Harvest Homecoming guest column follow-up: Our peculiar institution has no basis in ordinance, only habit.

On Thursday, I handed over my weekly ON THE AVENUES column slot to downtown independent business owner Cisa Kubley.

ON THE AVENUES: A downtown business owner's open letter to Harvest Homecoming.

As of Saturday morning, it has become the single most read ON THE AVENUES of 2017, doubling the views usually garnered by one of my columns.

This is richly deserved. Cisa's essay is cogent and hard-hitting, and I'm delighted she submitted it to NA Confidential. It's an example of a point-of-view the newspaper cannot do in mandating 250-word letters to the editor -- and probably wouldn't even then, as I suspect there's gold in those Harvest Homecoming advertisements.

In the interest of fairness, I've spoken to David White, chairman of the board of Harvest Homecoming. He is writing a column in reply to Cisa's, and I hope his essay will be ready for posting on Thursday, November 9.

Regular readers already know that Cisa's argument mirrors that of this blog.

These aren’t new issues, these aren’t new complaints. At what point will the Harvest Homecoming committee and the city finally make adjustments for the betterment of the whole community, not just those who enjoy the festival?

With all due respect to the history of Harvest Homecoming and my assumption of good intentions on the part of the committee, I simply cannot support an event that shows such blatant disregard and disrespect for the year-round businesses that lose money year after year.

I'll add only that the very weakest arguments mustered in response to critiques of Harvest Homecoming are these: It's inevitable; it's always been done this way; if you don't like it, just leave.

Apart from the fact of the city's existence for 150 years prior to the advent of Harvest Homecoming, it should be pointed out that the festival's inevitability has no absolutely no basis in statute.

City of New Albany, Indiana: Code of Ordinances

Harvest Homecoming is mentioned exactly twice in the city's rule book for self-governance (excerpts below), first with regard to daily leased parking in the lot adjacent to the festival's headquarters, and then as the recipient of an annual exception to registration requirements for "peddlers and solicitors."

Every other facet of Harvest Homecoming's peak street grid usage during the parade and subsequent booth days -- except for Dan Coffey's commandeering of city-owned property to park cars for self-enrichment -- is vetted and approved yearly by the Board of Public Works and Safety, just like any other request to interrupt normal operational procedures for a special activity.

Harvest Homecoming cannot function as it does without the express consent of the city, as well as traditionally uncounted city expenditures for ancillaries and overtime.

Knowing this, think again about the points made by Cisa Kubley in her guest column. In essence, City Hall approves that her business and others like it be inconvenienced for the benefit of the festival.

Why is that?

Strong Towns Week: “This blog has changed my life in profound ways and, in the process, your reaction has given voice to a movement that is slowing seeping into those cogs of government.”

The Copperhead can be intimidating.

You know, this guy up in Minnesota getting involved, and finding it discomforts the governing cliques, the sycophants serving them, and the oligarchs being served by them.

Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable? Marohn is an engineer, but it almost sounds like journalism.

STAYING STRONG, by Charles Marohn

... I wanted to share this because I know there are Strong Towns advocates out there who occasionally get similar responses in their communities: Why don’t you move? Let’s see you run for council. Why don’t you show up? These are really destructive and dysfunctional notions that are meant to intimidate and shame the receiver. We can’t let that change what we do.

We all need to understand, first and foremost, that you don’t need to attend a meeting to care. You don’t need to be involved in the system that has been set up for you in order to be involved in your place. A base assumption of the Strong Towns movement is that the city is ours. We are not relegated to secondary citizens simply because we are not following the process set forth by those in power.

One of the more deeply offensive moments of my professional life was at a meeting of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s citizen’s board where one of the outspoken board members stated that, “the world is run by those who show up.” This was said in the context of defending the actions of a wealthy, highly-connected group of prime property owners who not only could afford to take time off work and travel 150 miles to the meeting, but retain legal staff and professional experts to advocate on their behalf. Needless to say, their opposition didn’t “show up” in the way that they had — their concerns thereby invalidated with a pompous remark.

City council meetings are incredibly unfair environments for a member of the general public wanting to be heard. The layout of most council chambers is intimidating and isolating. A person asking to speak has to come up to a podium, stand there alone and face an assembled group of officials who are seated behind an intimidating table and, often, elevated above the crowd. In my city, they are on television to boot. I’ve seen grown men shake with fear when asked to address the council in this way.

This is the home field for the staff and the city council. They have the benefit of having spent a lot of time in this abnormal environment. They know how the protocols work, how to control the floor and how to direct the discussion. They have inside information that members of the public don’t have, adding to the asymmetric power structure. I will never fault someone for not subjecting themselves to that, no matter how important their cause.

The format of a council meeting creates feedback that is disjointed and unhelpful. There is little opportunity for back and forth dialogue. Complex issues must be discussed in limited timeframes. Members of the public are often given cursory slots at the beginning and the end of the agenda and frequently leave feeling as if they are being patronized or tolerated, not listened to. I don’t blame anyone for finding little value in spending their time this way.

And this:

Here is what are we called to do as Strong Towns advocates:

1. A Strong Citizen is a leader by example, sharing the values of a Strong Town in the way they live their own life.
2. A Strong Citizen is actively involved in their community, although not necessarily in local government.
3. A Strong Citizen knows their immediate neighbors and works with them to resolve conflict and build a strong neighborhood.
4. A Strong Citizen seeks connections with others outside their neighborhood as a way to gain knowledge, build understanding and strengthen the community.
5. A Strong Citizen honors the work of past generations, respects the needs of the current generation and protects the interests of future generations.

Don’t be intimidated by haters. Keep doing what you can to build a strong town.

The plaque-ing of the New Albany Riverfront Amphitheater began with the late Darrell Sweet, drummer for Nazareth.

The clip's from 1981.

Way back on October 4, 2008, a bar bet was settled here at NAC.

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 anyone remember why Nazareth decided to play New Albany in the first place?

Better stated: Who booked Nazareth to play New Albany?

Here is the rest of the story. Darrell Sweet, drummer and founding member of the Scottish rock band Nazareth, took ill before a scheduled show at the New Albany Riverfront Amphitheater on April 30, 1999. He was taken to (then) Floyd Memorial Hospital, where he died of a heart attack at 51 years of age.

Fans of Nazareth commissioned a commemorative plaque for Sweet, which was affixed to the rear of the stage (facing the Ohio River) at some point prior to 2008, when the topic entered the barroom transcript.

Here is my 2012 photo.

A closer look.

And the plaque above Darrell Sweet's?

Circa 2011, this plaque was presented by the local Democratic Party to Shelle England. It was followed by a plaque of different design for her husband (and three-term mayor) Doug England. Both were mounted at the amphitheater by mid-2012.

Ironically, without boatloads of money from the Clark-Floyd Counties Convention and Tourism Bureau, there would not have been an amphitheater reconstruction following wind damage in 2008, and hence no Bicentennial gift for England to bequeath.

Alas, these funds never seem to get mentioned.

The preceding three plaques eventually were joined in 2012 by a richly deserved memorial to the late Kevin Hammersmith.

Somehow I get the impression that when it comes time to affix a Gahan plaque, we'll no longer be measuring in inches.

Old Albania (photo credit Michel Setboun)

COMMENTARY: Deaf Gahan mentioned "opioid crisis" in a press release, but this probably doesn't mean what you think it does, so let's clear it up.

It seemed like big news earlier this week, but with a wee bit of scrutiny, the spiel is exposed as more of the same New Gahanian institutional flatulence.

Three years after Southern Indiana's opioid crisis exploded into widespread consciousness, both here and throughout the nation ...

(Austin, Indiana) is a tiny place, covering just two and a half square miles of the sliver of land that comprises Scott County. An incredible proportion of its 4,100 population — up to an estimated 500 people — are shooting up. It was here, starting in December 2014, that the single largest HIV outbreak in US history took place. Austin went from having no more than three cases per year to 180 in 2015, a prevalence rate close to that seen in sub-Saharan Africa.*

 ... Jeff Gahan finally referenced the issue publicly, for attribution. Upon closer examination, however, it appears that Gahan said nothing at all of substance.

Gahan piggybacked the opioid topic only after Mike Moore broached it at the press conference announcing a lawsuit against distributors, one clearly impelled and initiated by Jeffersonville, not New Albany.

He hitched his "unwoke" consciousness to the usual preferred study grants, After all, how else to properly monetize opioid addiction to serve the cause of campaign finance?

And, he showed no signs that he believes addiction is a problem right here in New Albany.

Note the Jeffersonville- and Moore-centric tone of local chain newspaper coverage. In fact, the reporter Beilman's initial "breaking news" tweets didn't mention New Albany's participation in the lawsuit. This news came later.

Jeffersonville, New Albany to sue opioid distributors over 'broken homes, families torn apart', by Elizabeth Beilman (Chain Newspaper)

Three multi-billion distributors targeted in federal suit

The cities of Jeffersonville and New Albany are taking on multi-billion dollar wholesale pharmaceutical distributors that officials claim are responsible for proliferating the opioid addiction crisis in their communities.

Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore announced at a Wednesday morning news conference that the city is filing a lawsuit against AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson Corp.

Impressive. Jeffersonville's mayor actually spoke publicly in a room with people present. Perhaps Moore doesn't suffer from a personality disorder.

Seemingly as an afterthought following Moore's explanation, Gahan's thoughts are recorded, via the same old ritualistic bunker news release quote.

New Albany announced later in the day that it is joining a lawsuit against these same distributors.

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan attended the Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Symposium in Indianapolis this week, participating in workshops and hearing from speakers from a variety of professions.

"The opioid crisis is spreading to communities across the nation, and we all need to be more active in learning about what we can do to prevent opioid addiction," Gahan stated in a news release.

New Albany has applied for the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayor's Challenge grant, which focuses on early education and what communities can do to fight the opioid crisis.

As Beilman attributes, New Albany's copycat case is lifted directly from Gahan's agoraphobic propaganda generator, deployed in the absence of a living human being willing to tackle a genuinely vital issue.

Perhaps mayoral stand-in Mike Hall was ill, or at lunch.

Mayor Gahan Joins Lawsuit Against Wholesale Opioid Distributors

Mayor Gahan joins others in a lawsuit against wholesale opioid distributors, which have helped spread the opioid addiction crisis.

“The opioid crisis is spreading to communities across the nation, and we all need to be more active in learning about what we can do to prevent opioid addiction,” stated Mayor Gahan.

Earlier this week, Mayor Gahan attended the 8th Annual Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Symposium in Indianapolis ...

Profiles in courage, eh?

In essence, other people have an opioid problem -- we'll study it a bit longer, and let someone else pay the lawyers. But I suspect Gahan is harboring deeper conniving on this matter, as tutored by Breitbart and Bob Norwood.

Let's say you're a 50-something white male C-student New Albany High School graduate steeped in the mythology of (a) a local Democratic Party structure in perpetual thrall to the legacy of Strom Thurmond, and (b) your upbringing in a decaying river town, where you always close your eyes when you sneeze and the presence of vulnerable people in public housing prevents honest and upright folks from making a living selling veneer.

Furthermore, thanks to the Peter Principle, you've somehow emerged as mayor -- the biggest fish in a tiny pond.

Privately, you've already resolved to solve the public housing "problem" by annexation, sycophant-seeding and demolition. Comes the opioid epidemic, and your first inclination is to hunker down and deny such things even exist in your idyllic city. 

Hence one of Shane's excellent new words: syndemics.

The term syndemics was coined by Merrill Singer, a medical anthropologist at the University of Connecticut. Singer was working with injecting drug users in Hartford in the 1990s in an effort to find a public health model for preventing HIV among these individuals. As he chronicled the presence of not only HIV but also tuberculosis and hepatitis C among the hundreds of drug users he interviewed, Singer began wondering how those diseases interacted to the detriment of the person. He called this clustering of conditions a "syndemic," a word intended to encapsulate the synergistic intertwining of certain problems. Describing HIV and hepatitis C as concurrent implies they are separable and independent. But Singer’s work with the Hartford drug users suggested that such separation was impossible. The diseases couldn’t be properly understood in isolation. They were not individual problems, but connected.

The wheels can be imagined squeakily turning in the mayor's noggin.

Singer quickly realized that syndemics was not just about the clustering of physical illnesses; it also encompassed nonbiological conditions like poverty, drug abuse, and other social, economic and political factors known to accompany poor health. “Syndemics is embedded in a larger understanding about what’s going on in societies,” he said when I spoke to him. Singer dubbed the syndemic he’d observed in Hartford "SAVA," short for substance abuse, violence and HIV/AIDS. In the past ten years, several medical anthropologists have pursued syndemics theory in other contexts. Emily Mendenhall, who studies global health at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, has described a syndemic of type 2 diabetes and depression among first- and second-generation Mexican immigrant women in Chicago. She named that syndemic "VIDDA," short for violence, immigration, depression, diabetes and abuse, the constellation of epidemics the women were experiencing. “The people who get affected by any given disease, it’s not random,” said Bobby Milstein, a public health scientist, today at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who founded the now-defunct Syndemics Prevention Network at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It happens systematically with certain people who are placed in conditions of vulnerability that are not entirely under their own control.”

He reaches for a Bud Light Lime bar napkin and begins drawing circles.

All of what has happened since the late 1980s is potentially part of Austin’s syndemic: the sudden unemployment, the desertion of the young, the fall in rent prices, the rise of the itinerant population, the decline of infrastructure, the overprescription of pain pills, the lack of assistance. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, it seems, the town itself had become sick, the result of various forms of ‘structural violence’ — a term introduced by Harvard physician and anthropologist Paul Farmer to describe harmful social frameworks — along with historical, behavioral and political risk factors.

There it is in a public policy nutshell: 

If the city is honest and pristine, but is being held back by public housing, then public housing must be like an Austin infiltrating the perimeter; that's where all the drugs, fornicators and layabouts are. Obviously, uproot public housing like a stray LEGO block and toss it over to Louisville or Greenville or Birdseye -- somewhere, anywhere except here in Come To City -- then magically, we'll have rid ourselves of the preconditions of opioid addiction. What's more, there'll no longer be poverty amid Luxury Lebensraum ... and there'll be lap dances aplenty for the Interim Executive Director.

Look, I didn't say it made sense, only that it's highly likely. Money first; logic a distant second.

Of course, Dan "Copperhead" Coffey arrives at precisely the same conclusion without aspiring to justify all those C-minuses: They're not citizens, so tear down their buildings and they'll go away. Fuck 'em; they don't vote.

In short, the systemics of syndemics apply to New Albany outside the boundaries of public housing, but scapegoats always play better amid the dynamics of denial.

There really ought to be a vaccine for this level of stupid.

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* How Did A Small Midwest Town End Up With America's Worst HIV Problem?, by Jessica Wapner (Digg)

UPDATE: The recently uncovered Dubin's sign at 220 State Street has been taken down, but is perfectly safe.

In case you passed by and didn't see the remarkable throwback sign, Schmitt Furniture wants it known that the sign has been removed so it doesn't get damaged while renovation work progresses.

It is being stored inside the building; there is no word as to whether it will be put back into place or kept indoors; either way, it will be preserved.

Strong Towns Week: "You do have a parking problem; there’s too much of it."

It's been a couple of years since NAC first linked to this article by Nathaniel Hood, a transportation planner and blogger living in St. Paul who writes for Strong Towns and Streets MN.

Mapping is one of four responses to complaints of "there's no parking" (below), and our own Jeff G's map of New Albany's parking supply (above) dates back to 2013. It's changed a bit, though not much.

A couple Fridays ago, I walked downtown on a Friday night. Food and drink establishments were hopping -- and beginning at 3rd and Market, there were dozens of unoccupied parking spaces to the east.

In Parking Non-Problem 1, there is a link to a City Lab article introducing Hood and his photos of wide open spaces where parking shortages are alleged to exist. In the following, Hood's points are offered sans explanation, so please click through and read the entire article -- and consider becoming a member of Strong Towns.

4 EASY STEPS TO SQUASH THE "THERE'S NO PARKING" ARGUMENT, by Nathaniel M. Hood (Strong Towns)

"OMG! There is no parking!" - Concern Citizen

I wish I had a bus ticket for every time I heard someone say this. Unless you're Manhattan or San Francisco, it is fair to say that you don't have a parking problem. I take that back. You do have a parking problem; there’s too much of it.

Here is a quick how-to guide on dealing with those who claim your town lacks adequate parking.

1. UNDERSTAND PERCEPTION.
2. MAP PARKING SUPPLY
3. DOCUMENT UNUSED SUPPLY
4. USE YOURSELF AS A CASE STUDY

THE BEER BEAT: A pint of bitter, please, because it's The Dubliners at the The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, 1977.

In which three fascinating Anglo-Irish topics collide amid my frequent references to the adjective "elegiac."

It's the mid-1970s lineup of the Irish folk band The Dubliners, performing on a throwback British television show called The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, depicting a fictional working men's club -- a form of private pub with ale and stronger drink, in addition to indoor recreation (snooker, darts), or a haven for what Americans would refer to as blue collar workers.

The WMC’s original purpose was to provide the Victorian working man with a controlled environment in which to socialise and drink. Over time it has morphed into a lingering bastion for traditional community activities. It provides an affordable way for local people to meet, enjoy live entertainment and play games (in The Telegraph, below).

I've written about The Dubliners many times. During the band's most fabled and productive period in the 1960s and early 70s, it was the Rolling Stones of traditional Irish music.

The American roots magazine Dirty Linen, contrasting the Dubliners and the Clancy brothers who emerged around the same time, wrote: "Whereas the Clancys were well-scrubbed returned Yanks from rural Tipperary, decked out in matching white Aran sweaters, the Dubliners were hard-drinking backstreet Dublin scrappers with unkempt hair and bushy beards, whose gigs seemed to happen by accident between fistfights."

Jim McCann performed only briefly with The Dubliners, whose best known members were Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew, but McCann committed to vinyl the definitive version of Carrickfergus, and he sings it here. For me, it produces goosebumps.

I think the frozen/mushy pea jokes are funny, and to hear an Irishman (McCann) pronounce the word "shunters" sublime.

Wheeltappers and shunters are railway workers. They were commonly employed by steam railways in Britain and elsewhere, but still are found both on British railways and in Eastern Europe.

The name of the programme thus echoes that of the many social clubs set up by railway workers in the 19th century, many of which are still in existence (known as British Rail Staff Association clubs), even if they no longer have a direct connection to the railways.

Working men's clubs still operate, though they're fast becoming archaic.

Last orders for the Working Men's Club? by Hannah Marshall (The Telegraph)

The number of working men's clubs in the country have halved in the last 30 years. Hannah Marshall investigates why these great British institutions are worth saving.

Off Barking Road in London's East Ham, just past the shops that always have their shutters down, a square, concrete building sits within a sprawling housing estate. Go inside this inconspicuous space on any Friday, Saturday or Sunday and you’ll be met by an unexpected sight: families of several generations grouped around tables —grandparents, parents, children, cousins, nieces, nephews — enjoying live music and socialising. Follow through to the sports room and a group of young local men will have congregated to play pool or darts and watch the football on the TV. This is the East Ham Working Men’s Club and it’s a place where everybody knows your name.

The Dubliners completed a 50th anniversary tour in 2012 and called it quits. The band's last surviving original member, banjoist Barney McKenna, died before the celebratory concerts even were finished. Far-off 1977 was the final year for The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club television series, and much like fraternal orders in the US, recent decades have not been kind to the prospect of the continued existence of working men's clubs.

Speaking personally, while it isn't a direct analogy with working men's clubs, my wife's cousin belongs to a private club in Plymouth, for centuries the Royal Navy's main port city. Most of the members are from working class family backgrounds as stevedores, shipyard employees, bricklayers and construction workers.

The first time we went there in 2009, there was no real ale, but by 2013, the pendulum had taken a swing. The Fort had a cask-conditioned bitter from Skinner's in Cornwall (Betty Stogs, perhaps), and it was delicious.

To be sure, if I'd have found myself in a working men's club in Sheffield or Newcastle at the age of 17, with cask ale and an Irish band playing, I wouldn't have understood any of it.

Now I do, and that's why we all fantasize about time travel. It's making me salivate just writing these words, and there's not a hand-pumped bitter in sight.

Top Ten posts at NA Confidential for October, 2017.

The top story of October fully deserved to be.

Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we enjoy scanning the neglected periphery for uniquely local perspectives. NAC's October numbers were way up, testifying to a keen ongoing interest in New Albany stories, perhaps because they're being chronically under-served elsewhere.

After all, stenography and religion columnists get us only so far.

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

As a special note for October, observe the perfect symmetry of the honorable mention tie at 455. They go together like peanut butter and toadstools.

OCTOBER TEN HONORABLE MENTION

455 (tie)

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Did BOW give Dan Coffey permission to leverage city-owned ground during the Orange Occupation?

Did the money actually go to the city, or did it go into Dan Coffey's pockets?

Did the Board of Works grant permission for city-owned property to be used in this way?

(Later, the Green Mouse glanced back at BOW's recent minutes, and could find no reference to Coffey, parking, the grassy non-knoll, or permission to conduct business there.)

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455 (tie)

Books: "The Rage of White Folk ... how the silent majority became a loud and angry minority."

"Each of these books offers a different vantage point from which to view the discontent of white working-class people; taken together, they provide us with a look into the travails, anxieties, and developing rage of a constituency that is often depicted as helping to fuel this period of political reaction. With the exception of Gest’s book, they illustrate some of the limits that emerge when the phrase “white working class” is invoked and, as a result, remind us of the dangers of homogenizing white workers politically. They also serve as a reminder of just how little we still know about the moment we are in."

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478

Renewing friendships in Haarlem. Being thankful. Promising to be back soon.

On September 20, 2017 mother and daughter arrived by bicycle to Haarlem's Grote Markt, the market square lying outside the doors of the pleasingly esoteric Hotel Amadeus. Diana and I were waiting. It was a letter-perfect autumn day, and so we had an outdoor drink across the way at the Grand Cafe Brinkmann, where it soon became obvious that Marilyn is a dynamo. She'd been raised speaking Dutch with Inge and English with Bill.

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480

"Pedestrians, who are supposed to have the right-of-way, are required to press a button at an intersection in order to get a walk signal, which should happen automatically."

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488

Concerned about Gahan's public housing putsch? You are invited to a meeting of We Are New Albany this Wednesday at Destinations Booksellers (7:00 p.m.)

In fact, Gahan's entire political career has been based on non-transparency, and so it's not surprising that while his public housing putsch was being planned during term one, no mention of it was made publicly during the 2015 campaign. Privately? That's another matter. White New Albanian males of Gahan's generation possess their own array of dog whistles pertaining to the ancestral mythology of public housing as mortal threat to a suburbanite's placidity and a city's progress.

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552

Strong Towns Week: Man buys $15,000 uninhabitable shack to renovate. What could go wrong?

We've all heard about something too big to fail. Welcome to the story of a 700-foot house too small to (be allowed to) succeed.

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596

UPDATE: 90 days later, Deaf Gahan's "blight and eyesore" has been superseded by "eyesore and blight" -- and DNA jauntily approves.

Boy, what a difference three months makes. Now two-way traffic on Market affords motorists an entirely different view of the former eyesore. As the Green Mouse says, "Those gaping holes and half-buried debris are all autumnal and shit."

Too bad the USA is dropping out of UNESCO, or else we might have a new tourist landmark: The Duggins Cool-newal Urban World Heritage Site. I wonder how many public housing units would fit in this space?

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597

Pay attention, Shane, because "Joe Lycett has a very interesting story regarding his parking fine."

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605

MUST LISTEN: This brilliant podcast exposes Jeff Gahan's public housing putsch for what it is, and that's sheer "Let's Pretend We're Democrats" class war brutality.

With respect to Jeff Gahan's machinations v.v. public housing and the New Albany Housing Authority, this podcast is the gold standard. Gahan may be able to coo sweet nothings into the ears of enduringly gullible local media sources, but his ethically and morally bankrupt ongoing actions against New Albany's low-income residents are explicated in full by Myerson.

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744

Democratic State Senate candidate Anna Murray replies to our question about the New Albany Housing Authority.

Since the New Albany housing issue seems to be one of local, and not state government, and since I am not terribly familiar with all of the details, and since it has been very controversial, this has seemed like a great one to not get involved in at this time. However, since you are so insistent to press me on the issue, I will give you a statement. Please bear in mind that I admittedly do NOT have full information, in part because I do not think full information is yet available at this time.

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754

HH Parade 4: Watch as Dan "Grand Inquisitor" Coffey throws live copperhead snakes at parade-goers -- but the funeral school has the last (and perhaps only) laugh.

For the kiddos, Coffey had papyrus scrolls detailing the ins and outs of the rhythm method, which paired perfectly with the embryos being tossed onto the street by Right To Life. At the same time, speaking personally, I prefer baby snakes to copperheads, but then again, I'm not a Falangist.

OCTOBER TOP TEN

767

Main Street intersections at Bank and 4th are hazardous for pedestrians. Where's City Hall, apart from a state of denial?

Jeff Speck had thoughts about this. These are 17-foot traffic lanes and 8-foot parking depths. That's a whole 50 feet from one side to another, without any effort to slow traffic or assist pedestrians.

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834

You see the damnedest sights from the levee on a Friday at lunch.

As I'm sure Lt. Colombo would ask, "Now, if they're the girlfriends or wives with those guys on the bus, why didn't they all get on the bus at the same time, together?"

Surely there are a number of explanations, although when I mentioned it to the Green Mouse, he told me it's a relatively simple matter to hire models for outings, although it's less clear why you'd need them.

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873

Mike Pence's NFL walkout proves our former governor still isn't "worth a bucket of warm piss."

"This was amateur hour fraud. It was Gulf of Tonkin for idiots: a ham handed effort to isolate people brave enough to dissent in the face of the most powerful people in the world and raise issues of racism that this administration is too craven to discuss. It’s also very disturbing. The very week Sarah Huckabee Sanders spoke about Trump’s “respect for the 1st Amendment,” we had a staged spectacle with the highest levels of government attempting to intimidate and coerce people to not exercise those rights. It’s disgusting and another example of Pence’s degradation, his Faustian bargain with this administration."

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914

Be careful what you wish for: "The President Pence Delusion," including a pivotal cameo by a New Albanian we all know.

Absolutely vital reading in The New Yorker. It is impossible to summarize several thousand words with just one paragraph. I've chosen to highlight the essay's conclusion. But you're curious aren't you? Well, if you want to know which New Albanian was interviewed for the article, you'll just have to go look for yourself.

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970

Grid Control, Vol. 28: Elm Street capitulates to two-way modernity with a whimper, not a bang. Now, to the next stage.

I'll always be fascinated by a decade or more of sheer sloth and acrimony, followed by 3-4 years of municipal bureaucratization, then the doomsday predictions of dozens of experts on social media -- and two days after Spring Street became two-way, there was complete and utter silence, with nary a peep since.

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1,026

It's just music to me: The Louisville Orchestra plays Mostly Mozart at the Ogle Center.

Last night we attended the first of four Louisville Orchestra performances at Indiana University Southeast's Ogle Center as part of this season's Neighborhood Series. On November 11, the LO will be back at Ogle with Teddy Abrams conducting Russian Easter Overture and Scheherazade, two personal favorites by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

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1,218

From the folks who brought you Exchange and Brookyn, Longboard’s Taco & Tiki is coming to downtown New Albany in 2018.

"The Southern Indiana dining scene continues to see growth as proprietors Ian and Nikki Hall, owners of The Exchange Pub + Kitchen and Brooklyn and the Butcher, announce their latest project, Longboard’s Taco & Tiki."

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1,434

"Things God Hates: (1) Shitty signs."

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1,695

At 220 State Street, the gorgeous retro sign hiding behind an atrocious facade, now revealed.

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1,707

HH Parade 2: A peaceful public housing putsch protest steps all over Deaf Gahan's narcissistic buzz -- and heads surely will roll.

In short, His Excellency had an impromptu Ceausescu moment while soaking up the adoration of the gathered throngs. Not unexpectedly, these protesters weren't mentioned at all in the feel-good News and Tribune article about the rolling snooze-fest. Perhaps someone from the newspaper's burgeoning stable of religious advocacy columnists can perform coverage in future years; at least we'd garner a "hosanna" in this manner.

ON THE AVENUES: A downtown business owner's open letter to Harvest Homecoming.

ON THE AVENUES: A downtown business owner's open letter to Harvest Homecoming.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

This week's guest columnist is Cisa Kubley, the owner and operator of Sew Fitting, located at 156 East Main Street (on the southeast corner of Bank and Main). Harvest Homecoming officials have been offered the opportunity to reply in this space on November 9.

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An open letter to the Harvest Homecoming Board and Committee

Years ago, in the early days of Harvest Homecoming, downtown New Albany (following the trend of downtowns across the country) was dying. Businesses were closing their doors and storefronts remained empty for years. At least in part, Harvest Homecoming was developed as a means of using the space available as well as to bring people into downtown.

During the past decade, New Albany’s downtown has undergone a huge transformation, especially in the last few years as growth and the opening of new businesses has positively boomed. The festival format and execution have remained practically unchanged. Do you see where this might be a problem? Wildly different and booming downtown. Outdated and static festival format.

Year-round downtown residents and businesses have complained to the Harvest Homecoming committee as well as the city for years. For seven years I have been one of those businesses. I have endured Harvest Homecoming in three different downtown locations, two on Pearl Street and one on Main Street.

Every year is a problem. Every year I try to work with the committee on improvements. Every year myself and other downtown business owners are lied to, ignored, and dismissed because, “Everyone in New Albany loves Harvest Homecoming,” “It’s been here for 50 years, you should just deal with it,” and “Downtown businesses have never complained about any issues with the festival.”

In my current location, Harvest Homecoming doesn’t affect my business only during the booth days. My neighbors and I lose our employee and customer parking for two weeks while the Fiesta rides are set up.

This does not even take into account the fact that the ride operators live in the alley behind our building during their stay here; they wander the streets in the evening knocking on our windows, let their dogs eliminate in our tree wells with no clean up, and leave garbage around our buildings.

When I have repeatedly asked what our employees and customers are supposed to do for parking for two weeks I am met with blank stares. When we lose access even to street parking during booth days and I asked what arrangements the Harvest Homecoming committee would be making to help us with a dilemma directly caused by their event, I was met with bewilderment.

It was as though they couldn’t understand why the total lack of parking access to our livelihood might be an issue to me or any other business. I continued to ask and was met with rudeness and the understanding that, as far as the Harvest Homecoming organizers are concerned, it absolutely is not their problem.

Finally, after having been told repeatedly that my calls would be returned and questions answered, I was told that the city would be providing parking passes for my employees in the parking garage on State and Market.

First of all, why is the city paying for the Harvest Homecoming’s mess? Second, how does this help my customers reach me, many of whom are elderly or disabled in some way?

Then I was told, with much palpable exasperation, that although they were very busy at the Harvest Homecoming office, someone would deliver these parking passes to my office the night before the booths opened.

Appreciating the amount of work that goes into running a festival, especially all the last minute to-dos, I thought to save someone a trip. On my way home for lunch I stopped by the Harvest Homecoming office that day to pick up the passes. I was informed that they didn’t have them and still needed to get them from the city.

My shop is open until 6 pm through the week and yet no passes were ever delivered. By closing time the first booth was up and we still had no passes. What should I tell my staff? Show up hours early for work so that you can find parking? Pay festival rates to use a local lot? Risk a parking ticket by parking in the parking garage in the hopes that the elusive parking passes eventually turn up?

After speaking with a local worker whose company pays $28 per parking spot each month in the garage so that their employees don’t take up street parking spaces that customers need to use, I won’t be asking my employees to use the parking garage. This particular company pays for their parking spaces year round, but during Harvest Homecoming they often can’t use their reserved spaces because festival goers take their place.

On the second booth day, as we still had no parking passes, two of my employees came in to work hours early in order to avoid the crowds and try to find parking. One even gave up and took an Uber to work. Saturday we simply had to close our doors.

In my years of battling the parking issue with Harvest Homecoming organizers I often have been told that if the festival is such an issue I should just shut down during booth days. Dozens of downtown businesses do exactly that.

Have you thought about what happens when a business has to close?

For every day that a business is closed they can’t make any sales. Overhead expenses don’t get put on hold when a business closes. While some businesses treat this as vacation for their employees, not all small businesses are able to offer paid vacation time. If employees are hourly, for every day that a business is closed, employees lose pay.

So what is a business to do? Stay open and incur costs that the business isn’t making any sales to offset, or close, incur costs anyway, and cut hours from employees?

When you count the number of businesses in downtown who are negatively impacted, taking into account all the ones that don’t have something they could sell from a booth, you are talking about the loss of tens of thousands of dollars of revenue and easily thousands of dollars of lost wages for employees.

While we’re on the subject of businesses who may or may not be able to offset lost sales by participating in the festival booths, how much do you know about what it takes to have a booth?

An argument that I’ve often heard when discussing lost sales from Harvest Homecoming is that I could just have a booth. My business is a service; I don’t really have anything to sell from a booth. When I was in the White House Centre on Pearl Street I was told I should have a booth with an open back so that people can walk through from the booth area into my building.

Now, let’s keep in mind that my particular business isn’t really a stop in and shop kind of place. People bring us clothing to work on and then come back to pick them up after the work is completed. Booth streets are crowded and full of people eating and drinking. Can you see where this might be a deterrent for someone carrying clothing to or from our building?

There certainly are some retail businesses in the booth areas that might be able to better utilize a walk-through booth than my business is. That being said, I know several businesses which tried and year after year they find that it is not worth the expense, the hassle, and the increased risk of shop-lifting.

For a festival that purports to support independent business and the local community, I would think the logical setup to help businesses in the booth areas would be to offer those businesses free, or at least reduced, booth space directly in front of their building. What better way to help festival attendees find out about the brick and mortar businesses in downtown than to encourage those businesses to participate and make it a financially viable option for them, right?

These businesses pay rent or a mortgage for their space all year. If you’re throwing a festival that impedes their regular business but would like them to participate, giving them booth space is a simple, cost effective way for everyone to benefit. Sadly, this is not how it works. If you’re located within the booth areas and would like a booth, or at least access to the building that you pay for all year, you can fork over hundreds of dollars for the privilege.

I have no doubt that planning for the next year’s festival begins shortly after the closing of the current year’s event. That gives a year for alternative plans to be made to assist the businesses who are negatively impacted. Why then, when my neighbors and I call in the weeks leading up to the festival every year, does nothing change?

Every year more downtown buildings are rehabilitated and wonderful new businesses move in. The problems caused by the festival are not going to magically go away. They are simply going to affect more and more businesses.

I am not asking that the festival be shut down or done away with. I am asking that the festival committee do more than offer excuses and hollow apologies to the dozens of businesses which are negatively affected because the festival is still set up and run as though downtown were a ghost town.

Take seriously the fact that refusal to change the festival model impedes the livelihoods of hundreds of downtown workers. If shops can’t be open, workers aren’t paid. The business generates no revenue and yet they still incur their regular expenses. How is our business community supposed to be sustainable when a festival that claims to celebrate that community actively gets in the way of business operations?

These aren’t new issues, these aren’t new complaints. At what point will the Harvest Homecoming committee and the city finally make adjustments for the betterment of the whole community, not just those who enjoy the festival?

With all due respect to the history of Harvest Homecoming and my assumption of good intentions on the part of the committee, I simply cannot support an event that shows such blatant disregard and disrespect for the year-round businesses that lose money year after year.

We have tried to be cooperative, we have tried to help come up with solutions and alternatives, and we have asked for some kind of recognition for the loss of accessibility and revenue that is forced upon us every year. At what point is enough enough?

Loss of a week’s income because the festival committee refuses to take the complaints of the negative impact on local businesses seriously is unacceptable to me. Why do the Harvest Homecoming powers that be seem to think that their two weeks of activity trumps the dozens and dozens of businesses that provide goods, services, and revenue for downtown New Albany year round?

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Recent columns:

October 26: ON THE AVENUES: Could that be David Duggins paddling across Jeff Gahan's putrid cesspool? On second thought, I'll take the blindfold.

October 19: ON THE AVENUES: I'd like nothing more than to go for another ride.

October 12: ON THE AVENUES: The Orange Occupation is here again, and as a precaution, we’ve baked a handy file into this cake.

October 5: ON THE AVENUES REVISITED: Chocolate covered frozen banana republic, or "understanding" Harvest Homecoming, our peculiar institution.

Grid Control, Vol. 29: Market Street now is two-way the entire way, though it complicates parking garage access.

For reasons unknown, the reversion of Market Street to two-way traffic (specifically, between State Street and W. 5th) was not part of the federal 80-20 funding mechanism of the grid modernization and (and campaign monetization) project.

Downtown 2-way Conversion Update - Market Fully 2-way on Oct 31

The final stretch of Market Street set to be converted to 2-way traffic (from State Street to West 5th Street) will convert on October 31st. The intersection at Scribner and Market Street will temporarily be a 4-way stop while crews work to convert the signal. After this conversion is complete, all of Market Street will hold 2-way traffic.

It has happened. Interestingly, the reversion has a side effect in the sense of restricting access to the parking garage for traffic traveling eastbound on Market -- including those drivers eastbound on I-64 who exit into New Albany and approach downtown from the west.

The median precludes a left turn into the Market Street garage entrance; while a left turn into the parking garage from State (northbound) remains theoretically possible, it involves crossing two lanes of traffic where southbound cars are stacked headed south at the light.

Of course, drivers eastbound on Market can circle the block via Pearl and Spring to get back to State southbound, and easy garage access; ironically, ending the necessity of making such loops was a prime reason for the reversion to two-way traffic.

In my opinion, both medians between W. 1st and Pearl would have been better removed, traffic lanes narrowed and moved to one side of the street or the other, and room for human use added. For Jeff Speck's innovative (and predictably discarded) thoughts on this stretch of street, go here and scroll to page 68.

For previous "Grid Control" series links, go here: Grid Control, Vol. 28: Elm Street capitulates to two-way modernity with a whimper, not a bang. Now, to the next stage.

Assuming you can read, Ta-Nehisi Coates helpfully offers "Five Books to Make You Less Stupid About the Civil War."

Antietam (September, 2016)

Earlier in the year NAC suggested we all find a book ... and watch a short video.

Statue removal? Yes, the Civil War was about slavery -- and I'm just fine with tracing it all the way back to the Founders. Now, let's all go read a book.

In the following video (circa 2009), historian James M. McPherson refutes the "states' rights" Confederate apologetic.

That's right, kids -- it really was slavery that ignited the American Civil War. Sorry about that faux "Lost Cause" verbiage. It's merely barroom banter after the fact.

Ta-Nehisi Coates takes the process of actual learning a step further by naming five books to read. To learn their names, give The Atlantic link a click.

Me? I've read only McPherson's, so it's time to get with the program.

Five Books to Make You Less Stupid About the Civil War, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic)

On Monday, the retired four-star general and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly asserted that “the lack of an ability to compromise lead to the Civil War.” This was an incredibly stupid thing to say. Worse, it built on a long tradition of endorsing stupidity in hopes of making Americans stupid about their own history. Stupid enjoys an unfortunate place in the highest ranks of American government these days. And while one cannot immediately affect this fact, one can choose to not hear stupid things and quietly nod along.

For the past 50 years, some of this country’s most celebrated historians have taken up the task of making Americans less stupid about the Civil War. These historians have been more effective than generally realized. It’s worth remembering that General Kelly’s remarks, which were greeted with mass howls of protests, reflected the way much of this country’s stupid-ass intellectual class once understood the Civil War. I do not contend that this improved history has solved everything. But it is a ray of light cutting through the gloom of stupid. You should run to that light. Embrace it. Bathe in it. Become it.

Strong Towns Week: A hat trick by Marohn (autocentrism's cost, invasive semi-trailers and insidious Wal-Mart).

I'm a member of Strong Towns, and suggest you take advantage of this week's "greatest hits" output ...

This week, we are focusing on exposing new people to the Strong Towns message. That’s why we’re posting some of our best content of all time and asking YOU to share it. We’ve set a big goal — doubling our weekly audience — and we need your help to do it.

Sharing our content is one small but vital step you can take to help build a world of a million people who care about our mission. If this article inspires you, please take a moment to share it with someone else.

... to familiarize yourself with the organization's mission:

"For the United States to be a prosperous country, it must have strong cities, towns and neighborhoods. Enduring prosperity for our communities cannot be artificially created from the outside but must be built from within, incrementally over time."

Here are three conceptually linked articles by the organization's founder.

1. "A simple comparison of traditional & auto-oriented development styles. Guess which is more financially productive."

THE COST OF AUTO ORIENTATION, by Charles Marohn

In the United States we've spent the last sixty years reconfiguring our public spaces to accommodate the automobile. The built-in assumption of this approach, especially when it comes to commercial property, is that the more cars driving by the better. In our haste to modernize, what we've overlooked is the lower return on investment we get from this approach, even under ideal conditions. Today we need the humility to acknowledge that our ancestors, who built in the traditional style, may have known what they were doing after all.

2. "No, semis are not a valid reason to build dangerously wide streets."

TRACTOR TRAILER TRADEOFF, by Charles Marohn

... During Big Box Stores Week, I received the proverbial semi-trailer comment. Chuck, I agree that we need to look at street design, but we can only change things so much because we need to accommodate semis.

So logical yet so wrong.

.. Efficiency is one of the core values of our economic system. We don’t care if we’re doing the right thing or not – or, more precisely, our economists assume we are – so long as we do it more and more efficiently. Hauling one big load of merchandise is far more efficient than hauling multiple, smaller loads. Thus whoever can configure their operation to take advantage of this efficiency should win, right?

3. "If cities did the math on these kind of developments, not another one would ever be built."

THE WALMART TROPHY, by Charles Marohn

Walmart builds cheap buildings in order to sell Americans cheap stuff. Joe Minicozzi has documented brilliantly how, the cheaper the store and the more land it wastes, the lower the taxes. The Walmart land development model has taken the concept of "buying in bulk" and applied it to the land in your city. Their goal -- lower every cost -- is directly at odds with the financial health of your community ...

... Walmart buildings are designed to last 15 to 20 years. Simply the city's commitment to maintain the necessary infrastructure extends generations beyond that, let alone the cost of policing and other needed services. If cities did the math on these kind of developments, not another one would ever be built.

Kindred and Yum make the list of low-wage employers.

You know, there's an outside chance that wages like these are a significant part of the problem. Now back to your regularly scheduled distractions.

Two Louisville-based companies are among the country's lowest-paying employers, by Carolyn Tribble Greer (Louisville Business First)

Two Louisville-based companies are among the worst-paying employers in the U.S., according to a new report.

24/7 Wall St. identified the 25 large U.S. companies that pay employees the lowest wages. For comparison, the national median hourly wage is $17.81.

No. 18 on the list is Kindred Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: KND), where the typical worker at a continuing care facility earns $11.94 an hour, according to the report. The company has about 100,000 employees.

And coming in at No. 20 is Yum Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM), owner of the KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains. Average wages at common positions at the company’s restaurants rarely exceed $10 an hour, according to the report, and go as low as $7.55 for Pizza Hut delivery drivers. The company has 90,000 employees.

No. 1 on the list is Wal-Mart Stores Inc., followed by Kroger Co., McDonald's Corp. and Target Corp.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: In this 100th wordy column, we finally see why NA's the place you want to be.

Today marks the occasion of his column's 100th episode. We began exploring the wonderful world of Shane's excellent new words on January 9, 2016.

Shane's Excellent New Words: Autodidacticism ... and a biography of the poet Ezra Pound.

"Shane's Excellent New Words" also will be a regular weekly feature at NA Confidential. That's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show you're smarter than the rest. To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

A few months later, more was revealed.

Again this week, our words are occasioned by the inquiry of a regular reader:

Can you explain why these are Shane's excellent new words, not Bob's or Larry's?

The idea for this column dates to a brief social media exchange between the senior editor and Shane Gibson, the city of New Albany's "corporate" attorney, as opposed to "garden variety" or "proletarian" attorney (Stan Robison).

In a revealing moment of pique, Gibson offered that NA Confidential is prone to using big words solely from a desire to be "smarter than everyone else."

Of course, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck ... but we digress.

To be sure, New Albany cultural dissidents often joke that the only city ordinance enforced with any degree of consistency is the one prohibiting the public use of words containing more than four syllables, and at least now we know who wrote it.

The specific word provoking the attorney's unsocial media ire was nomenklatura, as borrowed from Soviet-era Russia ...

Circling back to the present, all the apparatchiks breaking rocks for the corporate attorney's enrichment realize there's a reason New Albany (not Cincinnati) is where they want to be when the end of the world comes: NA's always one or two decades behind the times.

Take it away, Quote Investigator.

When the End of the World Comes, I Want To Be in Cincinnati. It Is Always Ten Years Behind the Times ... Mark Twain? Heinrich Heine? Otto von Bismarck? George Bernard Shaw? James Boswell? Will Rogers?

Dear Quote Investigator: As a one-time resident of Cincinnati I knew that Mark Twain once worked in the city, and I always enjoyed the comment he reportedly made about it:

When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always 20 years behind the times.

But this quip is also attributed to the popular humorist Will Rogers. Can you determine who created this joke?

Quote Investigator: The early evidence located by QI points to a different part of the globe. In 1886 The Atlantic Monthly printed an article about King Ludwig II of Bavaria that contained a version of the jape; however, the length of the time lag and the location were distinct [BVAM]:

It is a common saying in Germany that Bavaria will be the best place to emigrate to at the approaching end of the world, since that event, like everything else, will be sure to come off there fifty years later than in any other country. The Bavarians will be behind the times even as to the point when time shall be no more, and will enter as laggards upon the eternal life.

This citation suggests that a version of this gag expressed in the German language probably predates 1886. Over a period of many decades multiple variants appeared.

The explanation is lengthy, and so here is the final conclusion, which I'm viewing as definitive ... at least until it changes.

In conclusion, the earliest examples currently known to QI of this type of joke were set in Germany in the 1800s, and the creator was anonymous. The quip has been evolving for more than one-hundred years, and a large cast of luminaries have had their names attached to the saying during this process. But the ascriptions usually occurred many years after the supposed speaker had died. There is no compelling evidence known to QI at this time that the joke was crafted by Twain, Heine, Bismarck, Shaw, Boswell, or Rogers.

All this, and not a single word linking New Albany to backwardness. Somehow I'm feeling cheated.