The “Dork & Mindy” bitch-slap theory of local politics.

When America’s free-falling President Shrub and his GOP bunker mates publicly refer to the Democratic party the “Democrat party,” does it mean that they’re syntax-challenged dolts, or is it being done intentionally as a not-so-subtle means of disparagement?

Perhaps both. Here’s a handy explanation, as offered by Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo (I sincerely thank my source, who is in enough “trouble” already):

Matt Yglesias has an interesting series of posts on his site about just what the big deal is when Republicans call the Democratic party the 'Democrat party'.

As it happens, a few months back I got an email from a TPM Reader who I think was a linguist. And he explained that there is something about the concatenation of syllables, the sound or structure of the phrase 'Democrat party' that actually sounds somehow inherently grating or awkward on the ears. When I got the note I think I was busy with something else. And I never really got a chance to work through and understand just what the guy was saying. I think I'll probably try to dig it up.

But that is a secondary point. The whole issue of 'Democrat' party -- other than as an example of Republican infantilism -- is an issue of respect or rather intentional and repeated expression of disrespect as a means of asserting dominance.

There's a certain conservative columnist named James X. who shall remain unnamed. At some point a few years back I had cause to exchange an email with him. And I called him 'Jim'. I don't think I gave it a second thought. I'm Josh or Joshua -- doesn't matter to me. But a short time later I got a half questioning, half barely repressed anger email from the guy asking whether I was intentionally disrespecting him by addressing him as 'Jim', the diminutive form of the name. Now, as I say, it was accidental. I apologized and explained that it was totally unintentional. And if he preferred to be called James I would certainly do so. As it happens, in the intervening years, my lack of respect for him has grown apace. But I'd still always call him James and not Jim. And this is the point. You address people the way they choose to be addressed. You address them by what they consider to be their name. In the ordinary course of life, when people do otherwise, we rightly recognize that they're trying to pick a fight or demean the person in question.

It is, as Matt points out, another illustration of the 'bitch-slap theory of politics'. You assert dominance over someone by mangling their name and continuing to do so even after the correct pronunciation or style is pointed out. It's right off the schoolyard and it's no surprise that it's a stock and trade of this president.

Locally, we refer to this same phenomenon – one so appropriately summarized by Marshall as “infantilism” -- as the “Dork & Mindy” bitch-slap theory of politics … and, for that matter, of all troglodyte blogging.

Accordingly, when Ms. Denhart refers to Mayor James Garner as “Jimmy” at her gasbag shrine, does it seem to you – as it does me – that her strategic choice of diminutive has far less to do with any personal deficiencies in social grace than it does with the patrician Republican peering over the fake academic’s shoulder, who artfully impels the trogosphere’s most pathetic puppet to dance?

NAC wanted to find out, so we dispatched our purely fictional roving correspondent Gordy Gant to Primrose Lane, where he succeeded in capturing a brief interview with prominent businesswoman and GOP stalwart Auntie V. We offer it here in the spirit of outrageously contrived satire, lest undiscerning readers mistakenly miss the joke and believe that the following account is somehow real.

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Gant:
You must be a special person to move to a new city and win the hearts and confidence of the populace with your first impression.

Auntie V:
I took on a project to create a quiet zone and kept trying to get the mayor to participate, as was a requirement by Norfolk Southern. He blew off five meetings, one which was even at HIS office. Norfolk Southern rep flew in from Roanoke for three of the meetings and it was getting embarrassing. I wrote a letter to a local senator and enrolled her assistance (one short pointed letter of support) and that ingratiated the railroad enough that they gave me $360,000 which enrolled INDOT (IN dept of Transp) to toss in the $180,000 balance I needed to upgrade our historic RR corridor.

SO, I went to the council meeting on Jan. 5th and explained the series of events which got me to the point that I called him a coward, a liar, a bully, wreckles, lacking in integrity, etc. and then I turned around and said, JIMMY, YOU WORK FOR ME And IF I was the boss I would fire you. For insubordination. His name is James and little did I know how upset he would be for calling him Jimmy, which I did on purpose to put him down, but didn’t realize I’d get such a rise out of him, which back fired on him worse, on top of making him look stupid. It’s much more involved than that, but that’s the nutshell explaination.

I had a video guy there to film the whole meeting. When I finished my speech, the entire room was cheering and clapping, as we are all fed up with him, and then I walked toward the door and one of the councilmen stood up and said, V, that is the most courageous thing I have ever seen anybody do. And the audience went crazy again applauded and all that stuff.

Gant:
I can't wait to hear the stories as to how that happened ... (muffled sounds … coughing ... we think that Gordy has fallen ill and will be taking a few days off ... )

Trognonymous local blogger called out for plagiarism responds by blaming the mayor.

Regular readers will recall that earlier last week, NAC took note of Ms. Denhart’s latest in a seemingly endless series of unattributed Internet plagiarisms, as regurgitated at her “Freedom to Screech” troglodyte rant blog: In which we check the facts, since she won't.

In case you were wondering, a substantial portion of the text used in the Freedom of Speech blog entry dated Wednesday, January 24 (but actually published on Tuesday, January 30) was purloined without proper attribution (or even scant acknowledgement) from a far more coherent political blog called Tennessee Ticket.

Now we’ve learned that the Volunteer State blogger from whom our laughably fictitious “Professor Erik” pilfered her material has taken public note of the theft, and references it here: Why Crib the Goofball Stuff?

Wow! A blogging member of higher education quoted this little site. Except, well, he didn't so much quote me, as use my words, without attribution, with every indication that he meant for a reader to think they were his own. In the quintessential sophomoric plagiarist's manner, he inserted two lines of his own, and "edited" text to a grammatically poorer result.

Alert! From one responsible blogger to another: Not only is our “Erik” not a professor, but “he’s” also not a “he,” and disingenuous gender confusion is only part of the recurring entertainment value proffered by this daily spectacle of an embittered, semi-literate, faux “academic” aspiring to trognonymous stardom. Please, don’t draw any conclusions about the state of Indiana’s educational system, which suffers from its own problems quite distinct from Erika's playground cluelessness.

Know that we fully comprehend the childish nature of her charade, and laugh at it – not with it.

Randy Hubbard and Salman Rushdie … where are you tonight?

Earlier this week, a prominent New Albanian Republican finally, formally announced his mayoral bid. Here’s an excerpt from the Tribune’s coverage.

Former Floyd County Sheriff Randy Hubbard entered the New Albany mayoral race Wednesday, saying he’d been coaxed by residents “disillusioned with current and past administrations” …

… Asked what his goals would be if elected, Hubbard replied, “At this point, I just need to talk to people in the community” to find out what issues are important to them.

I’ve no interest in disputing the prevailing local wisdom holding that Mr. Hubbard is a man of exacting professional integrity, primarily because I’ve no reason to doubt it unless proven otherwise. To me, it’s a given.

Rather, might we briefly glance past the testimonials and acknowledge the hair-pulling, maddening incongruity of a high-ranking community figure’s weeks-long courting of citizen disillusionment, his certain deliberation and careful planning leading to Wednesday’s well-crafted announcement, and then a bizarre, vacuous comment to the effect that after all this thought and consideration, he still has no personal recognition of pertinent issues, but must ask community members to provide him with some?

That’s simply incredible, but in the open air museum of congenital dysfunction known as New Albany, somehow we’re the ones regarded as crazed and dangerous for discussing numerous issues on a daily basis for months -- years -- and expecting those seeking our votes to approach the table with a platform in their hands.

See: Mr./Mrs./Ms. Candidate: Just in time for the filing period, here are my modified rules of voting engagement.

Why insist? Without a coherent system of policy ideas -- without a platform -- the phrase “disillusioned with current and past administrations” has no substantive meaning apart from “my clan – your clan,” and we’ve seen where that particular “policy platform” has taken the city over long decades of decay.

With all due respect – and I want to be fair to him – how is it possible that Mr. Hubbard cannot think of a single issue beyond funding sources when so many pressing items currently crowd the city’s collective agenda? To be sure, integrity’s a promising start, but Mr. Hubbard and his fellow aspirants must do better than that.

Gratifyingly, someone already has done better.

Randy Smith, owner of Destinations Booksellers and a former contributor to this blog, is writing a series of guest columns for the Tribune. All the columns are archived together on-line.

SMITH: Walk this plank, candidates

By earning it, I mean that (city council nominees) will have campaigned on a platform of ideas. I believe that any candidate who does will benefit from a sharp increase in turnout that this city has seldom seen.

While no candidate will embrace all of these proposals (in fact, they’d probably be crazy to do so), I offer them up as a menu for action, free of charge, to any candidate bold enough to articulate them further. Some are tougher than others. Some will be controversial. But I believe in them all.

By local standards of antebellum ward-heeling and foot-dragging, it’s an audacious and ambitious notion to offer a unified system of ideas, and not unexpectedly, Randy’s already under attack for trespassing against New Albany’s long and sad history of anti-intellectual underachievement.

(Who in the hey do you think you are? This is our neighborhood, too. Do you even live downtown? BS.)

Note that the preceding comment refers not to genetic engineering or the advocacy of teenage sex, but to Randy’s suggestion that the city’s downtown streets be given bicycle lanes. If something as wholesome and healthy as biking prompts such gasbag Limbaughesque vitriol, just imagine how the remainder of his impeccably rational pleas for New Albany to gingerly consider joining the 21st century (soon, please) are going to be received down at the Luddite Bar & Grill.

Go here and read about policies and principles, and next time you drop in to Destinations to pay homage to the power of the written word – to the realm of ideas – say thanks to the proprietor for not being a coward.

Given the New Albany political climate in 2007, thinking publicly qualifies as an alternative lifestyle, and the open advocacy of thinking is a revolutionary act -- and we need as many of these revolutionary acts, and as quickly, as we possibly can find them.

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Link: Candidate filings (updated daily)

At NABC this weekend: Anonymous Pirates Art Show, Super Bowl & four whole days of $3 NABC progressive pints.

In the past, I’ve shown restraint with regard to using NA Confidential as a vehicle for shameless self-promotion of my business – although it’s likely that the antebellum denizens of the Luddite Bar & Grill strongly disagree. Verily, we visionaries never are respected during our lifetimes.

However, today shall be an exception to the rule, the principal reason for which is the incredible amount of hard work that our youthful staff has put forward to stage their art show, running today and tomorrow from 3:00 p.m. to midnight.

In the end, it’s a matter of principle.

Their Anonymous Pirates Art & Music Show will be their second art show in the Prost special events wing. As with the previous effort last July, dubbed the Speak Easy Art Show, Prost has been transformed into a gallery, and the entire event has been conceived and organized by NABC’s staff, friends fellow travelers.

This time around, there’ll be music, too.

On Friday, Stephen J. Powell, Ben Traughber and Jared Williamson & Tommy Potts will be performing. Stephen and Jared both work for NABC (as server and brewer, respectively), and Jared and Tommy are members of the local band Sativa Gumbo.

On Saturday, Ben, Stephen (with Jay Nixon) and Pokey La Farge will play.

I simply can’t say enough about the way that the Anonymous Pirates organizers have approached the planning and execution of the art show, and their energy and diligence boldly discredits those folks among us who persist in dismissing the “younger generation” as somehow deficient in certain cardinal virtues, most of which never mattered, anyway. Think about coming out, enjoying their work, and supporting them.

Normally we don’t open on Sunday, but an annual exception is made for the Super Bowl – it being America’s national confessional, and all. Consequently, on Sunday, February 4, Sportstime Pizza will be serving pizza and beer for Super Bowl XLI. Hours are 4:00 p.m. until the game's over. Go Colts, etc.

Saving the best for last: From the opening bell Friday through last call on Monday, NABC will be further celebrating art, football and craft beer with $3 NABC Imperial pints (tax included). Sorry, hopheads, but Hoptimus will be $3.25. No growler discounts, either.

Beer-induced, Flaming Cougarhawk mania.

I seldom cross-post with my Potable Curmudgeon blog, but this piece was so much fun that an exception is merited. For more information on Gravity Head 2007 ("Gravity Madness: March Isn't Just About Basketball Anymore"), see: Badness and Preliminary Orders.

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Perceptive reader Edward has noticed the inscription on the Gravity Head 2007 mascot’s basketball jersey, and he asks, undoubtedly smirking:

Can you tell the story behind Flaming Cougarhawks?

Not without pain, but here goes.

It is a widely and deservedly forgotten fact that while serving acne time during high school, your faithful Curmudgeon was a two-year varsity basketball player at Floyd Central. My active hoops participation ceased after our ignominious defeat in the morning session of the Seymour regional in 1978, after which spent the afternoon drinking Little Kings with friends in their Daze Inn hotel room before proceeding to an equally lackluster career of grabbing innings of varsity baseball pine.

Upon graduation, a regimen-free summer was spent lounging with like-minded pals, especially those with skills at being served, which magically added 25 pounds of non-muscle mass (i.e., goo) to an otherwise spindly frame.

A steadily growing affection for beer in its cheapest available incarnation accompanied four years of intramural basketball competition at Indiana University Southeast, and it should come as no surprise that my best-ever senior IM squad was called the Inebriates. By the mid-1980’s, activities like softball, walking and riding trains between European beer shrines had replaced organized basketball as my generally preferred forms of exercise, but as so often is the case, and without warning, there was to be an entirely unexpected roundball comeback.

It happened in 1999.

A group of Rich O’s Public House regulars, all of whom love the game of basketball – some of them can still be glimpsed limping to the bar for their daily medicinal pints – somehow fell into a summertime routine of meeting on Sundays atop the asphalt parking lot of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and shooting hoops, which led to half-court games followed by restorative ale drinking at the Shelbyville Road location of Bluegrass Brewing Company … and, fueled by these post-game sessions, led eventually to a bizarre delusion that we were good enough to compete in the autumn YMCA recreational league in Clarksville.

Mark, our starting guard and coach, did the paperwork, and I purchased garish bluish purple team jerseys for the team, which had been dubbed the Flaming Cougarhawks in honor of … owing to … hmmm, the ironic thing is that I have no memory of the naming process other than to suggest that we must have been drinking BBC APA when it happened.

When the newly minted Flaming Cougarhawks stepped onto the hardwood for their first-ever game, the average age of the starting lineup was about 35, and it quickly doubled when we suddenly realized that a regulation full court is very, very big, and that the opposing team of recently graduated 19-year-olds was very, very fast.

We outweighed them, though, and this came in handy on those rare occasions when one of us could catch up with one of them. Calling on long-neglected reserves of thespian talent, I duped the referee into calling a shooting foul and scored the first point in team history on a free throw. Moments later I jammed my right ankle and was lost for the season. The Flaming Cougarhawks dropped each and every game on the schedule, although we came close enough once to justify another BBC drinking spree.

Those young pups couldn’t touch us there, on our true home court.

(Thanks to Jared and Tony for remembering!)

The principal should spank her for failing principles of the English language.

Anywhere except New Albany, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a “college professor” should know the difference in usage between an adjective and a noun. Sadly, the crusading Vickster’s imaginary academic alter ego does not.

ACCOUNTING PRINCIPALS... INDIANA STATE BOARD OF ACCOUNTS

Perhaps 3rd district councilman Steve Price can compose a resolution providing “feel good” funding for Erika’s continuing linguistic education, but until that unlikely day, consider …

Principal is both an adjective, which means that it modifies a noun, and a noun. In the adjectival sense, it means, “First, highest, or foremost in importance, rank, worth, or degree; chief.” As a noun, it has several meanings, none of which are applicable to Erika's mistaken usage.

Principle is a noun – it names something – and in the sense that Erika should have used it, it means, “a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived: the principles of modern physics.”

Or, one might say: "The principal principles of the trognonymous Freedom of Speech blog are cowardly subterfuge and malice."

Glance here for accounting principles correctly used.

See, there really are rules, Erika. You simply must learn them.

Thanks to http://dictionary.reference.com/ for definitions.

Anywhere except New Albany, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a “college professor” should know the difference in usage between an adjective and a noun. Sadly, the crusading Vickster’s imaginary academic alter ego does not.

ACCOUNTING PRINCIPALS... INDIANA STATE BOARD OF ACCOUNTS

Perhaps 3rd district councilman Steve Price can compose a resolution providing “feel good” funding for Erika’s continuing linguistic education, but until that unlikely day, consider …

Principal is both an adjective, which means that it modifies a noun, and a noun. In the adjectival sense, it means, “First, highest, or foremost in importance, rank, worth, or degree; chief.” As a noun, it has several meanings, none of which are applicable to Erika's mistaken usage.

Principle is a noun – it names something – and in the sense that Erika should have used it, it means, “a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived: the principles of modern physics.”

Or, one might say: "The principal principles of the trognonymous Freedom of Speech blog are cowardly subterfuge and malice."

Glance here for accounting principles correctly used.

See, there really are rules, Erika. You simply must learn them.

Thanks to http://dictionary.reference.com/ for definitions.

On Thursday: Chili and beer with Jeffersonville Main Street.

In which we check the facts, since she won't.

In case you were wondering, a substantial portion of the text used in the Freedom of Speech blog entry dated Wednesday, January 24 (but actually published on Tuesday, January 30) was purloined without proper attribution (or even scant acknowledgement) from a far more coherent political blog called Tennessee Ticket.

Seems that the non-existent Professor Erika didn’t backdate her entry sufficiently far, as the original was published on January 22.

The preening professorial poseur is fond of demanding that rules be followed, and yet she’s entirely unable to consistently follow simple standards of honesty when it comes to identifying and attributing sources. Of course, this sort of serial misbehavior damages one’s credibility, but then again, credibility’s never been in ample supply at Dork and Mindy’s random character assassination generator.

The next NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is on Tuesday, February 6, and you're invited.

Second call ... and I need to know: Will you be dining? Israel needs to know how to staff this, if in fact special treatment is required. If there will be only six of us, there's no sense putting him out to reserve and staff the upstairs.

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On February 6, starting at 6:00 p.m., it'll be the second gathering of "Confidentiaholics Identified," this time at La Rosita Mexican Grill at 1515 E. Market Street in New Albany, which is a few doors down from the Tommy Lancaster Restaurant near Vincennes Street.

If you haven’t yet been to La Rosita, this is the ideal chance to sample superb, fresh and creative Mexican cuisine, and because I already know that the majority of Confidentiaholics adore Israel Landin's delicious offerings on a regular basis, I’m suggesting that we move the time to 6:00 p.m. to accommodate diners. Of course, you may come at any time, and it isn’t required that you purchase food.

Read Marty Rosen’s C-J review here for a mouthwatering description.

Israel graciously has reserved the upstairs room for us, and because he needs to know what to expect in terms of volume, please provide an informal RSVP to the e-mail address at my blogger profile. If he's willing, I'll bring a small five-gallon keg of Croupier IPA to accent the proceedings. Of course, Mexican beers also are available.

As was the case at our previous gathering, this evening is being designed as a very informal meet 'n' greet for readers and friends of the NA Confidential blog, and by extension, the New Albany blogosphere as a whole, but you're not required to have a computer to attend.

There'll be no set agenda beyond getting to know one another, widening the circle of faces to names, and chatting about local issues. All citizens are welcome. Tribune forum readers; owners and readers of other local blogs; sincere political hopefuls; innocent bystanders; whatever … and bring a friend or a neighbor if you please.

Looking ahead, tentatively we're hoping to hold the March edition of the gathering at St. Marks United Church of Christ in downtown New Albany, with pot luck, self-catered munchies, and Pastor John Manzo hosting and educating us about the church's community activities.

But first: See you at La Rosita's on the 6th?

Tribune's Tucker asks: "Why not urge someone that you think would make a good community leader to run?"

On Sunday, the Tribune’s John Tucker resumed his periodic cage-rattling with a prime, timely essay: TUCKER: A few good candidates.

Here are two excerpts.

Very few hear the call of public office and fewer still answer. It also seems that the same people keep hearing “the call.” Many times you’ll see a councilman defend his post against a former councilman (with candidates filing last week, it looks like there will once again be plenty of “currents” running against “formers” in southern Indiana). This gives the voter the choice of “keeping the status quo” or “going back to the old way of things” — not a great choice if you want to see changes in your community …

… Winning a local political race does not necessarily take the backing of a political party. It is not for the rich or the famous. An average person, with enough campaigning can attain a city council position. There is no reason that your boss, your neighbor or yourself couldn’t win a local election — so why not urge someone that you think would make a good community leader to run? It’s simple math — the more people who run for office, the better our chances will be for quality leadership.

To subvert Elvis Costello, Tucker’s “aim” is true. Here’s the single most important sentence in a thought provoking piece:

Winning a local political race does not necessarily take the backing of a political party.

Verily, for any issues-oriented human being, the existence of two political parties acting consistently and predictably as though they’ve mistaken the word “platform” for “bubonic plague contagion” is the biggest stumbling block to the involvement referred to by Tucker. You will recall that NA Confidential spent the run-up to the November, 2006 mid-term election begging for one, the other, or both local parties to take a stand on something – in fact, to declare a platform position on anything.

The sounds of faucets dripping, pins dropping and crickets chirping were the lamentable, but entirely predictable, response to our pleas.

If one favors the notion of politics as the art of the possible, and is committed to sensible, contemporary readings of progressivism and their application to revitalization and growth, what benefit can be derived from civic participation via hidebound political party structures that have been handily manipulated time and again by less principled time-servers within them – Tucker’s “currents” and “formers” -- to actively thwart change and to promote the ongoing entrenchment of locally vested interest?

It’s maddening. Both parties count reasonable, forward-looking people among their memberships, and yet neither seem capable of expanding these positives into the meaningful articulation of concepts as larger entities.

On the Democratic side, examples of this profoundly debilitating dysfunction are legion, and include the resistance of its ward heeling bloc to ordinance enforcement, the gang’s opposition to rental property reform, their pathological aversion to economic development and cultural diversity, and an accompanying genetic propensity to tout elementary school “logic” for solving university-level problems. Imagine Jethro Bodine manning the controls of a jetliner.

Local Republicans, already burdened with a regressive and theocratic national political strategy designed to elicit panicked escape, not passionate embrace, have responded to the city’s Democratic disarray by … by … little more than a shrug of shoulders and a pining glance at the GOP’s strengthening prospects outside the city’s gates. Only scarcely have they formed a credible opposition to Democratic hegemony, as underachieving as those decades have been.

However, the unaffiliated among us shan’t escape without self-criticism, and it is such grudging recognition that I gleaned from reading John Tucker’s Sunday morning column.

It’s true that a proportion of our seeming disorganization derives from the fact that it is far more time consuming to explain what one is “for” rather than to simply chant “no” and be against it, but it remains that in all places and times, reformers must do more than offer facts and evidence, for they must also find ways to convince people why it is preferable to treat with the unknown as opposed to the known, even if all seemingly are in agreement that the known has serially failed.

Make no mistake: I’m damned proud of the archive that has been compiled at this blogspot. We – including collaborators past and present – have covered a breathtaking, and by the standards of New Albany, groundbreaking, amount of platform and policy ground in a short period of time. We genuinely feel, as Ann at Diggin’ in the Dirt put it yesterday, that we’re on the right path:

I have said it before and will say it once more: I am looking for a leader, and so far, this town does not have one. The key ingredient this city needs is leadership, and it is sorely lacking. If it were not for the fact that I epitomize New Albany too, I'd be outta here.

But I'm not going anywhere, and there are a lot more people just like me. Things are going to change in this town, and if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the pollution. Which do you want to be?

In fact, we all know what must be done, and furthermore, we know that we must be the ones to undertake it – regrettably, without backing from our rudderless local political parties and their patronage assistance agencies, and truthfully, even if the end results probably will be setbacks, though temporary, from whence the grassroots network that we already know exists can be bolstered and widened, and the aura of inevitability brightened.

Anyone for an independent insurgency? It’s looking increasingly attractive to me.

As an example on very short notice – and I’d appreciate someone checking these purported facts, as I have a doctor’s appointment to catch – a quick glance at last fall’s election results showed that 1,086 people in New Albany’s 3rd city council district voted in the Indiana Secretary of State race. A couple dozen valid signatures from residents (2% of the above) on a petition of nomination along with the remaining necessary paperwork filed by July 2, 2007, would be sufficient for an independent candidacy in the district.

Like I’ve said before … we need a common color – blue and red having been taken, so I’d propose green (the color of the city flag) or perhaps the more compromising purple, as well as a shared basic reform platform, a commitment to educate, and with luck, some nimble strategic instincts. Care to discuss? I’ll be back later this afternoon.

Sunday reading.

My top weekend pick can be found at Christopher Drake's New Albany Eyesores blog (Saturday, January 27), but his essay is not about blight. It's a touching and heartfelt tribute to his dad.

Still My Hero

My father was New Albany to the bone. He returned here after his years in the United States Marine Corps, a little trip to a place called Vietnam, at a time when they could be shot at, but were not truly allowed to return fire, as they were just advisers. Outside of the Marines, he only worked one other job outside N.A., that was at Colgate's in Clarksville, biding his time. He was hired onto the New Albany Police Department in the early 1970's and spent the rest of his life serving this community, at 51 years old he passed away as a result of complications from treatment for non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, an illness attributed by his doctors brought on by exposure to chemicals the military "did not use" in the jungles of south east Asia.

We're just delighted with our readership.

 

Six syllables of squirm … but could you do it as a waltz next time?

“We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.”

--Louis Armstrong

Can there be any remaining doubt that NA Confidential writes the set list and dictates the tempo of the 3rd district's ongoing civic debate?

Consider this strange, plaintive moan emanating from the incumbent's assisted writing center:

Perception Management

Wheee!! It's blogosphere quote day!!

If Dork & Mindy were in hardback ...

From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.

--Groucho Marx

The first wave of 2007 candidate filings, and a reminder of my rules of voting engagement.

UPDATED:
Add to DISTRICT 1 (Precincts New Albany 1, 2, 17, 21, 23)
D Theresa Timberlake

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Courtesy of the Tribune, here’s a list of first-day filings.

As a reminder to the candidates, you may submit detailed, substantive platforms to NA Confidential as a prerequisite for securing my vote in the forthcoming elections. In case you missed it, here are the guidelines:

Mr./Mrs./Ms. Candidate: Just in time for the filing period, here are my modified rules of voting engagement.

Therefore, lacking a potential challenger’s clear public articulation of intent and of discernable content -- no back room deals for me -- I propose to sit on my hands come Election Day if these strategies and goals are not forthcoming. Expediently selling out to the least objectionable bidder no longer fits into my grand scheme of ethical voting conduct. Now, the stakes are raised. You must earn my support against the primeval empire, both within the 3rd council district and as applicable to citywide races.

Here are the current aspirants.

MAY 8, 2007
CITY OF NEW ALBANY MAYOR
(Precincts New Albany 1 through New Albany 29A)
DEMOCRAT James E. Garner, Sr
DEMOCRAT Larry Scharlow

CITY OF NEW ALBANY CLERK
(Precincts New Albany 1 through New Albany 29A)
D Marcey J. Wisman

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER AT-LARGE
(Precincts New Albany 1 through New Albany 29A)
D Jack Messer

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 1
(Precincts New Albany 1, 2, 17, 21, 23)
REPUBLICAN Richard Berryman

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 2
(Precincts 16, 18, 19, 19A, 19B, 22, 29)
D Bill Schmidt
R Harry T. Harbison

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 3
(Precincts New Albany 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11)
D Maury Goldberg

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 4
(Precincts New Albany 12, 13, 20, 24, 25)
D Pat McLaughlin

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 6
(Precincts New Albany 26, 27, 27A, 28, 28A, 29A)
R Richard “Dick” Stewart

CM Kochert’s petard: Self-hoisting, no waiting.

The venerable phrase “hoist by your own petard” has a colorful background, and is meant to suggest that one has been “injured by the device that had been intended for use to injure others.”

In other words, those TNT-filled boomerangs tossed at the Roadrunner by Wile E. Coyote have a habit of coming back to explode in the face of the "genius" who threw them. And so it is that 4th district councilman Larry Kochert’s premeditated presidential shenanigans on January 18th have returned to pay him a visit.

EVANS: New Albany Council meeting disturbs pastor, by Rev. O. Lacy Evans (Local Guest Columnist; New Albany Tribune)

Having been called upon and identifying myself and the item I wished to address I was informed by the president of the council, Mr. Larry Kochert, that I would not be allowed to comment on this item because it had been postponed or removed from the agenda. Ironically, the person just prior to me had been allowed to comment on the very same item ...

... Such a “mistake,” i.e., granting permission to one person to speak while disallowing another the same privilege, has the tendency to infer something different, especially when the denied person is one of another ethnicity, gender, religious or political persuasion than the person who was granted permission.

There are times when the council Gang of Four’s fumbling ineptitude produces the type of embarrassed giggles one experiences while watching hoary reruns of "Hogan’s Heroes" – and then, in a sobering fashion, there are times when one grasps the extent of the mean-spiritedness that motivates this cabal’s enduring resentment against those manifestations of contemporary society that refuse to accommodate Luddite simplicity.

Looking on last Thursday as CM Kochert gleefully pursued the petty gamesmanship that has sadly defined his underachieving political career, all the while remaining painfully oblivious to the fact that his ward-heeling machinations were having the dual effect of insulting the African-American community leaders in attendance and empowering the very political target (think: Mayor James Garner) that he had intended these procedural hijinks to harm, onlookers were neither embarrassed nor laughing, but thoroughly disgusted with a spectacle that has no place in the process outside of redefining our city's socio-political dysfunction.

More and more people are starting to "get it," so please keep hoisting, Larry, while the NAC chorus sings from the Paul Simon songbook:

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away

You know the nearer your destination

The more you're slip sliding away

Development, redevelopment, and working "around (CM Price) to accomplish something."

Earlier today, my NAC colleague Bluegill offered these marquee-worthy thoughts. For context, see: CM Steve Price auditions for Geico commercial, dismisses education and economic development as "feel good projects."

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I'm glad you brought up the topic of Development/Redevelopment. I was going to address it anyway, particularly in light of Steve Price's "isn't that what we pay Paul Wheatley for" comment.

The city has an Economic Development Director, Paul Wheatley. He's been on the job a couple of years and is paid and budgeted solely via Economic Development Income Taxes. He receives no money from the general fund.

Currently, Wheatley's paid $38,000 per year plus benefits at $13,267 for a total of $51,267.

He's given an office budget (supplies, travel, postage, printing) of $8,500 per year.

The only marketing/development funds he has access to without Council approval is a contractual services line item funded at $35,000 a year. For real world perspective, that's about what it costs to run a quarter page ad in the Courier Journal once a month for the year.

If my math is correct, that brings the grand total to $94,767 per year. Outside of the $137,000 allocated to leveraging a much larger private investment in Scribner Place, that's the only money the city currently has specifically budgeted for economic development.

For comparison, consider that over $1 million in EDIT funds will be spent on the sewer system in 2007.

In addition to his daily routine of dealing with business owners, real estate agents, developers, etc, Wheatley has brought ideas before the Council to improve the development atmosphere in the city.

During this summer's budget hearings, Wheatley presented two solid ideas to the Council. One was to use EDIT funds for preliminary design studies on vacant historic buildings downtown, sparing prospective investors the upfront costs of determining suitable uses. The other was for the city to use some EDIT as matching funds for a revolving, low interest loan program in cooperation with the Urban Enterprise Zone and local banks.

Both ideas have proven successful in other communities but were immediately shot down by Coffey, Price, et al, as "corporate welfare".

A general breakdown of recent Redevelopment spending is available via The Tribune here.

One large expenditure not included in the paper's breakdown is $150,000 allocated for emergency repair to owner-occupied, low income households. Because compliance with federal regulations becomes much more difficult above a specified dollar amount, repairs are limited to $5,000 per house or about 30 houses per year.

Their budget comes from federal Community Development Block Grants, again not from the city's general fund. If CDBG money dries up, as almost happened last year per a President Bush proposal, we'll have no Redevelopment Department.

You'll notice that $149,777 has been set aside for payroll and administrative costs, approximately 20% of the overall budget. That's supposed to cover five full-time employees and one part-time employee, plus office supplies, equipment, postage, etc.

I know that Redevelopment has been living with fewer employees to counter CDBG reductions recently but I'm not sure to what extent that will be remedied. To my current knowledge (and don't quote me on this) they recently had four employees but are now down to three since Adam Dickey just moved on recently.

One of the other items you'll notice in The Tribune breakdown is "$10,000 to train neighborhood-association representatives in community leadership through the NeighborWorks program."

NeighborWorks is a national nonprofit with an extensive network of successful revitalization professionals across the country. Amongst many other services, they provide training and certification in community and neighborhood revitalization.

They recently started a national pilot program to bring that training directly to communities rather than requiring locals to travel to conferences in major cities and then try to replicate their activities at home.

Through the diligence of New Directions Housing Corporation, the Louisville metro area was selected as the locale for that pilot program and New Albany was offered five seats in exchange for $10,000 dollars of CDBG funding.

The normal cost of that training for five people would be roughly $15,000, not including travel and hotel expenses for the five to attend several different conferences, a number that could easily equal another $10,000 to $20,000 and make it much more difficult for people to schedule. The total cost for bringing the whole program to the metro area is around $150,000.

After discussing the funding proposal with the Redevelopment Commission, it was decided that the five persons would be selected from a cross-section of citizens and not just neighborhood associations. In fact, only one seat was made available to association representatives.

During the Redevelopment budget approval process (the Council has to approve it even though we have a Redevelopment Commisssion and the money is federal), Steve Price singled out the training money for removal from the budget. His objection? Too many people in his district (or more specifically, certain neighborhood associations) might be selected for training. I'm neither kidding nor exaggerating.

When Redevelopment Director John Rosenbarger reminded Price that the Redevelopment Commission, of which Price was a member at the time, had decided to select a cross-section of citizens, he still refused to yield, insisting that the $10,000 be moved to the building demolition line item, enough to demolish one to two houses.

There was a legal question concerning whether Price and the Council had overstepped their bounds. The law isn't clear about the Council's authority to amend the Redevelopment budget. It seems to be a matter of either approving the budget or sending it back to the Redevelopment Commission for changes. The Council, with Price in the lead, amended it themselves against the wishes of the Redevelopment Commission and then approved it in one maneuver. It could've been grounds for a legal challenge.

In the end, it was decided to not waste additional resources fighting the inanity. Still, Price's political vendetta nearly cost New Albany the chance to participate in the program. Luckily, the City of Louisville and the Federal Reserve stepped in to cover the costs but that wasn't settled or known at the time.

Given the opportunity to learn and cooperatively achieve, Price spit in the face of those trying to improve things and, as usual, neighborhood associations, other nonprofits, and the Redevelopment Commission had to work around him to accomplish something.

CM Steve Price auditions for Geico commercial, dismisses education and economic development as "feel good projects."

(For more, visit the Highwayman: "And the Price Is.......!!" )

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Our power-blogging, one-chord councilman -- or is that power-chording, one-blog councilman -- is back, and he’s more confused than ever about the fundamental meaning of words, with results far more revealing than he intends.

Need vs. Want Basic Economics

CM Steve Price begins by defining his terms ... sort of, as his definition of “need” is incorrect in the context used, even if a “lack of subsistence” inadvertently summarizes the prevailing paucity of ideas at his Dewey Heights compound.

In my opinion, I would say addressing the increasing need of 15th street to prevent a major catastrophe is a need. Giving $25 thousand to Montessori,or $92 thousand for Southern Indiana One to further the economic development of our city is a want. (Isn’t that what we pay Paul Wheatley for?) $117 thousand requested from Riverboat money so far this year.

Our councilman presumably was seated at a computer and linked to the Internet, so it isn’t too much to expect that he might search One Southern Indiana and render its name properly.

Sadly, but not at all unexpectedly, this lies entirely beyond his abilities, as does the correct pronunciation of the names of people with whom he disagrees (ask John Rosenbarger about that some time). In fact, this is a frequent Price stratagem: A bumbling, halting mispronunciation designed to entice titters from human laugh tracks like Professor Erika.

It's embarrassing.

Just as naturally, it wouldn’t be a vintage Steve Price yokel’s yodel without a disparaging cheap shot lobbed at someone like Paul Wheatley, complete with an ungrammatical sentence fragment about Riverboat money. Verily, writing requires different muscles than speaking, and can cause severe strains if the ones that have atrophied from lack of use are strained without proper stretching and preparation.

What about our NEEDS projects.

For example: the need to address 15th street, the need to address the deficient with our ambulance and street departments, the need to address our police and fire budgets, the need to address the issue of accountability and responsibility. $117 thousand could help in addressing these NEEDS.

To be honest, the “deficient” is something I worry about, too, seeing as he’s running for re-election on a head-in-the-sand-with-Dave Ramsey-tome platform of “no progress at any Price,” so perhaps someone will defeat him in the forthcoming election, thus correcting the “deficiency,” because if there’s any “deficiency” – any “need” -- that we must address, it lies in the 3rd district’s current mode of “deficient leadership,” which CM Price blithely expects us to believe is as easy as arbitrarily selecting a monetary figure, using it in conjunction with random citations of a half-dozen obvious problems of which we’re all aware (but not the only half-dozen), and using the predictable absence of a simplistic solution fit for a Sesame Street skit as the precise reason why all gears of the city must come to a complete halt, at least until a councilman who hasn’t managed to articulate a future-oriented strategy in three long years can catch up with a planet that refuses to stop spinning, evolving, and racing beyond his comprehension.

But here’s the bar-none, best part of CM Price’s plaintive paean to primitivism:

Where are our priorities? Funding feel good projects or attending to absolute necessities?

Check it out, New Albany. Read that paragraph very carefully, and remember it come election time. NAC most assuredly will.

In Steve Price’s mind, education is a “feel good” project.

In Steve Price’s mind, economic development of the sort pursued on a regional basis by One Southern Indiana is another “feel good” project.

Neither of these two necessary pillars of human civilization -- in the sense of things we "need" -- are "absolute necessities" to better the under-educated and the under-employed whom Steve Price is forever eager to help ... but in the end, to help do nothing except muddle through their lives while he selectively pursues shortsighted, futile policies of congenital limitation that are guaranteed to keep our pies – and our hopes, and our dreams – as small as his own narrow horizons.

This, my friends, is what the dreaded New Albany Syndrome can do for you.

Precious little.

CM Price's expressions of no-can-do are derived from the envy and resentment, the concurrent failures of the stunted small-timer to perceive politics as the art of the possible, and the cycle of miserable dysfunction that feeds on itself and perpetuates despair.

Price is a councilman, for heaven's sake. He's already confessed in print that he's done all he can do -- but my cats accomplished far more in the litter box today.

Don't you think we "need" something different in 2007?

Feeling "Auntie Bellum," Erika plays the gender confusion card.

Read what "she" said in PLAYING THE RACE CARD: TRUMP OR JOKER?, at "her" blog, Freedom to Screech.