Sad but compelling baseball reading: "The tortured life of Eric Show."

"Show sat down after Rose's famous hit" (ESPN)

The World Series was enjoyable. As an A's fan and a history buff, it didn't matter to me which team came out on top. Either way, "old school" values were being served -- except when Jon Lester refuses to throw to first. That's just bizarre, and it's something John McGraw wouldn't have tolerated.

Sitting at home, drinking beer and watching the games, there was plenty of time to kill, and one of the joys of being a baseball fan in the electronic era is instant recall, statistically speaking. In spite of being mathematically challenged, I've always loved looking at baseball stats.

Full disclosure urges me to reveal that when it comes to baseball statistics, I'm a proud and unrepentant Luddite. WAR is where my dad was from 1942 - 1945, not "wins above replacement," the calculation of which I'd be unable to explain with the proverbial gun held to my temple.

It's unclear to me how a break in the action led me to Baseball Reference Dot Com, though it's probably because the San Diego Padres famously defeated the Chicago Cubs in the playoffs in 1984. Whatever the reason, soon I was scanning rosters from 32 years ago (say it ain't so), and there was the name of Padres pitcher Eric Show (pronounced Schau, if memory serves).

Show?

He died young, didn't he?

I had no idea just how young, or knew anything about the back story. It's a long, sad read, which begins with Show surrendering Pete Rose's career record-setting hit.

The tortured life of Eric Show, by Tom Friend (ESPN; September 11, 2010)

SAN DIEGO -- Back then, the news came in on Teletype, not over the Internet. Pete Rose had just slapped two hits at Wrigley Field, bringing his career total to 4,191, and somewhere up there, Ty Cobb was fidgeting … or having a gin and tonic. One more base hit and Rose would break Cobb's all-time hits record, a mark that had stood for nearly 60 years. Everyone in baseball wanted a bird's-eye view, but one team in particular was about to see it up close and maybe too personal: the woebegone 1985 San Diego Padres.

A year after reaching their first World Series, the Padres had gone into something of a tailspin. On Sept. 8, the day Rose tied Cobb, a talented San Diego club that featured Tony Gwynn, Steve Garvey and Goose Gossage was in third place, 10 games out. The team was toast. The only good news, depending on how you looked at it, was that the Padres were headed to Cincinnati for three games with the Reds. They'd probably get to witness history, although, on the other hand, one of their pitchers would have to serve up history. One of them was going to live in infamy.

Who was it going to be? As the team dressed in its home clubhouse that Sunday -- about to board a flight to Ohio -- all eyes turned to the next three men in the starting rotation. One of them was a left-hander, Dave Dravecky, his hair slicked back after a shower, his pulse strikingly calm. Another was LaMarr Hoyt, a former Cy Young Award winner who already was planning to jam Rose with inside fastballs. But a third pitcher sat disconnected at his locker, eyes darting, frown palpable. On his shelf were a book by Ayn Rand and a cassette player full of American jazz. His clothes were black and purple. He carried a guitar. He looked out of place. His own catcher, Terry Kennedy, liked to call him "Angry Young Man" to his face, partly to get under his skin, but also because Kennedy sensed "bad s--- always seemed to follow him around."

So this was what the Padres were going to throw at Rose the next three days in Cincinnati. And as the team bus pulled out of Jack Murphy Stadium, the players couldn't help but think of Jack Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong for Eric Show.

"One of the many things that makes Donald Trump angry is that Bernie Sanders does not seem to hold grudges."

It's a fast read, a good read, and a better excuse to repost these two photos of Bernie Sanders at The Exchange in May, 2016, when he WON the Indiana Democratic primary.

Come what may ... they can't take THAT away from me.

BERNIE SANDERS’S HARD FIGHT FOR HILLARY CLINTON, by Amy Davidson (The New Yorker)

... Since conceding defeat in the primaries, Sanders has been one of the real champions of this campaign. He let his supporters yell at him and deride him as a sellout in bleak delegate breakfasts at the Democratic National Convention, in Philadelphia, as he endorsed Clinton and explained why they needed to do the same. He made getting support for her his priority, putting aside any subtle, undermining gestures that might have better preserved his rebel-rock-star status. He has kept doing so despite other revelations in the Podesta e-mails, ones that are not about him personally but about issues that he believes in—for example, about money in politics, as exemplified by the Clinton team’s nurturing of donors. And he has earned the right to negotiate hard on such issues in the future.

Weekend MUST READ: "The Big Con: what is really at stake in this US election."

"The New Deal"

America, you really must get your shit together. I'm getting older, and tired of waiting. History, anyone?

The Big Con: what is really at stake in this US election, by Ben Fountain (The Guardian)

Big government helped make America great but it was so successful its effect has become invisible. Anti-Washington hatred helps only the super-rich and puts progress at risk for millions living with wage stagnation and rising inequality

The collective memory of America is short. During the 2010 midterm elections, it seemed like every other house in my north Dallas neighborhood sported a “Had Enough? Vote Republican!” yard sign. As if it had been two hundred years, instead of two, since the US economy was on the brink of collapse, with panicked credit markets, huge banks and insurance companies about to topple into the void, a flatlining auto industry, the Dow Jones plunging toward 6500, and job losses topping 700,000 a month, not to mention the wars that had turned the budget surpluses of the late Bill Clinton years into massive deficits, all courtesy of a two-term Republican president whose party controlled Congress for six of the last eight years. Yes, please! Take us back to the good old days of 2008!

Two years. The perpetual fog of American forgetting-gas had done its work. If two years are all it took to erase the memory of the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, then we shouldn’t hope for much awareness of that earlier crisis some 80 years ago, though there are a few old heads still around who lived it, and the experience of those times can be found readily enough in the archives and histories of the era ...

An Elector Day story ... and Bank Street Brewhouse changes its name to NABC Cafe and Brewhouse.

Scroll down and learn how Elector Ale came to be 14 years ago, but first, as you can see, Bank Street Brewhouse has a new name.

Since the guy who founded the business and wrote something like 96.7% of the press releases no longer is affiliated with the business, we might be waiting a bit for an explanation, though I'm sure it falls under the all-purpose heading of "rebranding."

And, before anyone asks, what I wrote in May remains the case: Here's the latest in the Great NABC Non-Buyout Saga of 2016.

On a more sensible note, it appears that the august (November?) institution of Elector Day has not been abandoned, and that popularly-priced pints of the elixir are available Tuesday at both locations, BSB (oops, the Cafe) and the original Pizzeria & Public House location on the north side.

While I may no longer be involved in the business, it is a matter of pride that Elector has survived three and a half White House terms, and (hopefully) will persist into a fifth residency.

As such, here's a freebie -- written in 2014, updated for now. It's okay; you can pay me later at the usual piece rate.

---

Elector was born 14 years ago on Election Day, 2002.

Now it is the year 2016, and on November 8, Elector’s birthday will be celebrated at both NABC locations with big cuts in the “poll” tax: $2 Imperial pints of Elector, all day long, and $6.66 growler refills of Elector, all day long.

No longer must we labor under the delusion of an election day prohibition on alcohol sales, so drink early and vote often.

Here is the Elector Story.

Elector’s conceptual roots extend to the beginnings of NABC’s original garage brewery off Grant Line Road — now the Research & Development Brewery.

Elector was the third recipe brewed by NABC’s founding brewer, Michael Borchers, and his assistant, Joey Burns, and was made for the very first time on Election Day, 2002.

Brew day happened to be the mid-term congressional election following the disputed presidential race of 2000, in which Al Gore won the popular vote nationwide, but lost the White House owing to Florida’s uncounted hanging chads and the state’s subsequent votes for George W. Bush in the Electoral College.

Needless to say, as subversive leftists (and craft brewers, who always should be subversive leftists), this political outcome was still somewhat fresh in our minds in 2002 as Michael concocted an initially modest plan to follow Community Dark and Beak’s Best with a traditional English-style seasonal winter warmer.

Brew day was uneventful, but as the fermentation proceeded and time rolled past, it became obvious that the new batch of winter warmer was going to have a deeper burgundy color than planned, and also was considerably hoppier than the intended style should ever be.

Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, as it turned out.

The resulting hybrid was delicious, full-bodied and aggressively hopped, and we concluded that while the intent had been tamer winter warmer, the result was something else – Imperial Red, in our reckoning – and we went forward with the results.

These days, I prefer to call it Elector-Style Ale, such is the beer’s uniqueness. It is a one-off, and stylistically, there is no classification except fine flavor.

Before the finished character of our newly hybridized ale had become apparent, we’d already started the process of hybridizing its name, something that arose out of drunken mischief (imagine that) when after much discussion, Joey suggested Elector in reference to the Electoral College and the way it made the popular vote pointless, and by extension, democracy itself somewhat redundant.

I replied that the “-tor” suffix would suggest Doppelbock in the minds of knowledgeable drinkers, and of course we had no intention of producing a beer remotely close to Doppelbock.

Joey: “Right.”

Roger: “Right.”

Good, then we’re agreed … Elector it would be.

Now it’s fourteen years later, and I feel just as strongly as I did then: An Elector in hand is well worth two Bushes in retirement, any election day, and in fact, any time of the year. Elector’s back story would be sufficient to render it an iconic brand, and Tony Beard’s graphics greatly add to the mystique — but of course, it’s the liquid in the glass that really matters.

Dear Mr. Duggins: "The solutions to many of our most entrenched problems are likely to come from the bottom up not the top down."

First, the details.

I've emphasized one aspect of this program to "champion" independent, locally-owned businesses.

• access to capital
• a level playing field i.e. governments should stop favoring big corporations through subsidies, infrastructure and awarding contracts
• laws against monopolies enforced
• laws that allow cooperative ownership of real estate and community investments. While somewhat off topic, she also suggested the effects of gentrification also could be mitigated by community land trusts which, if formed early enough, could buy up properties to control the rise in rents
• easing business licensing, permitting and zoning, which are nearly impossible in Chicago due to the strong effect of political influence

Next time you run into David Duggins holding court at Quills, often in the act of entertaining an out-of-towner with promises of boilerplate tax abatements and subsidies, remind him of the virtues of locally-owned businesses, and enjoy the economic development director's nervous laugh. That's because what's "cool" for Duggins isn't necessarily best for the community.

Community Allies: the virtue of locally-owned businesses, by Bruce Nesmith (Holy Mountain)

As Cedar Rapids prepares to welcome two more strip malls on the edge of town, and one of our malls announces a new franchise tenant, it's instructive and inspiring to hear evidence that the most potent tax-gathering areas in towns of any size are downtowns and Main Streets, and that locally-owned businesses contribute far above their weight when it comes to developing strong communities. Those messages were crisply presented by Ellen Shepard in a talk Friday at Loyola University's Center for Urban Research and Learning. Ms. Shepard is the founder and CEO of Community Allies, which works with communities to develop organizations and leadership, facilitate community engagement, and "to grow stronger from within." Prior to that she headed the chamber of commerce in Andersonville, a neighborhood on the north side of Chicago.

La Chasse is hosting a Capriole Farms Goat Cheese Dinner on November 14, and you need to go.

I seldom promote events occurring across the wide expanse of water, over yonder in the big city, but this one's special for numerous Hoosier reasons.

La Chasse is a restaurant located at 1359 Bardstown Road in Louisville, in the space where Palermo Viejo operated for many years.

Rustic wood-fired European cuisine, located in the heart of the heart of the Highlands, with boutique wines and craft cocktails.

On Monday, November 14 at 7:00 p.m., La Chasse is hosting a Capriole Farms Goat Cheese Dinner.

Most readers already know about Capriole Farms in Greenville, Indiana, and its legendary Capriole Farmstead Goat Cheeses, as crafted by the equally renowned Judy Schad.

But there's more: The acclaimed La Chasse is Isaac Fox's restaurant. Old-timers will remember Isaac from Bistro New Albany and Speakeasy.

Finally, the evening's wine is from Vintner Select, employer of my longtime friend Kevin Lowber, who'll be on hand, too. Because there seem to be few images of Kevin on the Interwebz, let's embarrass him with a shot from 2001, aboard a speeding train in Belgium -- with beers and salami.

As for the dinner, the Confidentials have reserved, and you can, too. The La Chasse phone number is 502.822.3963

ON THE AVENUES: It’s our big fat Hibbardendum, and Jeff Gahan is carrying the superintendent across the threshold as Metro United Way tosses rice and One Southern Indiana steals all the liquor.

ON THE AVENUES: It’s our big fat Hibbardendum, and Jeff Gahan is carrying the superintendent across the threshold as Metro United Way tosses rice and One Southern Indiana steals all the liquor.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

It's extremely bad form for Gahan to be using our tax dollars to push the referendum. Yet one more reason to vote no. Also noteworthy along ethical lines is how the PAC (Families For Floyd County) threatened to sue last time over a bunch of neighbors putting out yard signs but seem to have no problem with this. The longer this type of chicanery goes on, the less I and others are inclined to financially support those who so consistently perform it.
-- Bluegill

On October 31 a typically breathless post appeared at New Albany's stand-alone City Hall web site, which begs the first of many questions almost certain to remain unasked by local reporters, their perennial omissions being why I crawl back from my stupor most weeks to make some semblance of an effort in this space, because damn it, someone should.

Why does City Hall need its own official web site when the City of New Albany already has one?

There it was, a strange Twilight Zone head-scratcher of a pre-election promo by an elected political entity, for a property tax referendum to which it has no direct connection – unless, of course, Mayor Jeff Gahan already has plotted a wee puddle for campaign finance beak-wetting amid $87 million, and yes, while they may be little puddles, they cumulatively add up to more than small beer.

Did you know that in 2015, Dan Cristiani Excavating was one of the city’s best-remunerated vendors at $650,214?

Just a spoonful of beak-wetting elixir from a splash pad like this goes a long way in staging a State Senate race, doesn’t it?

Right, Jeff?

Right, Chuck?

C’mon, guys, who is it going to be? Inquiring minds want to know ... and flee.

As an aside, in September, when the Floyd County Democratic Party publicly endorsed the Hibbardendum, teacher/candidate/sacrificial lamb/bro-in-law Steve Bonifer introduced the enabling resolution, prompting yet another question.

Who’ll be the next AARP-member teacher to run against incumbent Ed Clere in 2018?

---

City Hall’s virtual advertisement boosting the Hibbardendum sought yet again to convey the heroic inevitability of the NA-FC school corporation’s ballot initiative, primarily by gathering together in one spot as many slavish endorsements by local elites as permitted by OSHA standards of pile-driven redundancy. It slipped around like a greased pig, from one presumed community pillar to the next.

It was as though Team Gahan's functionaries were slouched on a grimy one-way street corner selling NA anchor seal pencils, apparently without a parks opening ribbon to cut or a tax abatement to lavish on reluctant industrial park occupants, its shiny paean of a press release apple being polished, and celebrating the Hibbardendum by endeavoring mightily to toss any remaining intellectual integrity out the window.

Something that's awfully hard to do when you inhabit a bunker.

There was a predictable reminder of Gahan’s previous personal endorsement, presumably written by one of his many immediate family members employed by … that’s right, the school corporation. You could tell Gahan didn't write it himself, as it came perilously close to coherence.

After touring the schools and reviewing the conditions in New Albany and Floyd County, I am excited to support the many improvements in store for our students in New Albany-Floyd County Schools.

Or, translated: “Ask not what Bruce Hibbard can do for you, ask what you can do for Bruce Hibbard.” It’s not exactly JFK, but at least spellcheck was activated.

Next came a gushing tout from the Southern Indiana Realtors Association.

“We fully support the NAFCS Referendum which will bring much needed improvements to nine area schools,” stated Sara White, President-elect of the Southern Indiana Realtors Association and managing broker for Semonin Realtors Southern Indiana.

Try finding it on SIRA’s web site; more on that in a moment.

My personal favorite was the link to a letter from Tsar Hibbard himself, a man whose bags have been kept packed since arrival, 24-7-365, in expectation of verdant pastures to come, just over that glorious horizon where the golden parachutes grow like greenhouse ganja ... if Prosser were located in California.

In this era of competition for students, NAFCS is doing quite well. For the sixth consecutive school year, we have a record of number of transfer students! This provides our operating fund with over four million dollars of added revenue. Why are so many people choosing NAFCS? Our leadership team believes there is a simple answer: It’s our teachers and support staff. We have the hardest working, incredibly intelligent and most collaborative group of people working with our students. Furthermore, our entire staff embraces a model based upon results and improvement. This is why NAFCS provides our community with highly rated rigorous academic programs, championship athletic teams and world-class performing arts.

Please Vote “Yes” for NAFCS!

Given that Hibbard and the school system are prohibited from engaging in pro-referendum agitprop, this paragraph is highly instructive. It reveals that the primary mission of today’s school corporation is to lure students away from other neighboring school corporations, hence the importance of artificial turf on football fields and gold-plated bathroom fixtures last seen being looted from a fleeing Mobutu’s presidential palace in Zaire.

Consequently, when it came time to design a graphic interface for recruitment signs, a remarkable coincidence occurred. The imagery of saying “yes” to the general concept of NA-FC schools almost exactly mirrored that of saying “yes” to this particular property tax referendum, such that when Hibbard closes his pep talk with a resounding “yes” to schools, well, he’s not saying anything about the vote, just the rah-rah.

Clever devils, aren’t they?

---

Wile E. Coyote isn’t the only genius enrolled in this adult education outreach program.

According to City Hall, One Southern Indiana has thrown its considerable dead-as-roadkill weight behind the Hibbardendum, as Wendy Dant Chesser indicated in a letter to the News and Tribune, dated October 30, though found only on City Hall's web site, not anywhere on the newspaper's, except that interestingly, on September 19, in a newspaper article about the Democratic Party’s gratifyingly Boniferian resolution, it was mentioned that 1Si already had endorsed it.

Well, hell, everyone has endorsed it.

The NAACP, the NCAA, the SPCA, the CIA, the FBI, the city’s fire chief, its police chief, the building commissioner, and surely five or six bushels of indifferent city officials and employees who astutely reason that their failure to be seen plumping for the featherbedding might result in skinnier pay packets, or even worse, a 1:00 a.m. phone call from His Serene Highness.

Couldn't they at least get their dates straight?

Meanwhile, with the upper strata ready to start moving some dirt, Metro United Way has made a late entry into the fray with this.

Just today, committed community partners Metro United Way released an endorsement of the NAFCS Referendum.

“Metro United Way’s top priorities are for our young children to arrive at kindergarten prepared to succeed and for our students to graduate on time, prepared for college, life and career. We are also know that learning environments play a large role in student success. That is why, we are hopeful that the New Albany Floyd County School referendum will be embraced by the Floyd County community on November 8th,” stated Joe Tolan, President & CEO of Metro United Way.

Just like City Hall’s recitation of the Southern Indiana Realtors Association servile bootlicking, Metro United Way’s mash note seems to exist at no other planetary portal than City Hall’s own propaganda arm.

Why?

Since Tuesday, I’ve been asking Metro United Way for clarification. I was asked to please move the conversation from public social media (where folks can see it) to private messaging (where they can't), and I did, with the entirely expected result being three days of absolute do-nothing stonewalling.

Metro United Way, whose board includes a who's who of regional luminaries, including NAFC schools lifer Dr. Louis Jensen, briefly waved off questions about its 501(c)3 non-profit status before retreating into hiding.

How is this organization in any position to "endorse" the Hibbardendum?

Moreover, and the overall gist of my rant, why is the city of New Albany expending tax dollars to serve as the central information, argumentum ad verecundiam portal in support of the school corporation’s pitch for property tax dollars?

Were the SIRA and Metro United Way testimonials handed directly to Gahan?

Does Gahan work for the citizens of New Albany, or Bruce Hibbard?

I’m reminded of the top-down tone of pre-Brexit in the United Kingdom, as every last representative of usual-suspect officialdom took a turn shilling for a “stay” vote, perhaps never bothering to look outside, at the restless and sometimes angry crowds, their middle fingers raised to the heavens, because how many times must one be compelled to remind these wankers in official circles that the usual finger-wagging hypocrites quite simply are loathed?

To close, I’ll speak for myself, and for me alone.

I’ve never been cut from the anti-tax bolt of cloth. My mom was a teacher, and I've been around teachers my whole life. We’ve no children, but are perfectly willing to pay our fair share for education.

However, as with the vote that preceded it, the stated terms of this referendum are fundamentally deceptive. The chicanery accompanying them is rampant and frankly odious. This exercise is about bright shiny objects, not the education of kids. This is not a community discussion about the future of education. It’s a top-down edict, and a call for the rabble to bow to their betters, form a line and stand in order.

Consequently, it's no wonder Mayor Gahan is so attached to the grandeur of the Hibbardendum. It's exactly the same level of Disneymandered Potemkin Village Boondoggling that prefaces the sluices of his municipal governance in New Albany. The greased pig I mentioned earlier? He's in slop.

I'm ready to have a community-wide discussion about what's best for children. Anytime, anywhere -- and this referendum isn't it. Not even close. I voted against it, and I understand this act will offend some readers.

But I believe the opprobrium should be directed against the school corporation's upper management, especially Hibbard, because in the process of making a bad case for its own bad idea, it has insulted our intelligence, again, and again, and again.

In the end, it wasn't necessary for me to take into consideration the phalanx of "business as usual" pimps brought together by the Genius of the Flood Plain to perform some soft shoe and clink a few glasses.

But thanks just the same, mayor. The refresher course is much appreciated, and I'll just pass on the entree.

(Updated on Sunday, November 6)

Our big fat Hibbardendum (1): Follow the PAC-besotted usual suspects' beak wetting in the $87 million schools referendum. 

Our big fat Hibbardendum (2): The more things stay the same, or our school bond referendum, 2016.

Our big fat Hibbardendum (3): City voters, take note, because just as in 2015, the NA-FC bond referendum is a "driving oriented, suburban school model."

---

October 27: ON THE AVENUES: It's NAC's 12th birthday, and the beatings will continue until morale improves.

October 20: ON THE AVENUES: Key events in the New Albanian rebirth, but first, a piccolo of grappa, per favore.

October 13: ON THE AVENUES: They're coming to take me away.

October 6: ON THE AVENUES: His nose knows tolls and polls (2010).

No, Adam Dickey didn't send us this link: "Only Socialism Can Defeat Trumpism."

Olbermann, The Closer, Ep. 37: "This Weekend, Let’s Be Angry. But Not Afraid!"

How sweet is is to have the old -isms back for another run.

Americans—especially young adults and minorities—don’t see Sanders as a dinosaur trading on nostalgia or harking back to an irredeemable past. Instead, they see capitalism as a key source of their troubles.

Yep.

Only Socialism Can Defeat Trumpism, by Nicole Aschoff and Bhaskar Sunkara (The Nation)

Millions of ordinary people are ready for an alternative, one pointed to by the success of Bernie Sanders.

 ... The Democratic Party must ponder a tough question: How much of Trump’s support among the white working class can really be chalked up to Republican propaganda and race-baiting, or is a good deal of populist anger rooted in the Democrats’ hypocrisy on economic issues? If the past eight years of Obama recovery haven’t benefited these workers, why would they be enthused to rally beyond his anointed successor?

He's melting: If the newspapers won't ask David Duggins hard questions, maybe a bucket of water is the answer.

In these two articles by the News and Tribune's Danielle Grady, there are so many questions to be asked, and so few questions actually asked.

Are they ever asked? I really want to know. If I can think of these questions (and others) while reading, then ...

Industrial development growing in New Albany

FireKing Security Group to be first tenant in Industrial Park West

... David Duggins, New Albany’s director of economic development and redevelopment, said that three years isn’t that long of a time to search for a tenant — a good one, at least.

Is there any evidence for this assertion, or perhaps a corresponding example?

Did the city show property to five potential tenants in three years out of taste and discernment, or because its development hand is so exceedingly weak?

The Carlisle Family was attracted to the Industrial Park partly because of the tax abatements the city offered them. They city approved one abatement for the $6.5 million the Carlisle Family is investing into its new building, while also approving a tax abatement for the $2.2 million worth of manufacturing and IT equipment FireKing is investing into the new location.

Lots and lots of boilerplate tax abatements. The city is adept at giving away money to bigger companies. What sort of programs exist to "assist" smaller start-ups?

“We think that once FireKing gets built up, it’ll really help spur more development because if you don’t know it’s there, you really don’t know it’s there,” he said.

Was that Duggins speaking, or the late Yogi Berra?

Finally, how does the headline "industrial development growing" jibe with the article's conclusion: "Grant Line Industrial Park West might be one of the last frontiers for industry in the city. New Albany is almost out of industrial space, said Duggins."

Let's move on to a second collection of unchallenged smoke-blowing, this time on site at The Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats ... and waiter, may I have another plaque?

With cream on top?

The Breakwater apartment complex in New Albany starts accepting tenants

First building opens in mid-December

... The city of New Albany has been happy with how The Breakwater has been coming along — especially regarding the types of tenants it is attracting.

“We want people to live in downtown that are excited to be in downtown,” said David Duggins, New Albany’s director of economic development and redevelopment.

And the apartment complex just looks nice, Duggins said.

“When you go out there, it’s cool, and I think that’s hard to accomplish sometimes,” he said.

So many questions.

How cool are the sewer tap-in waivers and other public subsidies enabling a private for-profit enterprise to be given its special leg-up?

Given these subsidies, isn't the city also subsidizing future retail occupants of the old Coyle building, these being subsidies unavailable to other small business owners?

Duggins has denied two-way streets ever came up during these subsidy negotiations, but at least one Flaherty Collins employee has indicated otherwise.

Which is it? Because if this did in fact arise, and if assurances were made by the city to this effect, then every subsequent protest of "two-way streets aren't a done deal" was a lie (yeah, Irv -- you can use that).

But wait -- it's cool, dude.

After all, Duggins isn't so much a director of economic development as a style arbiter. He's Gianni Versace, reincarnated, and Jeff Gahan believes it.

If that doesn't terrify you, nothing will.

What city is this, anyway?

Top Ten posts at NA Confidential for October, 2016.

It wasn't even close, folks -- you LOVED the newly painted Honey Creme. 

Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we enjoy burrowing beneath the headlines to offer unique local perspectives. October continued a recent trend in heightened readership, testifying to a keen interest in local stories, perhaps because they're being chronically under-served elsewhere.

The list begins with five "honorable mention" posts, before concluding with the Top Ten, escalating to No. 1. Stats are derived from Google's internal numbers listings.

FIVE HONORABLE MENTION

396

Indie food & drink behind the booths: Floyd County Brewing Company and Habana Blues.

404

Clear Cut New Albany: Down go the first three of Judge Cody's street trees. Lord, how I detest this place at times.

412

"They just killed my business" ... and other incredible tales as "Harvest Homecoming creates parking dilemma at Underground Station."

414

ON THE AVENUES: They're coming to take me away.

428

Pre-election striping: By Mayor Gahan's usual standards, this ALMOST qualifies as political courage.

TOP TEN

437

WITHIN CITY LIMITS: Episode XI, What Have I Been Up To?

454

BREAKING: City of New Albany transitioning to new civic identity as HarvestHomeComingStan.

468

Jeff Speck on HWC Engineering's bicycle-free, two-way streets abortion: "I guess that's what you get when you ask engineers who do not value biking to change a plan."

469

Coqui's Cafe will regroup and relocate: "We have outgrown our little diner on the corner of Bank and Market. Sunday was our last day at that location."

483

A reminder: Biers on Parade, today, 2 - 6 p.m. at the Farmers Market.

527

Guest columnist Nick Vaughn: We must stand together and renounce Donald Trump.

587

The impending grandeur of breaking wind (or, All About The Breakwater).

670

Upper Spring work continues as drivers somehow manage to pay attention in spite of their boiling anger.

767

Preview: 410 Bakery coming to 140 East Main Street in downtown New Albany.

2,079

See the sweet new public doughnut art at NA's classic Honey Creme Donuts.

1. Great again? "Forget fear and loathing. The US election inspires projectile vomiting."

Money into influence? That's not restricted to the major party candidates, is it?

Forget fear and loathing. The US election inspires projectile vomiting, by Barbara Ehrenreich (The Guardian)

The most sordid side of our democracy has been laid out for all to see. But that’s only the beginning: whoever wins, the mutual revulsion will only intensify

... (Trump's) supporters – generally portrayed as laid-off blue-collar workers who, in the absence of unions, have devoted themselves to the cause of whiteness – cheer on each of his macro-aggressions. To them, he is a giant middle finger in the face of the bipartisan political elite, and the crazier he acts, the more resounding this fuck-you gets. It doesn’t matter that most of Trump’s assertions can’t stand up to fact-checking; ignorance has been enshrined by an entire alternative media, stretching from Fox News to Stormfront on the Nazi-leaning right.

On the liberal left, tragically, we do not have Bernie Sanders, who would have dispatched Trump’s populist pretensions with a wrist flick. But no, representing the side of tolerance, good government and cosmopolitanism, we have the very epitome of Democratic party elitism, a woman who labeled half of Trump’s supporters “deplorables”, a politician who is so robotic that any efforts to analyze her motives risk the charge of anthropomorphism. Consider her statement on the Standing Rock occupation in North Dakota, which could have been issued by an unmanned typewriter. As soldiers and police bore down on the protesters, she urged all parties – tribal peoples and the pipeline company that threatens their culture and habitat – “to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest”.

If a withering cynicism hangs over the land it’s because both candidates share a Tony-Blairish zeal for turning money into influence and vice versa. He has his Trump Foundation, whose largest beneficiary was reportedly a fountain in need of renovations that faces the Trump Plaza hotel. She has the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which shares some of its revenues with the global poor, but also emits a stench of corruption which, according to leaked emails, even the ever tractable Chelsea could not help noticing ...

2. Great again? "No Matter Who Loses the Election, the Winner Will Be the National Security State."

Welcome to the "peacetime" war state.

No Matter Who Loses the Election, the Winner Will Be the National Security State, by Tom Engelhardt (The Nation)

Both Trump and Clinton have pledged to pour more money into the already bloated military and security apparatus.

The United States remains the great imperial state on Planet Earth in terms of the reach of its military and the power of its economy and culture to influence the workings of everything just about everywhere. And yet, based on the last strange year of election campaigning, it’s hard not to think that something—and not just The Donald—is unnervingly amiss on Planet America.

3. Great again? "Barrel Bomb: the Cataclysmic Close of Campaign 2016."

Counting the minutes until business as usual.

Barrel Bomb: the Cataclysmic Close of Campaign 2016, by Chris Floyd (CounterPunch)

Well, here we are: at the bottom of the barrel under forty feet of slag. In a few days’ time, we’ll know our fate: the five-alarm fire of Trump Rule (oh, how those police unions are chomping at the bit!) or the Clinton Age of Hyper-War (oh, how those neocons are chomping at the bit!). In either case, the entrenched coagulation of corporate interests and war profiteers that have strangled the peace, prosperity and prospects of the American people will not be budged an inch. The change that people are so desperately hungry for — so hungry that that some of them might well elect an Establishment insider whose sinister clowning makes him appear to be a ‘rebel’ — will not come. Thus their bitterness will grow deeper, more sour, erupting more and more often in physical violence: from militarized police against protestors, from Trump-empowered racists (if he wins or loses), from extremist militias, from angry, maddened people on every side. And of course there will be more — much more — of the horrific, never-ending, globe-spanning violence of the bipartisan Terror War that churns on and on, no matter who is sitting temporarily in the White House.

There’s no use in pretending that’s not what we face. But there’s also no use in pretending that this situation is somehow sui generis, some terribly unlucky conflation of unforeseen circumstances coming together at this particular time. It is in fact the culmination and embodiment of the deliberate choices of the most powerful forces in society: the choices to enrich themselves beyond all reason and extend their military and economic dominance over the earth.

A pirate looks at '15: "In the U.S., Almost No One Votes in Local Elections."

I was a year ahead of my time, but that's okay. The point was made, posterity will be generous, and I can't thank Seven Percenters often enough.

In the U.S., Almost No One Votes in Local Elections, by Kriston Capps (City Lab)

... As if incredibly low voter turnout weren’t dispiriting enough, mayoral elections in the U.S. are also barely representative of the population. In the most recent mayoral elections across 50 U.S. cities, the median voter age was 57—evidence of an enormous gap in civic participation between retiring Baby Boomers and rising Millennials. Worse still, perhaps, voters are overrepresented in some neighborhoods and dramatically underrepresented in others.

A new report from Portland State University finds that almost nobody bothers to vote in mayoral U.S. elections. Those who do tend to be much older than the median resident and hail from more affluent neighborhoods to boot. That’s not necessarily a surprise, although the degree of disparity in local voting patterns is alarming.

"Go Cubs Go: How Chicago's victory anthem keeps a father alive for his daughters."

I am not now nor have I ever been a fan of the Chicago Cubs.

However, as a history buff, it isn't possible to let this moment pass without a tip of the chapeau to the World Series champs.

Thanks to Kent Sterling for the Fb prompt.

Go Cubs Go: How Chicago's victory anthem keeps a father alive for his daughters, by Michael Rosenberg (Sports Illustrated)

Steve Goodman died in 1984 but his Cubs theme song has become an essential part of the Wrigley Field experience and provides a powerful memory for the family he left behind.

Dennis Roudenbush for Commissioner: Josh Williams mentions "transparency" as Adam Dickey runs screaming from the crypt.

I voted for Dennis Roudenbush and recommend you do the same, but we must profusely thank DemoDisneyDixiecratic candidate Josh Williams for his ironic detachment, surely unintended, as he contradicts the daily operational goals of the Dickey/Gahan party apparatus with this one statement.

Floyd County Commissioner, Dist. 3 | Election 2016, by Madeleine Winer, (Courier-Journal)

... First priority is transparency. Elected officials have a tendency to forget that they are elected as public servants. The citizens of Floyd County deserve to know what is going on and have full disclosure of all pertinent information so that they can voice a true opinion on issues.

I've not met Williams, who seems earnest and well meaning, but he might wish to take an honest look around him at those Roadhouse party functions and grasp that the very best examples of non-transparent megalomania are seated across from him, drinking the Bud Light Lime Kool-Aid, as crafted in small batches by the party chairman himself.

To repeat: Roudenbush for Commissioner.

Chronicles of New Gahania: Mayor evades questions about dog park sacrilege with help of police escort.

Thanks J.

Just in case you missed it, Mayor Gahan went to a self-congratulatory plaque-raising yesterday, and damned if some substance didn't break out.

Watch the pooch pee: Doggie excrement "trumps" Native American sacraments as Jeff Gahan flees the WHAS-11 camera.

Meanwhile, these screen shots show what happened when Tony attempted to engage The Genius of the Flood Plain in dialogue as he scurried past the Fourth Estate.

The Green Mouse has learned that when the Imperial Carriage arrived and Our Beloved Leader saw WHAS-11 setting up for an interview with Tony Nava, Deputy Mayor Duggins immediately phoned for police back-up, lest Nava attempt to tell the truth on camera within earshot of Gahan.

DUDE: This is no way to conduct a State Senate campaign, especially when you'll have to beat Chuck Freiberger in the primary.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: "10 words that don't mean what they used to."

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why all these newfangled words?

Why not the old, familiar, comforting words, like the ones you're sure to hear when asking the city's corporate attorney why the answers to my FOIA/public records request for Bicentennial commission finances, due to be handed over on July 8, still haven't arrived on November 2?

Bicentennial commission financial trail? What's two (yawn) weeks (shrug) after 463 days?

November 2 update: Make that 17 weeks since the FOIA record request's due date and 567 days since I asked Bullet Bob Caesar to tell us how many coffee table books were left unsold, and how much the city's 200-year "summer of love" fest actually cost us. It's with Indiana's public access counselor now, so perhaps "compliance" would be a word for future consideration. 

No, it's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about intimidation through erudition. Rather, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even these very same iniquitous, paving-bond-slush-engorged municipal corporate attorneys who customarily are handsomely remunerated to suppress information can benefit from this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, as we contemplate what they knew and when they knew it, all we have left is plenty of time -- and the opportunity to learn something, if we're so inclined.

Today's words are found here:

10 words that don't mean what they used to: when meerkats were monkeys and bimbos were boys, by Paul Anthony Jones (The Guardian)

Did you know that alcohol originally meant eyeshadow, clouds were rocks or that a moment once lasted precisely 90 seconds? Read on, girls and bimbos …

It’s by no means unusual for words to change their meaning over time. But thanks to the twists and turns of language – and the convoluted history of English, in particular – some words end up quite a distance from where they began, as the following bizarre etymological stories illustrate.

Not the late and lamented pissoir, but Germany has an idea to provide more public restrooms.

It's been a couple of years since public toilet mania in New Albany.

As April comes to an end, a reminder that public toilets are not dead.

A ringside seat for New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part Twelve.

Meanwhile, Germany's doing something about it.

Germany Found a Cheap Way to Fix Its Lack of Public Restrooms, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Welcome to the “Nice Toilet.”

... In Germany, it looks like there may be one that really works. The country’s Nette Toilette (“Nice Toilet”) system has created a compromise between public and private restrooms that makes such obvious sense it’s hard to believe that other countries aren’t doing it already too. It works like this. German cities pay businesses a monthly fee of anything from €30 to €100 ($33 to $110) a month to open up their restrooms for the general public. These businesses then put a sticker in their window to let the public know they’re welcome to use the facilities even if they’re not buying. First launched in 2000 and now including 210 member cities (including some in Switzerland), the network is a private one that charges participating cities a modest fee to use their branding. Sixteen years in, it’s still on a roll. At the end of October, the network announced that it is expanding to Munich, which will be its largest urban area yet.

Watch the pooch pee: Doggie excrement "trumps" Native American sacraments as Jeff Gahan flees the WHAS-11 camera.

"The City of New Albany has done some really dumb stuff in the time I've lived here but a members only, pay-to-play "public" dog park out on the fringe of town with no walking route - built on Native American ceremonial grounds, no less - is among the dumbest. Three strikes with one pitch."
-- Bluegill (here)

Before we look at the incriminating photos, let's rewind to March, 2016 for background on the origins of New Albany Dog Park, which by a miracle yet to be revealed, hasn't yet been named for a suburban subdivision or a dead Democrat.

THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2016
Dog daze: With Gahan back in the safe house, civilian architect Timperman now is the city's official spokesman.

When Mayor Jeff Gahan donned his standard issue suit and tie for an uncharacteristic public appearance at Cannon Acres with WDRB's Gil Corsey, actually speaking on behalf of his own administration without the usual sycophants and intermediaries for protective filtration,

"Right now the last thing we'd want to do is be disrespectful to anyone," Gahan said.

Amid instantaneous and contagious community-wide laughter, it was only a matter of milliseconds until chief handler Adam Disney speed-dialed Gahan to remind the mayor that the only way he can refrain from disrespect is to remain safely ensconced in the down-low bunker.

In the emergency meeting that followed, you can almost see them looking around the room ... so, who can we use?

Seven and one half months of campaign finance beak-wetting later, the dog park was dedicated, and to the credit of WHAS-11, Tony Nava was invited to say a few words. Follow the link to watch the video.

Meanwhile, these screen shots show what happened when Tony attempted to engage The Genius of the Flood Plain in dialogue as he scurried past the Fourth Estate.

If a picture paints a thousand words.
Then why can't I paint you?
The words will never show.
The you I've come to know.

The "you" who flees any unscripted opportunity ... and yet the most incisive comment is reserved for this dog ...

 ... peeing on a ceremonial Native American site as the cameras roll.

Adam Disney didn't give that dog very good public relations advice, did he? Unless, of course, that's exactly the advice he gave him.

"The Tallinn experiment: what happens when a city makes public transport free?"

Waiting for the bus in Tallinn, April 2016.

Plenty of pros, and a few cons, too. During our spring break getaway in Tallinn ...

All the Estonia links are here, in one place.

... we used inexpensive public transportation day passes, and adored them.

The Tallinn experiment: what happens when a city makes public transport free? by Maeve Shearlaw (The Guardian)

Since Estonia’s capital started providing free public transport for residents in 2013, it claims to have turned a €20m a year profit each year. But has the scheme achieved its ambitions of reducing traffic and saving people money?

In London a monthly travel card for the whole city costs almost £200. In Copenhagen, a city a fraction of the size, you’ll pay £160. So when you ask the residents of Tallinn about the benefits of free travel across the city, it’s a surprise to be met with a roll of the eyes or a sarcastic smile.

The capital of Estonia introduced free public transport at the beginning of 2013 after their populist mayor Edgar Savisaar called a referendum on the decision, dismissed by critics at the time as a political stunt that the city couldn’t afford.

Three years on Savisaar has been suspended amid allegations of corruption, but the city remains committed to the programme – claiming that instead of it costing them money, they are turning a profit of €20m a year.

To enjoy Tallinn’s buses, trams, trolley buses and trains for free you must be registered as a resident, which means that the municipality gets a €1,000 share of your income tax every year, explains Dr Oded Cats, an expert who has conducted a year long study on the project. Residents only need to pay €2 for a “green card” and then all their trips are free.

Since the scheme launched, an additional 25,000 people have registered in the city that previously had a population of 416,000, but this is where the tension lies. The more money for the city of Tallinn, the less there is for the places they leave behind, explains Cats, “so it’s not hard to see why the government and the mayor’s office might see things differently”.

ASK THE BORED: What the hell do we do when a street light is out?

You're outside walking the pooch after dark, and you trip on a malformed sidewalk that hasn't been repaired since the Kennedy years.

"Damn," you curse. "If only the street light would have been functional, I could have minded the gap."

And so you go to the city's snazzy upgraded web site, the one where you're greeted by a billboard-sized portrait of Our Beloved Leader, in order to report the street light outage, because you know the sidewalk's gonna be toast at least until the second Chelsea Clinton administration.

So much for that. Surmising that the city probably has outsourced all such matters to the utility monopolies, which play a central role in campaign finance for those aspiring to be President Chelsea's local branded representative, you're off to Google.

Problem is, Duke says "no can do" in Indiana.

And yet, hit another link recently posted on a Facebook page, and there's this.

It appears to be a procedure for reporting street light outages. I haven't tried it yet because miraculously, all the lights on my block appear to be functional at present.

This week's question to the Bored, destined to remain unanswered just like the rest: Exactly what is the procedure for reporting a street light outage? Is it Duke, or must citizens take a half day off from work to pay homage to Chairman Warren in person?

Also this: Is it Happy Hour yet?

Anger and mourning "Inside the Sacrifice Zone."

You're so angry that you consistently vote against your own health?

The book's ultimate aim is to explore the emotional state of the American "right", but importantly, this review helps to remind us that as we've focused on the personal demerits of two horrible presidential candidates, whole areas of critical importance have gone unaddressed.

Climate change?

Environmental concerns?

Anyone?

Inside the Sacrifice Zone, by Nathaniel Rich (The New York Review of Books)

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild

 ... After seeing his house, neighborhood, and way of life destroyed by corporate greed and state-sanctioned contempt for the natural environment, and many of his neighbors diagnosed with cancer, (Mike) Schaff was forever changed. “They think we’re just a bunch of ignorant coonasses,” he told a Mother Jones reporter. Schaff became an environmental activist, railing against the “disrespect that we have been shown by both Texas Brine and our state officials themselves.” He marched on the statehouse, wrote fifty letters to state and federal officials, granted dozens of interviews to local, national, and foreign press. When state officials claimed they had detected no oil in the bayou, he demanded that the EPA check their work.

But Schaff continued to vote Tea Party down the line. He voted for the very politicians who had abetted Texas Brine at every turn, who opposed environmental regulation of any kind. He voted to “abolish” the EPA, believing that it “was grabbing authority and tax money to take on a fictive mission…lessening the impact of global warming.” The violent destruction of everything he held dear was not enough to change his mind.

Schaff’s story is an extreme but representative example of what so many Louisianian voters have brought upon themselves. “The entire state of Louisiana,” writes Hochschild, “had been placed into a sinkhole.” When confronted with the contradictions in their political logic, Hochschild’s subjects fall into “long pauses.” Cognitive dissonance reduces them to childlike inanity. When asked about catastrophic oil spills that result from lax regulation, one woman says, “It’s not in the company’s own interest to have a spill or an accident…. So if there’s a spill, it’s probably the best the company could do.” Madonna Massey says: “Sure, I want clean air and water, but I trust our system to assure it.” Jackie Tabor, whom Hochschild describes as “an obedient Christian wife,” says: “You have to put up with things the way they are…. Pollution is the sacrifice we make for capitalism,” which is a gentler way of saying that premature death is the sacrifice we make for capitalism. Janice Areno, who worked at Olin Chemical without a facial mask as an inspector of phosgene gas and suffers mysterious health ailments that she believes are “probably related to growing up near the plants,” finds comfort in an anthropomorphic analogy: “Just like people have to go to the bathroom, plants do too.”

But Hochschild is not interested in merely documenting the familiar ways in which this stratum of white Americans has consistently voted against its own interests, economic and otherwise. She wants to understand the cause. She finds all of the familiar explanations lacking.

"Lorry driver who killed four while using phone jailed for 10 years."

I'm just going to leave this here.

Lorry driver who killed four while using phone jailed for 10 years, by (The Guardian)

Tomasz Kroker was scrolling through music on his mobile when he hit car carrying woman and three children

A lorry driver who killed a woman and three children when his vehicle ploughed into their stationary car while he was scrolling through music on his mobile phone has been jailed for 10 years.

Tracy Houghton, 45, her sons, Ethan, 13, Josh, 11, and stepdaughter, Aimee, 11, died instantly when Tomasz Kroker drove his lorry into their car at 50mph. Their car was shunted underneath the back of a heavy goods vehicle and crushed to a third of its size.

An hour earlier, Kroker, 30, had signed a declaration to his employer promising he would not use his phone at the wheel.

I'm holding out for the Michael Dukakis edition.

They're proliferating like rabbits on my Facebook page.

The problem? It isn't exactly an enticing comparison, at least from Bill's standpoint. Uncle Joe is a bit less objectionable. Is it to late for him to run for president?

Look -- there's another one.

If Bayh wins, can Mr. Dickey go to Washington?