prepared and most vulnerable allegedly developed country on the planet. Not only was there no national strategy there were lies, disorganization and self-interest in its place. The states were left to decide that, ultimately, families and business could ironically only afford to survive the virus financially if they were forced to risk surviving it medically by “opening up”. The simple act of wearing a mask became weaponized and used by the President himself as a way to identify the weak, and his enemies. The United States of America in 2020 decided, quite intentionally, that hundreds of thousands of deaths of mostly old and disproportionately non-white citizens were acceptable collateral damage. Like it always had.

America isn’t great. In its history when it was doing great things it had its foot on the necks of the descendants of slaves and 155 years after the end of the Civil War and even after these last months of marching we expect gratitude because *maybe* there will be revised Use of Force standards or some such thing for the police. The Democratic Party spent hundreds of millions of dollars this campaign cycle supporting candidates who can’t really distinguish themselves from their Republican opponents and even hope to appeal to Trump voters. America doesn’t have a tradition of a true opposition party and that’s why we live less in a democracy and more in an oligarchy, in which power and wealth continues to be more consolidated in the hands of a few, and the systems are perverted to serve only their interests. Interests that pay no taxes, because their private helicopters and 3-ton SUVs don’t need new roads, they pay for their own healthcare and private schools, and they don’t give a shit about you. We should eat cake, they would say.

There are no gallows outside our Bastille. But fundamental change can come through non-violent means and there were candidates this cycle willing to take the first steps down what will be a hard road. “Decency” is nice, but it doesn’t buy a child’s surgery, it doesn’t fix her school, it doesn’t pave her road or provide— how is it I’m writing this in 2020? - clean drinking water. “Decency” doesn’t remake our militarized police departments from the ground up. “Decency” doesn’t make the minimum wage a livable wage. “Decency” tells everyone to be patient. We’ve been patient too long. Hundreds of thousands died because of it, and hundreds of thousands more will. Tuesday has to be a beginning, not the end.

---

Dan Canon lives in the neighborhood. He replied, also at Facebook.

---

Every last word of what Marc Murphy says here. I'm an avowed optimist, but that optimism is very big-picture these days - like, humanity's probably gonna be okay. But America is probably not. I'm looking down the road and trying to spitball outcomes that don't leave us a third-world country with a strongman dictator in another decade (at best), and I don't see very many. Murphy's no cynic. Both of us have had up-close looks at the institutions that run our lives, and they are very, very fucked.

I predict Trump loses on Tuesday, but what happens as a result? What comes after Trump? What happens when the GOP comes up with a younger, healthier, fascist pig - one who's capable of tying his shoes and speaking above a third-grade level?

Rough seas ahead, mates.

Hanson's Folly, updated: There's still no diversity among regular News and Tribune opinion columnists.

I took a gander in February, checked again in June, and updated again circa late August (and posted at Twitter).

Hanson's Folly: There remains a complete absence of diversity among regular News and Tribune columnists. 

Here's a fresh update. Obviously elections bring out the letters to the editor, and so the sample size is slightly smaller than usual for periods of the same length. 

• Letters 20
• White Male Columnists 18
• White Female Columnists 3
• Black Male Columnist 1
• Editorial Board 1

Allow me to calculate (because readers would notice, anyway) that of the 22 opinion columns, whether authored by whites, blacks, males or females, all writers probably are over the age of 50 (with the exception of staffer Daniel Suddeath), and all but one of them are white (95% of column slots).

Back in June, publisher Bill Hanson lamented racial injustice in America and bemoaned his own white "privilege," asking in essence what's to be done? Since then, 80-odd percent or more of his newspapers have continued to be old white people. I'd sugar-coat it if possible, but it isn't possible.

Publisher, heal thyself.  

Here are the screen shots at the News and Tribune's website ("Opinion"), beginning October 8, ending October 30. 

Eliminate jaywalking laws: "The core problem lies with street design, not human behavior."

Yes, we've been here before.

    

Walking is not a crime: Dunman and others on the scourges of jaywalking in auto-erotic America.

Like the jaywalker said: "People don’t obey the rules when they’re driving. Why should I?"

But any little chink to be taken from the imperialistic edifice of automobile supremacy is worth a well-aimed Molotov cocktail here and there. 

9 Reasons to Eliminate Jaywalking Laws Now, by Angie Schmitt and Charles T. Brown (CityLab)

They’ve rarely protected pedestrians, and their enforcement is racially biased. Two street safety experts say there are better ways to curb traffic violence.

On Sept. 23, Kurt Andreas Reinhold, a 42-year-old Black man, was trying to cross a street in San Clemente, California, when two officers from a special “homeless outreach unit” stopped him. An altercation ensued; minutes later, Reinhold, a father of two and down-on-his-luck former youth soccer coach, was shot and killed. In a cellphone video of the confrontation, Reinhold can be heard demanding, “Where did I jaywalk?”

This is a particularly troubling example of a pattern we see all too often. Black and Brown people, especially men, are routinely targeted by police for jaywalking or simply existing in public space. Often these stops result in an escalating series of fines and fees. In other cases — as in San Clemente, as well as in Sacramento, Seattle and New York City — they can end in violence.

Especially at a time when there is intense focus on police brutality and racism, Reinhold’s death should prompt us to pause and consider who is truly served by jaywalking laws. Their effectiveness as safety measures appears to be limited: Despite heavy handed and selective jaywalking enforcement, pedestrian deaths in the U.S. have increased rapidly in the last decade. As two of the top experts on pedestrian safety in the country, we think it is time for cities to consider decriminalizing jaywalking or eliminating the infraction altogether.

Here’s why.

1. Jaywalking is a made-up thing by auto companies to deflect blame when drivers hit pedestrians.
2. The concept of jaywalking encourages drivers to be aggressive toward pedestrians, and for third parties to ignore or excuse pedestrian deaths.
3. Our streets are not designed to make walking safe or convenient.
4. Pedestrians are almost as likely to be struck and killed at an intersection as mid-block.
5. When pedestrians jaywalk, they are often behaving rationally.
6. Jaywalking laws are not enforced fairly.
7. Jaywalking stops are frequently explosive.
8. The focus on jaywalking reflects the lower political status of those who walk — not the societal harm of the activity.
9. The safest countries globally allow jaywalking.

snip

Eliminating jaywalking laws may sound radical, but it’s been discussed before in cities such as Seattle. Other places, like Berkeley, California, are experimenting with new models for traffic enforcement that deemphasize police in favor of crash investigators who are trained to help promote infrastructure changes that improve safety. New York Attorney General Letitia James has advocated for removing police from traffic stops, and a new survey shows a majority of New Yorkers support the idea.

Wider reforms and changes to traffic safety enforcement are needed, from increasing diversity within law enforcement to enhanced data tracking, police training, inclusivity and investment in new social and criminal justice programs. Such efforts must be implemented with a vigilant eye towards reversing existing inequities: Early results from so-called “unbiased” enforcement efforts, such as intelligence-led enforcement, used by cities like Oakland, California, show disparities in traffic stops remain. The time is now, not later, to revisit or eliminate laws like jaywalking that are primarily used as a pretext to stop Black and Brown people — and rarely protected any pedestrians in the first place. 

An absolute fascination with "The 15 Tallest Skyscrapers of Yugoslavia."

If Donald Niebyl created a calendar with these images I'd snatch one up. 

My only visit to Yugoslavia when constituted as such came in 1987, for only a couple of weeks, and these buildings fascinated me, as did the "Spomenik" monuments Niebyl has been chronicling the past few years. This link from March, 2020 also includes a summary of my chronology on the topic.

Farewell to the Hotel Zlatibor in Užice, Serbia ... and further tales of the spomeniks (memorials) in former Yugoslavia.

I've never had a sufficient grounding in architecture to know very much about any of this. But the interest remains just as strong.    

The 15 Tallest Skyscrapers of Yugoslavia

Among the most monumental and landmark structures ever built during the era of Yugoslavia were its many soaring high rise towers and skyscrapers, of which many pushed the envelope of engineering and inspired a nation to look towards the future. While the country of Yugoslavia has ceased to exist for nearly three decades now, the many iconic and charismatic skyscrapers built during that era continue to inspire and speak to not only the old Yugoslav generation, but also the new youth generation who never lived in that former nation, as well as people around the world who are drawn in by their unique and bold architecture. However, for all of the fame and fan-fare surrounding many of these structures, many have barely been written about and few meaningful words dedicated to their history. In fact, my entire impetus for writing this article was that when searching for a listing of the seemingly straightforward query of "what were the tallest buildings of the Yugoslav-era", I found no authoritative articles related to that question or any serious investigation into the topic.

Revisiting Neil Postman's bet on Huxley over Orwell.

My old friend John Campbell posted on Facebook: "Aldous Huxley was right, not George Orwell."

Before repeating John's quoted passage from Neil Postman's 1985 book, here is Postman's son Andrew to explain it, courtesy of The Guardian in 2017.

My dad predicted Trump in 1985 – it's not Orwell, he warned, it's Brave New World

...The central argument of Amusing Ourselves is simple: there were two landmark dystopian novels written by brilliant British cultural critics – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell – and we Americans had mistakenly feared and obsessed over the vision portrayed in the latter book (an information-censoring, movement-restricting, individuality-emaciating state) rather than the former (a technology-sedating, consumption-engorging, instant-gratifying bubble).

Neil Postman, from Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business:

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

"Hotels of Pyongyang," not Summit Springs.

 

The book is Hotels of Pyongyang, by James Scullin and Nicole Reed. I may need to get this one for Christmas.

   

The curious design features of North Korean hotels at The Economist

A book of photography offers an offbeat look at a little-seen city

...the book’s main interest is in the unique design features of the hotels. Even those few Westerners who have ventured to North Korea are unlikely to recognise most of them (the vast majority of visitors to the country are Chinese). Because of the pandemic, North Korea has been off-limits to overseas tourists since the end of January. So, for the moment, those tempted to go—and the many more who never will—can get no closer to a Pyongyang hotel than Ms Reed’s engrossing pictures.

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Welcome to 12 days of a beer world that utterly baffles me.

Last week a friend gave me a bottle of Vienna-style lager from KC Bier Co, a brewery in Kansas City. It's a classic European style, underappreciated and too seldom brewed, as well as delicious. Shortly thereafter I bought a six-pack of Bell's Kalamazoo Stout, the label of which clearly states that the recipe is the original, from 1988. It was absolutely beautiful in its unadorned simplicity. 

 

Yep; tasting is entirely subjective, and it isn't necessary for us to agree. Furthermore, I'm not interested in being the old man with clenched fist railing against creativity. It's your money. Nothing against Rochester Mills; haven't been there, and know no one involved. I hope they make a mint, as opposed to infusing a milkshake stout with it. 

This said, I can think of nothing about twelve variously flavored milkshake stouts that speaks to me. So be it, and we move on. 

By the way, how'd that Red Velvet get in there?  

• Peanut Buttercup Milkshake Stout
• Imperial Milkshake Stout
• King Cake Milkshake Stout
• English Toffee Milkshake Stout
• Imperial Java (Coffee) Milkshake Stout
• Michigan Maple Milkshake Stout
• Gingerbread Cookie Milkshake Stout
• Chocolate Chip Pancake Milkshake Stout
• Imperial Triple Layer Decadence Milkshake Stout
• Red Velvet Ale
• Double Chocolate Milkshake Stout (Revised Recipe with More Chocolate)
• Salted Caramel Milkshake Stout

The full press release is here:

 

Rochester Mills Announces 2020 Twelve Days of Milkshake Stout Release Dates and Contents

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – Craft beer lovers in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana can begin their Holiday shopping and celebrations early with the return of the Twelve Days of Milkshake Stout. Given the popularity and growing consumer demand for this variety pack of beers, Rochester Mills will release their limited holiday edition 12-pack on November 1 online for pick-up at the Production Brewery Taproom in Auburn Hills and at “Better Beer Stores” across their distribution territory. The sampler pack features one, 16 oz. can of each beer in this year’s Twelve-Days of Milkshake Stout draft promotion.

“What began as a crazy idea to take twelve different versions of our Milkshake Stout to twelve bars over twelve days a few years back has grown into a holiday tradition,” said Rochester Mills Marketing Director David Youngman. “It’s the perfect gift for stout lovers, already wrapped and ready to go. Containing one pint of each variant allows you to share and compare with friends or horde for personal enjoyment.”

The Rochester Mills Taproom in Auburn Hills will join more than twenty-five other select premium craft beer bars and restaurants throughout Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana as host locations for the progressive tap takeover event beginning the first week of November. Admission is free and open to the public, ages 21 and up. The progressive tap takeover event will feature the (12) twelve specialty and limited-edition varieties of Milkshake Stout, Rochester Mills’ flagship beer. Each week, beginning the first week of November, two new beers will be tapped and stay on draft until the kegs run dry.