REWIND: Good points aplenty ... "The big urban mistake: Building for tourism vs. livability."

Social media at Strong Towns reposted this link today. It appeared previously in this space in May 26, 2017. It has long been my viewpoint that grassroots "economic development" officials (municipal officials, non-profit organizations, business owners and other stakeholders) should use points like these as the basis for their discussions. Do they? Beats me, but I think we can all see how much Greg Fischer's "Bourbonism" has been worth in the year 2020. 

THE BIG URBAN MISTAKE: BUILDING FOR TOURISM VS. LIVABILITY, by Arian Horbovetz (The Urban Phoenix)

... I’m painting with a bit of a broad brush, but essentially what so many cities are currently experiencing is the dilemma of whether to invest in large urban draws that will bring outside money in, or invest in a growing and changing downtown residential population that yearns for investments in keeping them there. To put it simply, do cities invest in big projects that create an entertaining space that grows tourism, or do they invest in the people that have already taken a risk by moving back into their long-dormant downtowns?

LEAP

City leaders, this one’s for you. You can either cater to your new residents by going into the downtown apartment buildings and listening to real people, or you can hop on the big ticket project train en route to a revolving door downtown. You can either build for livability or build for fleeting, often overrated promises of tourism revenue. You can facilitate local small business and community development, or you can create a short-lived wow-factor by opening the floodgates to developers and business interests who take money out of our communities. You can empower and invest in your new downtown residents and let THEM be the ambassadors for our growing urban paradises, or you can ignore them and build casinos and other flashy complexes that cater to the outsider and likely line the pockets of someone beyond the boundaries of the community.

The choice, as always, is yours to make. Choose to invest in your residents and local business owners… the people that invested first… tourism, development and financial success will likely follow. Empower your people, honor the risk they took by taking one yourself, and like happy employees of a strong company, they will take care of everything else.

Pope Francis is correct about the failures of market capitalism. But there's a small problem ...

The current Pope's economic critiques make a great deal of sense. So much so that even as an atheist, it means I'm tempted to make common cause with the Church. The problem is the Pope's theological obligations, which tend to take away what the Holy Father's economic platform giveth. We pagans tend to be burned first. 

But I'll give Francis major props for daring to tackle the prevailing neoliberal dogma, even while being sure I'll hear about it, probably from the economists first.

Pope Francis Laments Failures Of Market Capitalism In Blueprint For Post-COVID World, by Sylvia Poggioli (NPR)

Pope Francis has presented his blueprint for a post-COVID-19 world, covering a vast number of issues from fraternity and income inequality to immigration and social injustice.

The document, released Sunday, is his third encyclical — the most authoritative form of papal teaching.

Its title is Fratelli Tutti, and it is a scathing description of laissez faire capitalism and a meditation on the coronavirus pandemic that has swept across the globe.

Fire Donald Trump: "We have no illusions about Biden, but we need him to win."

There are times when it's necessary to stop the bleeding first, then determine what's to occur next. This triage scenario is peak 2020. 

I may, or may not, return to this depressing topic in this week's ON THE AVENUES. It's an article in the works for almost two months, with the lightning speed of daily news cycles rendering moot every effort at topicality.  

But I'm not sure it's necessary to know any more than we do already. Electing Biden won't resolve the fundamental problem of why 60+ million Americans have alchemized a narcissistic con man into a deity, and come together to fluff his personality cult. 

(Short answer: racism/casteism and a misplaced sense of powerlessness.)

It will, however, remove at least one blithering idiot from the daily news cycle, so maybe...just maybe...we can convince 10% of the 60 million that the issues go far beyond the charlatan-in-chief, who is little more than a figurehead.   

Fire Donald Trump: We have no illusions about Biden, but we need him to win, at The Nation

 ... Voting Trump out of office will not in itself heal the terrible wounds inflicted on our body politic over the past four years. But it is the absolutely necessary first step. That means voting for Joe Biden—through early voting wherever possible or by absentee or in-person voting when necessary.

We have no illusions about Biden, who—as we reported here last November—removed bankruptcy protections from student loans, helped write the bill that barred states from capping interest rates on interstate banking, and spent a career in the Senate carrying water for Delaware’s credit card industry. The idea that Biden is some kind of sleeper agent for socialism is a cruel joke, as is the claim that he is a closet radical.

The Democratic primaries did include some candidates and ideas that truly are radical. Bernie Sanders—The Nation’s preferred candidate—articulated a vision of Medicare for All and an America where health and education and economic security are human rights. Elizabeth Warren opposed Biden’s favors for the banks and ran on a platform of taking on the monopolist millionaires and robber baron billionaires who have rigged our economy. Yet both of them are voting for Biden.

So are Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, and Jesse Jackson ...

Our 2020 non-Harvest Homecoming.

It even seems a bit strange to me. In spite of my decades-long indifference to Nawbany's peculiar institution of Harvest Homecoming, the absence of a parade yesterday, and the silence to come this week, combine to produce a sense of loss.

Well, not much, but still ... that's something, I guess.

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

I wrote the preceding in June, and rather than repeat myself, just click through and read if you care to. 

Several of the traditional festival vendors are setting up shop around town during the coming days, and The Earl is having its own parking lot party this weekend. Pints&union will be conducting business for the most part as usual, as we have no parking lot. 

If you indulge in any of these make-up events, allow me to encourage you to wear a face mask. Lots of people are getting sick, and many are dying, because too many other people are selfish narcissists. To some, they're assholes.

Ask Donald Trump.

They're why Harvest Homecoming was canceled in the first place. We can do better. If you're interested in getting through this, maybe it's time to try a bit harder. 

About Miklos Gárdos and anti-fascism.

4 October 1942 | Hungarian Jewish boy Miklos Gárdos was born. In July 1944 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber.

I'm always cautious to reference posts like this one, as I'm sure the people at Auschwitz Memorial would remind us that man's inhumanity to man isn't restricted to one "side" or another. 

Still, for me, it's the reason why I always will consider myself anti-fascist, even if I'm not pro-anything else. Fascism has no intellectual or theoretical foundation, period, apart from the accumulation of raw power. And, by extension, Auschwitz is where an unchecked accumulation of raw power leads. 

Kindly spare me your equivocations. If this is something that eludes you, merely adjust your social media settings. Delude yourself if you wish, but I don't need you in my life.

ON THE AVENUES: Dear Holocaust deniers: If you don't like this post, unfriend me now.

"Michael Palin on his favourite trips."

The more I can't do it, the more it is missed. 

Around the world in seven journeys: Michael Palin on his favourite trips, by Scott Bryan (The Guardian)

As the BBC shows a retrospective of the Monty Python star’s long-running ambitious travel shows, he gives us the rundown on his adventures

These days travel documentaries hosted by a famous face are commonplace. But the gold standard are still Michael Palin’s. Part of that is down to the sheer ambition of the Monty Python star’s series (Pole to Pole took five and a half months; Full Circle 10 months). But much is down to Palin’s connection with people. “I always found that my travels gave me a different perspective and a much wider perspective, away from the west as a centre of the world’s ideas,” he says. “And to see your own country and your own people from a different perspective. Remember, we are all members of the human race.”

I think I've seen them all. Palin might agree with me that there is a certain melancholy involved with travel. You must be prepared to deal with it. You need to enjoy the physical act of travel (movement), and understand the melancholy.  

From September 6, 2014, something else about Palin from the NAC archive.

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Michael Palin: "The world is an absurd and silly place."

To me, Palin's travelogues are among his finest achievements.

Michael Palin: ‘The world is an absurd and silly place’ ... This summer’s Monty Python reunion was joyous, says Michael Palin. But that doesn’t mean he wishes he had stuck to comedy – or Hollywood, by Stephen Moss (The Guardian)

... “My view of the world, really,” Palin says, “is that if you screw your eyes up and look at the world, it is an absurd and extraordinarily silly place, with everyone taking themselves very seriously.” That may be the clue to the Palin screen persona: the little man bullied by self-appointed autocrats who fights back. By all accounts, his engineer father could be something of a martinet; his relationship with John Cleese (who calls him “Mickey”) appears to be that of headmaster and errant pupil; and several of the characters he has played, notably Jim Nelson in Alan Bleasdale’s TV drama GBH, have been seemingly insignificant men who respond heroically when faced with a crisis.

In Python, he was often the put-upon fellow towered over, physically and sometimes intellectually, by Cleese. But in the end, he gives as good as he gets.

German Unity Day.

We're just shy of 31 years since the Berlin Wall fell. That era, say 1988-1992, was as pivotal for my own life as for world history. I'll probably spend the remainder of whatever time I have left on this planet trying to explain why. I'll always be grateful for the opportunity to see East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the USSR in the summer of 1989. The experience altered the trajectory of my life.

Coronavirus mutes German Unity Day celebrations, (Deutsche Welle)

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Saturday paid tribute to the courage of protesters who led the peaceful revolution that paved the way for the reunification of East and West Germany 30 years ago. 

Commemorations to mark German Unity Day are underway in the city of Potsdam, about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) southwest of Berlin. Such a momentous anniversary would usually be met with fervor, but this year's festivities have been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.

"We look back with gratitude at the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era," Steinmeier said in a keynote speech at the official ceremony. "Today we live in the best Germany that has ever existed" ... 

2006: The NA Confidential - Volunteer Hoosier merger.

Diana and I first met Randy Smith on the grounds of the Moser Tannery in 2004 (wife Ann was with him; I knew her from university), a story which was told earlier in 2020: "ON THE AVENUES: Alas, New Albany is less of a place without a bookstore." He'd just moved here with Ann, and they were opening Destinations Booksellers.

To make a long story very short, Randy and I have collaborated numerous times on civic matters over the intervening years, with the needs of the moment at our respective business ventures ordaining an ebb and flow to the relationship.

If it isn't too bold a statement, allow me to observe that of all the folks I've met over the years who turned up in New Albany from elsewhere with abilities and good intentions, and found the creaking antebellum wagons of "that's the way we've always done it here" circled and manned by vigilante NAHS graduates, Randy's frosty reception is the only one to have equaled my own.

Perhaps that's why so many locals think we're brothers. It isn't so, although spiritually -- in the sense of necessitated samizdat and the petty pushback from locally inbred mediocrity -- there's a case to be made for a solid bond.   

From April 3, 2006. It would seem that 2006 predated the use of labels at Blogger.

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Constantinople to Istanbul: NA Confidential welcomes All4Word, a familiar voice, to its roster. 

The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things - the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit,and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit. --- Samuel Johnson

“Good” and “genuine” are just two of the many words I’ve used to describe the quality of the writing and the advocacy at Volunteer Hoosier, a blog long included in NA Confidential’s sidebar links and often cited on these pages. 

Today I’m pleased to formally announce the addition of All4Word, a/k/a Randy Smith, to the editorial board of this Web log. Randy is a fellow businessman arrived lately to these shores, and was the founder of Volunteer Hoosier in 2004. Readers will be familiar with his work, online and behind the scenes, in drawing attention to matters of public affairs. 

After long consideration, Randy and I decided to consummate a merger of interests in the belief that together we can make NA Confidential a more comprehensive and useful site. With two primary reporters/commentators, each of us will be able to devote more time to making the site better without neglecting our other responsibilities. 

NA Confidential, effective this date, has acquired the rights to Volunteer Hoosier, which will cease publication. However, the archival postings and comments will remain online.

The New Albanian

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Istanbul is widely recognized as the name of Turkey's most well known city, but it was not always this way, and even today some confusion over its proper name still exists. The confusion is rooted in the various names the city assumed under the Ottomans in the centuries after their conquest of the city in 1453. Although the Ottomans did not purposely change the city's name, they opted to make "Constantinople" into a more Turkish style name "Konstantiniye" (which loosely translates as "of Constantine"), however variations on Konstantiniye soon cropped up. 

"Stanbulin," (Greek for "to the city") once commonly found on road signs directing travelers to the capital, was punned by devout Turks into Islambol, where "Islam abounds." The names Islambol and Konstantiniye were used interchangeably in Ottoman documents up until the empire's demise in 1923. Westerners continued to refer to the city as Constantinople well into the 20th century. In the 19th century, however, the city's large foreign expatriate community took to calling the old city Stamboul. Western accounts of the old city during this period make regular references to the name. -- Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture 

Effective this date, Volunteer Hoosier ceases publication. This blogger departs from "Constantinople" for a new home at "Istanbul." 

The New Albanian and I have, in his words, consummated a merger of interests, and I will be joining him in the hope of making NA Confidential even stronger. It is already the premier Web log in the region. The separation between us has never been as wide as the Bosporus, but we, The New Albanian and All4Word, have always marched to the beat of distinctly different drummers. 

As for me, I early on decided that it would have been boorish of me to write at length as a commenter on NA Confidential. And yet, like The New Albanian, I’m not one to write in short bites. Thus, shortly after NA Confidential came online, Volunteer Hoosier was born. We hope you have found it stimulating. 

In my judgment, The New Albanian offers strong insight and a wit that I appreciate. If anything can be said about our senses of humor, it is that he has the better delivery of it, and I have a greater appreciation of it. I will say that I can think of no instance in which The New Albanian has taken his satire further than is appropriate. I would proudly sign on to his spot-on critiques. 

Another distinction is that, between the two of us, I am clearly the “wonk” in the equation. In addition to my affinity for policy and financial detail, I’m more likely to consider the electoral strategies that underlie public policy decisions – at least, I’m more likely to speculate about them. 

As mentioned above, Volunteer Hoosier ceases publication effective today. I have no regrets. I’m pleased to join the online platform at NA Confidential, and the acquisition price was sufficient incentive to surrender my single-author site. 

We are of like minds about many matters, but don’t expect a monolithic front here. 

I will have the freedom to post on any topic at a moment’s notice, without prior restraint, and it is a given that agreement between us is not a requirement. We do disagree from time to time, including recently, which makes this a fortuitous time for our “merger.” In short, we trust and value each other’s judgment. 

One final note. It is our joint and fervent desire to encourage contributor Bluegill to “ramp up” his contributions and make this site even stronger. 

The New Albanian is departing for a well-earned vacation road trip and will be on enforced hiatus. NA Confidential has been a primary source for community news, like tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Summit. 

Be sure to copy me with such items, particularly during NAC’s hiatus. 

All4Word

The Highwayman at city council, 2009: "Romeo, Romeo,-------?"

Lloyd "The Highwayman" Wimp, who sadly left us on November 12, 2010, was an old acquaintance of my 1990s-era pub madness who became a dear friend as the years passed. 

By the mid-Noughts he was a Nawbany homeowner (on Spring Street between Vincennes and Silver) and began attending civic meetings, often with Mark "I Am Hoosier" Cassidy. The photo above shows Mark and Lloyd during The Great Smoking Ban Debate of 2008. 

Lloyd whipped cancer the first time, but lost the rematch. I can't tell you exactly how many reports Lloyd filed for NA Confidential, as Blogger has denied me the tools to calculate, but however many there were, I always encouraged him to do more because he possessed a natural style and an irreverent enthusiasm. As proof, Lloyd's posts at his own View from the Highway blog can still be viewed. 

From February 20, 2009, and a long-forgotten city council meeting, here's a sample of Lloyd's writing. 

---

Romeo, Romeo,-------?

Could it be classic Milton Berle stand up comedy? 

Or perhaps a Shakespearean drama play? 

Maybe even a 21st Century intervention to save a lost soul? 

No, unfortunately it was just another biweekly episode of the New Albany Common Council. But be not dismayed for it contained elements of all the above. 

Shortly after 6:40 PM the comedy began as Deputy Mayor Carl Malysz became the latest member in good standing of the coveted and ever growing Ejaculattee Club for daring to enter the sacred chambers during an Executive Session of the Common Council. It took CM President Coffey less than 15 seconds to inform Mr. Malysz of his evil ways and sent him packing. 

The crowd in the hall (Mark & I) went wild and Cassidy reluctantly caught the evening’s refreshment bill as he lost the pool. 

The truly positive report of the night was given by Ohio River Greenway Project Coordinator Shaunna Graf during the 7PM workshop. Among other things she stated that Clarksville has laid the much of the groundwork and has the funds in hand to complete the connection across Silver Creek to the Floyd County line via the old Penn Central Bridge thru Loop Island. She all but promised that connection will be completed by late 2011 if not sooner, which would result in one being able to go from the river front all the way to Jeff Boat either on foot or bicycle. 

She warned however that the trail on the New Albany would probably still be au-natural as there remained work to be done with various State & Federal Agencies as well as additional funding to hook our end said bridge with our riverfront. But the trail would be passable at least for the hearty travels among us. Hooray!! 

When asked about progress with the K & I opening up, both she and Scott Wood reported that their Louisville counterpart was leading the charge and that it was still a high priority on Mayor Abramson’s to get done list. Scott said that he understood a letter of intent had been sent to the railroad referencing conversations that Louisville was having with various Federal Agencies on the matter. It seems that the railroad's response was that if anyone set foot on said bridge they would either be arrested by the rail police or summarily shot if not both. There was no indication of which order the aforementioned would happen however. 

My immediate red-neck reaction in these times of terrorists and homeland security issues was that railroad police or not, if any fool had the intestinal fortitude to take a shot at a federal official, I wish him the best of luck! So on to the meat of the meeting! 

The first person to take the podium during Communications from the Public was (surprise-surprise) the Operations Director of ROCK. 

Mr. Wickens was out of town on another matter and I speculated that perhaps he was sharing dinner & entertainment with an ACLU member in an attempt to find a way to combine their influence. 

At any rate she reiterated the negative affects on communities of such establishments, complemented the Council for its bravado in addressing this subject matter, and reassured all that ROCK had our backs covered as we move forward.

She was followed by one of the operators of the cabaret in question. He warned the Council they were on a very slippery slope with the legalities of this measure and implored them not to set the city up for a long expensive legal battle by passing the proposal. He continued that all of his employees were set to file individual suits against the City on 1st amendment grounds if necessary. 

I must apologize for not catching the names of either of the speakers mentioned. 

As for Communications from City Officials & the Mayor, Doug England was absent and Carl apparently took his cue from the earlier incident chose to remain silent for the evening. 

There followed a bit of confusion about some pending appointments and after a flurry of activity at the head table that issue got put off to a later day. 

R-09-02 which addressed a tax abatement for Specialty Earth Sciences, LLC received a 7-0 affirmative vote with little ado. Oh, I forgot to mention that CM Zurschmeide was also absent last evening. 

R-09-03 was tabled by CM Gahan for the time being. It concerned ordinance codification issues that he and his committee had not completed their research on and he requested more time to do so. 

R-09-04 was an Additional Appropriation resolution authorizing the parks department to use insurance monies already in hand for repairs of storm damage to city park amenities. It also passed 7-0. 

Ms Benedetti then chose to table A-09-01 which would have required the Sewer Board & Storm water Board to move their meeting times to evenings as opposed to the current 10AM time slot. The ordinance had been prompted by a public outcry from her constituents as they could not get to the daytime meetings and thus felt left out of the process. 

However, CM Benedetti apparently had a change of heart and pulled it from the agenda. She stated that at this point she was unsure whether or not it would be reintroduced at a later date. CM President Coffey stated that even so, she and the Council as a whole was to be commended for hearing the voices of the people. (A disclaimer-that’s a paraphrase)  

Then it got interesting. CM Gahan introduced A-09-01. That would be controversial salary amendment ordinance for the Sewer billing personnel. The 2nd reading vote was called for without preamble and was voted down. 

The 3rd reading was about to proceed when Jeff Gahan interrupted to ask if any discussion of the matter was allowable. CM Coffey answered in the affirmative and CM Gahan proceeded to say that his understanding was these raises had already been approved and put in effect by the Adfarm-near-me/">ministration without Council approval. 

Someone asked how many people received raises and we were informed that three did. Mrs. Dickey got $3K, Ms.Walsh $7K, and Mr. Thompson of the street department received $8K annually. 

This sparked a flurry of activity around the table. When asked from whence the monies came the response by Sewer Board President Ron Carroll was the funds came out of Storm Water coffers. When asked if these raises were retro to January of this year, Ron said yes! 

CM Price almost immediately offered that the Storm Water Utility obviously has an excess of funds at its disposal and proposed that maybe a rate cut for that utility was in order! 

Council Attorney Robison then said that when the discussion had originally come up as to whether or not the Sewer Utility could act independently of council approval he had asked for time to research the subject. He did so and submitted to the adfarm-near-me/">ministration a letter stating that in his legal opinion the matter did in fact have to be voted in by said council. 

He was then informed that it was a done deal and the retro checks were being processed. He requested permission from the council to sit down with City Attorney Gibson to discuss it at length. He was granted it. 

CM President Coffey stated that although there had been much said about working together, this was yet another example of some acting independently regardless, and the council was going to have to look further into the matter. 

We then moved on to the real hot-button issue of the night which was the Adult Cabaret ordinance. It passed 2nd reading 7-0 but the third reading was postponed to give the Council’s Committee time to try to work out an agreement with the Cabaret owners that would be palatable to all parties. 

And along those lines, CM Coffey had earlier encouraged Planning & Zoning Director Scott Wood to move with haste to define a Zoning designation for adult entertainment facilities. He stated he would be glad to but could not finalize such until the Council acted upon the Ordinance before it. 

That ending the official business of the evening. John Mattingly rose to implore the Council not to proceed to the point of this thing going to court. He said he had no desire to get involved in a costly legal battle and would hate for the city to do so as well. 

However, he continued, “I and my partners have spent a significant amount of money on this project and we are not willing to just walk away from it.” He was followed by an encore appearance by the ROCK representative wherein she once again complimented the Council for their due diligence and reassured all in the room that her organization was there to help in any way it can. 

With that the meeting was adjourned and a glance at the clock read 8:10PM. 

My, that went quick! Our very own Mark Cassidy approached the Rock rep and asked her if offering to help the city included raising funds to pay legal costs. 

She very carefully answered that in the past her organization had indeed assisted other municipalities find such and could possibly be happy to do so here as well if needed. Mark was very clear that she refrained from stating exactly what that “assistance” entailed! 

Me, I beat feet for Studios to find both bartenders standing at the end of the bar awaiting my arrival. One had a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in hand and the other, holding a room temperature glass! 

And you scofflaws say New Albany has nothing to offer!!

Prague’s concrete paneláks aren't finished yet.

Having grown up under the tutelage of a father who went out of his way to avoid urban areas, and this being America, my exposure to urban settings began in 1985 during my first visit to Europe. Near the end of the trip on a bus into Leningrad, we rolled through acre after acre of high-rise Soviet suburbs; then in 1987 and 1989, I spent much of my travel time behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe.

To put it mildly, the world of panelák apartments (and their brethren outside Czechoslovakia) fascinated me. 

Khrushchyovka! The rise and fall of typical Soviet-era housing in Russia.

Gdansk and the Falowiecs: "Can Poland’s Faded Brutalist Architecture Be Redeemed?"

Berlin looks to Communist-era "slab buildings" to alleviate a housing shortage.

Seemingly everywhere, Havel's "rabbit hutches" (see below) are making a comeback, even in Prague.

design-behind-prague-s-concrete-apartments" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">

design-behind-prague-s-concrete-apartments" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Prague’s Communist-Era Apartments Get a Second Life, by Feargus O'Sullivan (CityLab)

Outside the picturesque city center, Prague’s concrete panelák apartments solved a need for fast, modern housing in the Communist era. They’re still thriving today.

If you want to see where the average Prague resident lives, you’ll have to put in more effort than a quick trip around the city’s historic heart.

Jump on a tram heading out of the Czech capital’s tourist-filled center and pre-1914 tenements soon give way to something very different: large complexes of modernist apartment blocks, their concrete often brightly painted after recent renovations, looming over greenery set back from the main road. Look closely at these apparently endless tiers of blocks that provide a rampart around the city, and you’ll see they are composed of row after row of concrete panels that give this type of building its Czech name — panelák.

I took this photo from Castle Hill in Prague in 1989. You can see them clearly.

Back in 2012, I read a book about manufactured housing in the former Czechoslovakia, and reviewed it in my ON THE AVENUES column. 

It is reprinted here.

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The late Vaclav Havel famously referred to them as “rabbit hutches,” and even today, more than two decades after the end of the Communist period, one-third of all Czechs inhabit pre-fabricated, modular housing blocks, particularly ones erected with increasing haste and decreasing art from the 1960’s through the 1980’s.

To stand on Castle Hill in the middle of architecturally glorious Prague and look outward toward the suburbs is to view what first appears to be a gray wall around the city. Actually, the wall is an optical illusion, a composite of these modular housing blocks in seemingly endless rows.

All across the former East Bloc, the Communist period witnessed the construction of high-rise housing units like these, quickly manufactured elemental housing that left travelers with an indelible image of a commensurately grim and manufactured life, but as Kimberly Elman Zarecor explains in her book, Manufacturing a Socialist Modernity: Housing in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1960, the story was at least a bit different there.

Because Czechoslovakia was the industrial heartland of the deceased Austro-Hungarian Empire, its income levels and educational attainment were above the norm during the period between the wars. Avant-garde and modernist schools of architecture in German, Scandinavia and France were represented by Czechoslovak architects in their projects of the time, and overall, the future seemed bright for the country’s development as a stable, liberal democracy.

Successive Nazi and Soviet occupations deferred this dream for almost a half-century, with a lasting and sometimes quite ugly contribution to the area’s physical landscape.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, with a pressing need for housing reconstruction, and amid the forced imperative to organize the economy according to Communist principles of heavy industry, Czechosolvak architects fought gamely, for the most part as socialist loyalists, to retain their interwar aesthetic. There were some initial successes, but their influence steadily declined as Communist rule tightened and five-year production quotas submerged all other considerations.

After Stalin’s death put an end to the worst excesses of enforced socialist realism, which in practice meant emulating the Soviet dictator’s grandiose, leaden, Commie Gothic personal tastes, housing in Czechoslovakia became an exercise in the rapidity of modular manufacturing, with assembly-line construction far more utilitarian than any purpose-designed building, and on the cheap, with sloppily pre-cast concrete panels bolted together in stacks as high as engineering principles permitted.

Manufactured housing in Communist Czechoslovakia may have been inevitable, but Zarecor deftly shows that the route from free-form blueprint to rabbit hutch was more winding than commonly assumed, even if the end results were the same. What will the outskirts of Prague look like in twenty more years? I can only hope I’m still around to return there, and to experience the visceral reaction at another, perhaps less jarring, time.

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential.

It cannot be denied that I’m a slow learner, a late bloomer and a serial procrastinator. 

This much is perfectly clear. Actually, I’ve never cared enough to even try dodging these compliments. 

The odd part has always been that once I get around at long last to learning, blooming and/or making up my mind, it’s a done deal. Once a decision has been determined, right or wrong, it is pretty much irrevocable with me.

So it was last week when I awakened to thoughts about NA Confidential’s future, and concluded it has none, at least in its present format. I'll continue writing elsewhere, and soon the blog will cease to exist as an active, ongoing entity.

NAC began in 2004 as a way of channeling a long-gestating insight, this being the importance of grassroots localism. It was and remains my view that people tend to obsess about hugely complex national and international topics to the exclusion of approachable issues outside their front doors, and in their own communities, because theatrically pontificating in broad terms is easier than getting involved with the grit and grime of specifics.

NAC started out as a diary of sorts, a place to chronicle my journeys, promote the beer businesses I was involved with at the time, channel my inner Mencken, and write about anything I damn well pleased. Other folks helped out with writing (Randy, Jeff, Lloyd), and then they didn’t. 

The blog grew into a public gathering spot, a function that ebbed drastically once social media exploded. All along, it was a spot to broach subjects no one else would. I followed these stories where they took me, and it didn't always make people happy. 

They're entitled to their own opinions, although not their own facts.

NA Confidential’s first post was on October 22, 2004. Who even imagined we’d still be talking about it in 2020? I didn't.

You don’t need a gumshoe with rotten breath and one too many alimony payments to figure out the problem with this town. It’s something in the water that causes people here to lose their vision. Q: What do New Albanians call Southside's mashed potatoes? A: Freedom Foie Gras. Well, we’re here to change all that.

Ha! 

Change all that?

A tad cheeky, and ultimately a point to debate, although others can decide the extent, if any, of the blog’s influence hereabouts. Irrespective, the blogging experience has changed me, and nowadays I’m at a crossroads amid the crossfire. Consequently, there are several good reasons for acknowledging various irrefutable realities and drowning the blog in the nearest available bathtub.

Allow me to explore the reasoning.

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Localism? Not so much. Between our toxic social media fixation, the pandemic and Trump’s invasive cult of personality, interest in provocative takes on local matters in Nawbany has largely disappeared. Readership has responded accordingly, by plummeting. This should please my betters. 

Part of this decline owes to the scattershot essence of Blogger; it is an utter piece of crap, and a dysfunctional platform overall. For at least a decade Blogger has been unsuitable for my intentions. Now it’s largely unusable owing to recent revisions, and I should have exited long ago when the going was good. That one's on me.   

In addition, I turned 60 in August, and began paying attention to what the mirror (and my wife) was trying to tell me about the meaning of life. In short, it’s time for an autumn (of my years) deep cleaning and reboot. What better time than multiple, horrifying daily existential crises?

Then an e-mail notice came, reminding me it was time to renew my rogerbaylor.com domain name. Having finally learned a bit about WordPress owing to my position as digital editor at Food & Dining Magazine, and with the publication’s house web guru Jason around to advise me, starting anew at my own web site suddenly became an attractive option.

The year 2020 already was the most tumultuous year of my life, and probably yours, too. Why not end it with closure, by euthanizing NAC, and moving forward to something different?

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Of course there’s another aspect to the blog’s impending termination, a process which began in earnest the moment last year’s municipal election cycle concluded.

Jeff Gahan’s unprecedented third mayoral term (save for C. Pralle Erni’s four), and especially his increased margin of victory in the 2019 election, constituted voluminous (and perhaps inevitable) handwriting on the wall. It was a clear, unmistakable vote for civic fantasy, and against truth telling, whether by a malcontent like me or on the part of perpetually somnolent local newspapers … or anyone else, for that matter. 

It was, in fact, a slam dunk. 

Accordingly, a solitary dissident at a blog parked at the woefully deficient Blogger hell hole simply cannot hope to make a difference in such a dismal, uncomprehending milieu. Ironically, what it can do is make the dissident’s own position unsustainable -- and it has. 

None of this thrills me, but the truth of it is simply undeniable, and that’s why I’ll go through the narrative a final time before NAC self-destructs. Accordingly, let’s award credit where it’s due, sans snarkiness. 

I fought Nawbany, and Nawbany won. 

That's it, in a nutshell. As an intelligent, well-educated and worldly person, I can fully appreciate the tactical deficit of my coordinates in this pandemic year, as pinned down in a fox hole with massed (metaphorical) artillery pointed in my general direction. 

Well played, dominant cadres. I've learned that "it's the way things work here" is more than a recurring promise; it's a big-ass buzz saw, and I'm sliced, diced and vanquished. 

Evidently “check mate” means the same thing in all of those European languages I wish had come easier to me so as to facilitate being a joyful expatriate. It looks like we’re marooned here until the house is paid off. After that, Ireland (or Malta, or Bolivia; whatever), here we come. 

Verily, the governing Nawbanian clique's “lone dissident on the grassy know-it-all” containment strategy for the past seven years has proven to be highly effective. Granted, it took a few dozen of them to whip one blogger acting alone, but make no mistake: The lash of the nabob's whip is real, and accordingly, I’m whupped. 

Cutting me off from any “official” political and governing dialogue is only a small part of it, because the community pillars have completely succeeded in institutionalizing a local perception of me as social misfit and pariah, to be shunned by “right thinking” people as if I were a member of India’s untouchable caste.

Evidently if you whisper often enough that Roger’s a dangerous nutcase, otherwise sane and intelligent people will start to believe it. The ones who don’t? They'll merely say they regret the inconvenience, but just can’t risk being seen with you – you understand, they’ll say amid the furtive glances, it’s just business.

Yes, I understand the obligations of current accounts, although frankly, some of you should be ashamed to spend hours denouncing the perfidy of national Republicans while simultaneously encouraging crickets to chirp when it comes to the eually repellant habits of local Democrats. That’s cowardice, and it’s also hypocrisy. I genuinely feel bad for you, but really? 

Toss a starving dog a bone. Maybe just a wee shred of resolve, every now and then?

What’s more, in so many of these "tsk tsk" instances, it has not mattered in the slightest what I actually said or wrote to prompt a flurry of finger-wagging; folks have concluded automatically that I’m mistaken, not to mention disreputable, based on what they imagined me saying or writing, and not actually hearing or reading it. Purportedly it is understood by those who – you know – understand these sort of things.

Frustrating, but also quite brilliant. 

I’m stymied, hung out and left to dry. Like I said, full credit where it’s due. The Kool-Aid is strong, and I am weak. Long live the junta!

---

Furthermore, the ruling elite came to an astute recognition that while they cannot hurt me personally, people around me are vulnerable. It’s a crude, blunt-edged form of reprisal, as well as a highly efficient one. In good conscience I can no longer risk the threat of collateral damage to innocent bystanders.

Additionally, because the leading element in New Albany has successfully characterized NA Confidential in its diverse entirety as the equivalent of deranged snuff porn fetishism, the blog’s “brand” is compromised, stuffed into a straw man's cubbyhole and tainted by association.

Masterful, indeed.

My earnest efforts in 2020 to remove the political element from the blog have been easier than I imagined, but ultimately it's futile. The torture is unlikely to stop, the Blogger platform remains inadequate for future writing, and the blog as currently constituted is dead in the water, adroitly blockaded by local arbiters, blithely shunned by the aspirant vanguard, and abjectly short-circuited by its own host platform.

I can take a hint and surrender, dear (leader).



---

Granted, I might start again at a new website and continue calling it NA Confidential. But it needs to be retired. At the forthcoming Roger Baylor Dot Com there will be an archive of the 15,000+ posts appearing at NAC since 2004, albeit completely inactive in terms of new content. It will be maintained strictly for historical interest, and as a sketchbook for future writing. 

Resurrecting NAC wouldn’t be the same. I played the game and lost. So it goes. It may not have been fair or square, and yet make no mistake; I knew exactly the nature of the surreal absurdity I was getting into way back in 2004, purporting to chronicle the life and times of a city that hasn’t been on the cutting edge of anything since the 19th century, and probably never will.  

As proof, note that in their most recent races, Donald Trump (Republican President), Jeff Gahan (Democratic Mayor) and Scott Blair (Independent City Council) each won the 6th council district by almost exactly the same percentage of vote as the others.

Huh? If you can explain that, then it’s your turn to grapple with this town’s psychotic DNA.

Looking at it objectively, NAC can be said to have accomplished some positive outcomes; just the same, it is exhausted. So is the blog's creator. 

NAC is the only Nawbany blog that truly mattered, ever, except blogs seldom matter here, ever, especially when pursuing the sort of subject matter that differs with the prevailing "mentality" (rest assured I use this term guardedly).

In the beginning, back in 2004, good friends warned me that we're a barely literate, perennially dirty little river town, and likely would always be this way, forever.

I laughed.

I’m laughing no longer. Stick a fork in me, because I’m done.

To those who have read, thanks for reading, and for all your support over the years. When the new digs are ready, I’ll let you know, as long as you let me know if we ever arrive at answers to the opening questions.

New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?

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September 24: ON THE AVENUES: Magic and loss. 

September 17: ON THE AVENUES: Stuck inside of Nawbany with the Flanders blues again.

September 10: ON THE AVENUES: The Weekly Wad lives on in the minds of malcontents.

September 3: ON THE AVENUES: If you really want to be my friend.

The hits kept coming, until they didn't: "But what about Howard Sprague?"

Remember caption contests?

This one originally was a BEER MONEY column for the pre-merger Tribune, to be greeted by dozens of yokels picketing the newspaper in protest of multi-syllable words. It was titled "After Andy, the deluge," and was published on July 23, 2009. Following is the retitled version from the blog, updated on Jul9 19, 2012. Note that 3rd district councilman Price lost to Greg Phipps in the 2011 "Democratic" primary, with Phipps going on to win the seat in the general election. Also note that mangled syntax aside, and in retrospect, Price's point about jail overcrowding was spot on.

Regime change ... when, exactly?

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ON THE AVENUES: But what about Howard Sprague?

(2012 Preface: After publishing the original version of this column a couple weeks back, I decided to go back through and update it for the year 2012. Part of the reason for doing so is that it is almost impossible for me to remain satisfied with something previously written. Another is that there always are new readers. And, finally, I like to make ON THE AVENUES the court of record).

When confused and uncertain, we generally recoil from the challenges of the future, reverting instead to comforting visions of one or the other redemptive halcyons from a past viewed with rose-tinted hindsight, and accordingly, cultural mythology tends to supplant rational thought, not buttress it.

This being a presidential election year, we can expect reams of historical revisionism masquerading as irrefutable argumentation. America’s Christian theocracy is particularly adept at such pipe-dream panaceas, its televangelistic hawkers mounting gleaming Chinese-made soapboxes to beseech us: Turn back the hands of time, all the way to a state of being that never existed in the first place … and don’t forget your checkbook, sinner.

Nostalgia is a vehicle powered by the warm fuzzies of selective memory. There’s nothing necessarily wrong about that, at least until comfortable reveries are mistaken for public policy, which brings us to an otherwise forgotten New Albany city council meeting that took place three years ago.

During a brief and typically ephemeral discussion of community policing “wants and needs,” the since deposed 3rd district councilman Steve Price launched into a meandering tangent addressing his views of modern methods of law enforcement. Of course, untangling Price’s stream-of consciousness syntax was a constant challenge throughout his eight years of chronic council underachievement, but at the time, his point was relatively clear.

He was lamenting the disappearance of old-fashioned, user-friendly civic drunk tanks, those helpful domiciles formerly providing wayward inebriates a warm place to sleep and voluminous black coffee before releasing them into waiting streets (and revolving barstools) the following morning.

Price concluded that nowadays, such pitiably harmless transgressors actually are compelled to pay their way out of jail; lacking cash, their incarceration contributes to the overcrowding problem therein. His former council colleague Jack Messer, a full-time police officer, asked Price to explain how the city might better handle such time and space continuums, and Price responded with this bit of sage advice:

"We need to do things like Andy used to do 'em."

---

So, to which person named Andy was the ex-councilman referring?

Was it Andy Warhol? That’s unlikely, because the Ruthenian-American pop artist certainly was too avant-garde for a down-home devotee of Dave Ramsey.

Maybe Andy Kaufman, the late and lamented inter-gender wrestling champion and performance artist? Obviously, too ironic.

Andy Roddick? He’s too athletic for New Albany, and in the wrong sport.

Andy Dick? Too clever by half.

Andy Capp? Too impenetrably English.

Andy Garcia? Too confusingly ethnic.

No, it’s none of the above, because given Price’s preferred homilies, paranoiac utterances and ceaseless non sequiturs, there could be only one answer.

He meant the fictional Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, as played on television by the late comedian Andy Griffith in his eponymous show, which was produced back in the Golden Age of Post-War Faux-Paneled Imperial America, a time period coinciding with Price’s blissful youth and visions of Otis Campbell’s nightly resting place dancing soothingly in his head.

I recalled Price’s words in the wake of the iconic Griffith’s recent passing, as otherwise sensible people immediately focused their attention on hazy objects depicted in the nation’s rear view mirror and advocated a “return” to the Mayberry ethos, which would provide workable solutions to the pressing problems of our troubled times, while recapturing lost innocence, albeit it for the small price of forgetting everything we’ve learned since kindergarten.

---

Unfortunately, Price never has been alone in suggesting that a city like New Albany in the milieu of the Internet, crystal meth, iPhones, EPA sewage treatment decrees and state-imposed starvation budgets can be governed according to lessons learned from a television series originally broadcast in black and white, featuring a folksy sheriff in a rural town, with a switchboard operator listening on party lines, and a habitual vandal whose repertoire does not extend beyond rocks thrown at picture windows.

Like so many others, I watched The Andy Griffith Show as a child, but then something happened to me. 

I grew up. 

Four decades have passed since the series went off the air, and in light of experience, I see Mayberry a bit differently. 

Sheriff Taylor’s town didn’t boast much in the way of ethnic and religious diversity, did it? In fact, it was the era of enforced segregation in the South, and there wasn’t an African-American or Hispanic to be seen. 

Most of the women depicted on the series were in the kitchen frying chicken or baking peach cobbler, and Helen Crump’s job as schoolteacher was about the highest point on the professional ladder for a female. Suffrage might have been bragged about, but was it truly universal?

Do you really think any of those toilets led to a sewage treatment system? Rather, think of leaky pipes emptying into yonder creek, and maybe a septic tank or three. Television news was a monopoly of three major networks, newspapers toed a Democratic or Republican line, and American foreign policy strove to support “our” murderous tinhorn dictators so as to forestall Communist-installed versions of the same.

And then, there’s the demographic reality we always neglect in places like Mayberry in the 1960’s: Young and talented people left town in droves, as soon as they possibly could, leaving older citizens and second-raters to navigate a decline into irrelevance, something that should be all too obvious to New Albanians surveying the local scene in 2012.

Mayberry was, and is, an entertaining place, but like Andy Taylor himself, it was, and it remains, entirely imaginary. If pressed, we might find other useful role models from the era: Rooster Cogburn, Captain Kirk and maybe even Puff the Magic Dragon.

But seriously, in the year 2012 – how does any of it help us?

The farewell tour continues: "Ilmatyynyalukseni on täynnä ankeriaita," from March 20, 2010.

As NA Confidential prepares to ride off into the sunset, I'll be reposting selected bits from the past. This one's from the spring of 2010. Already I was starting to "know" better, but my daddy raised me stubborn. Too bad for me.  

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Ilmatyynyalukseni on täynnä ankeriaita.

Excuse the title. I've been looking for an excuse to use obscure linguistics in a title. Basque was my first choice ... but ...

I can appreciate where you’re coming from. Both of you.

You’ve landed here only recently, and in the course of surveying the landscape, there have been judgments based on first impressions. Some of these will survive scrutiny, others not. That’s the classic, enduring beauty of the learning curve.

I’ve lived here in Floyd County my whole life, and have always had a mailing address within ten or so miles of City-County Building, but because my residency in the city of New Albany only began in 1993, I’m considered an outsider by many (mostly older, mostly bitter) New Albanians. Consequently, I know what it’s like to arrive here and be childishly derided for not being FROM here.

The ones who never accomplished anything will always resent you for your talent, your skill, and most of all, your mobility. If they perceive you being of temporary assistance to them in their goals of universal doltery and egalitarian misery, they’ll lionize you until you think for yourself. Then it will be over, and you’ll feel predictably dirty the next morning.

It’s frustrating, but ultimately, it’s their loss. They can do nothing to improve the planet. You can. The question is: Who wins?

Doers … or delusionals?

My involvement with the eternal morass of New Albanian politics dates back about six years. Before that, I was busy with the original pub and brewery on the north side. When I remarried, we bought a house on Spring Street, and began absorbing contemporary ways of thinking and planning as they pertain to historic urban cores. All I could see was an underutilized, savaged doughnut hole. I had to learn why it had happened, and how best to rectify it.

In the beginning, I looked around and thought I understood the lay of the land. I spoke out accordingly. As I met people who were outside my comfort zone of the Grant Line pub, and who had put much more thought into matters like this than I had, it began to occur to me that my initial snap judgments were utterly and embarrassingly mistaken. Much had been misread on my part, which is understandable given my inexperience.

Too bad I spouted before I grokked, but so it goes. You live, and you learn.

In New Albany, for better or worse, the more one learns, the murkier it gets, and the more affairs become resistant to glib, simple answers of the sort that satisfy the populist in all of us. We want these sort of answers, and badly. It’s easier to believe them and to range outside self-imposed cultural boxes. Unfortunately, they’re seldom true.

Obfuscation, self-destructiveness and perhaps plain ol’ simple insanity are parts of everyday life here, maybe more so than most suspect. So it is that sometimes, you get off on the wrong foot and miss things. It’s difficult to see what’s progressive, and what isn’t. Some times, one must shrug and accept the daily torrential abuse for what it is: Fear, and loathing, and on occasion, chemical imbalance.

In the end, it comes down to this: If you’re smart enough to know better, you’re obliged to ... know better. 

To know. 

That’s the key word. In a city that by and large hates knowledge, hates achievement, and hates itself, knowing is the only conceivable coping mechanism.

The dark side in NA? It’s not the place to be. Trust me. The capable mustn't be divided by pettiness and intemperance, because there are too damned few of us.

BEER MONEY: New Albany Is A State of Mind (2009).

As noted in today's previous post, my two-years-and-five-month run as a guest columnist at the pre-merger New Albany Tribune began in 2009. This was the very first column, which ran on January 10. The photo was my official newspaper photo, as attached here to a 2010 column about something I'm no longer allowed to address openly, hence the "redacted" discretion. 

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New Albany Is A State of Mind

You might recall that roughly 2,500 years ago, there lived the Greek philosopher called Socrates, a man whose dogged pursuit of knowledge endeared him to succeeding generations of admirers, although not to his fellow Athenians. In fact, most of his neighbors considered him not only an annoyance, but a heretic, too, and if there’s anything to be gleaned from reading history, it’s that there’s always time enough for a priest to throw another heretic on the fire.

So goes the eternal tyranny of the majority, and yet thanks to Plato’s writings, we now recognize Socrates as a peerless moral and social critic. Appropriately, he has been honored by the tag of gadfly, a term for describing “people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or just being an irritant.”

That’s my kind of guy, although naturally gadflies are detested by small, non-expandable minds of the sort that are the norm in human societies the world over, and who assign themselves the task of protecting the status quo whether or not it is sensible.

Accordingly, you can picture the scene in the agora, with Socrates and his small band of youthful followers avidly questioning accepted beliefs, while the “little people” of Athens hover nearby, muttering, and eavesdropping on the dialogues.

These many centuries later, I can almost hear the anonymous bellow from behind the adjacent stone wall, followed by the pitter-patter of fleeing sandals:

“Hey, Socrates, if you aren’t happy here, then why don’t you get the hell out and leave us alone?”

Socrates stayed, of course, and was made to pay dearly for it. During a period of political upheaval, he was put on trial and convicted of corrupting the morals of Athenian youth. Offered the opportunity to devise his own punishment, the philosopher wryly suggested that his “sentence” include a regular monetary stipend and free meals for life.

Instead, the humorless judges gave Socrates the choice of exile or death, and he opted for the latter, drinking the hemlock, cementing his martyrdom, and proving that in ancient Greece as in modern-day America, folks don’t take kindly to having their premises examined, not to mention taxed … but let’s leave Their Man Mitch’s properties and proprieties out of it, shall we?

---

And so there I was, cradling a craft-brewed pint of beer within the cozy confines of Connor’s Place and reflecting on the dubious merits of “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” when suddenly that nagging, familiar existential question reared up and bit me … again.

“New Albany is a state of mind … but whose?

Numerous other pressing questions have come and gone since I was a youngster growing up in Georgetown, experiencing the sort of small town ambience remembered with warm fuzziness primarily by those who never actually lived through the crushing boredom of it all, queries like, “Where can we get served?” and “Is it really cheating if the teacher doesn’t catch you?”

But nowadays the tough questions keep getting harder to answer, like this one:

Have you ever been standing in the supermarket, trying to fathom the industrial process bakeries use to remove the flavor and texture from white bread in order to make it marketable to the terminally fearful among us, when suddenly a remarkably obese woman down the aisle starts screaming obscenities at her own helpless children, and you realize that all this prattle about free people making informed choices to suit their individual needs must be coming from those who’ve never driven an automobile through New Albany’s decaying streets, artfully dodging listless vagrants, texting drivers and the occasional neglected, doomed dog or cat?

---

In 2008, Barack Obama enunciated “change” and “hope” as electoral mantras, and predictably, local voters went big for Obama’s befuddled Republican opponent. Therein lies a glimpse of New Albany’s personalized 800-lb gorilla, and the civic psychosis that so degrades our future prospects as a city. It is our persistent failure to muster any degree of comprehension as to what is occurring in the larger world outside the municipal devil we know, and to imagine another way of life.

As an example, consider the simple notion of riding a bicycle in an urban setting. Doing so in New Albany can be profoundly dangerous, in part because of the gaping potholes, and more importantly, as previously observed, because local drivers are notoriously unskilled and inattentive. However, the problem goes beyond an absence of empathy.

Numerous New Albanian drivers actually can’t imagine riding a bicycle, and moreover, they can’t imagine life outside the confines of an automobile – and if they can’t imagine something, how on earth could anyone else?

To them, anyone who is able to imagine biking and also to achieve it must be mistaken or defective, and poses a vague threat. Any person riding a bicycle surely must be too poor to afford a car, or is restricted to biking owing to mental illness, a DUI conviction, bad personal credit or contrarian tendencies.

In other words, a heretic. Do I hear the sound of flicking Bics?

In this and related matters, the New Albany Syndrome is a very real and self-defeating malady, and one of my goals in life is to somehow locate the source of the dysfunction and drive a stake composed of equal parts modernity and rationality straight through its heart so that future generations just might enjoy a better place to live and work.

Socrates had it right: The unexamined life is not worth living … and the examination begins now.

From BEER MONEY at the Tribune to ON THE AVENUES at NAC -- how my weekly column came to be.

In response to an inquiry, here's a repeat (26 December 2016) of the story about how ON THE AVENUES came to be. NA Confidential is winding down and will soon cease operations in the current format, although there'll be an archive at my new web site, currently under construction.

ON THE AVENUES will reappear at the next joint, so stay tuned.

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NA Confidential was born in October, 2004. Almost 11,000 posts later, the experience sometimes verges on the coherent, but at the start I had little idea how to proceed, beyond writing for posterity about what was happening right here in New Albany.

Consequently, after five years of beating the bushes, my big break beckoned as 2008 drew to a close.

New Tribune guest columnist in January. (December 8, 2008)

Last Friday afternoon I met with Steve Kozarovich, publisher of the New Albany Tribune, and agreed to write a 900-word column on a weekly basis, beginning Thursday, January 8, and running on Thursdays thereafter. It is a (modest) for-pay gig, joining paid columns I write biweekly for LEO and quarterly for Food and Dining magazine.

This announcement is provided as a courtesy to the publisher, who now has the opportunity to begin fielding complaints before the column actually appears.

From January 2009 until February 2011, I met 111 consecutive "Beer Money" column deadlines at $40 a pop, then decided to run for city council, necessitating a suspension of my weekly Tribune contribution.

Today's last Tribune column for a while: "Let’s all say ‘yes’ for change." (February 17, 2011)

 ... And so, here's the finale ... for now. I expect to be back (a) after a primary loss, or (b) after a general election loss, or (c) after a general election victory. After all, there is a precedent for public officials (Ed Clere) writing a weekly column, is there not?

BAYLOR: Let’s all say ‘yes’ for change

This will be my last column in The Tribune for a while, and there’s a reason for the hiatus.

I've decided to take a dram of my own medicine and file to run for city council in the coming primary — yes, as a Democrat, and for an at-large seat.

Because this very newspaper has a policy against permitting its columnists to conduct campaigns in print, and actually enforces it more often than the city’s own long neglected codes, I must return temporarily to the realm of the blogosphere.

And in the blogosphere I was destined to remain, because concurrent with my hiatus, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. cashiered Kozarovich and combined our local newspapers into a new entity, the News and Tribune. It was to be headquartered in Jeffersonville, instituting a Clark County-centric focus that has become steadily more annoying to New Albanians during the years since, and it caused my column to walk the plank.

This just in: Merger kills a newspaper column. (May 23, 2011)

Damn, I knew I should have actually won that election ... then I could still have a newspaper column, just like Ed Clere, although I'm told that the beer column idea is still on the table for the Spectrum section.

The now departed Coach K used the word "hiatus" prior to my council bid. I had to fetch a thesaurus to know what he meant. Now, somewhere, he and Lucy Van Pelt are holding the football aloft and laughing.

Just my luck. Who'd have known that Linus's older sister worked for the Retirement Systems of Alabama?

Is it time to go underground, yet?

To Matt Nash: It's all yours now. Torture the troglodytes often, will you ... and try to give us some New Albany news, okay? The Clark County stuff's already getting old.

Right now, the regular columnist spots are full. I can't pick up anyone else and still get in letters, cheers and jeers and any editorials in a timely manner.

I still had to drop another columnist (McDonald) on top of when you and Kelley Curran decided to run for office because space became less available after the merger. I'm also trying to keep a balance between Clark County folks like Dodd and Harbeson and Floyd County writers like Amy and Nash. And, of course, I have a freelancer/stringer budget to worry about.

It's possible a spot would open up in the future and I'll let you know if that happens.

Shea Van Hoy

I spent a few months licking wounds and plotting revenge against the perpetrators, then realized there was much yet to say and write. The answer was to DIY, in this blog forum.

The newspaper's dead and buried, so welcome to electronica. (May 26, 2011)

Beginning last week, my Thursday column was reinstituted in this space. The column ran in the News and Tribune from January 2009 until February 2011, when it went on "hiatus" during my run for council. Earlier this week, I learned that the hiatus had been transformed into permanent absence owing to changes in the newspaper's structure.

This just in: Merger kills a newspaper column.

As a writer, deadlines have a wonderful way of concentrating thought, and so it is my desire to get back into the weekly column habit. This blog's the place for it until something else comes along.

Furthermore, conceding that the newspaper's current staff will disagree with me, the consolidation of two editions into one of the same size inevitably will have the effect of reducing coverage of New Albany (and to an extent, Floyd County) affairs. Stated simply, New Albany has lost its newspaper.

"Our newspaper is dead -- long live the Internet", or something like that.

For the time being, and perhaps for a long time to come, this blog is more important than ever before. While I don't have the time to transform NAC into a comprehensive news and commentary entity, repositioning my weekly column and moving it from Thursday newsprint to Thursday bandwidth is attainable, so that's how we'll start the ball rolling. In conjunction with social media, it's enough for now. I am aware of like-minded ideas for on-line publishing in the community, and will continue monitoring these in the hope that something comes to fruition.

But what to call this new column?

Later this morning, my Thursday column will reappear here. The old "Beer Money" tag, which referred to the limited usefulness of the bare farthings grudgingly paid by the Retirement Systems of Alabama to guest columnists in publications like One Southern Indiana Newspaper, no longer makes sense, seeing as remuneration has completely disappeared.

Instead, my new Thursday column will openly hearken back to the long-departed days of independent, truly local journalism in New Albany: "On the Avenues." Some of you will know what I mean by this. Look for the Green Mouse to make appearances, too.

In the days of my youth, back when the Tribune actually mattered, a lifer named Jack Powers was the staff do-it-all. He covered the social and political waterfronts in his column, "On the Avenues," with the help of an all-purpose editorial source and assistant, the so-called Green Mouse.

My column honors these quaint and mostly forgotten aspects of local journalism in New Albany.

BOOKS: "Capitalism & Disability," by Marta Russell.

My friend Loren is COO at Sweet Behavior LLC, and he mentioned this book a while back. I bought it immediately and read these essays earlier in the month. 

I can tell you is made an impression, and before the reference to capitalism is dismissed out of hand, as many of you will do, I'd recommend at least reading the publisher's tout here. 

There's quite a bit to this. 

Capitalism & Disability

This book comprises a collection of groundbreaking writings by Marta Russell on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism. 

Spread out over many years and many different publications, the late author and activist Marta Russell wrote a number of groundbreaking and insightful essays on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism. In this volume, Russell’s various essays are brought together in one place in order to provide a useful and expansive resource to those interested in better understanding the ways in which the modern phenomenon of disability is shaped by capitalist economic and social relations. The essays range in analysis from the theoretical to the topical, including but not limited to: the emergence of disability as a “human category” rooted in the rise of industrial capitalism and the transformation of the conditions of work, family, and society corresponding thereto; a critique of the shortcomings of a purely “civil rights approach” to addressing the persistence of disability oppression in the economic sphere, with a particular focus on the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; an examination of the changing position of disabled people within the overall system of capitalist production utilizing the Marxist economic concepts of the reserve army of the unemployed, the labor theory of value, and the exploitation of wage-labor; the effects of neoliberal capitalist policies on the living conditions and social position of disabled people as it pertains to welfare, income assistance, health care, and other social security programs; imperialism and war as a factor in the further oppression and immiseration of disabled people within the United States and globally; and the need to build unity against the divisive tendencies which hide the common economic interest shared between disabled people and the often highly-exploited direct care workers who provide services to the former.