Tasting Thursday at Artisan Market: La Bocca, on July 26.

"Artisan Market connects customers with artisans to purchase quality hand craft and speciality food items featuring makers from Indiana and Kentucky."

In August, I'll be representing NABC at this monthly event ... stay tuned.

"Greg Johnson Guides Us Through New Albany’s Corridor of Cool."

This may or may not be official, but we're cool. This is a fine, succinct guide to downtown NA eateries.

TGIF Local Lunch Post – Greg Johnson Guides Us Through New Albany’s Corridor of Cool, by Cindy Lamb (LouisvilleKy.com)

Cross the river this week as TGIF Local Lunch Post pays a visit to our Hoosier neighbors in New Albany. Our guide is Greg Johnson, whose byline informed and entertained us in the Courier-Journal for over three decades.

Queen at Live Aid; July 13, 1985.

These clips are a primer: Stadium Rock Basics 101. I was watching at a pub in Sligo, Ireland, cradling one Guinness after the next and amazed that 72,000 attendees at Wembley would sing along to "Radio Ga Ga."

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: River View's sweet dreams are not enough.

ON THE AVENUES: River View's sweet dreams are not enough.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Yesterday, the Redevelopment Commission voted to rescind a River View option extension for Mainland Properties, and in light of this, I believe this column bears repeating. It originally was published here on January 23, 2012.

---

At a lazily advertised work session last Thursday evening, New Albany’s city council learned that the River View waterfront development project would no longer be coming to town as originally conceived.

That is, if it comes to town at all.

I couldn’t have been the only onlooker catching an unmistakable whiff of airborne desperation, because far from making the River View dream more palpable by openly addressing past concerns and doing pleasant touch-up work to the architectural renderings, Mainland Properties’ most recent presentation instead revealed a slew of major fundamental alterations.

These changes muddy the project’s conceptual basis, and cry out for intensified scrutiny on the part of city officials, who must yet toss a parking garage into the collection plate before the first pitch is thrown.

Mainland has now gone on record, implicitly or explicitly, as conceding virtually every objection previously voiced about River View. By doing so, it has rendered null and void the alleged toxicity of previous questioners, an obfuscation used to justify the England administration’s persistent inability to be truthful in answering queries about the development.

Improbably, the latest, revised River View build-out raises even more questions than the original version, although predictably, the city council chose to ask none of them at Thursday’s work session. I choose to believe that council members were stupefied by sheer incredulity in the face of the fantasies they were being asked to embrace, and I trust they will recover their senses when River View returns to their inboxes.

---

Critically, the revised three-phase plan for River View 2.0 utterly contradicts Jack Bobo’s oft-stated goal for his project, as stressed time and again from inception: It will enable a bold, game-changing caste of condominium owners in downtown New Albany, whose very presence will “trickle back” myriad benefits to the remainder of the community.

Doubtful in the best of times, but for the sake of argument, I’ll temporarily accept that up-market condominium occupants are capable of single-handedly shifting downtown paradigms, and ask this question:

Given the altered three-phase development plan, what is the chance of these transformational condos ever being built?

In answering, let’s first dispense with the fallacious number “three” in reference to River View’s supposedly escalating phases, each one proceeding from the presumed success of the one before.

Of course, there is a fourth phase, actually the very first phase, and without it, not one other domino can so much as consider falling into place: The city of New Albany’s essential “TIF Tithe” for the construction of a 500-unit parking garage.

Both literally and figuratively, River View is to be built atop this commitment.

We must soberly recognize that no matter the continued expediency of River View’s evolution, the city of New Albany’s founding stake cannot ever change. Without the TIF-enabled parking garage, there is nothing, because Mainland has no capital without it. The city’s opening phase is a fait accompli, and so the city must play its hand cautiously as steadily worsening odds suggest another question:

What is the chance that even with a functional parking garage, River View is ever completed as proposed?

---

Before Thursday’s River View remix, New Albany was to have been promptly rewarded for providing Mainland with the necessary parking garage collateral, in the sense that the vital condominium occupancies would be animated right out of the gate.

Now, with Mainland at long last acknowledging prevailing banking, investment, economic and cultural realities, and admitting to errors in creating so many lofty and unlikely expectations, River View’s entire reason for being – its game-changing condominiums – is being pushed all the way to project’s end, and slated to come last, if at all.

In the interim, before the condos are ever close to coming on line, there are to be rental housing units – perhaps useful to Mainland as cash-flow mechanisms, but to repeat, quite contradictory to every previous stated aim of River View as helping to create a residential ownership society downtown.

Besides, do we really need to strengthen the anti-ordinance enforcement bloc, one traditionally dominated by rental property owners, by adding another bloc of rental properties?

And yet for all of Mainland’s lofty, messianic housing aims, Version 2.0 of River View as now described hinges not on residential occupancy, but retail proliferation. Frankly, that’s a risky proposition, and as a cure, it might be worse than the malady.

Realtor and primary Mainland sales appendage Mike Kopp openly divulged to the council on Thursday that the recent merger of his Blue Sun real estate startup with Remax was for the express purpose of tapping into the latter’s commercial strengths, so as to locate a prime retail anchor tenant for River View. These usual code words reek of chain retail covetousness on Mainland’s part; what are the chances of such a retail anchor tenant being an independent local business?

Worse (better?), what are the chances that any of the coveted, cookie-cutter retail chains will occupy space in downtown New Albany prior to the proximity of new condos, their free-spending owners, and the anticipated ripple effect of their presence? Kopp surely is good at his job. At the same time, he’s no miracle worker.

Furthermore, if the “first” phase of River View (to follow the required parking garage) is about retail occupancy, and if no retail anchor tenant can be found, chain or independent, why would banks and investors mandating the phased-in approach still agree to finance the next rental and condo phases?

And, if River View stalls, how exactly does Mainland “pay” for the necessary parking garage?

---

Let’s review.

River View was supposed to benefit the community by creating a residential ownership society, which would “trickle back” benefits to downtown, justifying a $15 million publicly financed parking garage.

Now, in order to approach this goal, Mainland must create not condos, but retail, and on a scale unseen in downtown New Albany since the 1960’s.

Next, it must build on the retail upsurge by adding rental apartment housing, which already inundates the city.

Then, and only then, Mainland will be able to proceed with the condo ownership society, which from the very beginning was the confidently predicted benefit to the community, one worth a $15 million publicly financed parking garage to achieve.

To some, this revised plan for River View will appear sensible. It is difficult to see how. Speaking personally, I’ve nothing against any of the project’s originators or its acolytes, but I’m as yet unconvinced. It’s sad, because it’s such a nice dream, but River View has no clothes. Wishing won’t make it otherwise, and its time for the city to move on by addressing existing infrastructure needs downtown.

(In 2011 at NAC: Highlights & Lowlights: Picking and rewarding the River View winners)

NABC in Indy, and Live @ Five on Bank.

NABC descends on Indianapolis to join in the fun; it's Indiana Craft Beer Week, and the capital will be buzzing in more ways than one.

Here at home, note that Live @ Five returns this Friday to the Bank Street layout. It's from 5 - 8 p.m. on Friday, July 13. On July 20, the gig moves to Pearl Street between Market and Main.

Wed., July 11: Flat12 and NABC merriment at the Tomlinson Tap Room in Indy.

NABCieged at The Sinking Ship: Kegs and bottles on Wednesday night.

A reminder: NABC's lineup at the Indiana Microbrewers Festival this Saturday.

Redevelopment Commission votes to rescind River View option extension for Mainland Properties.

This one speaks for itself. Take it away, Daniel.

New Albany Redevelopment Commission rescinds agreement over River View property; New proposals will be accepted for developing city-owned lots, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — Other developers will have an opportunity to purchase the land that had been planned for the $43 million River View project after the New Albany Redevelopment Commission voted Tuesday to rescind an option extension for Mainland Properties.

The commission asked the administration to prepare a new request-for-proposals, or RFP, document and present it to the body next month for review. Commission member Adam Dickey, who was not present when the latest extension was approved by the body in May, said the project is going into its third year without much progress since gaining the option from the city.

“I’m not convinced that we’re moving ahead to the degree that we should be,” he said.

European Journal. Well, sort of.

If I cannot be there, I can read about it. The novel I've engaged this summer, and might still be reading in 2013, is Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities."

In The Man Without Qualities he tries to portray a modern man who has to live in and cope with a changing world. In contrast to former generations, the modern-day-man cannot afford himself, or be described in terms of ‘qualities’, as Musil calls it, for all the known certainties have been replaced by a greater diversity; there is no longer a single point one can focus on. The German word ‘Eigenschaften’ is less ambiguous: it literally means ‘characteristics’.

To be more precise at the 250-page mark, with a thousand to go, the story takes place in Vienna in the waning pre-war days of the Habsburg Empire. To know me is to be cognizant of my enduring fascination with this historical period (in general) and Vienna (in particular), both of which are referenced at NAC from time to time.

Today's Tribune column: "History and sausages in Vienna."

Red Stars, Black Mountains: What’s Habsburg got to do with it? (Part 5).

Ironically, Otto Habsburg only recently was mentioned in the New York Times, roughly a year after his death at 98. RemCha, take note:

Where’s Charlemagne When We Need Him?, by Istvan Deak

WRITING some 50 years ago, Archduke Otto Habsburg, the last pretender to the crowns of Austria and Hungary, warned that economic cooperation alone would not satisfy the peoples of Europe and that European unification could not succeed unless it was imbued with an abstract principle. Only something as mystical, he wrote, as the Holy Roman Empire could give people hope, a sense of religious renewal and combat the pernicious effects of local interest, chauvinism, xenophobia and racism.

Today’s European crisis indeed shows that great political institutions cannot be constituted solely on a rational basis or through the bureaucracy and incrementalism of Brussels. The true purpose of the European Union is to bring about peace, prosperity and equality among the diverse regions and groups. Peace has indeed prevailed on most of the Continent, but in the last few years, with prosperity endangered, continued regional inequality has become even more blatant, while radical nationalism has raised its ugly head.

Historic empires provided ideals — whether universal Christian unity or the Marxist-Leninist dogmas of the Soviet Union — in which people were able to believe, no matter how flawed the ruler and how corrupt the imperial institutions. So long as people believe in the principles, the system is likely to endure.

Deak, namesake of a square in Budapest, suggests that European identity enhancement might just help repopulate the continent with Europeans (italics mine).

Europeans must decide whether they are satisfied with a common market and currency, or whether they want to have common political, legal and cultural institutions. They need a great European Museum and Exhibit, many more pan-European music and film festivals, and the propagation of Europeanism in popular culture to shake off cynicism regarding the European project.

Then, perhaps, Europeans will also understand that despite all their hardships, they are still among the richest and most privileged people in the world. They might even decide that they can afford to have a few children.

Appropriately, I conclude with The Economist's take on Europe's fertility crisis, which bears the usual dispassionate tone.

Europe’s other crisis: Recession is bringing Europe’s brief fertility rally to a shuddering halt

... Three broad lessons emerge. First, population trends are more sensitive to the economic cycle than might be expected. Population trends are thought to set the stage for everything else (“demography is destiny” said a 19th-century French scientist). Second, the rise in fertility in the 2000s suggests that not all of Europe is caught in a low-fertility trap. Scandinavia, Britain and France all have relatively high fertility. Third, governments may have scope for policy measures to moderate the fall. Old-fashioned demographic policies were usually “natalist”: they rewarded women who had many children. (Russia still has these.) They almost never work.

But if demographic tempo is what matters, Europe’s fertility might be more susceptible to government policy. Couples might respond to incentives like cheaper kindergartens or more parental leave by changing the spacing of children they want anyway. If Europe is to avoid yet another downward twist in its demographic spiral, “tempo-adjusted fertility” may hold the secret.

Escaping Obamacare, from Haiti to Turkmenistan.

I've meant to post this one for two weeks. A trend of Rich White Religious Teetotalers Like Mitt Flight to places like Haiti would be quite healthy for the country, but I just don't see it happening.

Dan Treadway

Associate blog editor, The Huffington Post

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Hate Obamacare? Don't Worry, Here Are Some Countries You Can Move To

Posted: 06/29/2012 12:49 pm

 ... I feel somewhat of a responsibility to inform these people, in addition to those who have similar feelings but somehow held back from voicing them on Twitter, that Canada probably isn't the best place to go to avoid universal health care. In fact, it hasn't been since 1966.

While this may come as a disappointment to some who were hoping to blissfully drink Tim Horton's coffee while observing impoverished people die from treatable ailments, fear not: There are plenty of countries that you can move to where you'll have absolutely no government-mandated access to health care.

Perhaps you might consider moving to Haiti. Not only would you be able to dodge socialist doctors, but you might be able to avoid medical professionals altogether: The country only has 25 physicians per 100,000 people. While access to clean water may be a bit spotty, this is more than made up for by the short life expectancy and the absence of Barack Obamas. Pack your swimsuit!

Seriously.

Is all of it going to be about older people looking backward? Can some of it be about younger people looking forward? Please?

Help us to refashion our most famous anti-fascist advertisement.

Readers, I need your help.

Pictured at left is the Great Taste of the Midwest program ad NABC purchased last August. Perhaps the finest outdoor beer fest in America, GTMW takes place each year in Madison, the state capital of Wisconsin, where Governor Walker retained his seat after a punishing recall fight earlier in 2012.

Meanwhile, Indiana's departing gubernatorial wunderkind is taking his talents to the Right Bank (of the Wabash, appropriately enough) and Purdue University, which apparently is slated for outsourcing, closure or being otherwise gutted.

It's worth noting that while the advertisement helped to stimulate another record year of "These Machines Kill Fascists" t-shirt sales in Madison (which helps us to pay the way for 14 NABC employees to attend GTMW), it prompted an entirely different reaction in quarters closer to home, one that reminded me of Federico Fellini's words: "Censorship is advertising paid by the government," or at the very least, nearby government officials.

But that was then; this is now. I'd love to purchase another program ad, so does anyone have ideas on how we might incorporate the "kill fascists" logo into something with a different and complementary theme?

Today: Earth Friends Cafe in the Library open for business.

 Earth Friends Cafe & Coffee Bar

But we don't even have a coal mine in Floyd County, do we?

Let's get down to the heart of the matter, with an extended excerpt that chillingly links Floyd County Quasi-Democrats with those residing in (aargh) West Virginia.

What’s eating Appalachia? Many Democrats in the region seem to hate their president (Lexington column, in The Economist)

... But West Virginia’s distaste for the president, Mrs Capito argues, is “more than just a policy disagreement—it’s at the core of who we are.” The meddling bureaucracy of the EPA, she says, suggests a worrying disrespect for property rights, while Mr Obama’s enthusiasm for issuing debt offends thrifty locals. Jim Webb, a senator from neighbouring Virginia, has noted that much of the population of Appalachia is of Scots-Irish descent. Such voters, he says, often feel snubbed by Democrats who set little store by their “guns and religion”, as Mr Obama once memorably put it. (This may help to explain the president’s poor showing in primaries in Arkansas and Oklahoma, which also have big Scots-Irish populations.) Mr Obama’s recent embrace of gay marriage, says Mr Wade, was reason enough in itself for many in West Virginia to sour on him.

Neil Gillies, chairman of the Democratic Party in Hardy County, agrees that bureaucratic interference and cultural affronts have sapped the president’s popularity. But he sees Mr Obama chiefly as the victim of demographic trends of longer standing. West Virginia (like most of the rest of Appalachia) is older, whiter, less educated, more religious and more rural than most of America—attributes that correlate with voting Republican. As a result, the Democrats’ grip on the state has gradually been slackening. West Virginia has voted Republican at the presidential level since 2000. Its congressional delegation is tending that way, too. And Democrats have survived in state government only by disavowing the national party, as Messrs Manchin and Tomblin have.

Then there is the question of race. West Virginia is 93% white—a full 30 points more than the national average. According to exit polls at the state’s Democratic primary in 2008, race was an important factor for a fifth of white voters. Of those, 84% plumped for Mrs Clinton. It seems safe to assume that not everyone who felt that way confessed as much to the pollsters.

Mike Teets, the only Republican on the Hardy County Commission, denies that race has anything to do with local antipathy towards Mr Obama. But he is concerned that the president may be a Muslim, secretly in cahoots with Osama bin Laden, whose killing he could have faked. He also wonders whether the president might be gay. Wild accusations like these, Mr Obama’s supporters maintain, stem from sublimated racism.

"An Intervention from Your Continental BFF."

America, But Better: The Canada Party Manifesto, by Chris Cannon and Brian Calvert

@TheCanadaParty On Twitter

Thanks to RS for the lead.

More on the human rights commission.

The vote may have been 9-0 on both first and second readings, but we mustn't assume a clean sweep on the third. City council contact information is at the municipal website, and I recommend residents in favor of the human rights commission to take a few minutes and communicate with the relevant district reps and the at-large troika.

Human rights commission one vote away in New Albany; Board could convene by the end of the summer, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — A human rights commission could convene within 30 days if it is approved on final reading later this month, New Albany City Councilman Greg Phipps said this week.

On Monday, the council unanimously approved the establishment of the commission, which Phipps vowed to back when he campaigned for office last year.

Phipps said there’s a need for a local board to weigh human rights complaints.

“We need to fill those positions and have a resource available if [residents] do encounter discrimination,” he said.

And there’s a wide variety of groups that could experience discrimination that should be protected, Phipps continued.

The commission’s charge would be to uphold equal opportunity for education, employment, property acquisition and access to public accommodations for residents regardless of race, religion or gender.

The human rights ordinance would replace an existing fair housing measure but would still uphold the same protections only with additional securities added.

Drink milk? By the glass? You're joking, right?

Lactose intolerance is a good place for the writer Bittman to begin refuting the hegemony of milk, as well as noting that no other animals insist on drinking milk taken from other animals following the period immediately after birth.

To me, it's always been aesthetic. Milk is little more than liquid snot, and to drink it by the glass has struck me as revolting for over thirty years. It's just a bonus to be "un-American" by rejecting milk in liquid form, although I've returned to eating cereal with soy milk as moistening agent.

I adore cheese, cream-based sauces, dairy-laden desserts and Milk Stout; obviously, I can tolerate lactose, but drink it from a glass?

That's just wrong. Yuck.

Got Milk? You Don’t Need It, by Mark Bittman (Opinionator; New York Times)

... Today the Department of Agriculture’s recommendation for dairy is a mere three cups daily — still 1½ pounds by weight — for every man, woman and child over age 9. This in a country where as many as 50 million people are lactose intolerant, including 90 percent of all Asian-Americans and 75 percent of all African-Americans, Mexican-Americans and Jews. The myplate.gov site helpfully suggests that those people drink lactose-free beverages. (To its credit, it now counts soy milk as “dairy.”)

There’s no mention of water, which is truly nature’s perfect beverage; the site simply encourages us to switch to low-fat milk. But, says Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, “Sugar — in the form of lactose — contributes about 55 percent of skim milk’s calories, giving it ounce for ounce the same calorie load as soda” ...

"In India, we have a saying; everything will be all right in the end. So if it is not all right, it is not yet the end."

We viewed "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" yesterday, and there may have been as many as 100 people in attendance. I was impressed with the turnout. The film itself is formulaic, but at a high level of competence, with an entertaining cast of A-list British performers (seemingly half of whom are starring in Downton Abbey) given ample opportunity to stretch amid mysterious Jaipur backdrops.

Two new exhibitions at the Gamborg Gallery.

From time to time, I reintroduce my friend Allan Gamborg. He's Danish by birth, a longtime resident of Moscow and a citizen of the world.

Allan has enjoyed much success in his "second" (third? fifth?) career as a purveyor and advocate of Soviet-era art and artists. You can use the handy Blogger search here at NAC, use "Gamborg" as the search term, and see previous postings.

It's always worth a few minutes to peruse the art, and you need not be a Commie to enjoy the links to Allan's on-line galleries. As in the past, permit me to thank Allan for his boundless hospitality and for allowing me to share his latest links.

Dear Friends,

We have two new exhibitions on the web:

THEME – Soviet Fashion Design in the 1950s-1970s

A series of Soviet fashion designs from the Moscow textile Institute by artists Slava Zaitsev, Irina Trofimova, Natalia Zhovtsis, Irina Kulakova, Boris Derzhavin, Tatyana Nikiforova, and Ninel Ryndich.

ARTIST – Tatyana Alyoshina (1955-1981)

Late 1970s pastels and lithographs of the Russian village, the Soviet circus, Commedia dell’Arte,  and old Russian Fairytales.

Enjoy the shows !

NASH: "Affordable Care Act not the end of freedom."

It never was about perfection. Rather, it was (and is) about improvement. Matt's been on a roll lately, folks, and I make it a point to read his column each Friday.

NASH: Affordable Care Act not the end of freedom

By MATTHEW NASHLocal columnist

SOUTHERN INDIANA — I have to admit I was a little surprised last week when the Supreme Court announced its decision regarding the Affordable Care Act, widely described as “Obamacare.”

.500 and 66.

The A's (temporarily) are at .500, and Reggie Jackson's in Sports Illustrated at the age of 66.

There are any number of retired icons who have chosen, after the tumult of their careers, to retreat to some quiet little corner, but who would have expected Jackson to be one of them?

I've covered some of this ground previously:

ON THE AVENUES: It no longer keeps me waiting.

Mr. October and a nobody.

The Red Room might yet return to fashion.

Whatever one's opinion of Karl Marx, surely he was correct in presaging the wisdom of the bumper sticker: A working man who votes Republican is like a chicken who votes for Colonel Sanders.

Why Marxism is on the rise again, by Stuart Jeffries (The Guardian)

Capitalism is in crisis across the globe – but what on earth is the alternative? Well, what about the musings of a certain 19th-century German philosopher? Yes, Karl Marx is going mainstream – and goodness knows where it will end.

Class conflict once seemed so straightforward. Marx and Engels wrote in the second best-selling book of all time, The Communist Manifesto: "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." (The best-selling book of all time, incidentally, is the Bible – it only feels like it's 50 Shades of Grey.)

Today, 164 years after Marx and Engels wrote about grave-diggers, the truth is almost the exact opposite. The proletariat, far from burying capitalism, are keeping it on life support. Overworked, underpaid workers ostensibly liberated by the largest socialist revolution in history (China's) are driven to the brink of suicide to keep those in the west playing with their iPads. Chinese money bankrolls an otherwise bankrupt America.

The irony is scarcely wasted on leading Marxist thinkers. "The domination of capitalism globally depends today on the existence of a Chinese Communist party that gives de-localised capitalist enterprises cheap labour to lower prices and deprive workers of the rights of self-organisation," says Jacques Rancière, the French marxist thinker and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. "Happily, it is possible to hope for a world less absurd and more just than today's."