A new relocation destination for 8th Street Pizza: Breakwater.

Get the lowdown on 8th Street Pizza at Facebook, and observe the above post earlier today. As of last year, 8th Street Pizza was to have relocated (that's right, from 8th Street) to 141 E. Main.

Homelessness, 8th Street Pizza's move, Clean Socks Hope's mission and an addendum by Exit 0.

However, the building fell through for undisclosed reasons, and now it appears the pizzeria is headed for the short-lived Bliss Artisan retail space at the Breakwater residential development.

From December 28, 2019.

Sadly, Bliss Artisan is closed. The franchise lasted ten months at The Breakwater.

"Scathing" doesn't do the account justice as Florida governor leads his state to the morgue.

I'm enchanted.

"The not-honest operators are making sick people come to work, refusing to offer paid time off or pay for testing, and that's gonna get people killed."

Not really.

Florida Man Leads His State to the Morgue, by Adam Weinstein (The New Republic)

Ron DeSantis is the latest in a long line of Republicans who made the state a plutocratic dystopia. Now he’s letting its residents die to save the plutocrats.

On Tuesday, DeSantis took a break from welcoming the Republican National Convention to Jacksonville, waving the starting flag at a Nascar race south of Miami, and pushing for schools to open this fall, to announce that “No, we’re not shutting down, you know, we’re going to go forward.” He also echoed President Trump and Vice President Pence in writing off the troubling rise in Covid cases as attributable to higher rates of testing. But all the available data show that Florida has a dangerously high, rising number of positive tests per capita; positive tests now make up as many as 7 percent of all tests in Florida. Testing is finding more afflicted Floridians because there are more afflicted Floridians. “The fact that these are going up means there’s more community spread,” said Palm Beach County health director Alina Alonso. “The virus now has food out there. It has people that are out there without masks, without maintaining distancing. So it’s infecting more people.”

"The not-honest operators are making sick people come to work, refusing to offer paid time off or pay for testing, and that's gonna get people killed."

Journalist Amy McCarthy (@aemccarthy on Twitter) is the editor of Eater Dallas and Eater Houston. I've joined together a recent Twitter thread of hers to produce this narrative. As a pretext to McCarthy's words, the Washington Post comments on the escalating pace of hospitalizations in Texas.

Health officials in Texas reported a record number of hospitalizations on Wednesday — 2,793 — in a 66 percent increase since Memorial Day, an analysis by The Washington Post shows. The daily death toll also increased slightly in the past few days. Thirty-three coronavirus-related fatalities were announced Wednesday, making the total number of deaths statewide 2,062. Texas began to reopen on April 20 after roughly two weeks under a stay-at-home order. Cases have been trending upward since then.

McCarthy takes it from here.

It is extremely extremely fucked up that there is no requirement for restaurants to close after someone on staff tests positive for COVID-19. I am hearing so many (hard to verify) rumors about staff testing positive and working without a mask.

When you ask the owners about it, they either lie or tell you that person had no contact with guests.

We know that restaurants (and diners) are not following social distancing guidelines. Being in a restaurant right now is terrifying, even if they are "doing it right." The honest operators are shutting down! They're paying thousands and thousands of dollars to sanitize and install UV lights in their HVAC.

AND IT'S STILL NOT ENOUGH.

The not-honest operators are making sick people come to work, refusing to offer paid time off or pay for testing, and that's gonna get people killed. Right now, in Texas, there's no mechanism for punishing those operators.

If (Governor Greg) Abbott and his fuckboy cronies had their way, these businesses would be fully indemnified from ANY consequences of spreading coronavirus.

The worst part about it all is that so many of these businesses are in such a precarious financial position that they HAVE TO take today's pennies at the risk of tomorrow's dollars.

Because our fuckshit government won't do anything to help.

And this postscript:

I am worried sick about it, literally. These establishments can't survive if we're all dead from this fucking virus in six months.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Is a blog the same as a newspaper?

The NA Confidential blog (that's short for "weblog") turned 15 years of age on October 22, 2019.

Did you know that NAC never once has been used to line a birdcage or drain the grease from fish and chips? That's because it's an internet blog, not a newspaper.

But what's the difference between an internet blog and an online newspaper?

Bizarrely, all these years later it's a question still not widely grasped. Scott Clavenna, CEO of Greentech Media, Inc., answered this query at the Quora website on April 20, 2011.

A blog can be anything - the voice of one writer or many, who is not strictly held to any codes of professional journalism, but could certainly be as good and reliable as one. An online newspaper typically assumes the writers adhere to journalistic standards - double-sourcing critical assertions in an article, allowing people or companies an opportunity to respond to assertions, adhering to a code of ethics in reporting, such as the Society of Professional Journalists's code. A blog may voluntarily adhere to all of the above, but typically calling a publication a newspaper implies they are focused on "news" and therefore should assume the standards of reporting.

Of course, historically newspapers were printed on paper and priced with the objective of making a profit. Most still are, although this business model is evolving in ways both good and bad.

Tell me more: "Bail Out Journalists. Let Newspaper Chains Die."

Since October 22, 2004, the NA Confidential blog has enjoyed only one source of investment: my time, precious or otherwise.

For fifteen and a half years, NAC has been forever pro bono and resolutely profit-free.

Not a single advertisement has been sold, ever. Not one.

Given the sea of booze I've had to consume in order to document the perpetually underachieving history of New Albany -- the Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness -- you might say I've actually lost a great deal of money over the years blogging.

Oh, and something else: the outside world has resisted every effort to transform NA Confidential into an anthology of good writing with multiple contributors, which was one of my goals at the outset.

I suppose there are numerous reasons for this, including the ludicrous inefficiency of the free Blogger platform, my disinterest in spending money on something that's free, the writing and reading habits of the vicinity, and the tendency since the late Noughts for people to post everything long or short on social media.

Since 2004, there have been almost 15,000 posts here, and all but a few hundred of them -- probably somewhere around 5% of the total -- have been authored by me. The offer remains open, as it always has: Join me in writing for zero remuneration, see the world and be threatened with reprisals by City Hall.

None of this should be mistaken for the concession that as a blogger, I'm any less skilled in terms of writing as (for example) a guest columnist for a local chain newspaper.

Been there, done that (2009 - 2011). I had to relinquish my column to run for office in the primary. I was told I'd get it back if I lost, which I did -- then I didn't.

Rather, the overall point is simply this: blogs and newspapers are apples and oranges, and do not viable comparisons make. Let's ask this word column's legal bagel namesake for a closing point of view.

Q. Shane, are blogs and newspapers the same?

A: Ha ha. When's the last time we purchased thousands of dollars in advertising from a stupid blog?

Previously:

Hanson's Folly: There remains a complete absence of diversity among regular News and Tribune columnists.

Hanson's Folly: There remains a complete absence of diversity among regular News and Tribune columnists.

Different mix from May 23 - June 16
but no substantive change.

Bill Hanson is the publisher of the Jeffersonville News and Tribune. Recently he lamented injustice and his own "privilege," asking in essence what's to be done?

Let's look at his newspaper's opinion column scorecard since May 23: Of opinion pieces identified as columns, 25 were authored by white males, 4 by women.

Of the 25 columns authored by white males, 22 came from "older" writers (my guess, above the age of 50), the exception being three written by the newspaper's reporter Daniel Suddeath. Four columns were authored by women, one of them a black woman (another came from Susan Duncan, the newspaper's editor).

The black woman is from Georgia and edits a sister CNHI paper there. Probably it was a one-off.

Actually Suddeath's most recent column takes an oblong glance at the problem, focusing on local elected leaders, but also with this precise comment:

Let’s not pass the buck. We also need more people of color in our newsrooms. In 15 years of full-time journalism, I’ve worked with very few black people. This has an effect on what news is published, regardless of our intentions.

Let's review. Using opinion columns as a gauge, the News and Tribune scores 86% from white male writers, most of them "older" in age; 14% female writers; and 3% black. There's the whole range of societal perspectives gifted to us by Bill Hanson.

It's noteworthy that these percentages haven't varied an iota since the last time I counted five months ago -- except for the black woman from Georgia. There had been no columns by black writers the last time I looked.

ON THE AVENUES: There is a complete absence of diversity among regular News and Tribune columnists.

To answer Hanson's agonized question -- what's to be done? -- perhaps first the publisher needs to spend some time in front of a mirror.

Maybe HIS newspaper would like to provide topical newspaper opinion column debate beyond that of his old white male buddies: a non-Christian religious perspective, a gay (not) straight point of view, and yes, a regularly recurring outlook from a person of color.

The likelihood is that Hanson is terrified of the backlash from his ... that's right, predominantly older, conservative readership.

The answer is staring you in the face, Bill. If you don't have any intention of embracing it, then at least spare us the crocodile tears, okay?

Diversity isn't the newspaper's only problem ...

Idle curiosity about a "no" vote.

510 Main Street; referendum's over and the sign's still up. I thought to myself, hmm, I wonder which of the FIVE apartment dwellers in this 4,000-square foot house (built in 1929) voted no -- but, maybe it's the house's owner, right?

That'd be POLO LLC, originating way out on Starlight Road. Is that still in Floyd County, or is it Clark County? Well, when I type the address into the Elevate site, I get zero hits. My assumption is Clark County.

Which means the human being listed as existing behind POLO LLC couldn't vote "no" in the first place.

But there is no human, at least at first, because the registered agent for POLO LLC is another company, NRO LLC. Ah, but yes, there's a human listed at NRO LLC. It's all public information, but if I say her name aloud, I suppose there'll be problems from the intemperate among us. By the way, there are seven POLO-owned rental properties in New Albany.

Election's over, miss.

Shall you take down the sign, or do I grab it next time I'm in the neighborhood?

A wee rant: Why must we have statues of "famous" people? Can't we just have art instead?

Rather than argue about which statues to remove and which to keep, I'd rather have a discussion about why humans deploy statuary as propaganda markers to begin with, a habit that strikes me as similar to dogs marking territory with urine.

Face it, there's a considerable difference between art for the sake of art and statuary for the sake of establishing what is "true." Michelangelo's David is an idealized male form. It celebrates itself. Southern cities dropping statues of Civil War "heroes" during the 1960s? That's so-called art for the sake of societal control.

Why do we do this? The planet is filled with statuary capable of being defined or redefined into repugnance, because after all, doesn't each triumphant victory arch ever erected have the side purpose of provoking the defeated?

Ordinary working men and women have created the planet's wealth -- and the rich folks (generally men) who exploited them get the statues. The same goes for street names; the best are simplest: Main, Market, Oak, Riverside and the like. Naming them for actual people is fraught with peril if objectivity is the aim, because those chosen are flawed by nature.

As I've pointed out many times, a person born in Berlin during World War I, and residing in the same building until his or her death in the mid-1990s, might have enjoyed as many as five different street addresses based on which ideology ruled at the time.

One of these days, our munificent municipal mediocrity will generously allow his fans and campaign donors to erect a statue in his honor.

And I will figure out a way to topple it.

CounterPunch on "the difference between people who think others should die so they can get a haircut and those with a strong social conscience."

True, a great deal of reopening fervor owes to personal narcissism and a pervasive ignorance; science always will be attacked because it differs with the delusion of superstition.

However we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking there'd be no active participation in the resistance to science from those entities standing to profit the most from individual narcissism.

The Corporate Origins of the Anti-Science “Reopen” Demonstrations, by Pete Dolack (CounterPunch)

Many of the same extreme right operatives who created the “Tea Party” are behind the anti-science and anti-intellectual spectacles opposing measures designed to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. And with much the same agenda.

By now, that is not much of a secret, but it is nonetheless necessary to expose these roots, and to debunk the anti-science conspiracy theories they help spread ...

(snip)

As a final thought, it has not escaped my attention that the right-wing anti-science protestors largely did not wear face masks while demonstrating, nor did they observe social distancing. By contrast, the Black Lives Matters protests that erupted after the police murder of George Floyd overwhelmingly wear face masks. (Nor did they carry weapons.) I’ve participated in four Black Lives Matters marches at the time of writing this article, and not only can I confirm that almost everyone wears masks, but there are always a couple of people handing out masks to people who need one. That’s the difference between people who think others should die so they can get a haircut and those with a strong social conscience.

Dan Canon discusses the marriage equality case, 5 years on. Now is it the turn for racial justice?

Dan Canon's column in LEO Weekly last week. Click the link, read it all. We're very fortunate to have Dan, Valerie and their kids in the neighborhood.

Marriage equality case 5 years later: Can that victory be replicated for racial justice?

 ... My naiveté served me well. We went to the Supreme Court in 2015. We won.

I got my feather and hung it on my wall. Our clients, and millions of other people, can get married. I’ve been to lots of weddings over the last five years. I’ve even officiated a few. It feels good.

I suppose it’s for the best that I didn’t recognize then what I see clearly now: Of all the ways to try to bring about social change, filing a lawsuit and leaving it to a judge in the Midwest, or the South, or anywhere, is among the worst. As evidence, I offer a detail that is often lost in the retelling of the marriage cases: We lost. We lost in the court of appeals on our way to the Supreme Court. We lost in the court that presides over Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee. We lost in a court that hears hundreds of cases every year on police misconduct, inmates’ rights, immigration detention, free speech, abortion and every other hot-button issue anyone has ever cared about. We lost, just like the national organizations said we would. We lost, just like everyone loses. And since the Supreme Court takes so few cases, losing at that court is the end of the line for most people seeking to make change through what we think of as proper, respectable channels.

By the time we lost in the lower court, pro-marriage activists were accustomed to losing legal battles ...

 ... For now, I’ll celebrate our surprising win in an institution designed to make losers. I’ll celebrate the marriages of Tim and Larry, Greg and Michael, Kim and Tammy, Maurice and Dominique, Paul and Randy, and Luke and Jimmy. And even as the buzzards circle the great bird that gave me my defunct quill, I’ll celebrate what the marriage case stands for: The hope that the mythology of American equality can be realized, even if we don’t quite know the recipe for it.

Let's pack them in like sardines, shall we?

That's why it's so very hard to decide the whats, whens and whys.

An amazing NA moment in time -- as the GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW.

This happened on Saturday in New Albany.

Actually this and two other events dedicated to Black Lives Matter happened on Saturday. The three causes converged downtown, and all of it was incident-free.

As a side note, in 2016 Floyd County as a whole gave Donald Trump a 20-point margin of victory over Hillary Clinton. That's a point or so better than the statewide Indiana tally. Granted, Trump won bigger outside city limits, but not that much bigger.

We'll see what happens next, right here in New Albany. I have a few thoughts about the advisability of keeping a close eye on the political bandwagon-jumpers, but these can wait.

After all, I'm on sabbatical.

Congratulations to everyone for yesterday. It was a very good thing, indeed.

It's one of the greatest weeks in New Albany's twisted, scattershot history.

Yes, and I do mean greatest. Nine dreary and ever-decaying years later, at long last the Preston Arts facade is GONE.

I'm giddy.

From late last year, when Diana Hylton said all that needed to be said:

"There’s going to be signage for an actual business that’s going to be there, it’s not just going to be something that was once there that hasn’t been. It’s going to be current and fresh and exciting. We’re just excited — that’s all I can say."

Power move: Him Gentleman's Boutique and Mane Alley Color & Extension Bar to transform the moribund Preston Arts Building.

Hearty congratulations to the new occupants for their stellar restoration work. And now, all together, let's turn to the band Sparks for inspiration.

Giddy giddy giddy
Our entire city
Each and every person the
Epitome of giddiness

We're giddy giddy giddy
Our entire city
Everyone displaying an
Immense amount of giddiness

Nick Vaughn: "A Historian’s Perspective on Confederate Statues."

I first met Nick Vaughn in 2015 when he was younger than he is now (oddly, I haven't aged) and was running for city council in the Republican primary. Nick lost a very close race, then graduated from high school, began his studies at Hanover College, breezed through university in what seemed like a few months, and ran for office again, this time for a county council seat. Unfortunately Nick lost another  tighterthanthis primary contest, but he's plowing forward with plans for the resurrection of The Aggregate (stay tuned) ... and found time to submit this guest column.   

---

A Historian’s Perspective on Confederate Statues

I do not like to tout my credentials because I was taught to always be humble, however I feel it is necessary to explain my educational background for clarification. Firstly, on May 1st I graduated from Hanover College with a Bachelor of Arts in History. I did not have an official focus and I took classes on many topics including The Reformation, American Revolution and early republic, and a class specifically dedicated to Abraham Lincoln’s life, legacy, and how he has been portrayed by historians and popular media throughout the years. Additionally, I wrote my required Senior Thesis on Abraham Lincoln’s sole term in Congress.

While I tried to keep a diverse schedule of classes, I always gravitated towards the classes covering the time period from 1815 to the end of Reconstruction. Of course, the Civil War lay in-between the start and end date of the period of American History I find most interesting.

Before truly diving into the subject at hand, I also want to highlight my experience as a Republican college student. Many faux-conservative, incendiary personalities would have you think that Republicans are under constant chastisement, harassment, and belittlement on a college campus. Some also would have you believe that college campuses are hollowed liberal grounds where only the Democrats, Socialists, and Communists are able to freely share thoughts and ideas.

Friends, while I cannot speak for all college campuses, this was not my experience at Hanover College. You know those faux-conservatives I mentioned? I’m sure they have a rough time at colleges like Hanover. In fact, I know some who did. This is not because of their ideology, instead it is because of their inability to craft a coherent, fact-based argument. Additionally, some were poor students. I have had plenty of disagreements with professors who hold different political beliefs than I do, however I was never punished, chastised, harassed, or belittled for being a Republican. At Hanover, you don’t survive based on your ideology, but instead on the laurels and merits of your argument.

To suggest Hanover College is a very liberal school in an attempt to discredit what we have learned and the hard work it took is dishonest and extremely disrespectful to the thousands of people who have graduated from the college.

As someone who loves history and possesses a degree in the subject, the past couple of weeks with protests across the country advocating for police reform seemed like an unlikely place I would find myself. Of course, many are pointing out the shades of similarities this year has had to the 1920s due to a pandemic, or the year 1968 due to heightened racial tensions brought on by long standing and systemic injustices.

Recently, scars from the American Civil War have begun to be reopened as protesters advocating for racial equality have (rightly) begun advocating for the removal of Confederate statues and symbols from publicly owned land. As someone who has studied the Civil War, the Union, the Confederacy, and the historiography, this seems appropriate to me. Why do we have statues and symbols dedicated to traitors who attempted to break the Union because they wanted to enslave people?

To my initial surprise, many do not agree with this sentiment. However, after remembering back to my “Readings on the American Civil War” class, a class dedicated to the study of Civil War Historiography (what historians and scholars have written about the Civil War), I recall a couple weeks where we discussed Southern Revisionism and the Lost Cause ideology.

As someone who has read Jefferson Davis’ The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which, like nearly all former Confederate traitors, attempted to rationalize the reason for the South’s attempted secession as being due to states’ rights (and as being honorable), I can tell you this distorted reality is very far from the truth.

So why do people think that tearing down Confederate statues and symbols is “tearing down history?” Well, I suppose those monuments dedicated to traitors are historical in the sense that they represent a historical event, although from a perverted point of view. The argument, to me, is not whether they are historical or not, it is why do statues of traitors exist in the first place and why are people so irrationally attached to them?

There are three points I want to make in attempting to answer those questions: first, Southern Revisionism, the coming of the Second Ku Klux Klan, and groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy have spread lies so successfully about the American Civil War, that many schools across America still incorrectly teach the subject. Second, history is much more complicated and nuanced than Twitter or Facebook allow historical events to be conveyed. Third, racial undertones have turned into overtones regarding the subject as the removal of statues have been used as rallying points for the alt-right, neo-Nazis, and other traitorous and dangerous organizations.

In regards to Southern Revisionism as it relates to the KKK an infamous black and white film by D.W. Griffith (a Southern Revisionist who made propaganda films in support of the Lost Cause, white supremacy, and the KKK), The Birth of a Nation highlights the disgusting and disingenuous imagery and language used by Southern Revisionists. David W. Blights points out in his book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory that “Dixon's [Dixon wrote the book Griffith’s film was based on] vicious version of the idea that blacks had caused the Civil War by their very presence, and that Northern radicalism during Reconstruction failed to understand that freedom had ushered blacks as a race into barbarism, neatly framed the story of the rise of heroic vigilantism in the South. Reluctantly, Klansmen—white men—had to take the law into their own hands in order to save Southern white womanhood from the sexual brutality of black men. Dixon's vision captured the attitude of thousands and forged in story form a collective memory of how the war may have been lost but Reconstruction was won—by the South and a reconciled nation. Riding as masked cavalry, the Klan stopped corrupt government, prevented the anarchy of 'Negro rule' and most of all, saved white supremacy.”

Today, you see similar disingenuous remarks made on Twitter regarding the cause of the Civil War. One tweet that made my blood boil is shown here.

The supposed quote from Robert E. Lee is fake, however he has written similar things as a way to play into and prop up the Lost Cause ideology. The quote, which is one sentence in a much longer statement from Abraham Lincoln attempts to portray Lincoln as never truly being opposed to slavery and instead was focused on the preservation of the Union. The full quote, from 1862, is “If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

The main goal of the war, in Lincoln’s mind, was certainly the preservation of the Union, however it should be noted that Lincoln was opposed to slavery ever since he saw the boats carrying slaves on the Ohio River between Indiana and Kentucky. During his time in Congress, he introduced a resolution to end the practice in Washington D.C. The issue of slavery and Lincoln is, as I stated earlier, much too complex for a Twitter or Facebook post. Hell, it’s even too complex for this article. If you’d like to learn more about Lincoln and the issue of slavery, I recommend starting by reading my thesis (linked above) and then using the bibliography to find further reading. Additionally, the movie Lincoln is a good starting point as well.

In the AP’s article on the disparity between where someone lives and how the Civil War is taught, they point out that “Confederate sympathizers have long promoted the “Lost Cause” theory that the Southern side was heroic against impossible odds, and that slavery was not the driving force behind the war. Edward Countryman, a history professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said he learned that idea growing up in New York State in the 1950s.”

I want to especially point your attention to the “growing up ... in the 1950s” part of that quote. I would be being dishonest if I did not point out the obvious generational differences in the understanding of the Civil War. Not to be overly general, but the vast majority of people I know who post on Facebook about Lost Cause ideology and are opposed to the removal of Confederate statues and symbols are of a certain, older age group typically labeled “Baby Boomers.” This is because during the 50s and 60s, in response to the Civil Rights Movement, the Lost Cause ideology saw a resurgence and began to be taught in white schools again (or even more vigorously if not previously ended).

To be fair, both people vastly older and vastly younger have fallen victim to the Lost Cause myth, and it makes sense that more people will as Facebook and Twitter refuse to label falsehoods as such.

If there is anything you should take away from this article, I hope it is this: if you think that tearing down Confederate statues and symbols, memorials to traitors who enslaved people, is tearing down history, you might want to turn off the phone and computer, and pick up a book written by a reputable historian, take a trip to a museum, watch the movie Lincoln (not Gone With the Wind), or give me a call, because I am sick and tired of the ignorance.

A good reading list on the topic:

David W. Blight, Race and Reunion
David Donald, Lincoln
Kenneth Winkle, The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln
Kenneth Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War
William Davis, Look Away
Gary Gallagher, The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History

The Calumet Club celebrates a century, so hats off to the Bliss family for their stewardship of an institution.

Under renovation, 2006.

We begin with the newspaper's account on Friday (June 12), then turn to our legal bagel Shane for a new/old word, before concluding with three vital links.

Calumet Club celebrates 100th anniversary as family continues legacy, by Daniel Suddeath (Hanson's Dotty Folly)

NEW ALBANY — It helped launch the career of a Major League Baseball Hall of Fame player, provided a gymnasium for local basketball teams at a time when such space was scarce, and served as the base for a group of men who valued community spirit.

A century ago today, the Calumet Club moved into its new headquarters at 1614 E. Spring St. Considered a prestigious organization that reached a membership of about 800 at its peak, men paid about $1.50 a month to be part of the social and athletic club.

The continued use of the building and the living history behind its century of existence are testaments to a family's vision.

Richard Bliss died in 2012, but he got to fulfill his dream of owning the Calumet Club and restoring it into a charming centerpiece of the East Spring Street and Vincennes Street corridor.

“The main reason was to save a beautiful building because of its history and to give back to the community,” Mark Bliss said of his parents’ intentions for buying and restoring the Calumet Club.

---

Back in 2016, the Calumet Club prompted a question of our resident municipal bond fetishist wordsmith.

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

 ... Many readers already know about the Calumet Club in New Albany. There are also Calumet rivers, regions and towns. But what is a calumet when used as a noun?

It's a Native American pipe.

Tobacco, indigenous to North America, followed Indian trade routes throughout the continent long before Columbus arrived, and pipe smoking took on a ritual and religious importance in many tribes. Naturally, the crafting of pipes became equally important.

The most famous Native American pipes are the long calumets or "peace pipes" of the Sioux and other Plains Indian tribes, which were made by attaching a wooden stem to a bowl carved from catlinite or "pipestone." (Pipestone is native to Minnesota, but due to intertribal trade was available throughout Native North America.) Other native pipe-making traditions included the smaller one-piece stone and ceramic pipes of the Iroquois and Cherokee tribes, wood and antler pipes of the Southwest Indians, and the post-Columbian tomahawk pipes with a metal pipe bowl and hatchet on opposite ends of the stem.

Calumet Club Dates in History, courtesy of the Calumet Club, illustrate that it was a thriving social institution on post-WWI New Albany. Finally, from the library's Stuart Barth Wrege Indiana History Room comes this memento of times long gone.

As the singer pithily observed, we have all been here before.

November 25, 2004:

NA Confidential goes troubleshooting, enjoys dessert, and visits the Calumet Club

December 16, 2006:

A peek inside the Calumet Club's third-floor future ballroom.

November 24, 2009

The Calumet Club adds an elevator ... so when's the beer festival upstairs?

ON THE AVENUES: Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger.

Dearest readers,

At the beginning of 2020, I resolved to play it completely straight and rededicate this weekly column to the proposition that it might be freed from reruns -- for the most part.

I might on occasion incorporate bits of previous writing, or quote myself, but no more cutting and pasting entire past columns -- however much I rationalize that you urgently need to be reading them for a second or third time.

I'm happy to report that I made it all the way from New Year's Day to June 4, and have produced 20-odd columns of fresh material. However, this week I'm struggling, and the block is odd given there is no shortage of available topics. But maybe abundance is the problem, and there's too much to sort through.

Speaking from the perspective of my polemical workbench, the first two months of the year were spent detoxing from daily doses of local political discourse -- or what passes for it in intellectually constipated New Gahania. A new study from the Pew Research Center suggests I've successfully stuck to the terms of the sabbatical 86.7% of the time. 

In March came our moment in medical history, the coronavirus pandemic -- and yes, it was real and remains so quite outside the denials so many of you have chosen to embrace. The attendant dislocations of COVID have been challenging, although the dictates of karma urge me to refrain from complaining when our household vantage point is one of good personal health.

The past two to three weeks have been about America's periodic avoidance of an honest reckoning with history as it pertains to Black Lives Matter(ing). I'll support just about any movement aimed at anti-racism, anti-fascism and anti-robberbaroncapitalism, but at the moment, as an old white guy myself, I'd hate to be lumped in with Bumbling Bill Hanson's elder hostel of white male newspaper columnists pontificating about race from their pulpits in Otisco.   

Oh, and I forgot that it's also an election year. Roughly 1,000 years ago, Bernie Sanders was still in the race and we had a modicum of choice to defeat The Donald. Now we have the sort of Democratic candidate that Squire Adam would fill buckets drooling over. So much for "hope."

Obviously I might be writing about any of these trends, but somewhat curiously there seems to be little for me to add to the ongoing discussion. Maybe the essence of this writer's bottled-up blockage is persistent anger -- at the ongoing and still unspeakably bizarre Gahan personality cult, at the science-denying narcissists unable to look past the tip of their noses, and at the unreconstructed racists reminding me of the prevalence of sheer American dumbassery.

Writing isn't easy when you're angry, or at least it isn't for me. A measure of detachment is necessary, and I haven't been able to manage it lately. Stream-of-consciousness rants are possible, and have been deployed before, but the older I get, the more hesitant I am to undertake them. They're like running a marathon, and absolutely wear me out.

Accordingly, there's is a sizable element of fatigue, and I need to push through it. Let's begin right here.

Knowing that writing more often for pay (a novel concept for me, indeed) would factor into the 2020 workload, I began in January by reducing NA Confidential blog's output (again), from three daily posts to two; probably owing to the six-month or more sabbatical from the rhetoric on behalf of the anti-Gahan resistance, this has resulted in a marked decline in reader interest.

So be it. 

I'm trying to write about beer as often as possible at the Pints&union blog in hopes of keeping a few balls (or beer bongs) hanging in the air until our likely reopening in July -- and don't quote me on what this return will look like, because it isn't yet clear. All I can say is that a new era will dawn, soon.

At Food & Dining Magazine, faced with no real possibility of publishing a summer print edition, we resolved instead to build up the web site and release as much original content as possible on that platform. A share of this surge falls to me, some to others in our stable of excellent writers; either way it takes time to implement, and my learning curve in terms of being a "digital editor" hasn't yet flattened.

I'm not breaking rocks or putting up hay, although at times this year my brain has needed a break.

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With the traditional restorative activity of travel taken off the table this year by the virus, relaxation has come through the Forever Nostalgia Project: digitizing slides, negatives and photos of past European journeys, of which there have been 40. Around 1995 I abandoned slide film for the most part and went to regular printed photos. By 2005, digital was the norm. Here are the year's results, some of which are being shared at my Facebook page.

1985, the first trip to Europe
1991-92, the Slovak teaching sojourn
1993, Germany, Denmark, points east, etc
1994, Switzerland, Albania and Pamplona (Spain)
1997, Czech Republic and Germany
2003, Main/Tauber/Altmuhl/Danube (rivers) bicycling, Frankfurt to Vienna

In addition, there were a few odds and ends stateside. At any rate, quite a lot of images are left to scan (at least 14 European visits), and they will take years to finish ... but hey, we all need hobbies.

One real-world manifestation of nostalgia about the 2003 bicycling trip is a determination to get our bikes back in working condition. They're at the shop now. Soon, after seven years out of the saddle, there'll be a comeback. It will not resemble the halcyon days of the 2000 - 2008; commuting and the occasional Greenway should be enough.

Reading is a good diversion, too. Here are the year's books to date, in reverse chronological order. My favorites are marked with an asterisk.

*Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s, by Frederick Lewis Allen
Which Fork Do I Use with My Bourbon? by Peggy Noe Stevens and Susan Reigler
How We Eat with Our Eyes and Think with Our Stomachs, by Melanie Mühl and Diana von Kopp
*Bliss Was It in Bohemia, a novel by Michel Viewegh
An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, by Elizabeth David
Russian Cosmism, edited by Boris Groys
*The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine Was Saved for the World, by Christy Campbell
Bluebeard, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut
The Ghosts of My Life, by Mark Fisher
Capitalist Realism, by Mark Fisher
Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginnings of the Modern World, by Thomas Cahill
*The Prague Cemetery, a novel by Umberto Eco
Bavarian Helles, by Horst Dornbusch
Strong Towns, by Charles Marohn
The Tragedy of Liberation, by Frank Dikkotter

Awaiting its tenure on the night stand is the annual blockbuster summertime novel, as calculated to simmer my brain in its own juices. I've never made it all the way through Ulysses, by James Joyce. Is this finally the year?

Musically, it hasn't been a great six months for The Kind of Music Roger Likes. I'm buying fewer CDs of new music, but listening to each of them more closely than before. If you can't go wide, go deep. Here they are, organized in two-month increments. Why? I can't remember.

Album releases 2020, May and June
Blossoms … Foolish Loving Spaces
Ocean Alley … Lonely Diamond
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever … Sideways to New Italy
*Sleaford Mods … All That Glue
Sparks … A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip
*The 1975 … Notes on a Conditional Form
The Used … Heartwork

Album releases 2020, March and April
Grouplove … Healer
*Rookie … Rookie

Album releases 2020, January and February
*Courteeners … More. Again. Forever.
*Titus Andronicus … An Obelisk (2019)
*White Reaper … You Deserve Love (2019)
Wussy … What Heaven Is Like (2018)

Movies and television?

C'mon, regulars readers should know better. However, we've been working our way through the ageless Rumpole of the Bailey canon and a few other British dramas. My memory is shaky, and I may have watched the Downton Abbey movie. If so, I plead excessive gin.

Ah, yes. Drinking, another of my self-defense mechanisms.

It has been strange in this regard, and no one is likely to believe me, but as a guesstimate, I've consumed perhaps half the alcohol in 2020 as I would have swallowed normally.

It isn't clear to me why, although one possible explanation is that I dislike being constantly self-incapacitated during an unprecedented public health crisis, all the while surrounded by sniveling racists, reckless drivers, Trump-co-vidiots, masturbatory nihilists and various other bad actors.

Facing up to my deep-seated anger while keeping relatively sober? Now THAT'S a tall order, and yet I've tried every other way. Maybe playing against type really is best. Fools give you reasons ... wise men never try.

R

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Recent columns:

June 4: ON THE AVENUES: There, there. People are dying, so you may have to wait until 2021 for your pork chop sandwich.

May 28: ON THE AVENUES: The late, great Lee Kelly -- by Matt Nash.

May 21: ON THE AVENUES: Godlessness in defense of heathens, infidels, idolaters, atheists, non-theists, irreligious people, agnostics, skeptics, heretics and apostates.

May 14: ON THE AVENUES: Food is my friend, but please, I'm no foodie.

All this AND the Farmers Market, too? Gads, it really IS New Albany's turn Saturday to contribute to change.

Yesterday, this:

Wait -- I'm getting a pulse ... The Movement and Say Their Names, coming Saturday to NA.

Then, later in the day, the Hoosier Action poster above. Unfortunately I have little more firm information than what is written on it.

Update: the press release arrived Friday just after lunch: "We encourage our Floyd County members to join us tomorrow from 12 pm-2 pm for Together We Rise: Bridging the Gap Rally in New Albany at 311 Hauss Sq.:

Most of us believe that everyone should be able to live a full and healthy life, no matter what we look like or where we come from. But today, Black Hoosiers are under the dual threat of higher fatality from COVID and from police brutality. Throughout our history, brave Americans have joined together across race and place and taken to the streets risking their lives and their livelihoods. And, throughout our history the powers that be have found ways to divide us by casting doubts or sowing fear about our protests. We are encouraging our members to show up to protest not despite but rather because of COVID. We’re taking every possible precaution even as we understand that coming together means increasing our risks. Because we know that, in this moment, staying apart guarantees unacceptable outcomes for Black people. We are long overdue to rewrite the rules and retake our democracy and it is only by showing that the many are willing to stand up to the money that we have the power in numbers to get the care and respect everyone of us deserves.

Hoosier Action first came to our attention in 2017 when the group became involved with opposing Jeff Gahan's public housing putsch, and helping to organize We Are New Albany as a counterweight to the mayor's avarice-fueled imperialism.

Hoosier Action is a new project focused on building the political power of working families and individuals in the state of Indiana. Hoosier Action emphasizes robust community organizing, where campaigns are built around economic and social issues that impact people and communities across the region. Hoosier Action will work to increase voter participation, lift people out of poverty, and build a new political voice for the residents of Indiana who have been left on the margins.

Click here to view a few relevant posts from the period. Here's one of them.

THIS JUST IN: ‘We Are New Albany,’ a campaign to save the homes of more than 1,700 New Albany residents from planned demolition, will publicly launch on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. at the City-County Building.

I may be inferring a bit much, but it seems I recall reading that Hoosier Action's founder Kate Hess Pace, a native New Albanian, had moved back to town. The organization now has an office at 1015 E. Main, so perhaps I remember correctly.

So, we have not one or two, but three Black Lives Matters (peaceful) protests occurring somewhat within the same window on Saturday.

And one of them involves Hoosier Action, the mere mention of which is guaranteed to induce bunker-down heartburn for Dear Leader.

Taking it a step further, remember always that Louisville's Mayor Greg Fischer is New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan's turgid political idol. Fischer has acquitted himself HORRIBLY throughout the recent Black Lives Matter days. Will his eager apprentice do the same?

With three separate events planned for Saturday, will Gahan remain in the down-low bunker, playing whist with Squire Adam and Warren Naps?

Or, if the getting's good, will he appear with an envelope-armed retinue of HWC Engineering donors and take full credit for the peaceful gatherings?

Well, it's Hoosier Action, and Team Gahan has a very long memory. I predict Gahan will emerge from his lair wearing a mask suitable for the occasion.

Wait -- I'm getting a pulse ... The Movement and Say Their Names, coming Saturday to NA.

These two events are occurring almost simultaneously in New Albany on Saturday morning.

The Movement peaceful protest (above)
Say Their Names: Chalk the Sidewalk (below)

More than a few downtown New Albany businesses have expressed support for Black Lives Matters (generally) and these two events (specifically). More than one of these businesses has pledged to distribute water on Saturday morning, or to try to help in other ways.

It's highly instructive to contrast the overall positive, principled vibe of these two events with the predictable comments from those who (shall we say) "oppose" the principles being espoused therein.

Like these.

Shopkeeper: "You look thirsty. Here, have some water."

Angry specimen: "If that SHIT turns violent I blame YOU."

What a way to live.

English football: My Plymouth Argyle moves back to League One.

In 2009 we made our first journey to the city of Plymouth. In 2013, we went again. At some point in between these two visits, I decided to honor the hometown of the mother-in-law I never had the pleasure of meeting by following the fortunes of Plymouth’s football club, Argyle, nicknamed the Pilgrims for what I trust is an obvious reason.

I know little about football (in the planetary sense; we say "soccer") but have always found it entertaining when traveling abroad. Being somewhere other than America puts me in the mood.

As with most other sports, I've long since ceased wasting vast blocks of time to watch actual games. I read about the results, view a highlight or two via Twitter and keep track of the schedule. These habits are conducive to observing the progress of a sporting entity like Argyle, so very far away.

You needn’t be bored with further details, just recall that in English football, there is an ebb and flow between the leagues. At the end of the season, a certain number of top-ranking finishers are promoted, or moved up to the league above them, while the bottom feeders are relegated -- moved down.

For much of the time I've been an Argyle supporter, the squad has competed in League Two, which actually is the fourth league in terms of rank, or in an imperfect analogy, “Single A” for those of you who know American baseball.

Premier League (Level 1 or "top-flight")
The Championship (Level 2)
League One (Level 3)
League Two (Level 4)
Non-league football (Level 5; all remaining teams)

Actually the bottom was falling out for Argyle around 2011 after a period of success in the early 2000s. The club finally won promotion to League One, but famously collapsed down the stretch in 2018-2019 and was relegated to League Two for the 2019-2020 campaign.

Argyle rallied convincingly and was looking strong in 3rd place -- a position for promotion -- when the coronavirus shutdown came in March.

What would be the outcome?

As we learned on Tuesday, there'll be no resumption of play, and so the standings hold. It's back to League One for 2020-2021.

Someone pour me a cask-conditioned ale!

Club Statement: Pilgrims Promoted

9 June 2020

Plymouth Argyle welcomes the decision made at Tuesday’s EFL meeting to end the 2019/20 Sky Bet League Two season.

While our first preference would always have been to finish our exciting season on the pitch and push to win the league, the safety of players, staff and supporters is of utmost priority.

The club is delighted to have achieved our pre-season objective of an immediate return to Sky Bet League One and would like to congratulate first-team manager Ryan Lowe and his staff on an outstanding achievement during their first year at Home Park.

Chief executive officer Andrew Parkinson said: “We are pleased that a solution for the end of the season has been reached after weeks of uncertainty, and, of course, delighted that it results in promotion for Argyle.

“That said, we are disappointed not to be able to celebrate this promotion on the pitch, with the Green Army cheering from the stands. Football has, quite rightly, had to take a back seat in order to ensure the safety of our community.

“Our supporters have been with us every step of the way this season, and I know I speak on behalf of everyone at the club when I say that you played an integral part in our eventual success.

“We thank you for your outstanding support and look forward the occasion that we can play games with our loyal fans in the stands once again.”

With the 2019/20 season now formally concluded, the club will issue guidance on outstanding ticketing queries in the coming days and will continue to update supporters as more information becomes available on the 20/21 Sky Bet League One campaign.

Thank you for your support.

Hoosiers for Dan Borsch for Louisville Metro Council.

I suppose my first awareness of Dan Borsch was during the run-up to the pre-ordained Ohio River Bridges boondoggle.

We've actually met only a handful of times, if that. But I've always admired Dan's spot-on politics from afar, as well as his success in the restaurant and bar business. If you can make it THERE, in THAT unforgiving line of work, you can make it anywhere.

In this case, I hope Dan makes it to Louisville Metro Council. Here's one of his recent stump messages.

Right on, brother.

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Dan Borsch for Louisville Metro Council

When I took over a neighborhood diner 12 years ago I had no idea the education I was about to receive about society and how cities operate. I had led a privileged life attending the best schools in Louisville through the Traditional program at Male and then on to universities and professional jobs with a few stints in the service industry during high school and college, but only for spending money, not as a career. Taking over a worn-down diner in the most diverse neighborhood in Louisville opened my eyes to the everyday struggle so many of our neighbors go through, a struggle that is mostly a product of the system we have created.

Unless you see for yourself on a daily basis how hard it is to succeed in the world today for those without connections and/or professional backgrounds, and how the stresses of poverty shapes your outlook on life, it is nearly impossible to understand just how rigged our system is. Too many see no path to success. Too many have not had the access to opportunity they should have. Too many have had interactions with police that are degrading, insulting and sadly much worse. Too many have had work experiences that devalued them. I see the scars of these policy decisions too often. I see the product of a lack of respect for the black and working class population daily.

Our community has been focused on subsidizing luxury hotels and sprawl while we have ignored the suffering and lack of investment that surrounds us. We have not focused on the basics of good governing, instead choosing to focus on mega projects and splashy ribbon cuttings. I saw these failings firsthand and have for well over the last decade tried to educate my friends while speaking out against what I saw as a misplaced priorities in our community. I became persona non grata with some of the powers that be in our community for daring to speak out against the Bridges project, the Omni Hotel and convention center, the wastefulness of how we spend transportation money and where we choose to spend it, Urban Services District, 4th Street Live, the Urban Government Center, TIF districts.... the list goes on. I saw that we were not investing in areas of our city where the alleys and abandoned properties were piled with waste, where the schools had not been renovated in decades, where the sidewalks were not passible, where the corner store was boarded up or bulldozed into a vacant lot. I went before the Metro Council and advocated for a $15 minimum wage. I went to hearings and meetings to fight for changes. I filed open records requests to hold people accountable. But I failed to succeed in persuading the leadership in Louisville to change. The establishment saw a façade of success and were insulated from the pain that too many live with daily.

I saw it in the faces of my customers whose luxury dining out experience after the first of the month is a neighborhood diner. I felt it in the rage some had when they felt slighted or mistreated as a guest. I knew it in conversations with cooks, servers, and managers over the years about the life they led and while discussing their aspirations and dreams. Even though we grew up in the same city, we lived a world apart. No amount of mentoring and advice could break through the tough façade that so many have erected to protect themselves. I saw too many that had given up hope that they could move up in life and be successful in society. Bouncing from job to job with no hope for the future. I saw firsthand how the drug epidemic has ravished our society. How great people devolved into hard core addicts. I have seen the struggling mom fighting through treatment so she can once again see her children. The customers that were strung out and the ones that used my restrooms to shoot up.

I wish I could have done more, but life gets in the way of the best of intentions. We are reaping what we have sowed, and the only way forward is to look in the mirror and realize that if we don’t change the system in meaningful ways, we will not change the outcome we are getting today. When the FORBES 400 controls MORE WEALTH than the entire black community, we have FAILED. When our DEVELOPMENT FOCUS is based on SUBSIDIZING CORPORATIONS, we have FAILED. When our EDUCATION SYSTEM succeeds for a FRACTION OF OUR CHILDREN, we have FAILED. When we have THOUSAND OF HOMELESS AND ADDICTED LIVING ON OUR STREETS, we have FAILED. When we have TWO SYSTEMS OF JUSTICE, we have FAILED. When we DISRESPECT A CLASS OF CITIZENS AND MILITARIZE OUR POLICE, we have FAILED. When we have a SYSTEM THAT DOESN'T PROVIDE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND PATH TO SUCCESS, we have FAILED. We must change and we must accept that THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS NOT SUSTAINABLE. We have many tough decisions ahead of us, but I believe we can change the path we are on and that we have been awaken from our slumber. The façade has been pulled away and the rotting structure exposed. Justice Brandeis wrote that the best disinfectant is sunlight, we must shine the light on a broken system and recognize it for what it is, a failure.

Now is the time to rebuild the city, and country, we deserve where everyone has the opportunities we read about and dreamed of. We are all in this together.