Randy, Doug, & Dan!

This report was originally posted by Lloyd Wimp on his "View From the Highway " site.

Last evening’s New Albany Common Council meeting was unique in a number of ways.

For one, Doug England was present from beginning to end. For another, Carl Malysz was nowhere to be found.

Then there was Mr. Randy Smith who rose to the podium to remind the Council of their historic unwillingness to raise taxes & services rates regardless of the need to do so. He also suggested the budget be frozen at 2007 levels and let the chips fall where they may.

To his credit he managed to not be removed from the room although he did get gaveled out of order by President Gahan later in the evening.

And for the second meeting in a row CM Coffey remained calm, cool & collected. Well for the most part anyway. He voice did raise an octave or two when an employee of the New Albany Housing Authority dared to disagree with him about his memory of the origin and distribution of monies within that entity when he was on their board. (circa the1990’s)

The Mayor (that’d be Doug ‘cause Carl weren’t there) came to the podium to inform the Council that the storm cleanup, although expensive, was for all practical purposes done. That was the good news.

The bad news was that your man Mitch (he sure as hell ain’t mine) has yet to declare our fair county/city a disaster area. Further more, there have been no clear indicators of either when or if he will.

Which brings me to a burning question. Where are the Floyd County Executives (i.e. the Commissioners) in this conversation? Oh wait! Floyd County doesn’t have any infrastructure worth selling off to the highest bidder to further pad the State coiffures does it.

But I’m getting off task here. As a result of the untimely storm, the Governors inaction, and the States tardiness in handling our local budget issues we are in fact up the creek without a paddle.

All that being said the Mayor’s position is that he will work within the legal constraints of the budget monies available. If that means cuts in jobs & reduced services to the public, so be it!

He once again reminded all present that we in New Albany have one of the lowest property tax rates in the State. If I heard correctly our rate is $0.80 per $100.00 of assessed value.

Mayor England went on the say that he would balance this budget because he is legally required to and that his administration would work closely with this Council to formulate a 2009 budget that all can agree to. However at the current tax rate and unless someone can wave a magic wand, freezing the 2009 budget at 2007 levels will result in even more reductions in public services. The dollars just aren’t there.

CM Price of course put forward the same ole same ole of parking take home cars, cutting overtime, restricting cell phone use, etc, etc,……….

The remainder of the evening was spent on first readings of various ordinances pertaining to the 2009 budget.

The most telling of which was R-08-43, a Resolution to Reduce 2009 City Budget to offset State Shortfall. This is basically requiring all city departments (except of course Police, Fire, & Safety Services) to trim yet another 10% from the operating costs.

In the case of the aforementioned Safety Services, that cut was a minimum 12 to 15%. A “Good Luck doing that” sigh was felt across the room.

The mayor stated the if necessary we could expect to see Police administration officials on street patrol duty.

Following my 3rd District Councilman’s lead I suggested to the fire chief that he could save thousands if he were to remove the inside dual tire on all of the fire engines and use PVC couplers & radiator hose clamps to repair damaged fire hoses.

Or better yet, let the houses burn completely to the ground thus saving the Building Commission the costs of demolition after the fact. Hauling off a dump truck load of ashes has to be cheaper and quicker than demolishing a half burnt building.

I know, I know, that ain’t funny. But it is about as realistic as a citizenry demanding $3.00 worth of services while only putting .50 cents in the kitty. Cats & rabbits breed fast enough to replenish themselves but I’ve yet to see even pennies, nickles & dimes do so to the scale we are talking about.

At any rate with the exception of A-08-14, which authorized the spending of a federal grant for a new radio system in the Fire Department and R 08-42 which amounted to a 5 year tax abatement for Rite-Way Industries, the other menu items were in one way or another centered around the budget.

There is a Council work session scheduled for Thursday October 23rd @ 6 PM to discuss the budget (again). The Council requested that city department heads attend this workshop to assist in trimming the fat.

As per Kay Garry, the Council has two more meetings in November to get the details hammered out & agreed to. The drop dead date is December 1st.

Happy New Year New Albany!

Time now for Harvest Hopcoming at the Public House.

It's my blog, and I can shamelessly plug whenever I wanna. Our annual hop adoration ritual begins tonight, featuring ales from all over America and a handful from Belgium.

Lupulin Land Harvest Hopcoming omnibus preview: PR, beer descriptions, links and schedule.

In short, mucho hoppy ale at the Public House for the next two or more weeks.

Tribune unveils weekly "Cheers & Jeers."

Here's an idea with merit ... depending on who does the actual writing.

TRIBUNE CHEERS & JEERS: Oct. 15, 2008

Some people just need a little more praise. Some just need to be called to the carpet. In an effort to do both, The Tribune is bringing you a weekly Cheers & Jeers column in this space to do just that.If you have an idea for a cheer or jeer, e-mail it to Tribune Publisher Steve Kozarovich or mail it to 303 Scribner Drive, New Albany, 47150. We can’t guarantee we’ll use it, but cheers to you for trying.So to kick things off, we’ll start with a Harvest Homecoming edition.

Interesting, although the Tribune may find it necessary to place a cap on the number of times that underachieving city council time servers Dan Coffey and Steve Price can be jeered, lest the narrative spll over into the sports page.

For the hell of it, I have one of each, and if readers wishing to chime may do so. You need not restrict yourself to Harvest Homecoming, but I'll lead off with an HH cheer.

CHEERS

... to the Harvest Homecoming committee for making the effort this year to integrate downtown businesses into the festival, and to all the risk-taking, food 'n' drink entrepreneurs downtown whose "unofficial" efforts enlivened Harvest Homecoming this year. There was good food, drink and music all around, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. In years to come, I see an exciting "after hours" component to New Albany's annual fest.

JEERS

... to the New Albany Tribune for its current roster of guest columnists, which in recent months weeks has featured more embarrassment than enrichment, including attempted satire on the topic of sending barefoot and pregnant women back into the kitchen (Olson); a proposal to restrict the voting franchise to the elderly and taxpayers (Kettler); an incoherent plea to unite church and state owing to the inability of secular authorities to combat "evil" (Johnson); and a "thrash the straw man" attack on a New Atheism that doesn't exist.

Taken together, this right-wing drumbeat has been nothing short of a soundtrack for Leni Riefenstahl's documentary films about the Nurnberg Rallies, and encourages the view that Hoosiers in the southern half of the state have barely made it past Reconstruction in their social and political outlooks.

All of which is true ... but must we draw attention to it so often?

Speaking of Major Move(ment)s ...

With the city council pursuing budget cuts and money tight all around, surely it won't be long until New Albany's sewer system returns to its rightful daily place on the front page. Meanwhile, a new book that is destined to become the ideal Christmas gift for members of New Albany's "Potty Police" is reviewed in this week's issue of The Economist.

Adventures in human waste: Lifting the lid, from the Oct. 9, 2008 edition of The Economist.

DEATH, once referred to in euphemisms, if at all, has been reborn as prime-time television drama. Sex and money are now topics for documentaries, even after-dinner conversation. The last taboo, surely, is shit. The byproducts of digestion are so hard to mention—adolescent jokes aside—that symptoms of bowel cancer are often ignored until it is too late.

But as Rose George explains in this fascinating and eloquent book, there is a great deal that needs to be said about excretion that is not remotely funny. Two-fifths of the world’s population has nowhere to defecate except open ground ...

I wonder if Major Moves is paying the difference?

Anyone for a brief church/state diversion? The hearing described below occurred yesterday, but there is no word yet on outcomes, if any. Speaking for myself, if one must pay to tout the physical environment on a license plate, then surely an equal tithe should be made to make a mockery of church-state separation.

From the Indiana Lawyer website, courtesy of M.

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Court of Appeals to hear license plate arguments in Greencastle
Mon. October 13 - 2008 ... IL Staff

The Indiana Court of Appeals travels to Greencastle Oct. 14 to hear arguments in a case involving Indiana’s “In God We Trust” license plates.

Judges Michael Barnes, Terry Crone, and Margret Robb will hear arguments in Mark Studler v. Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Ronald Stiver, in his official capacity as Commissioner, No. 49A02-0804-CV-385. Mark Studler filed a suit against the Bureau of Motor Vehicles challenging Indiana Code Section 9-18-24.5-1, which authorizes the specialty “In God We Trust” license plate at no additional charge. He contends offering the plate at no fee violates Article I, Section 23 of the Indiana Constitution. Studler had to pay a $40 administrative fee to get his environmental specialty plate.

Studler is appealing the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the BMV. Arguments begin at 10 a.m. at the Walden Inn and Conference Center on the campus of DePauw University, 2 W. Seminary St., Greencastle.

Buckley departs from The National Review: "The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me."

In the wake of his endorsement of Barack Obama, Christopher Buckley has resigned from The National Review, which was founded by his father, the late William F. Buckley.

Hmm.

So much for "laughing at the hypocrisy of all you left-leaning individuals always touting intellectual honesty, tolerance, and freedom of expression."

Looks like that particular malady is afflicting our friends on the right, too. Imagine that. Here's the Buckley piece in its entirety. Thanks to Bayerfan for the tip.

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Buckley Bows Out of National Review, by Christopher Buckley (The Daily Beast).

I seem to have picked an apt title for my Daily Beast column, or blog, or whatever it’s called: “What Fresh Hell.” My last posting (if that’s what it’s called) in which I endorsed Obama, has brought about a very heaping helping of fresh hell. In fact, I think it could accurately be called a tsunami.

The mail (as we used to call it in pre-cyber times) at the Beast has been running I’d say at about 7-to-1 in favor. This would seem to indicate that you (the Beast reader) are largely pro-Obama.

As for the mail flooding into National Review Online—that’s been running about, oh, 700-to-1 against. In fact, the only thing the Right can’t quite decide is whether I should be boiled in oil or just put up against the wall and shot. Lethal injection would be too painless.

I had gone out of my way in my Beast endorsement to say that I was not doing it in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column, because of the experience of my colleague, the lovely Kathleen Parker. Kathleen had written in NRO that she felt Sarah Palin was an embarrassment. (Hardly an alarmist view.) This brought 12,000 livid emails, among them a real charmer suggesting that Kathleen’s mother ought to have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster. I didn’t want to put NR in an awkward position.

Since my Obama endorsement, Kathleen and I have become BFFs and now trade incoming hate-mails. No one has yet suggested my dear old Mum should have aborted me, but it’s pretty darned angry out there in Right Wing Land. One editor at National Review—a friend of 30 years—emailed me that he thought my opinions “cretinous.” One thoughtful correspondent, who feels that I have “betrayed”—the b-word has been much used in all this—my father and the conservative movement generally, said he plans to devote the rest of his life to getting people to cancel their subscriptions to National Review. But there was one bright spot: To those who wrote me to demand, “Cancel my subscription,” I was able to quote the title of my father’s last book, a delicious compendium of his NR “Notes and Asides”: Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman. One of his closest friends on earth was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1969, Pup wrote a widely-remarked upon column saying that it was time America had a black president. (I hasten to aver here that I did not endorse Senator Obama because he is black. Surely voting for someone on that basis is as racist as not voting for him for the same reason.)

My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much. My father was also unpredictable, which tends to keep things fresh and lively and on-their-feet. He came out for legalization of drugs once he decided that the war on drugs was largely counterproductive. Hardly a conservative position. Finally, and hardly least, he was fun. God, he was fun. He liked to mix it up.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Thanks, anyway, for the memories, and here’s to happier days and with any luck, a bit less fresh hell.

Related: Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

A periodic reminder: NA Confidential's mask-free policy on reader comments is explained.

It's time for another brief reminder of our disclosure policy. Thanks to all readers for your support of personal responsibility in the blogosphere.

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Newcomers, please take note.

NA Confidential believes in a higher bar than is customary in the blogosphere, and follows a disclosure policy with respect to reader comments.

First, you must be registered with blogger.com according to the procedures specified. This is required not as a means of directing traffic to blogger.com, but to reduce the lamentable instances of flaming and personal attacks on the part of the anonymous.

Second, although pen names are perfectly acceptable, the senior editor (yours truly) must be informed of your identity, and according to your preference, it will be kept confidential.

To reiterate, I insist upon this solely to lessen the frequency of malicious anonymity, which unfortunately plagues certain other blogs hereabouts.

You may e-mail me at the address given within my profile and explain who you are. Failure to comply means that your comments probably will be deleted -- although the final decision remains mine.

Thanks for reading, and please consider becoming a part of the community here, one that is respectful of the prerequisites of civilized discourse, and that seeks to engage visitors in dialogue.

Roger (senior editor)

Being a Tribune local guest columnist is so easy, a caveman can do it.

... and did, yesterday.

OLSON: Palin-osis spreads among some liberal women, by Doug Olson, Local Guest Columnist

In which a male "former teacher" (ouch) endeavors to speaks for womankind, while in the process pole vaulting over the thin line that separates satire from mean-spirited bile of the sort that currently is poisoning the presidential campaign.

Here’s a sneering snippet.

Palinosis is a near-fatal, always traumatic malady occurring in epidemic proportions among aging, left-wing “feminazis” (a little Rush Limbaugh lingo here) that long ago bought into the notion that all men were sexist pigs bent only on keeping women ignorant, barefoot and pregnant. In other words, women that are suddenly realizing they've been living a toxic lie for the last 30 years or so.

Presumably only Healthblogger is laughing.

The mystery to me is what the newspaper has to gain from encouraging sexist diatribes, but perhaps it’s just another sad measure of how far the level of discourse in America has fallen ... or how few reasonable local people are willing to aply for the position of local guest columnist.

Photo credit: http://www.gigglesugar.com/152917

“William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama.”

Thanks to Bayernfan for pointing to this essay. It deserves full marquee treatment, and is reprinted in its entirety. Photo credit: The Daily Beast.

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Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama, by Christopher Buckley

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

Or would they? But let’s get that part out of the way. The only reason my vote would be of any interest to anyone is that my last name happens to be Buckley—a name I inherited. So in the event anyone notices or cares, the headline will be: “William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama.” I know, I know: It lacks the throw-weight of “Ron Reagan Jr. to Address Democratic Convention,” but it’ll have to do.

I am—drum roll, please, cue trumpets—making this announcement in the cyberpages of The Daily Beast (what joy to be writing for a publication so named!) rather than in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column. For a reason: My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”

As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don’t have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he’s no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you’re reading it here first.

As to the particulars, assuming anyone gives a fig, here goes:

I have known John McCain personally since 1982. I wrote a well-received speech for him. Earlier this year, I wrote in The New York Times—I’m beginning to sound like Paul Krugman, who cannot begin a column without saying, “As I warned the world in my last column...”—a highly favorable Op-Ed about McCain, taking Rush Limbaugh and the others in the Right Wing Sanhedrin to task for going after McCain for being insufficiently conservative. I don’t—still—doubt that McCain’s instincts remain fundamentally conservative. But the problem is otherwise.

McCain rose to power on his personality and biography. He was authentic. He spoke truth to power. He told the media they were “jerks” (a sure sign of authenticity, to say nothing of good taste; we are jerks). He was real. He was unconventional. He embraced former anti-war leaders. He brought resolution to the awful missing-POW business. He brought about normalization with Vietnam—his former torturers! Yes, he erred in accepting plane rides and vacations from Charles Keating, but then, having been cleared on technicalities, groveled in apology before the nation. He told me across a lunch table, “The Keating business was much worse than my five and a half years in Hanoi, because I at least walked away from that with my honor.” Your heart went out to the guy. I thought at the time, God, this guy should be president someday.

A year ago, when everyone, including the man I’m about to endorse, was caterwauling to get out of Iraq on the next available flight, John McCain, practically alone, said no, no—bad move. Surge. It seemed a suicidal position to take, an act of political bravery of the kind you don’t see a whole lot of anymore.

But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

All this is genuinely saddening, and for the country is perhaps even tragic, for America ought, really, to be governed by men like John McCain—who have spent their entire lives in its service, even willing to give the last full measure of their devotion to it. If he goes out losing ugly, it will be beyond tragic, graffiti on a marble bust.

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

Fringe Fest and Harvest Homecoming views from Friday.

We're trying to have things rolling by 12 Noon today. To be honest, I've not had time to organize the cheese tasting, so Sam -- if you're reading this -- it may be the two of us having a nice lunch.





Not to forget the other venues around downtown ...

Thanks again to all the visitors the past two nights, especially those who've said to me, "Finally, a reason to hang out at Harvest Homecoming." That means a lot to all of us at NABC.

"Sick Around the World" -- Wednesday, October 15 at the NA-FC Public Library.

Another funny Friday rolls around.

Cartoon from The Times of London, as reposted here.

HH, FF kick off.

Scenes from Fringe Fest on Thursday night:





It looked like a good crowd at Harvest Homecoming, too. Thanks to everyone who came out last evening. We're back in action today at 1:00 p.m.

A year later ...

It's Friday, Harvest Homecoming is in full swing, and if you've lived here any amount of time, you know what that means.

October 16, 2007: Harvest Homecoming's "swill walk" emblematic of clashing demographics.

... No single Harvest Homecoming “event” grandly compromises the committee’s goal of a family friendly festival like the Friday afternoon “beer walk,” which might be termed the “swill walk,” and so I think I will.

There has been a great deal of discussion in the community since we firrst considered the topic last year, and if advance notice is to be trusted, I believe there'll be tighter enforcement in all aspects in 2008.

Last year I wrote these words:

If NABC’s projected downtown brewing project comes to fruition, I hope to be able to illustrate that beer quality can be good, not bland, and that better beer can be consumed responsibly in a wholesome, entertaining and better atmosphere – which, after all, is the lesson any thinking human being takes away after sitting for a couple of hours drinking beer in a Bavarian beer garden, with playground equipment and young children generally in close proximity. Our future beer sales during Harvest Homecoming will be contained and controlled as far as humanly possible, and we’ll try to offer a higher common denominator. We may fail, but we’ll try.

By day's end, we'll know how well we passed the test.

Talkin' Petraeus point-blank blues.

General David Petraeus recently explained that negotiating with the Taliban might help reduce violence in Afghanistan.

The British commander there agreed.

"Asked about those remarks, Petraeus noted that Britain's long experience negotiating with adversaries helped reduce violence in Iraq. 'They've sat down with thugs throughout their history, including us in our early days, I suspect,' he said."

Petraeus sees value in talking to Taliban (Reuters)

In LEO this week: "Bar Belle vs. Mr. Mug Shots" (an NABC Fringe Fest preview).

After following the link and reading my sassy answers to Sara's sassy questions about Fringe Fest (starts this afternoon!), check out the Louisville Eccentric Observer's (LEO) updated web site.

Bar Belle vs. Mr. Mug Shots

The New Albanian Brewing Co. is hosting the Fringe Fest this weekend (Oct. 9-11) at the new Bank Street Brewhouse in New Albany. Mr. Mug Shots Roger Baylor agreed to answer a few questions.

Meanwhile, everything's shaping up for Fringe Fest. We've had the expected musical cancellation or two -- Roz Tate (death in the family) and Social Ties Denied (unexpected defection in the band family) are the two that spring to mind. We'll all be thinking of you, Roz.

Entrance to Fringe Fest is gratis, but remember that it's 21 and over only. We open the gates whenever the beer trailer comes on Thursday, then circa 1 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and the music starts around 5 p.m., although earlier on Friday. It's Harvest Homecoming, so parking's always a full-contact sport ... beware of restrictions that may be posted in pencil on cardboard and duct-taped to a utility pole.

Here's the updated scoop on NABC's Fringe Fest ... beer, music, film, art and “Harvest Culture on the Skids.”

A reader wonders about Inspiration Night on the River.

A blog reader writes:

I have been trying to find out some details about the Saturday (10/4) night rally on the riverfront when Mike Sodrel spoke. I would like to know the nature of his talk (was it a campaign or patriotic speech), what organization and individuals supported this rally, were there any other speakers, and if so who were they.

I called the Tribune but they didn't know any details.

I am concerned about this because our church had a booth there and I am strongly opposed to a church participating in any political gathering. Members of a church should be free to exercise their political support for anyone they choose but the church's name should not be associated with that support.

I hope you can help me.

I'll readily confess to being stumped. Prior to reading this e-mail, I didn’t even know there was an event on the waterfront last Sunday, although after Googling, it surfaced that a preview article by Tara Hettinger appeared in the Tribune while I was gone on vacation.

Free family event for the community Oct. 4 on New Albany Riverfront

Lee Ann Wiseheart, S.U.R.F. (Students United Radically for Floyd County) Board member, is one of those helping organize this year’s event.“

"The purpose is to have a positive event for the community to come to where we can properly recognize folks that serve in the military and, at the same time, provide a positive uplifting theme to kickoff Harvest Homecoming,” Wiseheart said. “The community really came together in the midst of the wind storm. What’s a better way to bring everyone together again, in a positive way, that’s not picking up trees?”

Specifically, there was no mention of a Mike Sodrel speech in any of the pre-event publicity (see below), and the whole thing seems fairly innocuous. At the same time, our correspondent's questions are valid in terms of individual conscience, and they seem both sincere and worthy of answers.

Did anyone go?

NEW FOR 2008 - "INSPIRATION NIGHT ON THE RIVER" - OCT 4

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. • Location: New Albany Riverfront

Family Friendly Music • Family Friendly Speakers • Family Friendly Events • A Dare to Care Event

Special music by local and other artists; Special guest speakers; Games, and Inflatables.

Special tribute to our hometown heroes, the 152nd National Guard Unit and other troops past and present!

Hosted by: Interfaith Community Council in Association with area Churches and The Faith-Based Community

Fascists donate to McCain, Communists to Obama. I'm suppressing a yawn.

I was taken to task yesterday after posting Keith Olbermann’s brilliant commentary.

casualobsever said...

As noted and commented on another local blog, you would be far more credible if you actually chose political opinions from someone other than one of the most liberal reporters currently working and associated with the most liberal news organization.

The radical left rantings are really not going to sway anyone's opinion that may be sitting on the fence.

Hmm, couldn’t I say exactly the same thing about radical right rantings?

And, might that be precisely the point I’m trying to make by countering Dr. Dan’s diatribes with purposefully selected ones of my own?

Could be, although irony plays in America about as well as team handball.

Consider that our local blogging physician, who used to periodically discuss medicine and health, has staked a bold claim:

The health of Floyd County as well as the nation will be drastically different depending on who gets elected. This site, unlike the mainstream media, will have a conservative slant and will have commentaries that may not be read in other places.

There may be a reason why, but no matter. He’s picking his spots, and I’m picking mine. It strikes me that in this context, any list of media sources purged of the implied contagion of liberalism – these presumably being the ones acceptable to both Dr. Dan and the dissenting writer – might well prove to be just as biased from a rightist perspective as any emanating from the left -- and consequently, unacceptable to me.

So, what would they have me do, visit World Net Daily?

(WNT, by the way, once published a column asserting that the Wall Street Journal’s conservative leaning is a “myth” because, among other offenses, too many gays work for the newspaper. WNT is an anti-Obama "news" source. Imagine that.)

If I had the temerity to cite Frank Rich or even Bob Woodward, it probably wouldn’t pass muster, and accordingly, the crux to me is this: At the current juncture in the presidential campaign, who in America can really be said to remain "sitting on the fence” in the sense of being open to any form of rational persuasion?

Irrational?

That’s another story, especially as it pertains to voting against Barack Obama for being black, or for John McCain because he reminds someone in the hinterlands of his dear departed grandfather.

The false positive of culture wars aside, the “health of Floyd County as well as the nation” has to do with economic matters, and if you believe that Nancy Peolosi bears more responsibility for the current mess than George W. Bush, there are two probable consequences.

First, you’ll be voting McCain/Palin, and no source I manage to uncover will change your mind.

Second, I have one big ass bridge to sell you. It doesn’t go anywhere, but it’s cheap … and you can charge it to your credit card.

Brilliant piece by Keith Olbermann: "Hockey moms in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

Shrug ... I'll match him invective for invective. Better yet, I'll let Keith Olbermann do it, seeing as he does it far better than I do, anyway.

---

Olbermann: It's Palin doing the pallin' -- Hockey moms in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, a special comment by Keith Olbermann, Anchor, 'Countdown' on MSNBC.

Last Wednesday, Sheriff's deputies arrived at the home of a woman in Akron, Ohio named Addie Polk, in order to evict her. After 38 years in that house, Ms. Polk had fallen behind on paying the mortgage. It was so bad that the company that held that mortgage, Fannie Mae, had foreclosed.

In fact, it was far worse than anybody knew. Addie Polk couldn't bear it any more. So, rather than be evicted, she shot herself in the chest.

Evidently she will survive. And, after Congressman Dennis Kucinich brought her plight to the floor of the House, Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant you and I and all the rest of us pretty much own now, agreed it would forgive Addie Polk's debt and, when she gets out of the hospital, let her go back and live in her home again.

That this is already a gothic horror story, you'll agree. But I left out one detail. Addie Polk is 90 years old.

In the self-pronounced area of expertise of the Governor of Alaska—energy—the real experts of both parties are at a loss to figure out any way, even'drill, baby, drill', that might lower gas prices before 2018. We are at war in two countries and a lame duck President with no reason to check his own imbalance still has dreams of one more.

And a 90-year-old woman, trapped in the middle of a financial meltdown, shoots herself and she's still in better shape than the economy. Yet, the Governor of Alaska wants to talk about somebody Barack Obama doesn't know very well, and what this somebody Barack Obama doesn't know very well, did, during the year Obama was eight and the Governor of Alaska was in pre-Kindergarten.

And she wants to talk about Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And she doesn't object to being introduced with a reference to Barack Obama's middle name. Well, this is my suggestion. In much the same way we, America, in the corporate persona of Fannie Mae, have forgiven poor Addie Polk of Akron, Ohio.

We, America, also need to forgive poor Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska. They are both in situations that are beyond their ability to cope. They are both stuck in a crucible caused by forces they cannot comprehend. They are both unable to understand what they are doing.

After stumbling through a clumsier version of it at Englewood, Colorado, the Governor of Alaska said Saturday at Carson, California:

"Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

She later defended the remark by adding this was an "association that has been known but hasn't been talked about.”

Governor, Conservative groups have thus far spent ten million dollars this year trying to make something, anything, out of the brief interaction on a charity board between Sen. Obama, and a rehabilitated former domestic radical from the '60s and not even Conservatives have been stupid enough to buy the snake oil, that this was either a close relationship or a nefarious one.

But of course, you know better, Governor. You're smarter than the rest of us. A reporter asks you a horrible gotcha question like'which newspapers do you read' and it takes you four days to come up with an answer, and somehow it's the reporter's fault.

The reporter asks you to name one Supreme Court ruling with which you disagree other than Roe vs. Wade and even though you'd commented on just such a case from Alaska no less not three months ago your eyes turn into a big neon sign reading "Vacancy” and you insist it's because that evil media asked the wrong question.

So you're the genius Governor, and it's your supporters and the undecided voters who are the dopes who are now going to believe the same mickey-mouse crap that Sen. Clinton couldn't get to stick, and Sean Hannity couldn't get to stick, just because it's you adding that word "terrorist” and that phrase "palling around” and dropping the "g” in pal-ling.

And of course, Governor, those same dopes, and we media morons, we are not smart enough to ask about that pesky Alaskan Independence Party, and why you recorded a speech for its convention last March, and why your husband remained a registered member of it until 2002, even though it was founded by a man named Joe Vogler who wanted Alaska to secede from the United States. The way the South seceded, precipitating the Civil War.

The same Joe Vogler who once said:

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won't be buried under their damn flag.”

And who also said:

"I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

Shoot, Governor, them's strong words, hah? Did he wink as he said 'em? You betcha! So, where does Joe Vogler rank on the scales of "terrorists who would target their own country?" Your opponent's guy Ayers wound up on a volunteer anti-poverty committee in Chicago.

But your guy Vogler wound up founding a group that wanted to rip one of the stars off the American flag! Well, ok, Governor, Vogler's more your husband's guy. So it's your husband who's been "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

But I'm assuming you've been "palling around” with your husband. But, gee willikers, Governor, you know what's best. You're not one of these Washington insiders who would notice that though that's a straight line connecting you, your husband, and this Alaskan secessionist, you're*standing under a banner with the campaign slogan "Country First” and if somebody out there puts two and two together they might just ask, "which Country dja mean? The Country of Alaska?”

"The heels are on,” you said with another smile. "The gloves are off.”

Well, if you're telling William Kristol you want to talk about Jeremiah Wright fer sure! So, Governor you don't mind addressing whether this Pastor Muthee is a terrorist? Do you? We've told you before about Pastor Thomas Muthee.

He's the preacher who visited the Wasilla Assembly of God church a couple of times while the Governor was there, ironically enough, just about as many times as Bill Ayres has met Barack Obama and, see, there was this one time where Pastor Muthee actually laid hands on the Governor.

And I'm sure that sounds like just some crazy anecdote, except there's videotape. And of course the Governor talked about this moment, the laying on of hands, just last summer.

It was in October, 2005, as the video indicates, when Muthee put his hands on Sarah Palin's back and said, "make a way for Sarah, even in the political arena. Make a way, my God. Bring finances her way, even if for the campaign in the name of Jesus.

"Every form of witchcraft, it will be rebuked in the name of Jesus. Father, make her way now. "

And the Governor said that "bold” approach of Pastor Muthee was one of the reasons she became Governor and she gives him just oodles of credit for puttin' her on the path.

The problem for the governor is that in 1999 The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pastor Muthee had gotten his start a decade earlier in Kenya, in the Nairobi suburb of Kiambu.

Kimabu was crime-ridden. So this character Muthee showed up, and announced it was the fault of this woman in town who he had decided was a witch. And Muthee gave the witch a choice: either be saved, or get out of town.

And the woman initially chose none of the above, but this became less than a viable option when Muthee got 200 of the townspeople together and they decided, heck, you know, Muthee's right, she probably is a witch, and the next thing you know the police are raiding her house and reportedly shooting her snake because if she was a witch, the snake had to be a demon, and then the woman left town and everybody said crime went down and most of the bars closed and this is not only how Pastor Muthee got started but he's proud of it and he tells the story in his testimonial videotapes and people in that church in Wasilla where he laid hands on the Governor knew all about it.

And they think it was just a Joe-Six-Pack, Hockey Mom kinda thing to do, to let a guy who branded some woman in Kenya a witch, demand that God make some different woman the Governor of Alaska!

Governor, what would you call someone who arrives in a suburb, blames a resident for the local crime, organizes a mob to threaten the woman, convinces the authorities to go and raid her home, and then chases her out of the suburb?

C'mon Governor, just give us one answer that has something to do with the question you were just asked. That's right you'd call him a terrorist. And since it was in his own country, that would make himmmm? Yes, very good, a domestic terrorist.

So, you, Governor, you've been "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” Say it ain't so, Gov! Say it ain't so! Of course it is.

The Governor of Alaska ignores Addie Polk and the American tragedy that is a 90-year old woman shooting herself out of shame and panic and who knows what else. Over the mortgage!

Instead the Governor of Alaska wants to start calling people terrorists and insisting of Sen. Obama that quote "this is not a man who sees America like you and I see America” and whose rhetoric like that, and the "pallin' around with terrorists” line were rightly described by the Associated Press yesterday as a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing kind of way of slipping racism into the equation, because it's a nifty trick to remind the white folk that (psst) Obama is black.

But overriding this sleaziness and dog-gone it, the Governor of Alaska has got to be the sleaziest politician working the stage at the moment, there is the sheer blessed stupidity of letting herself become the bomb-thrower when her own life is full of domestic terrorists.

Governor? Bill Ayres? Your hubby was in this secessionist hate group for which you recorded a video.

Governor? Jeremiah Wright? That pastor you credit with helping you become Governor, is either a con man or a psycho who believes he can tell which woman in the village is the witch, and which woman is the governor.

And Governor, there's also "The U.S. Council On World Freedom.” You should ask Sen. McCain about that outfit and why he had to scat away from it 22 years ago.

Or, ask him why yesterday his own brother Joe referred to Northern Virginia as quote "communist country.” Or you could ask him about Pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Or about why Sen. McCain said about introducing Jeremiah Wright into this campaign, "there's no place for that kind of campaigning, the American people don't want it, period.”

Or don't ask. You know best. You're the one selling the patent medicine. Those of us out here, we're just the suckers pulling out our greenbacks. Go on talking about this man Ayers and trying to link Obama to that word "terrorist.”

But be prepared for others to ask you about your pastor and terrorism. And for still others to ask you about the First Dude and terrorism. But not me, Governor.

I forgive you. You are about as guilty here as poor Ms. Addie Polk in Akron. And I hope that after what you've done to yourself, you recover as well as she seems to be doing, and that you too get to go back and live in your own home again.

Because if you think the terrorism con, and the racism sting are going to do anything but bury you and Sen, McCain, you need to pick up one of those how-many-ever newspapers you reed and check the headlines to find out what people are really worried about right now.

Otherwise, when you said "the heels are on, the gloves are off,” you got as close to telling the truth as you've ever gotten, and without really knowing it.

Because, for you and Sen. McCain, Governor, it's not the gloves that just came off.

Obviously—it's the wheels.

“Details available on a need to know basis and you don’t need ... "

Our intrepid roving reporter Gordy Gant attended last evening’s New Albany Common Council meeting and filed the following excerpts to NAC for your reading pleasure!

With a sparse agenda and an even sparser audience, Monday evening's Common Council gathering was relatively quiet and uneventful.

There were only three items to be discussed and a nearly empty room to entertain, so time was not wasted on gittin’ ‘er done.

There was only one public speaker, a citizen encouraging the Council to pass the first item on the agenda in order that the city’s employees could get paid this month.

Following that Deputy Mayor Malysz approached the podium to send the Mayor’s regards and explain that his absence was due to other obligations.

He went on to say that the Mayor England was going to personally deliver a live report to the Board of Works at Tuesday’s 10 a.m. meeting concerning the post storm cleanup activities and costs thus far. Carl declined to give any further details.

The first item on the list was R-08-41, an Emergency Resolution for a Temporary Transfer of Funds to a Depleted Fund for cash flow purposes. Long story short, to move up to $1 Million TIF dollars in order for payroll and other claims to be paid over the next month or so. Ms. Garry informed the Council that this money would be refunded when our tax money became available.

When Kay was asked why this move was necessary, she related that the County Treasury has not received enough property tax dollars as of yet to pass them along to the city its share.

There was further inquiry of her as to why borrow TIF funds as opposed to other avenues. She replied that other sources had already been depleted.

The resolution passed 8 to 0 and the Council moved on.

Up next was A-08-13 which was an Additional Appropriation Ordinance for $250K of EDIT money to help pay for the Hurricane Ike cleanup.

These are the same dollars that were approved by resolution at the previous Council Meeting. It seems that the Council cannot by statute approve the spending of monies by Resolution unless they have first been appropriated by an Ordinance. Are we confused yet?

At any rate once that was cleared up (huh?) Kay suggested that this money could become available much sooner if the Council were to suspend the rules and do all three readings at this meeting.

A motion to suspend the rules was made, seconded, and the motion was agreed to. Debate was called for and then it got interesting.

Remember the mention above of the Mayor’s forthcoming report to the Board of Works?

CM Coffey took this opportunity to pose the question as to why Mayor England had the time to present a report to his appointees but not so with the Council whom he had just asked (albeit by proxy) to suspend their rules to pass his request in one meeting?

Of course there was no answer forthcoming save to say that the suggestion would be passed along to Doug.

Dan went on to state that such future requests would likely be looked more favorably upon if the Council were to be given its due consideration. In cases like this, yours truly tends to agree.

Following a few more tit-for-tats between the Deputy Mayor and CM Coffey, the vote was called for and the ordinance passed on all three readings.

Then came G-08-09 which was an Ordinance to Correct Ordinance G-08-31. This was the bill passed recently to Establish Permit Fees to update our City Code. Turns out this was to correct a series of typos in the first bill so as to insure all was done proper and legal.

For a few minutes it looked as though our short meeting was going to turn into an all- nighter but cool heads prevailed, Council’s rules were suspended for s second time in one session (that’s gotta be a record) and the bill passed in all three readings.

The clock on the wall fell just short of 8:30 p.m., the gavel dropped and all concerned parties departed for their separate ways.

This reporter is on pins and needles to witness this morning's Board of Works meeting. Until then, have a good day!

What's maverick, doc?

Now that the NA Health blog appears to have become exclusively devoted to radical right-wing extremism, I thought it appropriate that NAC plays against type and delves into pressing medical news, as in the following gripping article from The Lancet:

Use of p16-INK4A overexpression to increase the specificity of human papillomavirus testing: a nested substudy of the NTCC randomised controlled trial.

Whoa! That's drier than a cork leg. Maybe we should stick with meat & potatoes presidential politics and offer a necessary rejoinder to the good doctor's (and my friend's) latest instance of rhetorical excess. It's by Tim Dickinson, and appears in the current issue of Rolling Stone:

Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.

Here's an excerpt:

It's a myth McCain has cultivated throughout his decades in Washington. But during the course of this year's campaign, the mask has slipped. "Let's face it," says Larry Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "John McCain made his reputation on the fact that he doesn't bend his principles for politics. That's just not true."

Son of “back on your heads”: Council takes a field trip tonight.

Wanna bet they’ll drive the two blocks, not walk?

The Tribune’s Daniel Suddeath previews tonight’s city council meeting: New Albany City Council will vote on freeing funds for cash flow.

Interestingly, and perhaps uniquely, the scheduled meeting will be preceded by an instructive educational opportunity.

Council members will meet at 6 p.m. Monday for a work session to tour the set-to-open Scribner Place/YMCA. The YMCA is scheduled to open Nov. 15.

Ahh, I’m feeling the tug of nostalgia.

For many months, as conscious elements in the community valiantly struggled to spend $20 million of someone else’s money on the Scribner Place/YMCA project, the council’s Gang of Four unreconstructed obstructionists did everything it could to thwart it.

The Gang of Four is no more; Slippery Larry mercifully retired, and “Somnolent” Schmidt was summarily unseated, but Dan “Wizard of Westside” Coffey and Steve “Accidental Councilman” Price remain on board to advocate turning the calendar pages back to the golden age of prevalent hardwood forest, when taxes and expenses were sublimely low, and do-gooder progressives weren’t breathing down the necks of congenital low bar underachievers like them.

Will Coffey and Price make the trip to the Y? Or will they sulk outside and spit in the general direction of the soon-to-open structure?

As we await the hilarious answer, here are two excerpts with links from NAC pieces in 2006.

UPDATED: A great day for NA.

... With the union of the YMCA, Caesar’s Foundation, LifeSpan, Floyd Memorial Hospital, New Albany and Floyd County about to be solemnized, and at precisely the moment when Pastor LaRocca intoned, “Speak now or forever hold your peace," the Third District councilman Steve Price attempted to bungee from a passing helicopter and put a stop to the ceremony, which he had previously denounced as “forcing those Frankfort Avenue people right down our Pandora’s Box.”

Unfortunately, Price’s “Sam’s Club” cord was too short, and he was thrown with visible force against the façade of Schmitt Furniture, sliding unobtrusively down the building’s side, and into a featured sale-price Ottoman on the sidewalk below.With luck, he'll remain there until the item is delivered, but never mind; the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association represented CM Price's long-suffering district.

Scribner Place groundbreaking this morning -- BTW, has anyone seen CM Coffey lately?

... We’ll be watching to see if Councilman Cappuccino sets up shop on the opposite corner and convenes the council’s dulcet-toned obstructionist barbershop quartet, the The Gang's Gong of Four, to sing a stirring rendition of their golden classic hit, “We Hate the Sort of People Who’ll Be Coming Here (And We Wish They’d Leave Us to Our Squalor).”

Here's the updated scoop on NABC's Fringe Fest ... beer, music, film, art and “Harvest Culture on the Skids.”

NABC Fringe Fest 2008
“Harvest Culture on the Skids”
Beer, Music, Film, Art

October 9, 10, 11

The New Albanian Brewing Company offers an alternative perspective on the general theme of “harvest homecoming” with its first annual Fringe Fest, which will take place from October 9th through October 11th under the big top (well, a tent, at least) in the parking lot adjacent to the future Bank Street Brewhouse at 415 Bank Street in downtown New Albany. Work on the Brewhouse proceeds, with projected opening during the winter of 2008/09.

This year’s Fringe Fest theme is “Harvest Culture on the Skids”, and will feature NABC craft beer, a myriad of musical performances, a selection of films, local art, and various other attractions and frivolity.

There’ll be two special NABC ales for the occasion: The resurrection of Tunnel Vision, co-owner Amy Baylor’s original homebrew recipe as formulated by NABC’s brewer, Jesse Williams, and also the new Wet Knob Hop Harvest Ale, brewed in part with fresh hops from Floyds Knobs. Other NABC beers slated for inclusion are Kaiser 2nd Reising, Community Dark, and Bob’s Old 15-B, with others appearing periodically depending on our cellar’s yield.

Please note that while the NABC Fringe Fest is running concurrently with New Albany’s annual Harvest Homecoming event, and “Harvest Culture On the Skids” might aptly be described as an “autumnal inspiration”, our festival is neither a “sponsored” nor a “hosted” Harvest Homecoming function, which are detailed at the Harvest Homecoming web site: http://www.harvesthomecoming.com/

See below for the complete Fringe Fest schedule and entertainment listings, and don’t forget that NABC Fringe Fest is a 21-years-and-over celebration. You must be able to prove your age to enter and partake of the fun. Keep it clean, and have a designated driver. See you there!

***THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9***

5:00-9:00 pm … Music
Rebecca Williams
Old Man
The Fervor

9:00-11:00 pm … Louisville Film Society
16mm shorts, independent films and other oddities

***FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10 ***

5:00-1:00 pm … Music
Ben Traughber
River Rat String Band
Social Ties Denied (from Indianapolis)
National Hotel

Also Flaming Hula Hoop Performances after dark, between sets.

***SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11: ***

1:00-1:00 … Music
Interstates
Venus Trap
Luke Asher
J.Glenn
Yuki (from Indianapolis)
Sativa Gumbo (NABC brewer Jared Williamson's band)

Also Flaming Hula Hoop Performances after dark, between sets.

2:00 pm
Beer 101 with Roger Baylor, followed by a Capriole Goat Cheeses
and NABC beer pairing. Ticket details coming soon.

2:00-9:00 pm
The Derby City Roller Girls will perform between sets and canvass Harvest Homecoming with signs and a bullhorn in their inimitable style.

***OTHER STUFF: ***

There’ll be an Art Show in the future Bank Street Brewhouse taproom from 5-10 pm Thursday and Friday, and noon-10 pm Saturday, and a Free Store in the future kitchen area.

Our friend Bob Capshew's sweet cider will be available as a fresh, local non-alcoholic alternative beverage. The sweet cider is unpasteurized, unfiltered and made from local (Clark, Floyd, Harrison and Washington counties) apples and pears. It is truly a genuine "slow food."

Our friend Pete Lyons of Digital Resource in downtown New Albany will be cooking burgers (both meat and tofu) and brats all three days.

The Louisville Photographic Booth Company will have its booth set up for free photos Thursday and Friday from 5-10 pm.

Inevitably, there will be more, so stay tuned.

Rural "values"?

Ten days and an unprecedented financial “bailout” have elapsed since the publication of The Economist article excerpted below, and the question it poses may already have been answered. The “Palin effect” has proven to be little more than a vacuous feistiness barely concealing a startling (and as for John McCain, entirely cynical) absence of gravitas.

But he has very little choice, does he?

McCain remains inextricably linked with the disastrously failed presidency of W, a fact that even a foaming-at-the-mouth Neo-Con like Charles Krauthammer recognizes, and the geriatric must campaign on the basis of ceaseless gimmickry, desperately seeking to divert attention from his damning proximity to Shrub’s all-around catastrophe.

McCain still will receive plenty of votes from the bedrock core of the nation, or some forgettable silliness like that. It is this phenomenon that The Economist considers.

Rural voters: Bucolic ballots … Could the economy trump the Palin effect?, from The Economist print edition of Sep 25th 2008.

A new poll for the Centre for Rural Strategies, a think-tank in Whitesburg, shows John McCain leading Mr Obama by ten percentage points among rural voters in swing states. The poll, conducted in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, found that 51% of rural voters said they would vote for Mr McCain, while 41% preferred Mr Obama.

Only a fifth of Americans live in rural areas. And Mr McCain’s advantage among rural voters is slimmer than George Bush’s 13-point lead over John Kerry in a similar poll in 2004. But it is still a useful vote bank in a very close election. And the reasons rural voters give for preferring the Republican ticket are revealing.

Asked who would deal better with problems facing rural areas or the economy more generally, rural voters are about evenly divided. But when asked who shares their values, they prefer Mr McCain by a 14-point margin. And they love his running-mate, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Fully 65% of rural voters in swing states think she “represents the values of rural communities”.

Echoing the advice of the ancient Greek philosophers whose wisdom purportedly girds our non-Christian intellectual experience in the Western world, this rural poll result begs a few “define your principles” questions.

Exactly what are these rural “values”?

If they do in fact exist, are they pertinent to our contemporary experience?

Do these rural “values” still embrace the lingering shadow of racism, which might yet trump both the economy and Sarah Palin in the minds of far too many voters?

If so, shouldn’t any such “value” be summarily disavowed?

Speaking for myself, I don’t accept the frequently bandied proposition that “rural values” somehow preface the presumed glory of the American experience, and I suggest that a healthy skepticism be applied to any such claims. The pervasiveness of religious zealotry in the back forty would be enough to arch one or more eyebrows, but too often, the countryside’s prevailing worldview is far less savory than the imagery of a few millennial crackpots behind a pulpit.

But that’s just one man’s hungover opinion.

Love Hurts: Council president's brother-in-law was right.

Mark Keeler said that the drummer for Nazareth died in New Albany after 1995. I said he died before the pub started business in 1992. Let the record show that Darrell Sweet died in 1999, which means that Mark was right and I was wrong.

Can any one remember why Nazareth decided to play New Albany in the first place?

4th annual NAC HH parade party is tomorrow.

Tomorrow (Saturday, October 4) is the annual Harvest Homecoming parade, and accordingly, tomorrow is the annual parade viewing party hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Confidential.

As noted earlier this week, there’ll be craft beer and a place to watch the parade, which will include NABC representation for the very first time in the form of the fire truck we used for the St. Paddy’s Day parade in Louisville last spring. I won’t have time to cook this year, so bring beer snacks and we’ll improvise. Someone should warn Hing Wang (or La Rosita's) to stock up.

If readers are in the neighborhood before (11:00 am) during and after the parade (until circa 7:00 pm), feel free to drop in, say hello and have a beer. On the draft lineup is Pilsner Urquell, Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Red, and Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale.

Hope to see some of you tomorrow.

Ho hum, yawned Ignatius.

There was a debate last evening between running mates. You may have heard about it. If you're like me, you wonder why there was any fuss at all, given that the choice between presidential candidates is so incredibly clear that John McCain's selection of the least qualified underling in my lifetime (perhaps in the lifetime of the world's oldest human being) is merely icing on the forthcoming Barack Obama win.

You can comment in the usual manner, but here's something of the post-debate discussion at the site that I found familiar to my own reaction. After all, as noted earlier this year, I'm a European: Out and about: At long last, a staggering admission.

London: Mr. (Robert) Kaiser, I stayed up way past my bedtime to listen to this debate, and what I heard was not reassuring. I'm sure you know that Europe is appalled at the choice of Gov. Palin as Sen. McCain's running mate, and nothing she said tonight is going to change this view. I'm sure she's a lovely person who would make a lovely neighbor, but she's simply not qualified to be president. We still are having major problems with your re-election of the current president, but this would make things substantially worse.

Yep. Bush/Cheney has been an unmitigated 8-year-long disaster, and McCain/Palin differs barely a jot from the current occupancy (to paraphrase Garrison Keillor), and no senseless babble about soccer moms and mavericks stands to change the verdict of history. All the Republican candidates have is smoke and mirrors to distract attention from a dismal record that rivals that of the 1962 New York Mets.

Next.

Candidates, masterplans, and learning to see while not hearing any of it.

Two instructive events took place in New Albany last night. One was a meet the candidate affair sponsored by the Uptown Neighborhood Association to better facilitate communication with District 72 State Representative candidates Ed Clere and Bill Cochran. Cochran was reportedly a no show.

The other, a not well publicized meeting at the Library to discuss the future of riverfront land including Main Street and the levee from the Sherman Minton Bridge to East Sixth Street. (Thanks to those who emailed.) A September Tribune article by Daniel Suddeath provides some background on the plan for a masterplan.

The bluegills were busy installing an exhibition of blind and visually impaired artists sponsored by The American Printing House for the Blind and weren't able to attend either one. It opens today at the Seelbach at 1:00 pm and runs until noon Saturday in Mezzanine Salon D.

Now would be a great time for a singalong, assuming someone out there knows the words from the meetings. The comments floor is yours.

So much for beercycling ... now it's back to the circus.

Ars longa, vita brevis … art is long, time is fleeting.

All good things must come to an end, and so after two glorious weeks absorbing the vital lessons we all might learn from everyday life in Europe, it’s now back to lancing the twin boils of Philistinism and Luddite Envy right here in New Albany.

(Geez … is this really what I want to be doing with my life?)

How long will the sedate afterglow persist this time around? There’s no telling. I expect to be too busy to notice, at least for a while.

For the moment, there is much to do, not least among them preparing for the annual Harvest Homecoming party at the homestead this Saturday. There’ll be craft beer and a place to watch the parade, which will include NABC representation for the very first time in the form of the fire truck we used for the St. Paddy’s Day parade in Louisville last spring. I won’t have time to cook this year, so bring snacks and we’ll improvise.

If readers are in the neighborhood during and after the parade, feel free to drop in, say hello and have a Progressive Pint as we discuss the merits of the Bailout Plan (New Albany Mix), which is a proposed bond $10 million bond issue to appease the troglodytes by resettling our little band of obnoxious leftists somewere in Europe.

Sweet Home Netherlands, any one?

Also, next week during booth days, there’ll be the inaugural NABC Fringe Fest (i.e., “Harvest Culture on the Skids”) with beer, food, music and art under the big top in the parking lot of the future Bank Street Brewhouse on Bank Street. More on that will be coming later. Just to prove that there really isn’t any rest for the weary, the following weekend (October 17 & 18) is the kickoff for the annual Lupulin Land Harvest Hopcoming draft beer showcase at the Public House ... and, of course, there's still a brewery to build.

Trip stories will follow when there’s time, but for now it’s worth noting that in both Netherlands and parts of Germany (varying somewhat regionally by province in the latter), July 1 was the advent of an indoor smoking ban. Perhaps not coincidentally, Bavaria’s long ruling Christian Social Union received a profound drubbing in the polls this past Sunday, losing 17% of the vote since the last election in 2003, and being forced into a coalition government for the first time since the late 1960’s.

My beer drinking friends in Bamberg blamed the CSU’s debacle on the smoking ordinance. Not that I want to beat a dead (?) horse or anything … but never mind; I have a bicycle to catch to work. If you were paying $9 a gallon for gas, as in the places we just visited, you’d be peddling, too.

Here, as there, I’d rather spend the excess on beer. And do.

8664: KYTC Fails to Release 8664 Study, Attorney General’s Office asked to Intervene

A press release from 8664.org:

Louisville, KY – On August 25, 2008, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet agreed to complete the 8664 traffic study it began in February of this year. KYTC had signed a $49,922.25 contract with engineering consultant Wilbur Smith Associates on February 7th, 2008 to complete the 8664 traffic study. The entire project was to take five weeks to complete, but Transportation Secretary Joe Prather abruptly stopped the study eight days before its completion date. The consultant has invoiced KYTC $46,267.94 for completing 93% of the study.

According to the Courier-Journal’s August 26th article, “Ky. to finish studying alternative bridge plan,” KYTC agreed to complete the study they began in February. But as of this morning, the engineering consultant still has not received approval from KYTC to release the study.

KYTC said the incomplete traffic study was initiated by the state highway engineer’s office to assess the traffic implications of the 8664 alternative to the Ohio River Bridges Project. The two individuals responsible for studying this alternative – which could reduce the Bridges Project price tag by $2 Billion -- were forced to resign by Secretary Prather the week before 8664 brought the cancellation of the 8664 traffic study to light.

Governor Beshear has not responded to an 8664 letter asking that he make the traffic study available to the public immediately. “Something’s wrong when it takes four weeks to complete 93% of a study, but it’s taken five weeks to write a letter to authorize finishing it,” said 8664 co-founder Tyler Allen.

In light of the Cabinet’s inaction, 8664 has asked the office of the Attorney General to pursue the 8664 open records request. 8664 Co-Founder JC Stites stated, “KYTC spent $46,000 of our taxes on something and we want it shared with the public. Secretary Prather’s Cabinet said they would make it available, but they haven’t.”

About 8664.org
8664.org is a grassroots organization advocating for a better, faster and cheaper alternative to the $4.1 Ohio River Bridges Project. 8664.org would build only the East End Bridge, but would also remove I-64 from Louisville’s waterfront. 8664.org was recently recognized in the Congress for the New Urbanism’s (CNU.org) top ten list of national teardown prospects titled Freeways without Futures.

Tonight: Meet the candidates uptown.

The Uptown Neighborhood Association is hosting a meet and greet for District 72 State Representative candidates this evening. Democratic incumbent Bill Cochran and Republican challenger Ed Clere will be on hand for conversation and questions.

The meeting begins at 7:00 PM in the basement of the Silver Street United Methodist Church, located directly behind the Swifty fuel mart at the corner of Spring & Silver Streets.

When we come to it.

I once suggested to the senior editor that we should paint the Sherman Minton Bridge bright blue to signify entry into special space. Belgian designer Arne Quinze took that idea to its logical conclusion at the Idea Festival last week, suggesting that a bridge be special space.

His proposal for the (hopefully) soon-to-be-pedestrian Big Four Bridge includes a cloud of wooden planks to filter the light like a forest, a historic timeline, and solar powered music and lights.

It's a big idea, he said, and now it's up to us-- as is its complementary bookend at the end of Vincennes Street. We should start squatting now.






* Renderings by Studio Arne Quinze

DJ Spooky and Terra Nova at IUS this week.

IU Southeast's Common Experience program, whose 2008-09 theme is "Greening of Earth: Whose Responsibility?" brings DJ Spooky to town this week in what this writer might, in a giddier moment, describe as the coolest thing to ever happen on campus.

And make no mistake, I'm jazzed. Work like Spooky's drove me into and out of graduate school. Conceptual artist, musician, writer, college professor - he's reason enough to own a computer.

He'll be doing a lecture about his work and a performance on consecutive days. I'll be at both. You should be, too.

Tickets are available from the Ogle Center.


Lecture - Rhythm Science

Thursday, October 2, 2008, 7:30 PM

Admission: Free. Tickets are required.

Learn how DJ Spooky(Paul Miller) puts together his multimedia presentations. He will explore the hidden connections between collage based aesthetics and what Miller likes to call the "politics of perception." His lectures unpack some of the issues that modern artists face: intellectual property, ownership of ideas, and above all, how art navigates the complex culture of digital media. The lecture is free and open to the public, however, tickets are required.


The Terra Nova Suite
Sinfonia Antarctica

Friday, October 3, 2008, 7:30 PM

Admission: Regular - $25

DJ Spooky/Paul D. Miller's large scale multimedia performance work will is an acoustic portrait of a rapidly changing continent. The Antarctic Suite transforms Miller's first person encounter with the harsh, dynamic landscape into multimedia portraits with music composed from the different geographies that make up the land mass. Miller's field recordings from a portable studio, set up to capture the acoustic qualities of Antarctic ice forms, reflect a changing and even vanishing environment under duress. Coupled with visual material from Getty Images' vast collection, The Antarctic Suite is a seventy minute performance, creating a unique and powerful moment around man's relationship with nature.




Watch this space early next week for news of a local artistic and environmental response as well.

* Manifesto image courtesy of the artist.