Gonder for New Albany At-Large

From the Request Line

2012-01-13T19:25:00.000-05:00

Here's something you don't hear every day.

Well, At Least He Had a Photo ID

2011-12-22T19:28:00.009-05:00

Finally, the Republican campaign to ferret out voter fraud in Indiana has struck pay dirt.

After claiming that voter fraud is a potentially huge problem necessitating "poll-tax-lite" in the form of photo IDs backed up by sometimes difficult-to-produce: birth records (the elderly, immigrants), residency records (college students). Then for those with no family available to provide transportation, and for those 85+ year old computer savvies who just wander through the maze of possibilities of the many ways one can exercise his or her Constitutional right to vote by linking here. After clearing all these hurdles and jumping through all these hoops, some may be able to exercise a right they may have fought for in foreign wars, or their fathers may have fought for, or their creator may have endowed to them as inalienable rights as one who sits atop the soil of the United States of America.

And now, finally the net has dragged in a fish. A White fish it seems. A fish named Charlie, to be exact. That fish happens to be the supreme arbiter of election laws in the state of Indiana.

Congratulations to Vop Osili the new and legal Secretary of State for the State of Indiana. He takes that post after a judge rules the Fish Named Charlie ineligible to serve.

CORRECTION & UPDATE

I was incorrect in saying that Vop Osili "takes that post" (Secretary of State).

Although ruled ineligible to hold the position by a judge, White is vowing to stay in office. A recent article is linkied here.

The Little Bridge That Could ('ve)

2011-12-14T08:30:00.005-05:00

The Horseshoe Foundation has offered an incentive of one million dollars to get the Sherman Minton Bridge open earlier. While the community spirit of this organization is well-known and welcome, I can't help but wonder what could have been a better use of this benevolence.

Since the bridge closed in September, what if that noteworthy sum had been committed to a timely reopening of the K & I Bridge? A minor, but vital, link between New Albany and Louisville would have been re-established. Access for cross-river workers may have been eased a tiny bit. Off hour traffic would have been a snap. (Direct travel to the Horseshoe Casino would have been easy, as would the directions--get off the bridge, turn left, stop at the boat.)

But now, as the imminent reopening of the Sherman Minton approaches, the renewed K & I would settle back into a pattern of reduced relevance for workers and gamblers, yet the bridge would remain. We could soon be engaged in a productive discussion of how best to incorporate The Little Bridge That Could've into a soon-to-be-unveiled Greenway and,how best to utilize that structure as a link for bike and pedestrian traffic across the river.

Those primary uses of the bridge would not preclude the use of the bridge as a steam valve to let off some of the congestion caused by a bridge closure in the future. It would also serve as a link to life saving emergency services if another bridge were blocked or closed.

Apparently, the value of having the Shermn Minton open about 25 days earlier is worth about $40,000 per day to the casino. Once the gamblers have replenished the coffers, perhaps the Horseshoe Foundation would see fit to throw about a month's worth of that forty Gs a day toward a revitalized K & I bridge. All the current incentive is buying now is some time, but a renewed K & I would be a real and lasting benefit to the community.

For Love and Bloody Peace

2011-12-07T23:19:00.005-05:00

John Lennon: October 4, 1940 - December 8, 1980

Here and Now

2011-12-07T17:33:00.009-05:00

The euphoria of Black Friday has ebbed now. The business channel, CNBC, was aflutter with breathless comment on the resilience of the American Consumer. The widely reported incident of a crazed shopper, gone mad with the prospect of deals, deals, deals, pepper spraying her way to savings, is now part of Black Friday lore. Perhaps next year we can look forward to more ingenious and devious means to get through the door of a mega-retailer-of-choice sooner than others. Where does one buy a bazooka? And could shrapnel and flying debris possibly damage some objects of desire?

Of more local and immediate concern, we face this Christmas season with the possibility of buying more locally produced items than last year. This is a trend which seems to be building here and across the United States. While the sales figures for Black Friday were large and noteworthy; was the real economic impact felt more by American retail workers, or by the owners of Oriental sweatshops,(many with American nicknames, such as Zenith, Levi's, Apple or Dell), producing electronics, clothing, gadgets, and, in short, most of the goods formerly produced by our fellow citizens? To be sure, the sales of these foreign-made goods dwarfs the locally-produced items. And yet, it is significant that so many entrepreneurs are deciding to stand their ground here and now, and make something here and now, and make something of here and now.

New Albany's entrepreneurial class is more vital and exciting, and more inspiring of hope than in any time in my memory. Recently, an organization eponymously dedicated to promoting New Albany first, came before the City Council and asked for money to get aloft. Although the funding request was postponed, and the group's ascent slowed, I would hope this and other worthwhile efforts pushing localism and entrepreneurialism are not abandoned.

Those engaged in the building of local businesses, especially those selling locally produced goods, are leading a revolution in American business. Inch by inch they are about rebuilding the infrastructure of a vital, functional, and sustainable economy. And, I hope, replacing elements of a failed economy laid low by a philosophy of extraction. The U.S. is seen by global master merchants as a pool of insatiable buying power, to be exploited for its ability to soak up ever more foreign-made goods, cheap on the shelf, but rich in profit to low-wage foreign producers. Since 2011 wages in the U.S. have fallen to a level lower, in real terms, than those of 1974, the so-called American Consumer is forced to graze in the fields of cheap foreign-made products because that is all many of us can afford.

New Albany owes much to those who are actively engaged in reshaping our local economy through the local production of goods, and to those independently offering goods and services, such businesses build a strong foundation for our economy. We owe it to them to support their efforts and to help those who would promote their efforts. The Kia girl on TV talks of the "new economy". The new economy is local, and in that direction lies the new prosperity. It's not just about the money.

Drive On

2011-11-11T00:38:00.004-05:00

Johnny Cash took the phrase "drive on" from reading he had done about the war in Vietnam. He said the phrase was spoken, sometimes in agony, by soldiers wounded in battle who would minimize the severity of their wounds, in the hope of saving their buddies from injury, and tell the unhurt ones to watch out for their own safety, to just "drive on".

Election 2011

2011-11-09T00:53:00.002-05:00

Thanks to all who voted for me. I'm gratified and humbled by the support I received.

I'm spent for today but I'll be back soon with more thoughts on how I hope we can work for a better city.

I'm always open to your thoughts and concerns, and hope to hear from you.

Nudge List--Points to Local Business

2011-11-06T08:56:00.004-05:00

The post to which this refers was originally written on September 20, 2011. It lists a number of goals I want to nudge the next mayor into pursuing. This focuses on one of those. The original can be viewed by scrolling down to September 20, 2011.

As the campaign comes to a close, I see that I will not get through the Nudge List drawn up in September, by November 8. Here's one that will make it before the deadline: Point system for local producers and vendors.

The notion of a point system to favor local producers and vendors is one of the easiest steps we can take to revive and strengthen the local economy. As is no surprise, local governmment is a large buyer of goods and services. It is foolhardy to simply take the lowest price for such purchases without considering the multiplier effect those purchases can have on the local economy. In fairness to those who purchase goods and services for the City, many of those purchases are made through local producers and vendors.

However, I recall vividly an incident which occurred shortly before I joined the City Council. The proprietor of the dive shop on State Street had been bypassed when the fire department needed the type of equipment he sells. Someone from the fire department called and got prices from the shop, but didn't identify themself as being from the fire department. Maybe if the fireman had identified himself as a fireman, he would have been offered special pricing. Apparently he didn't do so, and so the business was given somewhere in Louisville and a tiny bit of money leaked out of our local economy.

That may not be a particularly on-point example of how the local economy is disadvantaged through governmental purchasing misses, but we can still do better in structuring a framework that bouys local producers and vendors.

Local shops, producers, and vendors are the heart of our local econnomy. The new mayor should pursue a policy of awarding prefence points to these businesses. I have obtained prices from large national retailers that are as low or lower than the local retailer pays at the wholesale level. That type of pricing makes it difficult to sustain the elements of a local economy against such stiff (possibly predatory) pricing power.

The rationale, and value, of establishing a formula or framework to give locals a preferred position is that, because of past experiences, some local vendors may have given up on participating in government sales. Some may recognize that their wholesale price would not be competitive in a one-on-one matchup with a national chain, so they don't even try to sell to local government. But local government has an obligation to take the extra steps to ensure that local businesses are favored over national chains, if the product or service meets the city's needs.

One method could be a point system by which locally-produced goods - or items produced elsewhere but sold by local vendors - have a rating to put them on a more even level. Back to the dive shop example. Perhaps the equipment needed was available for $2,500 in Louisville but the local vendor needed $2,800 to cover his costs and make a profit. Using a point system formula that would give a slight advantage to the local vendor could have put his equipment just a few dollars away from the Louisville price. The dive shop owner could then have taken advantage of the incentive and come off his price slightly to win the business - and possibly a longer term relationship. He is a winner in this situation, but so are the citizens of New Albany who benefit from a prosperous local economy, which builds a vital functional, and sustainable city able to attract and maintain other local businesses.

I hope the Mayor is on board with this concept and is willing to work with the Council to make it happen. I'll be nudging him to do so if I'm fortunate enough to win another term on Tuesday.

Hat Trick on the Nudge List

2011-10-30T19:41:00.007-04:00

The post to which this refers was originally was written on September 20, 2011. It lists a number of goals I want to nudge the next mayor into pursuing. This focuses on three of those. The original can be viewed by scrolling down to September 20, 2011.

On one of the first cool Saturdays of fall we walked to the farmer's market from our house on Captain Frank Road. On the way to the market we walked along State Street after turning from Captain Frank. The return trip was State to Cherry, then through the graveyard on West Street.

Of striking note was the high number of vacant houses on Cherry Street. Cherry is a relatively short street of something less than a full mile. In that short stretch, we counted six or seven vacant houses, comprising as much as one third of the entire street's houses. Some were in poor condition, most were simply vacant.

At the intersection of Cherry and State Streets is a ponding area for the inconvenient, and seasonal, collection of excessive rain. It also claims the hosting of a billboard as one of its purposes. This forlorn acreage, though highly visible from one of our main thoroughfares, State Street, is usually in an unkempt state of overgrowth and seeming abandonment. It is bounded by State Street, Cherry Street, PC Building Materials, and Falling Run Creek.

A missing line on the list of amenities to be found in New Albany is a dog park. Such a place allows citizens with dogs the privilege of exercising their pets off-leash in a protected, confined, and legal, area. Louisville has several such parks, and they are provided in many cities across the U.S.. For people with dogs nothing compares with the reward your pet realizes from an unfettered run to burn off energy and get the exercise he needs.

One boundary of the ponding area is Falling Run Creek. This stream runs through much of New Albany, but makes one of its most impressive showings as it passes near and through the downtown.

That these three features and challenges come together near the intersection of State and Cherry Streets allows this area to become a transformational neighborhood in New Albany's revival. That is why a strong case can be made to focus the next Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) on Cherry Street. While this street is vulnerable to the same real estate troubles affecting other parts of the city, it is extremely well positioned to come out of that downward spiral if the proper combination of attention and money are deployed on its behalf. If such attention is not paid to this area I fear it could reach a tipping point from which it may not recover. And yet, because Cherry Street is short,and strategically located it is a feasible candidate for a new NSP strategy.

Pursuing a dog park at the intersection would remove a blighted, neglected area and replace it with a welcome amenity for only a small up-front expense. All that is needed is the installation of a fence along the perimeter and another fence within to separate small dogs from large ones. The space even has a serviceable road in place which can be brought up to usable condition with a few loads of gravel. The ongoing expense of maintaining the park should be offset with a nominal user/membership fee collected from those who wish to exercise their pets there.

Once the ponding area finds new life as a dog park, it will naturally open up the area to Falling Run Creek, which acts as the southern border of the proposed park. This stream could then be reclaimed for our citizenry as a narrow park dissecting much of the city. This park could be a walking/jogging/biking path through large areas of the city. The advantages of this park would be primarily realized by those who avail themselves of a convenient, low-traffic path for exercise and destinational biking and walking. But, Falling Run is also a critical element of storm water drainage, and renewed access to, and use of, the stream would naturally lead to keeping it cleaner for this important task.

Few areas of the city offer the prospect of turning so quickly from a position of peril to a position of desirability. Cherry Street straddles the downtown area while also offering easy access to the major commercial area of State Street near I-265. The housing stock is varied in size and style. Vacant houses appear to be in decent shape and could be made more appealing to buyers.

I hope to be in a position to help the next mayor see the need and value of focusing on Cherry Street, with its dog park along Falling Run.

Nudge List--Brick Streets

2011-10-18T07:43:00.006-04:00

Below are a couple of posts which appeared here earlier addressing the uncovering of brick streets.

While this may seem retrograde, I think of it as something we can do now which has at least a dual benefit. One benefit is saving money on paving. Another, if done properly, is using this hidden asset to highlight and define historic areas of the city. Actually, it should have more benefits than just these two, but we'll never know if we don't try. Alleys, which I didn't focus on in the two links, might be an easier place to start; they are in generally worse shape than streets, and they don't seem to have as many utility patches.

Hit the Bricks

Whetting Your Appetite

Got Milk?

2011-10-11T23:45:00.003-04:00

I had occasion to be near Sixth and Jefferson Streets yesterday. This is one venue of the Louisville version of Occupy Wall Street.

I stopped by to see if anything was happening. A crowd of around 20-30 people were milling around some picnic tables, and some of these people were engaged in a General Assembly in which decisions about policy are made in an open forum. I was not close enough to hear what the particular issue was, and I was only catching the tail end of the process.

I did hear one man say he wanted to discuss Christopher Columbus, at which time I left to feed the parking meter. When I returned, he was, in fact, conducting a discussion about Columbus and the ill-effects his "discovery" had on the inhabitants of the New World.

While driving to Louisville I heard on the radio dismissive talk of the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon, primarily in New York, but a few other cities were singled out for criticism. The common refrain was "what do these people want?" The idea being that this protest or gathering is delegitimized because it has not produced a coherent manifesto of its purpose and intentions. It has not even endorsed a presidential campaign yet. And I feel fairly certain it has not lined up corporate sponsorships with any companies engaged in the sale of camping gear.

That criticism is unfair.

This movement is kind of like a cake being baked. At the moment the ingredients are being laid out on the table. Since it is being baked by loose knit "committees", some want chocolate, some want lemon, some want nuts, it is entirely too early to pass judgment on the cake's eventual value to and acceptance by the political diners who will behold it when it emerges from the oven.

Personally, I'm intrigued by the process. I am hopeful for meaningful results. (I'd like to see public financing of elections, the abandonment of the legal fiction of corporate personhood, a return to meaningful financial rules including the Glass Steagall Act, and a fair apportionment of tax burdens--that will do for starters)
And, I am grateful for the trouble these patriotic people are taking on our nation's behalf.

I anxiously await the cake's removal from the oven, because then it's time for the icing.

"To the Shores of Need, Past the Reefs of Greed, Sail On"

2011-10-04T23:46:00.003-04:00

Nudge List--K & I Bridge

2011-09-23T08:29:00.004-04:00

With the closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge, many have suggested that the K & I Bridge be re-opened to pick up some of the slack left by the main bridge's closing. I am encouraged by correspondence and the resulting conversation with representatives of the Norfolk Southern Railroad, the owners of the K & I.

I have used that bridge often when it was open to the public. I have ridden across it often on a bicycle as well. The latter conveyance provides a particularly exhilarating sensation. Since the deck is made of steel grates one can see through, as one speeds up on a bike, the deck visually disappears, giving the sensation of flying above the river. I digress. The point is, I have a history of riding across that bridge both in cars, buses, and on bikes. And this history has caused me to miss an important point about the bridge's utility as a regular full-service bridge.

When the bridge was open to regular public use the train tracks approached and entered the bridge more or less as a continuation of Vincennes Street, so car traffic ran parallel with the train tracks. As I looked at the bridge yesterday, up close, it dawned on me that the west traffic lane of the bridge is not likely usable because it is now dissected by the railroad tracks. Both days I've gone to look at the bridge, it has had a train parked across that lane. The bridge might be used by the railroad as a kind of staging area where the trains are held until the tracks open up farther down the line. Even if the railroad would quit using the tracks for such a purpose, if indeed that is how they are used, the automobile approach to the west lane of the bridge would require extensive rebuilding and paving.

The paving is an investment I think should be made.We have seen with the closing of the Sherman Minton that the city and the region is negatively affected by disruptions to bridge traffic. It just makes sense to have a backup.

The most encouraging discussion with railroad officials relative to our current situation revolved around using the bridge for ambulances and medical personnel. Passage over the bridge would require meeting an on-site railroad worker who would open locked gates. This would address one of the most perilous eventualities of the current bridge closing. I am hopeful the Norfolk Southern will make its determination quickly on this matter.

The other encouraging thing to come out of the discussion is the apparent willingness to look at further use of the bridge after the current mess is sorted out. Many have longed to have the bridge open as a link between Louisville's River Walk and Southern Indiana's Greenway. I am more confident now that the small steps we make during the current situation can lead to wider use of the K & I in the future. Since the bridge is a private structure it will be up to City officials to work with Norfolk Southern personnel to work out a plan for pedestrian/bike use of the bridge, and also to put in place a permanent plan for emergency use even after the current problem with the Sherman Minton is solved.

Nudge List- Intro.

2011-09-20T22:13:00.004-04:00

As one who came of age before Blackberries,iphones and computers. And as one who would not claim getting and staying organized as among his better traits, I confess to being one who writes notes to himself: on envelopes,napkins, newspapers, coffee cups, business cards. In short, I scribble notes to myself on any available paper surface in order to remember what I want or need to remember. Unfortunately, I often don't remember where I've put the scraps on which I wrote the notes to myself.

So here is a list, gleaned from notepads, cigar boxes, and glove compartments, of things I'd like to see happen in New Albany if I'm elected to a second term. That is to say, these are things I would like to help bring to fruition. Most of these issues are not fully within my or any other council member's ability to bring about. They primarily fall within the ambit of the Mayor. He could pick up some of these ideas and run with them. The next mayor has a list of projects and priorities that he will want to pursue. Whether any of my plans are to be found on any of the mayoral candidates' lists I can't say.

I'm not referring to this as a list of campaign promises. I hope it is more than a wish list. I think of it more as a nudge list. Some of these are things I will be introducing on my own, but more likely I will be nudging the Mayor to see the value of these plans, projects or dreams, and to offer my help from the Council to make them reality. A common characteristic of most of these bullet points is that they are not, for the most part, expensive undertakings. Rather, they are quality-of-life projects that can be put into practice on a relative shoestring. Another common thread -- they tend to capitalize on the investments our forebears have already made for us.

If we learn nothing else from the closing of the Sherman Minton bridge, we should recognize that saving money is fine, getting by on less is sometimes necessary, but our physical civic infrastructure, sometimes referred to as The Commons, requires attention. In times past, people recognized this and accepted upkeep of The Commons as society's cost of doing business. We must be about that business again, and many of these ideas, I think, are ways we can do that right here in New Albany. These are ways we can make what we have better, and make our city more liveable, functional and prosperous.

All I'm writing here now is the list of notes I've made. From now through the election I'll explain what I mean about them and why I think they're important.

In no particular order:

Shirt Factory Incubator
Improved Web Site for Our City
Dog Park
Community Gardens
Take Advantage of Falling Run Creek
Challenge Zones--Incentives for Re-Developers
K & I Bridge, City Pays Insurance to Allow Bridge to Open
Continued Progress on Code Enforcement
Cherry Street Project, NSP
Sidewalks Where None Exist
Explore Feasibility of Form-Based Codes
Expansion of Farmers' Market
Stronger Ties to I.U.S.
Proper Structure and Balance in City-County Agreements
Expose Brick Streets
Expanded Use of Courts to Aid Code Enforcement
What Follows EMC?
Continued Progress on Revitalization Downtown and on Charlestown Road
Point System to Weight Purchasing Decisions in Favor of Local Producers/Sellers

While this list may seem long, it isn't complete. I haven't even checked the pockets of the coats I put away last spring.

Non-news Sounds From September 11, 2001

2011-09-11T17:50:00.003-04:00

This song was in my car CD player on September 11, 2001. I had played it along with the rest of the album frequently in the days or weeks leading up to the attack. I played it several times that day. Whether it picked up an association at that time or whether it had grooved into my brain prior to the event, it is evocative for me of that day.

You Can't Get There From Here. Or, Can You?

2011-09-10T22:59:00.003-04:00

The emergency closing of the Sherman Minton bridge needs to be addressed with adroitness. Newspaper accounts put the daily traffic flow across that span at upwards of 70,000 vehicles a day. The ability of the two remaining car bridges, the Kennedy Bridge and the Clark Memorial Bridge, are woefully inadequate to handle the sudden increase in traffic which they will face for the duration of the closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge.

Some have called for reliance on car pools,staggered shifts, and flexible work hours to meet the challenge. This wake up call underscores the foolishness of ignoring maintenance. It points out at the local level the compromised status of our infrastructure. It should represent a true national challenge, something like the "Sputnik moment" of the late fifties. It should force us to question the sense of putting all the eggs of our transportation system in the single basket of personal automobile commuting.

It should, and it could, but it probably won't. And it certainly won't by Monday morning when some kind of "geddon" will await those damned to make the trip by car to Louisville and back to meet the requirements of their jobs.

So here's a modest, perhaps counter intuitive, proposal of how we might muddle through this "cartastrophe" in the coming weeks.

Close the Clark Memorial Bridge to personal vehicles. Allow that span to carry only buses and emergency vehicles on the traffic lanes. Pedestrians and cyclists could use the sidewalks. It will do commuters little good to jump on a bus which will be stuck in barely moving traffic. There will be little incentive for car drivers to leave their cars parked if there is no expedited way of crossing the river. If buses are given free flow through designated streets and a green light at the Clark Bridge, I think those who see the buses rolling as the car bound sit mired in traffic may quickly decide that, at least during this particularly trying period, it would be wise to rely on mass transit.

It would be up to transportation experts to figure out how neophyte bus riders can be directed to their destinations once they've successfully crossed the river and de-bused at Union Station or some other central point. The first and biggest obstacle will be the bridge crossing itself.

The need to provide for easy cross-river travel of emergency vehicles is simply obvious on its face.

Once normalcy returns to daily traffic patterns it will be up to us as a community to recognize the vulnerability of our transportation non-system and proceed with a reasoned discussion of Twenty First Century alternatives. The alarm has sounded. Will there be sufficient will to meet the challenges and prepare for a better future?

President Obama, It's Not as if You Have to Reinvent the Wheel

2011-09-03T19:14:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, President Obama, for reasons known only to him, continued his march to Appeasamattox, as he threw the regulation of smog overboard. Frankly, it's getting tiresome and indefensible.

The President could learn something from one of his great predecessors...

Morons Inc.

2011-08-13T00:20:00.011-04:00

As most people know by now, Willard "Mitt" Romney thinks corporations are people. He has some legal precedence for that view, regardless of how distasteful the notion is to us mortals who also happen to share the appellation. If personhood for immortal business arrangements rankles you a bit, here's a link to challenge the concept.

Romney's fellow Republican notable, Kentucky senator Rand Paul, tweaks the construction just a bit to say that, "people are corporations." The Republican tendency of proffering corporate welfare to large defense contractors will work under the Romney view, in fact making him a veritable 21st century FDR. The Paulian interpretation is a bit more of a problem. If people are corporations, then it follows, the Tea leaves would not favor giving welfare to corporations.

In a society/polity which contemplates and tolerates such nonsense, it would be well to contemplate other deep theoretical issues. At least these fellows below had science and logic on their side.

Of Demagogues and Demigods; Of Charlatans, and Sheep

2011-07-26T18:50:00.006-04:00

Just ahead lies the abyss, we are told. We are offered a way back, a hand to guide us away. We must seek out the foul perpetrator of our current malaise. We must pursue him into the grave, exhume him, repudiate him and abandon that which he set in place as he saved Capitalism from devouring itself. The demagogues of the right, he of the fat head, and his disciples, wish that the noble Roosevelt (at this point either one suffices as an enemy of the right) arise, renounce his egalitarian deeds and expunge them from the national consciousness before retreating to his grave. The odious Limbaugh says, "Roosevelt is dead. His policies may live on, but we're in the process of doing something about that as well."

Yes, we're doing something about his policies. If we follow the radical elements of the Republican Party, a.k.a. Teabaggers,we'll be desiccating the fields that allowed a social safety net to be woven, a net which protects us from the inevitable vicissitudes of life, which, sans Social Security and Medicare, would now include the market-borne ravages of old age, infirmity, and poverty: a shrinking middle class, diminished educational opportunities and a general de-lustering of the "American Dream" . We're throwing American jobs overboard with both hands as we seek to enrich "shareholder value" by freezing costs through near-slave wages overseas while letting profits rise here. The sky's the limit on profit when the cost of labor is debased to Chinese, Vietnamese, Singaporean levels, but the sale price here is what the market will bear.

Goods manufactured in low wage countries are often of inferior quality. A cynic may propose that reservations to buy such schlock may be overcome if the wages of Americans, the top of the class in the consumer universe, are retarded by union busting, fear, and further job propulsion away from our shores. Then shoppers are forced to buy as cheap as it comes, because that's all they can afford. All according to plan in a society where the bar is always lowered for the poor and middle class as the sights of corporate movers and shakers are always raised.

Again to the precipice. We face a crisis. Obama has ruined the country. We should never have allowed such as him to occupy the White House. Yet wasn't this man dealt a royal flush of woes? His predecessor inherited a surplus. Obama is handed the wheel by the drunken teenager who has steered the car toward a cliff; each wheel looser than when he pulled the car out of the driveway. The first thing to do when the surplus was booked was to excuse those who paid taxes during the boom years--strike one against fiscal sanity. The second thing was to chase a phantom into the quagmire of war with all such expenditures "off the books"--strike two against fiscal sanity. He also added corporate apologists to the Supreme Court, who have upheld business interests over citizens' interest and rights. One of the most egregious and long-reaching is the Citizens United case which bestows rights upon corporations that are super-human, and for which mere human powers are no equal--strike three. You're out. Next batter. Oh yeah, bottom of the ninth, you're down 14 trillion to 0.

Within the confines of the asylum, Cheney asserted that,Reagan proved "deficits don't matter." Ask Eric Cantor if that view still holds sway. Obama addressed the peculiar book keeping tricks which kept Bush's wars "off the books", so now he is saddled with the responsibility of being a responsible executive, wishing the bills weren't there doesn't mean they aren't due.

As the country, thanks to illegal, orgiastic behavior by the country's bankers, sank into something which smelled a bit like a depression, steps were taken to save one of the largest, if not the largest, manufacturing components of the U.S. economy, the auto industry. In retrospect the Teabaggers say it should have been allowed to fail. That element of the Republican Party truly has a death wish. And it's not a wish directed at itself, it is, rather, directed at the middle class, by depriving those slackers of: universal education, publicly-funded health care, a decent job with rising expectations for workers and their families, clean air and water, reasonable protection against usurious banking practices, and a world whose priorities are not driven by fear.

The greatest mystery to me as that the Tea Party and its devoteas are, by and large, members of the very class they are working to undermine. They see nothing wrong with being led by the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, Limbaugh/Beck et.al.,Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News as those thugs seek to build a society in which the rich get richer and the devil take the hindmost.

Are There Evil People in the World? Are There Evil Fanatics?

2011-06-26T21:14:00.004-04:00

YES....The answer is given in today's New York Times.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents tricked an 8-year-old girl in a remote area of central Afghanistan into carrying a bomb wrapped in cloth that they detonated remotely when she was close to a police vehicle, the Afghan authorities said Sunday.

Related
Car Bomb Blast at Afghan Hospital Kills at Least 20 (June 26, 2011) Only the girl was killed in the blast, which occurred Sunday morning in the village of Uwshi in the Char Chino District, said Fazal Ahmad Shirzad, the police chief of Oruzgan Province.

Mr. Shirzad said he believed the girl was unaware that the bag she had been given by Taliban insurgents held a bomb. Her body was “taken to a nearby security check post, and the police called her relatives,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Logar Province in southeastern Afghanistan, the death toll rose to 37 after a bombing on Saturday at a small-town hospital, said Dr. Mohammed Zarif Naibkhail, the director of public health for the province. He said that at least 53 people had been wounded.

But, he said, the actual number of casualties was probably much higher. “Local villagers rushed to the hospital right after the explosion and took the bodies of their relatives to their own villages,” he said.

In other parts of the country, four NATO soldiers were killed. Two of them were Spanish soldiers who died when an improvised explosive device detonated in Badghis Province in western Afghanistan, the Spanish Defense Ministry said. The other two soldiers died in separate episodes in southern and eastern Afghanistan, according to a NATO statement.

Afghan radio stations also reported that rocket fire from Pakistan over the last week had led President Hamid Karzai to register a former complaint with the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, at a regional terrorism meeting in Iran on Saturday. Mr. Zardari promised to investigate, said Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omar.

The unexplained rocket fire will be a topic of discussion when senior government figures from the two countries meet this week, Mr. Omar said. The Afghan National Security Council discussed the matter on Sunday.

According to Mr. Omar, President Zardari and the Pakistani Interior Ministry said the rockets, which hit Kunar and Nangarhar Provinces, were not fired by the Pakistani Army.

Mr. Omar said 470 rockets had been fired, killing at least 18 people and wounding 17. Since Pakistan’s tribal areas border eastern Afghanistan and are largely outside the Pakistani government’s control, it is possible that insurgent groups are responsible. But some Pakistani insurgents have set up bases in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Pakistan, raising the possibility that the rockets may have been fired by the Pakistani security forces.

“We want this resolved peacefully,” Mr. Omar said. He added that if the Pakistani government was not responsible, it should say so publicly and find and stop the attackers.

General Mohammed Zahir Azimi said that Afghan military forces were “ready to retaliate” if instructed to do so. A NATO spokesman said coalition officials were not aware of the rocket fire because they did not have troops in the areas where it occurred.

Ray Rivera contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Father's Day 2011

2011-06-18T23:55:00.004-04:00

My father worked at Breece Plywood on Thirteenth Street along the floodwall. He worked there from 1937 until 1969, around the time it closed. His office was parallel to the railroad tracks, and I used to love going there on those occasions when he had to go in for one reason or another and I happened to be out of school. Sometimes the boiler tender would allow me to sling a few shovels of coal into the massive furnace, or blow the whistle which marked off some noteworthy point in time. Often I would slide a Coke out of the machine which had a serious design flaw that lined up an open cell every so often and left a bottle vulnerable to attentive pilchers.

Although the time I shared with my father at Breece's was mainly in the Sixties, the factory and offices as I saw them could have easily been seen in the same condition four or five decades earlier. It was a place frozen in time.

My father hit his teen years about the time the country hit the skids and fell into The Depression. I recall an event my dad told me of a scene he witnessed through his office window, and though he didn't explicitly say it, I believe the event must have taken him back to his own childhood in those cold days of austere deprivation. He saw two children about eight or ten years old walking down the railroad tracks. These were neighborhood kids, he figured, since he had seen them walking the tracks from time to time. He began to notice they would carry between them a bushel basket and every once in a while they would bend and place something in the basket. After a couple days of this he walked out to ask them what they were doing and they said they were picking up coal, which had fallen from the passing rail cars so they could keep their house heated. He asked around the plant who the kids were, and somebody knew them. He called the coal company and had several tons of coal delivered to the address. They probably never knew how it happened, but at least for that winter they knew warmth.

Thanks to my dad for that lesson. Now, on his tombstone are the words, "what you have done to least of my brothers you have done to me." He was a good man, and I miss him.

For What It's Worth

2011-06-15T21:52:00.018-04:00

As time draws near for the City Council's consideration of the River View plan, here's where I stand. I'd like to lay out a much more reasoned, lengthy explication of my position, but the sand has fallen through the glass.

I expect to vote for the inclusion of the River View project into the T.I.F. district, which is the only vote before the Council now. That district will include the shelved project by Holliday and Goodman.

The ball will then be in the court of the entity referred to as Mainland Properties. That entity will need to convince banks that it can sell unfinished condo space in a soft market at the rate of $257.14 per square foot. Incidentally, the penthouse unit priced at $1.26 million is parsed out at $260 per square foot. For my money, I'm springing the extra three bucks to get whatever constitutes a finished product.

At the depth of the current recession in mid-2009 the price per square foot for houses in New Albany was $78 per square foot. By May 2011 it had rocketed to $82 per square foot. LINK HERE

I believe in the renaissance of downtown New Albany. I believe in order to keep that renaissance rolling we must think big. I believe we, in the seats of decision makers, in this time, must insist that what we do today is prudent and beneficial not only to ourselves and our contemporaries but to our descendants generations beyond the horizon.

Please consider the inventory of available land opening on to our river heritage, our river view, and decide if this is the best opportunity, if this is the best time to extract that parcel of land from the commons of the citizens of New Albany, present and future, and place it into private, for-profit hands.

Please consider the vital role that the citizens of New Albany must play in determining the current and future use of this critical piece of land in the city's heart. And consider that you must step forward to help the City make the right decision.

Many have weighed in, both for and against the project. Think about those in the unbelievable year of 2213--our Quadracentennial-- who will look back at what we have done today. Will it have been right? Will have stood the test of time? Was it a wise move? Was it a quick grab for fleeting gain?

If the citizens of New Albany decide to move forward with this project, in recognition of the momentous decision before us, I believe it is reasonable to ask the developers to hold a design competition to maximize the civic value of this piece of ground. Sure, this is New Albany, Indiana, in the broad view, the epitome of no place special, but it is a place ready to make a community commitment of $12 million to back up a private commitment of $40 plus million in a fervent attempt to save its downtown, its heritage.

If New Albany steps up to the plate, will Mainland Properties follow?

Considering River View

2011-05-15T12:54:00.005-04:00

An editorial in today's Tribune (link here) endorsed the River View project for New Albany's financial salvation. It likens the decision we face to that faced several years back in giving thumbs up to the YMCA. The Tribune may be correct in its opinion.

But in the Courier-Journal we read these words from Wendell Berry addressing a different issue, but hitting some of the same points we must consider in deciding if River View is the best view...

"For humans, local adaptation is not work for a few financiers and a few intellectual and political hotshots. This is work for everybody, requiring everybody's intelligence. It is work inherently democratic.
What must we do?" (link to Berry's complete piece)

Berry's piece is, as usual and expected, instructive on many levels. The River View project is not likely to directly affect our agricultural vulnerabilities. Downtown property is not at a decision point of whether to go toward community gardens or toward commercial/residential use. That decision was made long ago.

But we face a monumental decision of how we forge ahead with the River View project. Our decision in 2011 or 2012 will deal the cards for many generations.

Private profit should not be the determining factor in a decision of this magnitude. When the fate of our downtown is on the line, it is time for a wider airing of the decisions we face as a community.

As Wendell Berry said, "This is work for everybody,...It is work inherently democratic."

Open the doors, and let the sun shine in.

Lift Up Your Hearts

2011-05-08T00:54:00.001-04:00

Thank You

2011-05-04T20:32:00.002-04:00

Thank you to those who voted for me; you know who you are.

And, thanks to all those who came out and voted, period.

It is a sad commentary on our collective interest in self-government that so few make the effort to participate in our democracy.

Although it's been said before, those who step forward to run for office deserve deserve commendation.

As one who had uncomfortable competition in the race, I truly believe that such competition was not unwelcome. There may come a day for me when the discomfort will be underlined by my being pushed out the door. If that time arrives I hope to reflect not on the loss, but the privilege I had to serve my hometown in its pursuit of progress.

I look forward to the general election with the confidence that the City will be in good hands so long as caring, committed people run for office, and of equal importance, so long as caring, committed non-office holders stay engaged in the pursuit of progress.

Primary Thoughts

2011-05-02T18:35:00.003-04:00

A couple months ago I was listening to Travel With Rick Steves on WFPL, he was interviewing Jeff Greenwald about his book "Snake Lake". The book recounts episodes of Greenwald's many travels to Nepal. It was a highly interesting program.

At one point the host asked the question, "do the Nepalese operate from a philosophy of scarcity or a philosophy of abundance?"

That, I think, is one of the essential questions of governance in our time. Since I was then early in the campaign for re-election to the City Council I applied that question to my situation.

Is New Albany operating from a position of scarcity, or abundance? For any who follow local politics, the answer seems all too obvious. We are firmly in the scarcity camp. Too often decisions have about them the sense of a zero-sum-game in which if you win, I lose.

On the other hand we could approach civic relations from a philosophy of abundance in which when more people win, more people win, and I might be one of them; and if I'm not, I will still inhabit a better city.

Scarcity is not simply a lack of material things.And abundance is not a scorecard where one tallies possessions to measure relative better-offness.

Much of scarcity is self-centered penury, and some of it is fear. Fear of what? Fear that if you win I lose, and there we go again. But fear is also used as a weapon to diminish our capacity to think the future can be better. We can not strive for a better tomorrow because we must hunker down and protect what we have. With scarce thinking we behold a bleak horizon.

Abundance is a sense that much awaits us even if not much is with us now. It is a sense that we can build a better tomorrow. We can build it through a wealth of committed individuals who make up a caring community. We can build it with a vision of abundance, a long horizon, for those who follow us. Those who preceded us must have had a sense of abundance long ago or they would not have built what has lasted until today.

From time to time throughout this campaign I have used the phrase "civic compact" to label what it is I think should inform government service at any level. What I mean by that phrase is simply an intergenerational promise to make this small plot of the Earth rational, functional, pleasant, and sustainable. I believe those are key components of abundance.

I had intended to write more on this topic, but time is scarce.

EMC Loses Part of Sewer Contract

2011-04-29T23:04:00.003-04:00

Mayor England sent out a press release this afternoon confirming what had been expected, that the private company which manages the New Albany sewer system will relinquish some of its contract resulting in the annual saving of $700,000.

The amount of the contract sacrificed, costs the City about $1,700,000 annually. Of that amount, a significant portion is a "management fee". According to the press release, this will "allow in excess of $1 million to be directed to improving the collection system."

The improvement of the collection system refers to an in-place re-lining process designed to eliminate inflow and infiltration. It is this undermining of the system by the infusion of groundwater into broken and deteriorated pipes that overwhelms the system during heavy rains, resulting in illegal discharges into the river. These discharges caused fines to be levied against the utility by the EPA, and they are the reason New Albany's sewer system is subject to a consent decree with the EPA to clean up the overflow problem.

The re-lining will now be done by employees of the New Albany sewer utility, and paid directly by the utility. The elimination of a private, for-profit management company puts New Albany in a better position to control its own fate and to keep the money spent on this process in the local economy.

Perhaps EMC was a necessary bridge to a point of stability in the management of the sewer utility. But now that the contract has been abridged to allow the Sewer Board its rightful place in managing the utility, we might take from this excercise in public/private partnerships, the lesson that cities need not always be run like a business.

Running cities openly and for the benefit of the citizens is not easy but it is the business of government, and government is a not-for-profit enterprise.

A Fork in the Road

2011-04-25T06:12:00.009-04:00

The River View project has taken a seat for the moment. Signs point to a slower closer consideration of the project. Consensus seems to be that the project is good from at least one angle: people are thinking big about downtown New Albany and, likewise, thinking big about housing downtown.

One of the concepts placed on the table for discussion is a "public-private partnership". This term, for such a relatively new concept, seems to be fast becoming not just a way to avoid the messy details of public projects, such as tax-based funding, but also a somewhat inaccurate cliche. The very willingness of a private developer to step forward with an idea seems to place the onus of acceptance at the feet of the citizens, who are then hectored for ingratitude if they balk at the generosity proffered by the developer.

To me, the most appealing feature of the River View plan is its river view. (As mentioned previously, that was the prime motivation behind Gonder Platz.) The design of the condos is prosaic and seems out of scale--but that is a personal and subjective take on it.

For the discussion to have carried forward to the point where slicing into the flood wall is seen as at least on the table, suggests that the City has bought into the cut, at least conceptually. That's great. And if that is the extent of the "public" side of the "public-private" partnership, I'm fine with it.

And therein lies the problem. I don't like the condos. I like the cut in the flood wall. I don't like the scale. I think this. I think that. I did run for office and I do have a vote on this issue. But I can't see the future, and I can't see if what we do today on this unbelievably significant investment for the City's present and future generations is the best course to pursue. Something this monumental, and of this lasting, directional change for New Albany calls for all hands on the wheel.

With the River View project we have a chance to democratize the concept of a "public-private partnership". This democratization, if pursued, would have a direct effect on New Albany's relationship to the river in the immediate case. But, significantly, and lastingly, it could affect our future and our ability to adapt more smartly to it.

Perhaps the best method of democratizing this project and, indeed, the entire process of building a modern, adaptable, environmentally responsible city for now and the future is found in the Smart Growth tenet of Form Based Codes. Here are a couple links to Form Based Code information: Link one and Link 2 .

New Albany is at a fork in the road now. We've been at the fork of other roads before. At one such point we chose to demolish a beautiful and significant structure in our downtown--the Post Office at Pearl and Spring Streets. Through a series of forks in roads we whittled away much of what had made our city something special, and instead opted for sprawling away from our community.

But the River View project is different. It can reorder this City for many, many generations. It can reunite us with the Ohio River, or it can put in place a multi-story ghost town which would act as a pall on future downtown revival. It is a major fork in the road. Joe Biden might call it, "A big forkin deal." And he would be right.

The fork is not whether to go forward with Bobo Platz and River View, or whether to turn down the plan. The BFD is, do we involve the citizens of this community in an inter-generationally defining project, or do we kick it around the Plan Commission and the City Council and come up with something "that we can live with"? A Form Based Code gets the community involved in defining how our City will develop both literally and figuratively.

As the primary campaign winds down, I pledge now, if I am given a second term,to do all that I can to push this city toward a full exploration of a Form Based Code. It may not be the answer to all our planning issues. It may be unworkable here for one reason or another. Or, it may be what lies down one direction of that fork in the road, the direction that leads us sensibly and responsibly into the still-new century.

Even though New Albany does not now operate under a form based code, the overlay of those concepts on the River View project would be a good and sensible way to proceed with that project. Community meetings, called charettes, are a hallmark of form based codes, and it is in these democratic meetings where the citizens can chart the course for their City by saying how they want new to fit in with old.

River View is too important a decision to not include as much community thought as possible.

Tell Me About It, Tom

2011-04-23T21:18:00.001-04:00

Earth Day 2011

2011-04-22T08:07:00.001-04:00

River View, Look Again

2011-04-14T23:23:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I recounted the circumstances surrounding the ill-fated project known, only to me, as Gonder Platz. That was intended as simply a preface to a more critical look at the River View project. I will lay out my thoughts on it here. Such an excercise may have little sway upon the reader or value, or even readers. It is more an attempt on my part, to get some thoughts on this once-in-a-lifetime project down in writing.

I am neither a proponent nor an opponent of the project.

I am a proponent of a more densely populated New Albany. I am a proponent of a city which thoughtfully and conscientiously uses its paid-for infrastructure to build a more environmentally responsible forward looking city. Such a city can grow responsibly and in such a way that future generations can see a future here, not simply a starting point on the way to there.

New Albany, as cities go, is pretty average for its size. It has little to exploit, little to differentiate it from any of the thousands of similarly situated cities of comparable size around the country. It matters, really, only to us. Under different circumstances, this blog could as easily be called, "Gonder for Des Moines at-Large". But fate places us here, and now. I am interested in starting here, and using our small, comfortable city as a feasible sensibly-sized place to put into practice and experimentation the things millions of people are learning in their own small, comfortable hometowns around the nation and the world. Never before have we been able to communicate so effortlessly. (I heard recently that a fifteen year old with a smart phone has at his fingers more information than was available to the President of the United States just fifteen years ago. True? I don't know, but it seems plausible.) All that communication should help us keep from making the same mistakes that other cities have made.

It is in that spirit that I offer this information from a not-too-cutting-edge form of communication. This is from Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaeser, Copyright Edward Glaeser, Penguin Press, 2011:

Too many officials in troubled cities wrongly imagine that they can lead their city back to its former glories with some massive construction project--a new stadium or light rail system, a convention center, or a housing project. With very few exceptions, no public policy can stem the tidal forces of urban change. We mustn't ignore the needs of the poor people who live in the Rust Belt, but public policy should help poor people, not poor places.

Shiny new real estate may dress up a declining city, but it doesn't solve its underlying problems. The hallmark of declining cities is that they have too much housing and infrastructure relative to the strength of their economies. With all that supply of structure and so little demand, it makes no sense to use public money to build more supply. (emphasis added)The folly of building-centric urban renewal reminds us that cities aren't structures; cities are people.

Again, I am neither a proponent nor an opponent of Bobo Platz, but I have difficulty seeing how this plan recognizes that "cities aren't structures, cities are people."

To be continued...

It Coulda Been a Showplace, Part 1

2011-04-13T22:12:00.006-04:00

The Germans, or at the time the West Germans,were especially devastated by President Kennedy's assassination. Just days after the tragedy in Dallas, they renamed a famous public square after the fallen hero, and commemorated John F. Kennedy Platz.
To my young ear, one unexposed to the German language,it sounded decidedly odd and a bit nefarious: "John F. Kennedy plots to do what?"

Many years later I was day dreaming of how I should deploy my winnings from a particularly large Power Ball pot, $200 million, I think. My active fantasy center provided for me a fully-formed gift to my hometown, along with the prospect of instant, altruistic, immortality.

The double-deck Municipal Parking Garage on the south side of Main Street, between Pearl and State Streets, was perhaps still functional but, and I believe honestly, in a state of "park-at-your-own-risk" decrepitude.

Downtown's current renaissance was still unrealized, yet widely longed-for.

My fantasy plan was to acquire the garage property from the City for very little money, and simply a promise to build something transformational for my hometown.

A plaza would slope gently upwards from Main Street to the top of the flood wall. The concrete plaza would serve as the roof to shops and restaurants built below. People walking down Pearl or the alley next to the South Side Inn would see numerous store fronts at street level. Restaurants could have beer gardens and patios on the plaza. I never noodled out the logistics of tables, chairs, and drivers sharing plaza space with cars. I just knew people like to eat and drink outside and look at the river.

As luck would have it, I had no luck. No luck, no dough. No dough, no go.

Thus was New Albany deprived the beneficence I hoped to deliver it.

Alas,I never built Gonder Platz.

So, here we are years later still, and now the question: whither Bobo Platz?

To be continued...

Robert Kennedy in Indianapolis, April 4, 1968: "We have to make an effort..."

2011-04-04T13:38:00.005-04:00

Imagine such a statesmanlike perfomance from any of the national political figures astride the stage today.

Then consider all that we have lost.

Peace.

Brake or Gas?

2011-03-29T21:15:00.004-04:00

I recently had occasion to spend a lot of time at Baptist East Hospital in Louisville. It is a large hospital on a sprawling campus. While walking about 1/4 mile from my car to the hospital, it hit me that we, the public, the citizens, are asked to make accommodation to the desires of developers, or other profit-centered parties.

Why must a hospital be so large? Is that the best way to deliver quality health care, or is it the most efficient way to maximize profit? Is a sixteen screen megaplex the best venue to showcase movies, or it the best way to squeeze a few more bucks out of a diminished workforce asked to handle theaters on a spoke and wheel system? Is the shopping mall the epitome of choice, or is it a capitulation to developers who wish to reorder society in a way that benefits them while allowing the old, original commerce centers to deteriorate? Does the old deteriorating commerce center hurt the mall developer in any way, or does its deterioration serve to reinforce the decision to move farther out from the sinking ship of trade?

In each of these examples, with which all Americans are familiar, we can see that large developments do, in fact, deliver some benefits, but they do so at quite a cost. The success of these large ventures is built upon a sturdy foundation of costs shifted from the developer, the owner, the schemer, onto the citizens of the host communities. These shifted costs are sometimes referred to as externalities. Externalities are imposed upon the commons, that which we by right of our citizenship or residence own and share in common with our fellow citizens or neighbors--air, water, open land, places or things too big to be hauled in, tied down or titled with the aid of an enviable checkbook.

And when, or before, this cost shift occurs the clarion call is jobs, prosperity, and growth. Such a compelling case is made that few can resist the pull of the grand project. But with each grand project we must try to assess the plans, the schemes, the dreams, against the needs of the entire community. Is a reach for the brass ring an expansion of that which benefits the most citizens, or is it another example of a community forced to dance to the tempting tune of developers whose intentions may be good, but whose plans will cause disruption to slower, smarter growth?

For years now the United States has been enthralled by movement toward the horizon. Without the myth of the limitless horizon, Westerns could never have been made. Here, in our own microcosm, we have been to the horizon, it's just a little ways out State Street in one direction and a about the same out Grant Line and Charlestown Roads in other directions. We need to move toward the horizon alright, but it's a place to search for possibilities to improve what we have. How can we take the infrastructure bequeathed to us and save it, improve it and hand it to those who follow us? The answer is not always the next big thing. It may well be many, many, small, good things we do to improve life in this small city for the greatest number of its citizens.

Joe, Good to Hear From You

2011-03-19T00:03:00.004-04:00

A tip of the hat to Vice President Biden for recognizing the importance of unions to the middle class of this nation.

Further, he recognizes that the Republican strategy of dismantling unions is not simply a path to efficiency in the workplace nor a necessary step toward greater competitiveness, old chestnuts of G.O.P. orthodoxy; it is a frontal assault on the Democratic Party. It is raw, political, bare-knuckle, thuggery.

Today There is no News From the Politburo, But You May Wish to Read Below or Between

2011-03-18T19:00:00.003-04:00

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Class Warfare? You Betcha

2011-03-10T21:12:00.020-05:00

All scenes are from March 10, 2011 at the Capitol in Indianapolis. I heard an estimate of 32,000 in attendance.

I can't figure out the techniques of getting these pictures loaded properly. So, some are duplicates, and my picture should not be at the top of the list. Besides, it was too windy to wear my hairpiece.

Otherwise, it was a powerful show of force by a lot of people whose Man ain't Mitch. Hopefully those who attended are energized and imbued with a fairly long term memory.

Fool me once...

Divide and Conquer

2011-03-06T11:01:00.003-05:00

Below is a video of a visit by filmmaker Michael Moore to the on-going citizens' rights protest in Madison, Wisconsin.

Make no mistake, what happens there will affect us here, for better or for worse.

It is easy to feel that we are constrained by the limitations of our economy. This sea change in the American economy has its roots in the Reagan administration when air traffic controllers were busted out of their union. It continued through the Clinton administration as unbalanced trade agreements shifted American jobs to third world sweat shops. It is felt now as those factories, that used to make goods for domestic consumption shut down in favor of foreign manufacturers, are removed from the tax rolls.

Right wing taxaphobe Grover Norquist famously said, "I don't want to kill government, I want to shrink it to the size we can drown it in a bathtub." This is what it looks like in Norquist's bathtub.

As Lincoln proclaimed, ours is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. By the great man's logic, we are in the bathtub.

It is we who must pull the stopper.

Along the same lines, Jon Stewart shines a brilliant light on the hypocrisy used to divide us from our fellow citizens. Fox News is simply a tool of the radical Republicans, aka teabaggers.

The Daily Show - Crisis in Dairyland - For Richer and Poorer - Teachers and Wall Street
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

These Blind Mice, These Blind Mice, See How They're Spun, See How They're Spun

2011-03-03T22:45:00.007-05:00

I didn't draw the cartoon above,the credit is printed below the drawing. Nor did I make up the joke below; I heard it on the radio and can't attribute it to anyone specifically....

A union worker, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table.
In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it.
The CEO reaches across the table, takes 11 cookies, looks at the Tea
Partier and says:
"Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."

Open Letter to Ed Clere

2011-02-20T21:16:00.005-05:00

After my blood pressure ebbed a bit I sent the following letter to our State Representative, Ed Clere.

I know the man a little and I cannot believe he would be a party (possible pun) to such dangerous, irresponsible nonsense.

I would urge anyone who agrees to let Rep. Clere know how you feel.

Link to story

Dear Rep. Clere:

Regarding S.B. 292, can this possibly be why you chose to enter politics?

I have not seen the so-called logic behind this bizarre capitulation to a lunatic fringe.

Just imagine you are at a cafe in Paris and you read this in the International Herald Tribune. Would you believe it?

Do you want innocent people conducting business in any courthouse, or the workers in those buildings, subjected to the violence which will follow from such wanton pandering.

I will personally sponsor a resolution in the New Albany (your home) Common Council in opposition to this insanity.

And, I further hope that the law, if passed, soon faces a court challenge.

Look for the Union Label

2011-02-19T14:55:00.010-05:00

I recently read about a guy who cries a lot. I believe the article pivoted off a discussion of John Boehner and his tendency to turn on the water works at the drop of a hat or the ribbon cutting at a Jiffy Lube. I'm not really like that, although I am prone to sentimentality. Perhaps I could be in a television show to rival CBS's hit, The Mentalist. My version would be called The Sentimentalist.

I say all that because I must confess that I kind of choke up when I see the commercial below. It is one of a series that was popular long ago in a different land. Leaving aside the obvious stylistic shortcomings in the wardrobe featured in the ad, it plucks my sentimental string because it evokes a time when people had faith in the ability of this nation to support itself and provide for its people. It recalls a time when we could believe that we were all in this together. We worked in different jobs but what one produced depended on what his neighbor produced or sold and so on around the circle.

The people in this ad were not likely "important people" in their communities. They were simply the backbone of the nation. They lived and worked in a time when the truth was still clear that capitalism serves democracy and not the reverse of that.

Come Monday, the Indiana General Assembly will consider action to place our state into the illustrious company of such states as Mississippi and South Carolina in becoming a Right to Work state. Although Mitch Daniels doesn't want the legislation to advance, that stance is for tactical reasons only. It in no way should be seen as the governor's support for his citizens' workplace rights. In rounding up the usual suspects of those who support the bill, look no further than the same group that opposed health care reform; the Indiana Chamber of Commerce supports the legislation. Really, why would the Chamber of Commerce concern itself with workers' rights? It is more concerned with owners' rights.

Me? I'm going to crack open a Union Made Blue Ribbon and watch the I.L.G.W.U. ad one more time. Where's my hanky?

On Wisconsin

2011-02-18T00:34:00.005-05:00

Below is a video of former senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin discussing the current resistance to the tactics of that state's governor, Scott Walker, tactics which must be called union busting.

The same tactics are being used by Republican governors in New Jersey, Wisconsin, Ohio and even Indiana to varying degrees. Our Man Mitch is intent upon routing out teachers' unions to clear the path for his initiative on charter schools.

The assault is not always carried out through union busting. Sometimes it is a consolidation of power into the chief executive or his corporate allies. But the effect and the intent is clear: take power away from those who support Democratic candidates and traditional Democratic party values. Focus on the bogus. Highlight issues such as:

*the protection of marriage,

* the undue influence of unions, which comprise eight to ten per cent of the work force, but a significant share of Democratic boots on the ground in political campaigns,

* the shackles that hobble corporations such as effective environmental regulations,

* debunking climate change as a real threat

* touting the inefficiency of local government as an impediment to running government "like a business".

As the petite Chief Executive, from his camp along the White River, continues his war against his citizens' rights, in pursuit perhaps of higher office, I will not be one of his foot soldiers aiding those efforts. He may in fact succeed at abrogating workers' rights, building a national political agenda and dismantling local government, but he will do it with others' help.

We need to heed the lessons from Wisconsin as that war heats up in our own borders.

Hint of Spring

2011-02-11T07:58:00.001-05:00

Blue Days

2011-02-06T13:01:00.008-05:00

Yesterday my wife and I set out to see the Impressionism exhibit at the Speed Museum. It was a cold, dreary day, and looking at the magnificent outdoor scenes through the softened eyes of Monet and Pissarro seemed a good antidote to winter weather. On the way, we deviated from the direct path to look at the Dead Block Walking of the so-called Iron Quarter along Louisville's Main Street. We both expressed our consternation that a visionless dunderhead should hold the fate of such wonderful structures in his greedy hands. But he was aided and abetted by the newly elected Mayor of Louisville, so what could we do about it other than grouse? So, on to the museum.

While enjoying the paintings, the image of the buildings at the Iron Quarter drifted through my head as I realized that these artifacts on the wall before me, from the late 19th Century, are contemporaneous with many of the built artifacts slated for demolition.

A common theme of many of the paintings, at least to me, is the harmony of man and his environment. Field workers are shown drawing sustenance from the earth in an idealized vision. While right here in River City at the same time the earth's bounty was forged and shaped into structures to help that city grow and prosper. Both the paintings and the buildings are the valuable product of a time when talent, skill and sweat were dedicated not simply to function, but to the outward expression of an inner desire to bring beauty into daily life. Those statements are real and have stood the test of time. Those expressions should be allowed to speak to us today and to our children tomorrow, rather than grace landfills with their erstwhile beauty.

To give Louisville's mayor his due, he has crafted a solution to the impasse over the Iron Quarter which might save the facades of the structures. Such a tepid half measure is equivalent to placing a loved one's bleached skull on the mantelpiece to preserve and recollect "that lovely smile". It truly only reminds us of what we've lost.

While the decision to raze the significant concentration of iron-front buildings in Louisville jeopardizes the city's claim to be the "number two repository of iron facaded buildings in the U.S.", behind only New York, a much larger place, by the way. The razing allows our neighbor's riverfront to make room for more structures like the arena, which from the Clark Bridge to me, seems to resemble nothing so much as an answering machine or perhaps a wireless router.

And what of those who came before, and those who will follow? Do we stand arrogantly in the now to say that we will erase what has been, because we promise something aesthetically superior? Do we lack the skill and the imagination to take what our forebears have left us and keep it well, while building our own for those who follow us? Do we follow the dictates of good stewardship, both historic and environmental? Or, do we simply replace, because that is what we do to shuffle money around?

Gazing at the dreamy scenes hung on museum walls, I was struck by the fact that what we see there is static. It is a beautiful snapshot produced by skilled hands, it represents an impression filtered through what we now might see as a loving eye. While stasis is not possible, nor even desirable, can't we filter what we do today through a more loving eye to enrich tomorrow?

If one wonders what does this have to do with New Albany it is this: while Louisville, owing to its sheer size versus New Albany may have more extant structures of architectural significance, the same forces which treaten architectural treasures in Louisville threaten what we have left in New Albany. In fact, because New Albany has a smaller cache of significant structures and neighborhoods, it is even more important to look upon those buildings and areas with a loving eye.

Painting: Hay Makers Resting by Camile Pissarro

One For the Kids

2011-01-29T22:50:00.001-05:00

A Bridge Too Far

2011-01-20T19:43:00.009-05:00

Stumler says he wants to run an issues-oriented campaign. One of the issues he’s concerned with is the Ohio River Bridges Project. He says he supports current efforts to make the project smaller and less expensive, but thinks they should go further.“

I would kind of like to, say, hold off on the downtown bridge. Maybe redo part of Spaghetti Junction to make it more drivable, less problems,” he says. “I just don’t know if we should burden ourselves with that much money. It probably, for sure, in the future will be needed. But maybe we should build it and pay for it when it’s needed.” (emphasis in both instances added)

--Newly minted Democratic Mayoral Candidate Irv Stumler, as quoted by WFPL's Gabe Bullard at yesterday's coming out party.

______________________________________

Those are welcome words as the imbroglio over the Bridges Project enters a new phase. ALL local governments have spoken against the concept of tolling existing bridges as a means of funding the bloated Two Bridges Plan which occupies center stage in the debate.

The larger question is one which Mr. Stumler's answer suggests, "What is the preferred shape of our regional transportation plan, of our footprint on the regional environment for now and for countless years in the future?"

Tolls are a monetary inconvenience and a threat to today's businesses which hope to thrive in a regional economy. By questioning the very need of a Downtown Bridge, Irv Stumler broadens the debate to look at the environmental impact of a second bridge. Taking tolls off the table is a huge step, but it is only the first step, and a small one at that, in right-sizing this over-inflated boondoggle.

Not only will the Downtown Bridge take a scythe to our neighbor's (Jeffersonville) thriving, though-still-nascent riverfront renaissance (please excuse the alliteration). It will also place us regionally on a path which is at odds with responsible environmental stewardship. To look for other paths, as Mr. Stumler has done, is to glimpse the better way for a 21st Century metropolitan area thirsting for cohesion and its attendant benefits.

If the default position is not obeisance to automobile commuting, it must be something else. And that something else is, hopefully, a modern incarnation of the long lost interurban system which thrived (throve is correct but a tad pedantic) here in the pre-war era. The reason this throwback transportation model is, in fact, forward-looking can be summed up in two words--River Ridge. That goose along the Ohio and Highway 62 is perched upon a nest and ready to lay dozens of golden eggs. Those eggs will best be accessed by rail for freight and while we're at it, why not upgrade to a commuter service which can responsibly and efficiently transport workers to the sprawling facility? Such a model of efficient transportation, rational planning, and environmental responsibility, is one step we can take regionally to differentiate our community from the many other communities also hoping to grow their economy. Mr. Stumler's challenge, as stated in the phrase,"we should go further" claims the high ground in this debate.

I'm not a student of military campaigns, but I think a tenet of that school would be to hold the high ground when once you have occupied it. Thank you, Irv Stumler.

Something related to what Mr. Stumler has done is alluded to in an article by author Bill McKibben. In the article reprinted on Truthout, McKibben talks about the intrinsic value of The Commons, that's what Woody Guthrie referred to when he sang, "This land is your land..."

Irv Stumler's comments about the inappropriate Two Bridge plan came to mind when I read McKibben's words,

These things we share are called commons, which simply means they belong to all of us. Commons can be gifts of nature—such as fresh water, wilderness and the airwaves—or the products of social ingenuity like the Internet, parks, artistic traditions, or the public health service. But today much of our common wealth is under threat from those hungry to ruin it or take it over for selfish, private purposes. (emphasis added)

Stumler rightly sees the threat to the commons which the Two Bridge plan represents. I welcome Irv Stumler into the political arena and wholeheartedly pledge to help him fulfill his pledge to stop the Downtown Bridge.

2011-01-20T19:37:00.003-05:00

A Winter's Tail(feather)

2010-12-25T20:54:00.003-05:00

Upon walking out the porch door to get some firewood this evening I received an amazing Christmas gift. It may not be a grand rarity, but I took some reassurance that this creature had found a way to make peace with our encroachment on its habitat. A Great Horned Owl, or so I've deduced from information on the internets, split the winter night with its eerie call.

So that makes for me, a Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Truly

2010-12-19T14:58:00.001-05:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

March to Keep Fear Alive

Just Outside My Bailiwick

2010-12-08T20:52:00.005-05:00

President Obama has become afflicted with premature capitulation. While his avowed enemies within the ascendant G.O.P. seem intent on a Bush restoration of sorts. The supine executive has agreed to a continuation of the Bush tax cuts, in a deal short on benefits for the middle class, while adding to the mountain of debt the Republicans claim to abhor. That party's abhorrence attends when the debt helps the lower classes, it ends when it helps the upper class.

Since the President made a bad deal, I figure he was simply lacking the perspective of City Council members from cities around the country. As most people recognize, the nation's City Councils are the great repository of deep economic and political theory. So, hearing the call of duty once again, here goes my plan to pull the president's Nusse out of the fire.

I respectfully suggest that someone within the Democratic leadership should offer a proposal containing the following basic elements:

A:

Taxpayers earning below $250,000 will keep 90% of their current tax cut. These taxpayers would lose 10% of their current tax cuts.

The "average" taxpayer, according to the President, would see their taxes increase by $3,000 if the entire tax cut expired, therefore, if they kept 90% of the cut their taxes would increase just $300 (three hundred) per year.

Every penny of this increased tax revenue would be dedicated to deficit or debt reduction.

B:

Taxpayers earning between $250,000 and $1,000,000 would keep 50% of their current tax cuts. A person in this bracket earning $625,000 per year would see their taxes increase by about $11,000 per year. Those fortunate enough to earn a million dollars would see an increase of about $22,500 per year.

Half of the increased revenue from these increased payments would be dedicated to deficit or debt reduction. The other half would go toward funding infrastructure improvements.

C:

Those earning above $1,000,000 would see their tax rates revert to the rates in effect before the Bush tax cuts--an increase from 35% up to 39.6%

Half of this increased revenue would go to deficit or debt reduction and the other half would go toward funding infrastructure improvements.

_____________

All segments of the population would share in the sacrifice needed to get our fiscal affairs in order. All segments of the population would benefit from a revitalized infrastructure.

The unemployed would be put to work in all phases of the gargantuan task of getting our infrastructure up to par and up to date. The improvements would include a viable, 21st Century rail passenger and freight system worthy of a First World power, highway improvements, public park restoration, power grid improvements, urban revitalization, seashore cleanup and buffering, removal of tinder from forests which fuel dangerous forest fires. The list is practically endless and the needs are great.

Work which focuses on such basic improvement of our nation pays immediate dividends because it is work which must be performed in this country, by this country's workers, many of which are currently unemployed or under-employed. The components of these improvements should and must be domestically produced. This could be the engine which drives a long term and sustainable recovery and a sustainable economy.

It makes more sense than padding the bank accounts of the wealthy.

Might that be hard for Republicans to vote against, Mr. President?

Where the President Can Deposit the Remainder of His Term

2010-12-01T07:22:00.001-05:00

Eat It, and Wash It Down With a Cup of Tea

2010-11-23T20:52:00.013-05:00

Somewhat good news on the economy has surfaced, albeit a few weeks too late to benefit the deus ex machina which guided us to this point in the economic cycle.

President Obama is looking more and more like he got a bit too far ahead of the dullards he's trying to lead. As he continues to face an opposition which wants to fight to the death to preserve tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires(who among us benefits from so many zeroes?), he sees rising opposition to the knight(ess?) in shining armor, Lady Elizabeth Warren, who has taken on the quest of defending the middle class against rapine tactics of the credit card grantors. He spoke in Kokomo today to highlight the salvation of the American Automobile Industry. That action likely prevented the Great Recession from becoming the sequel to the Great Depression. Years of soft living have rendered the American people incapable of bearing the burdens of of our forebears. "Exactly how worth living is a life without digital cable, air conditioned comfort and sole-less commerce?", we tweet.

As Thanksgiving approaches, please, someone, assay the true values.

BELOW IS AN ARTICLE FROM HUFFINGTON POST proving that no good deed goes unpunished.

_______________________

Peter S. Goodman pgoodman@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

Email Comments 8,864 Happy days are back! During the summer months, corporations logged their biggest profits since the government started counting way back in the age of Elvis, and the economy expanded at a slightly faster pace than previously thought. Surely, when Caterpillar and Morgan Stanley are swimming in lucre, life must be getting more wonderful for everyone.

Alas, no. Word that American businesses sucked in profits at an annualized pace of $1.66 trillion between July and September is certainly better than the alternative. Ditto, the wholly expected news that the economy grew faster than an initially reported 2 percent annual rate, reaching a still modest 2.5 percent. But none of this has translated into the sort of job growth that will be required to cut into an unemployment rate stuck at 9.6 percent. Worse, there is little reason to suspect it will anytime soon.

We have been hearing for so long now that, once companies start making real money, they will feel the urge to expand. Then, they will hire lots of people, and we can stop worrying and resume shopping. Yet so far--this most recent quarter included--all we have gotten is an extended lesson in the modern workings of a stubbornly lean job market and a display of what now stands as American management's core competency: How to rack up profits and reward shareholders while keeping the cubicles empty.

At the corporate level, the Great Recession is a memory. After plunging during the last three months of 2008, when the world was recoiling at the prospect of a full-blown financial meltdown, profits have expanded snappily every quarter since, according to data compiled by Moody's Analytics. But at the household level -- the realm of mortgages, credit card balances, doctor bills and soon-to-expire unemployment benefits -- the worst economic downturn since the Depression remains a defining force.

We taxpayers have handed hundreds of billions of dollars to the same mortgage and insurance industry that started all the trouble with its reckless gambling. We have bailed out General Motors. We have distributed tax cuts to businesses that were supposed to use this lubrication to expand and hire.

For our dollars, we have been rewarded with the staving off of potential financial Armageddon and the stabilizing of a real economy that was teetering dangerously toward the abyss. That certainly is something, but it falls far short of the only thing that can end this disaster on a meaningful scale: large numbers of quality paychecks.

Success for large companies has yet to trickle down. Since the end of 2008, when corporate America began enjoying the resumption of growth, profits have swelled from an annualized pace of $995 billion to the current $1.66 trillion as of the end of September. Over the same period, the number of non-farm jobs counted by the Labor Department has slipped from 13.4 million to 13 million.

Whetting Your Appetite

2010-11-06T19:15:00.006-04:00

If you take a look at East Sixth Street between Elm and Spring Streets, you will see a new addition to the historic ledger of New Albany. Last week, contractors stripped the meager asphalt layer from this street to expose a nearly pristine brick street, complete with intact cut limestone curbs. It is a preview of what might await the historic districts of our city.

The machinery used to strip the asphalt from Sixth Street was, how should one say, a bit over-zealous. In fact some of the bricks were scarred in the process of milling. But what remains is a near perfect example of a well-laid functional brick street from around the turn of the Twentieth Century. This unmasking is a welcome prelude to the Bicentennial celebration, which is just around the corner, and it is a tie to the halfway mark of our City's history at the Centennial.

New Albany's rich history can be emphasized through the exposure of brick and cobblestone streets and alleys. Streets so exposed can serve as reminders of the labor involved in building a functional city for one's own generation and for those generations we hope will follow. Those are aesthetic and philosophical dividends of a brick street exposure; they are somewhat akin to the realization one lives in a more valuable house as the wall-to-wall is pulled up to expose hardwood floors.

In today's lean times and tightened belts, a practical dividend may also be found in the fact that exposed brick streets, along with increasing property values, will cut down on the paving budget, and may help with more efficient storm water control as the original, functional and intended curb depths are restored. They are also natural traffic-calming devices.

While the Sixth Street unmasking may only be a one-off experiment, New Albany has many fine brick streets and alleys just an inch or two away. If we recognize this as a viable, sensible option for the older parts of town, we must look at a recovery process which does less damage during the unmasking. Here is a link to such a process. It deserves a serious look if people like what they see on Sixth Street.

The Skater

2010-11-01T07:43:00.006-04:00

Here on the eve of a momentous vote for the state of Indiana, amid hope for certain candidates fueled by precious little reality, I see a figure of effortless movement, on the periphery of sight, urging us onward to his vision for the future. He likes it there, outside the harsh light of responsibility and blame for the tightening belts and dashed plans of local governments and schools.

He wishes that we local politicians work with limited means to achieve limited goals. He hopes that we can place local government on a regimen of discipline and reduction, so to heed his soul mate's desire of fitting that, and any, government into a bathtub where it might meet its deserved fate (and it's not a bath).

He brags about his conservative saving ways and the budget he placed in surplus. He fails to see the help he got from Washington led to his claim.

He pushes local government to the breaking point by limiting its income from taxes. He forces local governments to cut services to fit the budget and he rides high with 65% approval ratings while others clean up after him.

As racketeers beat the rap they are said to skate. I just wonder how and why My Man gets away with it.

The constitutional amendment to enshrine property tax caps will hobble local government in Indiana for a very long time.

And yet, he skates.

War die Debatte gestern in Lexington oder Frankfurt?

2010-10-26T20:52:00.005-04:00

Is the truth of the Tea Baggers' real identity becoming clearer?

Room to Clarify

2010-10-17T12:59:00.018-04:00

It’s still a common misunderstanding that all local chambers are connected to the national group in some way.

Robin Comstock, president and CEO of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, had to clarify that to the audience at a 1st Congressional District debate on Tuesday at Saint Anselm College.

“We are not accredited by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; we are not a member,” she said. “The only similarity is that we share a name."

Source: The Telegraph, October 17, 2010, Nashua New Hampshire (emphasis added)

____________________

Congratulations to One Southern Indiana Chamber and Economic Development for recently earning the coveted US Chamber of Commerce Accreditation. This places 1SI in the top 4% of chambers nation wide and demonstrates the ability for “suburb chambers” to achieve excellence in the areas of membership, economic development, and general business practices. Michael Dalby, staff, and members of the board should be proud of this accomplishment.

Source: Kyle Morey, The Diary of a Chamber Exec, March 9, 2010 (emphasis added)

____________________

Follow this link for video.

Qs & As

2010-10-05T22:11:00.003-04:00

Among some of the questions not asked at last night's City Council meeting is, "what is the relationship of local Chambers of Commerce to the national organization?"

Some answers?

Some more answers?

Reading between the lines.

Two Roads...

2010-10-04T08:22:00.002-04:00

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

I had a pleasant lunch and discussion, Friday, with a supporter of the Bridges Project. Though pleasant, we were on different sides of the table in more ways than one. As most of our local residents know, the New Albany City Council recently passed a resolution condemning tolling as the financing arrangement of the Bridges Project. Out of character, regionally, this was the first such official governmental address of that issue to come down on the opposite side of the table from the assumed status quo.

To question the tolls is to question the need for a downtown bridge and the attendant rejiggering of Spaghetti Junction. To question tolls is to lean toward construction of the eastern bridge first and assess the need for a downtown bridge later. To question tolls is to hope that something miraculous may come into being to save us from a slavish addiction to automobile commuting, oh that's right, they're called buses and trains and they're in use in vibrant functioning cities around the world. To question the tolls is to ask for a reassessment of the staus quo.

While I have the utmost respect for my "lunch date", and feel that he is genuinely concerned for the future of our city, region and planet, the Bridges issue, we just saw it from a different point of view, as Dylan might say.

Both of us question what would be the long term results if our position were to prevail. On the pro-two bridge-side one sees the saving in time for morning commuters, a safer and more efficient Kennedy bridge, less danger at Spaghetti Junction, and less pollution as people run their cars' motors at idle.

On the anti-two bridge-side one sees less accommodation to a wasteful transportation system. Such a system undergirds sprawl and its weakening of communities across the land. City budgets are stretched to, and in some cases beyond, the limit to provide services for wider areas. Safety is compromised as personal automobiles fight for a place on highways which more and more resemble freightways for tractor trailers, such a freight system focuses resources away from the efficient transportation of goods along well established rail lines and places this vital piece of our infrastructure needlessly in the background. Intercity travel is limited to highway and air for far too many of our U.S. citizens, including those who live in New Albany and the Metro area. Rail travel has been shut out of the debate for years as the lure of personal transportation has been seen as the American Way.

The main thing I got from my lunch conversation was that we stand here in our time making decisions for those who must follow us. If we look around at what has been handed to us, what we have stumbled into ourselves, can we honestly say that the best we can do is simply offer more of the same? If we would hope to leave our descendants a more livable world, a more responsible stewardship of the environment, a better transportation system; is the best we can do simply adding more lanes to Spaghetti Junction, and cutting a gash through the downtown of our neighboring city of Jeffersonville? Is this what future generations will thank us for?

Or will they, perhaps not thank us, but at least breathe a sigh of relief that we did not drive deeper into the ditch? An article in Sunday's Courier-Journal points out that Louisville is funding the largest initiative for urban parks in North America. Would that have been possible without the amazing, futuristic steps taken in the Nineteenth Century to put into place Frederick Olmsted's park plans? Is there one among us who believes we would or could undertake such a fantastic scheme today as the one Olmsted proposed over a hundred years ago?

And yet, here we stand, in our time, with over $4,000,000,000 and a decision to make. Do we do more of the same, or do we set a different course?

If we build the one east end bridge now and find that traffic problems have been diminished, and we still have over two billion dollars of funds we seem willing to spend, why do we not commit that same amount of money to a truly region-building, economy-boosting, energy-saving, job-producing, neighborhood-preserving, project like light rail and enhanced freight rail reliance?

Take Home Squad Cars

2010-09-15T08:17:00.003-04:00

Some discussion at a recent work session of the City Council touched on various ways to trim over budget expenditures within the Police Department. One suggestion was to rein in the use of take-home squad cars. On the surface it just seems logical that such use has a cost and that cost may be a worthwhile place to look for savings. Police representatives counter that it takes more time and money to unload one officer's gear from the squad car getting it ready for the next user, and more importantly, it wastes valuable time in case of an emergency.

Another value in police take-home cars is the deterrent effect of a police car parked in neighborhoods around the city. To some extent, a cop is never off-duty and even if he's in his basement lair watching old episodes of Dragnet, the car is still holding hooligans at bay.

Any and all of the above may be true. One issue involving the use of take-home cars that does not get sufficient consideration is limiting take-home cars to those who actually live in the City of New Albany. If such a car is a perk, give that perk to those officers who live in this city. If take home cars are a deterrent, focus that deterrent in the City they are sworn to protect and defend. If there is a tactical benefit in keeping cars equipped, thereby increasing response time, how better to increase response time than ensuring that those officers with take-home cars live within the City, in close proximity to the area they serve?

State law dictates that residency requirements are not allowed. The Police Department cannot limit employment to city residents. But a policy based on the efficient use of scarce resources could allow officers to make their own choices of where they wish to live if they see value in a take-home squad car. If the City is paying for the car it should derive the benefits of that car. By limiting the use of take-home cars to residents of the City, the Police Department can help to incentivize well-paid officers to contribute more than their employment time to the City's well-being, building stronger safer neighborhoods within the City they are sworn to serve and protect.

Hands Across the Water

2010-09-03T16:42:00.000-04:00

A RESOLUTION IN OPPOSITION TO TOLLS ON THE KENNEDY,
CLARK MEMORIAL, AND SHERMAN MINTON BRIDGES AND/OR THE
INTERSTATE CONNECTORS (I-64, I-65, AND I-71) A/K/A “SPAGHETTI
JUNCTION,” AND SUPPORTING MORE CROSS - RIVER
CONNECTIONS.

Sponsored By: Council Members Tina Ward-Pugh, Jim King, Tom Owen,

Hal Heiner, Vicki Welch, Brent Ackerson, Deonte Hollowell, Barbara Shanklin,

Rick Blackwell, Marianne Butler, Bob Henderson, Robin Engel, Stuart Benson,
Kenneth C. Fleming, Mary Woolridge, Kelly Downard, Cheri Bryant Hamilton

WHEREAS, the issues surrounding the Ohio River Bridges Project (ORBP) have
a real and direct impact on the citizens, economy and cultural well-being of our
community; and

WHEREAS, a financing plan that could result in the imposition of tolls on new
and existing Ohio River bridges and/ or tolls on the Interstate connectors (I-64, I-65, and
I-71) a/k/a “Spaghetti Junction” is currently under consideration, and has raised valid
concerns from the citizens of this community; and

WHEREAS, the Ohio River should serve as the center of unity and commerce,
not as a barrier dividing the metropolitan area; and

WHEREAS, the three bridges (Sherman Minton, Clark Memorial and Kennedy)
connecting Kentucky and Indiana are essential links in the growth and economic
development of the community; and

WHEREAS, the ORBP is essential to interstate commerce in the Eastern United
States and should include sufficient Federal funding to avoid shifting the burden of its
cost to local daily commuters; and

WHEREAS, it is fundamentally wrong to begin tolling the existing transportation
infrastructure currently used by hard-working citizens whose livelihood depends on
their daily commute to their jobs in Kentucky and Indiana; and

WHEREAS, the imposition of tolls on existing transportation infrastructure may
threaten businesses and working families of this community.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF THE
LOUISVILLE/JEFFERSON COUNTY METRO GOVERNMENT (THE COUNCIL) AS
FOLLOWS:

SECTION I: The Louisville Metro Council, by this Resolution, states that it is opposed
to tolls on the Kennedy Bridge, Clark Memorial Bridge, Sherman Minton Bridge and/or
“Spaghetti Junction,” while still supporting more cross - river connections; and
further states that the best policy for the economic well-being of the region is for the
ORBP to be built without tolls on existing facilities and in affordable phases
commencing with the connection of I-265 between Jefferson County, Kentucky and
Clark County, Indiana..

SECTION II: Notwithstanding the Council’s belief that existing transportation

infrastructure should not be tolled to pay the cost of construction of the ORBP, it is

recognized that circumstances related to the orientation of the new downtown bridge

relative to the existing downtown Kennedy Bridge, e.g., the functional pairing of the two

bridges, could require the tolling of the existing Kennedy Bridge to provide appropriate

parity between the use of the two bridges. In that case, the Council believes any tolls

applied to the Kennedy Bridge should only be implemented when that phase is built and

then only in an amount necessary to recover the cost of the new downtown bridge, less

available federal funding.

SECTION III: This Resolution shall take effect upon its passage and approval.

_______________________________

Kathleen J. Herron

Metro Council Clerk

_____________________________

Thomas L. Owen

President of the Council

_______________________________

Jerry E. Abramson

Mayor

_____________________________

Approval Date

APPROVED AS TO FORM AND LEGALITY:

Michael J. O’Connell

Jefferson County Attorney

BY: ____________________________

G:ResOpposingTollsonOhioRiverBridgesTW-P/ROC/acb09.01.10

G:ResOpposingTolls on ORBP Dr-2 TW-P/ROC/acb09.03.10

A Truthout Opinion Piece by William Rivers Pitt

2010-07-24T07:34:00.003-04:00

Due to my sporadic to non-existent appearance here, I realize few will see this piece by Will Pitt. It is shown here in its entirety, although reader comments have not been posted here. Those comments can be seen at Truthout.org along with Pitt's original.

The country seems to be in dangerous waters now, and some of that roiling sea appears locally from time to time. I only hope that Pitt's comments are looked back upon some day in the future as an over-reaction to too much cable TV and reading of internet screed, not as prophesy.

_______________________________

SATURDAY 24 JULY 2010
Share347 The Dog Whistles
Friday 23 July 2010

by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(Photo: VickyTH)
It is all too tempting to dismiss the far-right Teabagger legions and their idiot media allies as nothing more than a band of brain-addled yahoos who regularly make solar flare-sized fools of themselves in ways undreamed of by the Founders. I've mocked them a time or three myself; it's almost impossible not to. When a Tea Party web forum goes into paroxysms of fear and loathing about an Obama-led fascist takeover of America because they read a 2007 satirical article from the Onion and thought it was real, all you can do is put your head in your hands and thank God for showing us His sublime sense of humor.
Then, of course, there is the ridiculous Breitbart/Fox News farce regarding former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod and her alleged black-on-white reverse racism. Unless you've been living in a cave for the last few days, you probably know the story already, but just in case: after the NAACP (correctly) accused the Tea Party of being a fundamentally racist organization, a right-wing fraud of a blogger named Andrew Breitbart heavily edited a video of Sherrod to make it look like she was admitting to having deliberately screwed a white farmer because he was white. The full video shows Sherrod going on to say that she did in fact help that farmer, that she learned from the experience and grew from it, and that she and the farmer became great friends. The video still cost Sherrod her USDA job, at least for now, because Fox News took the Breitbart video and ran it across the sky with enough volume to cause Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to go into total bonehead mode and fire her.
Once everybody realized they'd been duped by Breitbart and Fox News - and a hat-tip to CNN and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for doing the heavy lifting to expose the story for the bag of crap that it was - everybody backpedaled and apologized to Sherrod...everybody except Breitbart and Fox, that is. They pretty much said the whole thing was the fault of the NAACP and Obama for promoting reverse racism in America. Yeah, they actually did, which makes you wonder what one has to do to lose credibility in the realm of right-wing news. Andrew Breitbart and Roger Ailes could bend over double and take a dump on their own faces in the middle of the Washington Mall, and they'd still have plenty of people who treat their swill as if it were holy writ.
Get Truthout in your inbox every day! Click here to sign up for free updates.
So, yeah, it can be funny, it can be silly, and it can be (and often is) simply mind-boggling. After a while, all the screaming and blabbering about Obama being a fascist racist socialist Muslim terrorist tyrant who wants to destroy America and Christianity turns into only so much noise that can be all too easily dismissed as the nonsense it is.
Dismiss it too easily or too quickly, however, and you'll miss the dog whistle buried in the message. I hadn't heard of the term "dog whistle" until I saw a disturbing post on the web forum DemocraticUnderground, but the term perfectly describes the phenomenon. Wikipedia describes the term thusly:
Dog-whistle politics, also known as the use of code words, is a type of political campaigning or speechmaking employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has a different or more specific meaning for a targeted subgroup of the audience. The term is an analogy to dog whistles built in such a way that humans cannot hear them due to their high frequency, but dogs can.
The DU post referring to a "dog whistle" was highlighting a recent broadcast of Pat Robertson's "700 Club." During this particular broadcast, author Eric Metaxas was being interviewed about his new biography of attempted Adolf Hitler assassin Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Metaxas' book paints Bonhoeffer as a prophet of God who was doing holy work through his plot to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer, a trained theologian who resisted the Nazis based on his Christian faith, has been a revered figure in many religious circles ever since his death, so a book calling him a holy prophet isn't wildly out of line on its face.
But here's the thing. During the interview, descriptions of fascism and tyranny were used extensively. Again, given that the topic dealt with Hitler and Nazi Germany, the use of this language isn't immediately improper...except when it's in the context of the kind of rhetoric used by Pat Robertson, Fox News and bloggers like Andrew Breitbart to describe President Obama. The interview basically stated that it is the holy work of any good Christian to assassinate a fascist tyrant, and given the serial ways these right-wing media people have used those exact terms to describe the president, it is a pretty short leap to realize the "700 Club" was essentially sending the message that whoever puts a bullet in Obama will be considered a saint on the level of Bonhoeffer.
And who was this dog whistle aimed at? There are many potential candidates, as evidenced recently in Sarah Palin's former stomping grounds in Alaska. Tea Party backers of right-wing Senate candidate Joe Miller staged a march during a rally for Miller. Many of the people in that march carried Miller signs, American flags...and assault weapons. You can watch a video of the march here.
This is far from the first time Tea Party people have brandished weapons at public rallies, and most of them are you're typical armchair warriors, all flash and no substance, and only the outline of a real threat. It only takes one, however, to hear the dog whistle and decide to take on God's holy work.
A lot of these people are fools, and listening to them is like being inside someone else's headache. It's not all fun and laughs, though. The dog whistles are sounding loud and clear, if you have the right kind of ears to hear them.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Support Truthout's work with a $10/month tax-deductible donation today! 15diggsdigg
»

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.

Juneteenth

2010-06-18T23:05:00.002-04:00

Link to Juneteenth.

Extra Info for Thursday

2010-05-17T20:00:00.002-04:00

Before the City Council meeting, Thursday May 20, the Council will hold a work session which is open to the public. The purpose of the session is to see a presentation on the Medical Trust plan offered by the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns. While such plans have a track record of controlling medical insurance costs, one of the largest expenditures for municipal government, it is a newly available option in Indiana. In recent years New Albany has spent in excess of three million dollars annually to offer this important benefit to its employees. Many health insurance plans were hit with premium increases in the 20% range. You may recall some plans in California asking for increases near 40%. Increases at these levels are unsustainable and threaten the very notion of employer-provided health care. Personally, I have no affinity for employer-sponsored health insurance anyway, but that is the box we are in for now.

The linked article on the IACT Medical Trust points to increases in the mid single-digit range, still an increased cost, but significantly less onerous than what may have hit municipalities in other health insurance plans. If we can find a way to offer comprehensive health care benefits to City employees, while limiting cost increases, other vital City services may not feel the sting of budget cuts, or at least those cuts may not need to be as deep.

It is time to look for better options than we have currently.

I would encourage any who are interested in fiscal responsibility to attend this meeting which I am sure will be informative.

It will begin at 6:00 PM in the Assembly Room, the regular Council chamber.

Dr. Stone's Unfinished Business

2010-05-14T16:22:00.003-04:00

Early last year the New Albany City Council looked at the issue of universal health care. It passed a resolution in supoort of single-payer health coverage for all U.S. citizens. With that vote, New Albany became only the third city in the state to join many other cities across the nation in support of this basic human right. The presenter at that meeting was Dr. Rob Stone the director of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan.

Although a health insurance reform bill was passed, Dr. Stone continues to work for universal coverage. In an article published Wednesday in The Huffington Post, Dr. Stone said, "That's why we say, Healthcare Reform, We're STILL FOR It... and we're not done yet."

Earth Day, Every Day

2010-04-23T09:18:00.004-04:00

This is a day late for Earth Day. But I think these words of Sister Mary Kownacki, below, state the significance of that day and how we should venerate the boundless beauty of our planet in the mundane and the grand, along with the inherent worth of all its inhabitants. The very fact that we are here is the greatest gift we could receive. Earth Day should help us realize the duty we have to protect and preserve this precious home.

"There's the beauty and wonder of it:
to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.
If you look, really look, at anything, even one pigeon,
you will fall on your knees before its beauty.
The same holds true for each person in the soup kitchen line.
As one definition of contemplation attests,
" It's a matter of taking a long, loving look at the real." "
Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB

Roger That

2010-04-11T11:19:00.004-04:00

The Floyd County Republican party chairman used the word "oxymoron" in a Tribune column today. Helpfully, he suggested that someone named Roger may be able to define that term for those who don't know it. Perhaps he speaks of a certain publican of local repute.

I'll offer a definition of the word oxymoron:

Rush Limbaugh, who railed against drug use among the lesser elements of society, felt it his birthright to have his hired help score oxycontin on the streets of Florida to keep his voracious habit on track, making Rush Limbaugh an oxy-moron.

Eureka!

2010-04-01T07:22:00.004-04:00

A routine sewer inspection turned up startling news yesterday which confirms the suspicions of many in New Albany. Some of the city's sewer pipes are, in fact, gold-lined.

A section of eight inch main showing signs of collapse, a crew was dispatched to repair or at least diagnose the problem. Upon entering a manhole a small section of pipe was removed by Carlton "Wildcat" Figg. "I always wear a carbide head lamp when I go down there and when I shined her on that section, by golly I just knowed it. Only one thing looks like that by carbide light."

It happens that in the early Seventies, New Albany Mayor Warren Nash was an early gold bug. The U.S. had just severed its final ties to the gold standard under Dick Nixon, and "the stuff was so durned cheap" said Nash, "I knew it couldn't last." So with an eye toward New Albany's future, Nash ordered City Controller Kaye Garry to purchase "a couple hundred thousand ounces" for use on a sewer upgrade. Nash said the metal has "excellent corrosion-resistance" and in its un-alloyed state it's "extremely malleable" making it easy for crews to heat the metal and it apply it in various ways to the pipe system as joint filler, as well as an early version of a pipe liner.

Couldn't another metal have performed the same task? "Yes", said Nash but "we had a lot of money in those days, and I knew the stuff was going to be worth a lot some day." Indeed. The roughly 180,000 ounces purchased in 1972 at $35 an ounce is currently valued at $1,115 per ounce or about $200,000,000.

Asked what he would do now if he were mayor, Nash said he would remove the gold, sell some of it to repair broken pipes etc. but always with a wistful eye toward the future he said,"have you seen the charts on Rhodium?"

Really?!

2010-03-29T07:36:00.004-04:00

And what do we call the 45,000 Americans a year who die because they lack insurance, but now might live? Welfare queens and kings? Collateral baggage?

What about Obama truly gets under the skin of the tea baggers?

Hint...it's the skin.

Mayor's Alternative Sewer Rate Plan

2010-03-25T00:08:00.004-04:00

Here is an e-mail marked for "immediate release".

A rate table alluded to in the test inexplicably didn't move from the original to this format.

The e-mail and the words are the administration's not mine.

ENGLAND ANNOUNCES “ALTERNATE B” SEWER RATE PLAN

(New Albany, Indiana) Mayor Doug England announced this afternoon that he will be submitting an alternate sewer rate plan to the Common Council for consideration at its Sanitary Sewer Rate Workshop to be held on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 6:00 pm.

At a similar workshop held yesterday, Mayor England proposed a sewer rate plan that subsidized the sewer utility with $700,000 of EDIT and Riverboat funding, annually, for twenty years. The Mayor also indicated that he would slash $1.0 million out of the sewer utility’s annual operating budget.

But Mayor England has since expressed concerns about that plan. “It utilizes almost all of the EDIT and Riverboat funds that the City has available to fill other budgetary needs. There would be no money left for purchasing equipment, paving streets, or funding deficits in public safety—Police, Fire and Ambulance. The City would also have to stall or abandon several worthy projects including a new water park, a new Little League complex, and the Ohio River Greenway project, to name a few.”

Mayor England also noted that all of these projects must be kept on track, particularly as New Albany approaches its Bicentennial in 2013. “I think the people of New Albany and its future generations deserve better than simply saving a few dollars on sanitary sewer bills. Our legacy should be that we built a great City, and not just one where you simply could get by."

Under what has been dubbed “Alternate B”, the use of EDIT and Riverboat funding to subsidize the sewer rates would be scrubbed. But Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to fund the debt service for three projects contained in the Capacity Assurance Plan—Basin 14 Lift Station Upgrade, the Mount Tabor Lift Station Upgrade and the Jacobs Creek/Lewis Branch Interceptor—would be utilized. The amount required to fund debt service to be pledged from TIF would be approximately $240,000 per year. The “Alternate B” plan also slashes $1.0 million from the sanitary sewer annual operating budget.

The “Alternate B” plan would phase in a 23% rate increase, immediately, and 20% rate increase in 2012. The following table depicts the actual rates to be paid by the lowest to average users under the “Alternate B”

Finally, Mayor England said “I think we’ve come a long way from the 70% rate increase that was originally proposed. The ‘Alternate B’ plan keeps rates reasonably low and, at the same time, it enables us to invest in our future. It’s now up to the New Albany Common Council to choose a sanitary sewer rate plan that best serves the fiscal needs of the community.”

Which Side Are You On?...The Day After

2010-03-22T10:31:00.007-04:00

Last Summer during the August recess, I posted daily health care reform stories gleaned from different sources. I titled each day's entry as "Which Side Are You On...Day Whatever".

In light of the passage last night of a weakened, watered-down health care reform bill which is simply a foot in the door for eventual substantive reform, I am moved again to ask "which side are you on?"

The side of those who shouted epithets, racial, sexual, or hateful,
The side of those who threaten now to secede from the union,
The side of those who rest comfortably in a cocoon of employer-provided health care while 45,000 of their fellow citizens die each year because they have no access to health insurance,
The side of those who view health care as one more object of profit in capitalism's bazaar,
The side of those who see exclusion and call it fiscal discipline,
The side of those who see the future and avert their eyes,

or...

The side of those who see a wrong and try, however feebly, to right it?

Here are some reactions to last night's vote.

_______________________________________________

Once again, thanks to Baron Hill for following his heart.

Yellow Peril

2010-03-10T21:29:00.004-05:00

When the School Corporation sneezes, the City catches cold.

One step the school board could take to ameliorate the funding mess is faces is to downsize or eliminate the large school bus program.

The City faces two problems related to the transportation system currently in place, ie., transporting of students via buses owned and operated by the school corporation:

1. It is a costly service which subsidizes the choice of some parents to live in non-walkable neighborhoods, which causes the well-planned inner city neighborhoods to further deteriorate as essential services such as neighborhood schools are eliminated. This degrades the general quality of life within the older neighborhoods of town, and the entire community suffers.

2. The Transit Authority of River City (TARC) is being forced by a variety of factors to cut service throughout its service area, including New Albany. Because of these cuts the already meager bus system is pushed closer to the brink. The city is deprived of a viable system of public transportation, such a system can benefit the the community at large through greater access for all its citizens, better air quality and a residential pattern. Such a pattern allows the city to operate more efficiently as infrastucture is used to its greatest advantage, rather than having it spread thin in a costly advance toward the the sprawling edges of the community.

If the school corporation would eliminate the school bus program and instead rely on non-corporation-owned buses, it should realize a sizable savings. If TARC were presented with a daily cadre of student bus riders it would go a long way toward building a base of ridership to rationalize a comprehensive general public transportaion system for the entire community. The transportaion system would benefit the community as a whole and the presevation and revitalization of inner city schools would, likewise, benefit the community as a whole. The savings would allow the school corporation to focus its funds on its true mission --educating students, enriching the community, ensuring a sound future for our city-- which is a better use of scarce educational funds.

Tradeoffs

2010-03-09T11:52:00.006-05:00

Below is a quote which was forwarded to me. The sender is in California. He did not disclose his intent in highlighting these words, but I think they have relevance to the gravity of the situation facing our local schools.

"We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness, all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet."
Hermann Hesse, German poet and novelist.

emphasis added

A Word to the Wise

2010-03-05T17:07:00.004-05:00

Although it may seem like a good idea, don't invest with this man.

First Things First

2010-03-04T10:19:00.006-05:00

One of the major issues confronting the sewer system in New Albany and many older cities is the problem of inflow and infiltration. This is a situation of leaking or broken pipes which allow rain water to leak into the system. Another problem is illegal hookups to the sewage system with direct connections of downspouts and sump pumps.

New Albany has a discrete system which keeps stormwater and sewage water in separate pipes headed for separate destinations. Sewage to the plant at West Tenth Street and stormwater to a creek or basin and then to the river. Massive surges of flow into the plant during large rains can be attributed to a failing pipe system rather than an uncontrollable urge to use the toilet or bathe during such events.

The system cannot handle the extra flow, and like an insufficient electrical system blowing fuses, the insufficient sewage system blows a fuse which results in untreated sewage flowing into the Ohio River. Regulation of such overflows falls under the purview of the the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's mandate is clear and this worthwhile agency does not allow much margin for error through either mismanagement, penury or stupidity.

Part of the proposed sewage rate increase facing the citizens of New Albany is intended to fix whatever leads to the overflows and keep the City in compliance with EPA regulations. Some of the projects proposed to make this fix are increasing the capacity of various drainage basins around the city. These are expensive fixes and can lead to rate increases.

Some of the problem can be fixed in a more direct manner.

A number of years ago the City did smoke tests to verify that downspouts and pumps were not hooked illegally to the sewage system. I have seen photos of recent smoke tests which show smoke percolating out of the front lawn of a house. That smoke is evidence of a source of inflow and infiltration, and that house along with all the other houses with the same problem are part of the reason why New Albany is on the EPA watch list, and thus subject to fines and further regulation.

Fixing the inflow and infiltration problem in private sewer lines to houses and businesses goes a long way toward alleviating the system problems in New Albany, which may cause rate increases and does cause some of the sewage backup problems plaguing some residents. Large system-main-lines are also subject to inflow and infiltration, and of course this element of the problem needs to be corrected too.

I suggest we begin a blitz in a systematic, comprehensive search for sources of inflow and infiltration through smoke testing. If EMC, the management company that runs the sewerage, doesn't have the personnel, they should hire the people needed for this project.

When violations are discovered, notify the homeowner of the illegality and give them so much time to correct the problem. If they have not corrected the problem or contracted the work to be done, add a surcharge to that sewer bill. The surcharge should be of sufficient heft to cause the problem to be fixed, perhaps $50 per month. The problem can be addressed, as I understand it, in two basic ways: the broken pipe can be dug up and replaced or it can be re-lined with some type of plastic liner ( a company called Insituform offers this ).

A significant number of citizens may not be able to afford such an unbudgeted expense and therefore should not be automatically penalized with the surcharge. For these people, a financing program needs to be in place where the problem can be fixed and the cost can be fronted by government and a reasonable monthly charge could be added to the sewer bill to pay back the cost of the repair. Each address that avails itself of this program financing would need to be tagged so that if and when the current resident sells or moves, the government-fronted costs will still be the responsibility of the owner of that address.

Local government should offer financing through a plan that works with New Albany's plumbers. If the citizens are going to bear the costs of these repairs, the money expended should stay in New Albany's businesses to employ more New Albany residents.

Individuals can pay to fix their own problems first, with assistance from government, or they can take the irresponsible route and allow their neighbors to pick up the tab through a no new fees stance. Is it possible that a systematic plan to attack this deficiency in our system could be seen as a good faith effort to comprehensively solve our EPA problems and forestall the rate increase no one wants?

To be sure, this modest suggestion is no panacea for the woes of the sewer system. I believe we waste the citizens' money by bearing the needless expense of profit exacted by the private enterprise sewer manager. The sewage system is a governmental undertaking and contrary to the notion that government should be run like a business, I believe the citizens own the system and the citizens owe no profit to private handlers. Let the citizens hold their elected officials accountable for the proper management of their system and keep that responsibility in local hands.

Mum's the Word

2010-01-25T10:17:00.003-05:00

It has been a full month since I last posted on this blog. In the intervening days I was named president of the City Council.

As one whose words may now be interpreted as speaking for the Council as a whole, I am assessing how best, or if, to continue this writing endeavor. Frankly, I enjoy it and would like to continue, but I don't want to possibly incite any factionalization of the Council by some errant word I might post here. I think this is an important year for the Council. And loose lips have a tendency to do lasting damage to ships, or words to that effect.

For those who have checked in here from time to time I would invite them to continue to do so, something may pop up once in a while.

In the meantime enjoy the Temple oranges, which,as far as I know,just showed up in Kroger's produce department yesterday; always a big deal to me.

Photo Essay correction

2009-12-24T13:27:00.002-05:00

In part 1, I had the image upside down. For those with sharp eyes it may be possible to read some of the names entered in the Registration Book.

Hotel Royal Photo Essay pt. 4

2009-12-24T13:10:00.001-05:00

Hotel Royal Photo Essay pt. 3

2009-12-24T13:07:00.002-05:00

Hotel Royal Photo Essay pt. 2

2009-12-24T13:02:00.001-05:00

Hotel Royal Photo Essay pt. 1

2009-12-24T12:53:00.005-05:00

These pictures were taken as an assignment in a photo-journalism class in 1975. They were probably taken over the Thanksgiving break. The subject is New Albany's Hotel Royal, which was on W. First Street, behind Aunt Artie's Antique Mall. The hotel faced east. In the unlikely event that anyone who sees this recognizes people in the photographs, I apologize for not giving their names. I probably had the names at the time the photos were taken but, no longer.

I had the privilege of learning photography under two highly gifted photographers, Wil Counts and John Ahlhauser. What appears here may not do these two gentlemen's reputations justice, but these are digital representations of unworked negatives. Burning and dodging and cropping of various aspects of the negatives would probably produce better images.

R.I.P. Hope, Change

2009-12-15T17:08:00.003-05:00

This linked piece is written not by me, but by a favorite of mine, William Rivers Pitt at Truthout.

Who's at fault? Obama? Reid? Lieberman? The political system? Corporate double dealers? Us?

Clouds' Silver Linings

2009-12-08T10:31:00.005-05:00

Against the backdrop of the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen local communities from New Albany to Bangor, Maine are dealing with the effects of the on-going recession. The pending difficulties we will face as global warming accelerates may be tempered to some degree if we will begin to address them now. To a certain extent, the coming problems may offer the proverbial silver lining.

Christopher Steiner, a staff writer for Forbes Magazine (a renowned peddler of left wing thought), has written a book which suggests a silver lining which might be waiting for New Albany. In his book, "$20 Per Gallon", Steiner says, "Small towns likely to thrive in a future of high gasoline prices are ones that have venerable downtown infrastructures sitting in place, with existing railroad connections and river frontage." Can anyone think of such a place?

Steiner does not necessarily write from the standard vantage point of a card carrying tree-hugger. At least his credentials as a tree-hugger are questionable in my eyes owing to his overly enthusiastic support of nuclear power. And his basic premise of gasoline reaching the unthinkable heights of $20 per gallon is more a reflection of the tussle between supply and demand than it is a response to enlightened temperance in matters of petroleum consumption.

Petroleum temperance may not be a choice for long, based on the consensus behind the Copenhagen conference. New Albany has seen more than its rightful share of Hundred Year rain events. By my calculation we're paid up until about the year 2525. Just last night the City Council was given a preview of major outlays ahead in our obligation to keep the citizens dry during the frequent hundred year events. Bangladesh, and Florida for that matter, sit barely above sea level and face the threat of large scale inundation caused by rising seas expanding due to artic melt.

The Copenhagen conference offers hope of greater recognition of the problems we face, but every inch of recognition will be fought by some corporate interests that would rather see glaciers recede than to see their profits recede. And yet we are the ones who can individually and collectively stand against degradation of the environment. Some of the ill-effects of global warming will require concerted effort among nations to be sure, however, a host of individual choices we make on a daily basis can add up to significant change.

Steiner's positive outlook for the future of small towns mentioned above will be on display tonight as the second meeting on founding a food co-op in New Albany is held in the Carnegie Center for Art and History. Those working toward this goal are on a path that will allow this small town to adapt to a high-cost energy future which seems unimaginable today. If we can respond now to the coming high economic costs of energy, perhaps that will help us avoid some of the even higher human costs of failing to adapt.

The food co-op can be a positive feature for a reviving city as well as evidence of a community acting today in a way that will not only be appreciated by those who use it, but will look positively forward-thinking to people some years down the road.

When Black Friday Comes...

2009-11-26T22:35:00.004-05:00

No time to write. I've got to shop.

Just Wondering

2009-11-15T21:05:00.004-05:00

Among the many differences between a citizen and a city is the fact that the citizen will someday die. I have not truly come to grips with this verity in my own case but, alas I know it to be true. New Albany will exist when each and every one of us is literally, or figuratively for those choosing cremation, six feet under.

All of us profess hope that the future will be better, brighter, more prosperous for our children. What about our progeny ten or 15 generations hence? There our concern gets a little fuzzy. Who will those people be? Go back ten or 15 generations, and those people, though indispensable to our present adventure, are a little fuzzy also. Without them, we aren't here, and yet they don't really mean too much to us, do they?

Except, if they had been so consumed with living in the now, which was then, they wouldn't have provided us with a good then, which is now.

Which leads me to wonder, what would be the future value of money, which we extract from the commons today, to those who follow us many generations down the road? Specifically, if the current Youth Shelter is sold for the siting of a big box retailer, and the money is funneled into salaries, gas for municipal vehicles, or, perhaps cell phone minutes, is that a timed-release plunder of our descendants' rightful inheritance?

New Albany is a small city hemmed in by state boundaries, political boundaries, hills, and economic necessities and uncertainties. Unlike sprawl giants like Dallas, Texas or Phoenix, Arizona where the physical horizon is pretty much unlimited, we have cards from another deck. To be sure, we can grow to the horizon, but the horizon here is within easy walking distance.

Since we must be careful with our land resources because of land's relative scarcity, and because our limited horizon is not going to produce a bonanza of newly incorporated land to fuel future growth, I believe we need to explore a different model.

If New Albany owns land which is suitable for industrial or commercial development, we should lease that land to industrial or commercial users rather than sell it. The leases would be of an extremely long term nature, perhaps 99 years. That term is daunting for mortals, but the City is, for all practical purposes, immortal. It can look at arrangements on a scale beyond our normal grasp. It must do so, because it is not handling only the day-to-day business of its citizens, but the generation-to-generation business of its citizens and its citizens-to-be.

Land leased to industrial or commercial users would still generate funds into the current account of the City or County, but the underlying asset would be preserved for future generations. The future generations of political leaders could continue the arrangement as it meets their needs, at that time, or they could alter it because conditions have changed. Leased land users would make payments in lieu of taxes, and they would make lease payments.

Modern building construction is not undertaken with the idea that a Butler Building will one day become a piece of architectural heritage. On the contrary, such buildings are given a death sentence upon construction, when the structure's pre-ordained date of obsolesence is written on the project's cost estimates. Therefore, it does not serve the timeless needs of the City to pull a scarce commodity from its larder, and turn it over to a commercial enterprise in the hopes of simply collecting taxes for a relatively short while.

The long view need not cause a burden for us in the here and now. A short term gain from a sale of property will not have a sizable impact on the City's finances for more than a couple quarters, while ongoing ownership will produce continual, though lower in the short run, dependable funds which will support City services year in and year out. More importantly, we can make decisions today which will benefit not just ourselves but those who follow us, so those who attend the Quadra (?) centennial celebration will have something valuable to pass on to their heirs.

Some say it's always about the money, but I believe, and I hope, it's really always about the future.

I'll See You and Raise

2009-11-10T07:16:00.005-05:00

Looking through a couple internet news items today I ran across this story. It is a brief article and it has definite applicability to our situation in New Albany, and obviously the nation.

"Debate" on local issues sometimes escalates into irrational hateful name calling.

Attacks such as those mentioned in the Talking Points article poison the well. And, it makes one wonder, what can be the logical outcome of such bilious, hateful speech? Where or when does it end?

Hope Springs Ephemeral?

2009-11-09T11:09:00.006-05:00

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, so says the ancient Chinese proverb. The vote for health care reform Saturday night is, I believe, just a first step. Where the next thousand miles takes us is still an open question. I must admit to a nagging sense of trepidation that the bill passed was such a watered down version of what is truly needed that it could be counterproductive in the long run.

On the other hand, I feel that if something positive is done now, it sets in place a line of forward progress from which retreat is less likely. One of the most beneficial features in the House's bill is the ban on pre-existing conditions. Another beneficial beachhead is the simple notion that the government needs to be in the business of ensuring human rights to its citizens.

In some distant year, will citizens still complain that we, as a nation, have a dysfunctional health care system? Will the cause of that dysfunction be seeds that were planted by this legislation, or will it be merely the playing out of an intractable greed-fueled status quo which stigmatizes the U.S. as an outlier, vis-a-vis the world, in matters of health care?

President Obama has won an important victory for his agenda, but the House's product seems greatly diminished by its comparison to Candidate Obama's lofty campaign rhetoric on the issue of health care.

I remain hopeful that something will emerge from the legislative Cuisinart which can be seen as true progress, rather than a simple fig leaf to distract people who feel real pain and financial consequences from the current system. If Obama's push to simply get a bill on his desk by some target date is the sum and substance of his once-lofty goals, I feel he may be back in the community organizing business come January 2013.

Hope springs from the knowledge that nothing, absolutely nothing, would have been done without Obama's push and the sense of possibility inherent in majority control of government. But hope alone won't address greed-bloated insurance costs. Hope alone won't lessen the catastrophe of medically induced bankruptcies, which now account for the majority of personal bankruptcies in this country. Hope alone won't let us join the rest of the industrialized world which treats health care as a right of citizenship rather than a commodity doled out by a sacrosanct marketplace.

As I said, I remain hopeful a bill of real substance will make it to the President's desk. I remain hopeful that Evan Bayh, when the Senate takes up this legislation, will surprise me by proving that he is, in fact, a Democrat.

But someone who is less sanguine about the future of health care in America is the estimable Dennis Kucinich, of Cleveland, he cast a principled NO vote Saturday. This link lays out his compelling reasons why.

Me? I'm still hoping.

220 and 51 is OK By Me

2009-11-08T00:34:00.004-05:00

Sincere thanks to Representative Baron Hill, and 219 of his House colleagues, for standing up for meaningful health care reform last night. Saturday's vote is just the beginning of the process, but it's a good beginning.

H.R. 676 was the vehicle for truly revolutionary health care reform, but the climate of fear cultivated by opponents of that legislation's goal of people over profits left a second choice, H.R. 3962, as the only game in town.

And the vote was even bipartisan.

Now, it's on to the Senate.

Picking Up the Pieces

2009-10-28T10:28:00.003-04:00

Linden Meadows will be something different than what it was intended to be. Recent developments in the ongoing saga of a plan gone bad place the troubled project in a precarious position which has few good outcomes. I believe, however, it has some chance of coming to fruition.

One possible rescue plan would be for the City to acquire the property using Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT) funds. Based on news reports, the mortgage-holding bank wants a minimum of $500,000. A recent visit there shows a bleak landscape of about 18 forlorn houses in various stages of disrepair and decomposition.

Should the City, in fact, acquire the property, the houses could be sold at a price that simply recovers the City's expenditure. That figure is approximately $28,000, depending on how many of the houses can actually be offered for sale. Optimists would say the full number, pessimists would say approximately none. My position is posited from the optimistic perspective.

These cheap houses could be sold to willing buyers who would be able to take advantage of the fact that they are buying at a low price. The projected sale cost of the Linden Meadows houses was in the $80,000-$100,000 range. The difference between the purchase price and the project price would provide a significant amount of rehabilitation money which the purchaser could commit from their own funds, sweat equity, or mortgage money. In fairly short order, the houses would be in the hands of people committed to the property and able, because of the low purchase price, to dedicate significant outlays to the houses' improvement.

Buyers of these houses would need to sign a deed restriction which stipulates that the houses can only be owner occupied. If, for instance, a 15 year deed restriction were written, the original owner could live there for two or three years. If that owner decided to sell, the new owner would be subject to the deed restriction for 13 or 14 years. Whatever the time of the restriction, it should be sufficient to allow the neighborhood to become established as an enclave of owned houses. Failure to comply with the deed restriction must carry a severe penalty which must be enforced.

A further enhancement of the project would be to establish connectivity to Captain Frank Road rather than the current roundabout entrance off Linden Street.

Linden Meadows carries some additional baggage which increases its deficiency of desirability. It sits less than 100 yards off I-64. As one drives around the area in Louisville, Jeffersonville, and other locations around the country, newly installed noise barriers are becoming relatively commonplace. Mitigation of the nuisance that is the sound of interstate truck traffic would certainly increase the acceptance of the current Linden Meadows. By way of disclosure, I should mention that I would also benefit from the erection of noise barriers. As a resident of Captain Frank Road abutting the noisy interstate, I have sometimes fantasized about a scene from the movie "Steppenwolf" in which Harry Haller takes position on a precipice along a road, bazooka in hand, and proceeds to lob shells at passing cars. For Haller, the cars represented encroaching modernism or industrialism. For me, the passing trucks represent thieves of peace and quiet. The noise barriers would greatly enhance the area. They should be extended to the Sherman Minton bridge to bring quiet to residents of the West-end as well.

While the original goal of the CHDO was laudable, circumstances have intervened to place that goal out of reach. The city needs good affordable housing. It needs housing that is owner occupied. It needs to increase its tax base. It needs to help the neighbors who are burdened by the current blighted condition of Linden Meadows. Those needs should now become the City's goals.

350

2009-10-24T09:35:00.002-04:00

350 is the number for the day. Don't necessarily play it on the mid-day or evening Pick Three, but pay attention to it.

Author and activist Bill McKibben has been focusing on that number because it represents the parts-per-million of carbon dioxide at which our climate is considered in the safe zone. Actually it represents the upper limit of the safe zone.

Currently the Earth's atmosphere is around 420 parts per million.

Here's a link to the 350.org site.

Spinning Plates

2009-10-18T12:47:00.002-04:00

The accompanying video offers the startling statistic that the upper one per cent of our nation owns 90% of the wealth of the nation.

In light of that figure, one should ask how much of the nation's upper one per cent has chosen to live in New Albany, and what are the consequences of this disparity when assessing our seeming inability to keep the plates of our community spinning?

Undoubtedly the fiscal problems New Albany faces are not unique. The manufacturing base of this country has been off-shored, and the replacement jobs have often been out of reach to those displaced due to their prior, now irrelevant training. I don't believe we can create meaningful prosperity by shuffling an increasing number of cheap imported goods among ourselves.

We can only build a prosperous future by building a sustainable economy which offers needed goods and services to a populace that understands the need for this cooperative equation. People who are stretched to the limit by layoffs, downsizing, rising health care costs, and a throttled civic compact which sees good only in lower taxes, won't participate in a vibrant local economy. They understandably see salvation in Wal-Mart's low prices, and value meals at fast food joints.

New Albany's up swinging commercial district is testament to the vision some have shown. It is also a testament to the pump-priming value of the Caesar/Horseshoe foundation's benevolence in regard to the YMCA. We need to heed that lesson and support the second phase of downtown revitalization.

Last night we went to Wick's and were shutout by a two hour wait. That would have been acceptable to my wife and I but we were accompanied by two grandchildren for whom a two hour wait at the bar would have been mutually distressing. It seems that New Albany has proven to be fertile ground for restaurants and bars; with Phase Two on the horizon we need to look at a broader vision for downtown. If that broader vision is realized, it can and will contribute to a more sustainable local economy that will benefit us all.

Working Class Hero

2009-10-02T23:02:00.005-04:00

Michael Moore's latest movie, "Capitalism A Love Story", according to The Tribune, will not be shown in Southern Indiana theaters. Well, it was shown to a packed house at the Baxter Avenue Theaters tonight. Those in attendance were treated to a finely crafted walk down a well-reported, but seldom seen trail. Many of the scoundrels of modern commerce who became known to us through the implosion of the financial markets, which began last year about this time, got their share of screen time. But the real stars were those, people just like you and me, who were ground down by the chicanery of those who pocket the gains doled out by the mysterious hand of the market.

Earlier in the week I was fortunate enough to transit back into the USA, uncorrupted, and free of the clutches of the socialist domain to our north. That nearby place offers many things which appear far out of our grasp on this side of the world's longest unprotected border. Universal health care, a concrete plan to vastly improve the nation's rail system, and returnable/refillable beer bottles are just a few of our neighbors' ideas I'd like to see adopted here.

Moore's movie and our Canadian vacation serve as a backdrop to the news I missed while I was out of town. First reports had New Albany in a state of economic free fall. According to initial reports, about one third of the City's general fund would need to be cut during the final ninety days of 2009 to get us in line with the strictures of the 2009 budget, which had not yet been certified by the state when I left town. I hate to carp, but a budget system which does not show its teeth until nine or ten months into the year is asinine. No, I don't have a better idea. But one wonders how such a system could be devised in the first place, and allowed to continue after that. And, one wonders if our governor chuckles to his inner Mitch when crowing about Indiana's One Billion Dollar Surplus.

The real news was considerably less stunning. The first report was like an Antarctic skinny dip. The real news, by comparison, was like the first sit-down into a Blue River innertube on a cloudy beerless day in May. Both unpleasant for sure, but the latter slightly more tolerable than the former.

Canada seems to work as a country because its citizens decided to get along. I know there's that dust-up with the parti Quebecois a few years ago. But the dominion's people appear to have accepted that they share a common destiny and that while fulfilling that destiny, they are their brother's keeper. The moving-target news reports from New Albany highlighted not a common destiny, but factionalization, which subverts our progress. Of course, we who live here are too familiar with the daily workings of the local scene and we see the shadings and between-the-lines dialogue that is not perceptible to a visitor. The traveller sees the big picture while a resident sees the rotogravure dots.

Moore, as he usually does in his movies, homes in on those, in Bob Dylan's words, "bent out of shape by society's pliers". As we all know now, those pliers were wielded relentlessly, viciously, inhumanely, and regrettably, to wider-than-deserved approval by what Teddy Roosevelt called in his day, "the malefactors of great wealth."

People are displaced from their homes. Factories are shut down. Presidents speak foolishly. Presidents speak presciently and eloquently. Disgust at what has befallen our country is tempered,ever-so-slightly, by hopeful approaches undertaken by everyday people.

The movie looks both at the big picture, and between the roto dots. That's an effective formula for Moore's movies. Perhaps we could employ the same formula when viewing New Albany.

I titled this post, "Working Class Hero", which is what I'd call Michael Moore. He more or less bestows that title on someone else though. If you see the movie,and I urge you to,see if you agree.

Two thumbs up.

David Byrne on a Bike

2009-09-21T15:33:00.007-04:00

The following is an excerpt from former Talking Head, and lifetime musical genius, David Byrne's new book "Bicycle Diaries". It was featured today on The Huffington Post.

It is interesting in light of the late arrival of bike lanes here. It is equally interesting for Byrne's observations on urban personality traits.

(italics added)
__________________________________

I ride my bike almost every day here in New York. It's getting safer to do so, but I do have to be fairly alert when riding on the streets as opposed to riding on the Hudson River bike path or similar protected lanes. The city has added a lot of bike lanes in recent years, and they claim they now have more than any other city in the United States. But sadly most of them are not safe enough that one can truly relax, as is possible on the almost completed path along the Hudson or on many European bike lanes. That's changing, bit by bit. As new lanes are added some of them are more secure, placed between the sidewalk and parked cars or protected by a concrete barrier.

Between 2007 and 2008 bike traffic in New York increased 35 percent. Hard to tell if the cart is leading the horse here-- whether more lanes have inspired more bicycle usage or the other way around. I happily suspect that for the moment at least, both the Department of Transportation and New York City cyclists are on the same page. As more young creative types find themselves living in Brooklyn they bike over the bridges in increasing numbers. Manhattan Bridge bike traffic just about quadrupled last year (2008) and the bike traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge tripled. And those numbers will keep increasing as the city continues to make improvements to bike lanes and adds bike racks and other amenities. In this area the city is, to some extent, anticipating what will happen in the near future--a lot more people will use bikes for getting to work or for fun.

On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one's own town. Unlike many other U.S. cities, here in New York almost everyone has to step onto the sidewalk and encounter other people at least once a day--everyone makes at least one brief public appearance. I once had to swerve to avoid Paris Hilton, holding her little doggie, crossing the street against the light and looking around as if to say, "I'm Paris Hilton, don't you recognize me?" From a cyclist's point of view you pretty much see it all.

Just outside a midtown theater a man rides by on a bike-- one of those lowriders. He's a grown man, who seems pretty normal in appearance, except he's got a monstrously huge boom box strapped to the front of the bike.

I ride off on my own bike and a few minutes later another boom-box biker passes by. This time it's a Jane-Austen-reading, sensible-shoe-wearing woman. She's on a regular bike, but again, with a (smaller) boom box strapped to the rear ... I can't hear what the music is.

City Archetypes

There is a magazine in a rack at the entrance to my local Pakistani lunch counter called InvAsian: A Journal for the Culturally Ambivalent.

What is it about certain cities and places that fosters specific attitudes? Am I imagining that this is the case? To what extent does the infrastructure of cities shape the lives, work, and sensibilities of their inhabitants? Quite significantly, I suspect. All this talk about bike lanes, ugly buildings, and density of population isn't just about those things, it's about what kinds of people those places turn us into. I don't think I'm imagining that people who move to L.A. from elsewhere inevitably lose a lot of that elsewhere and eventually end up creating L.A.-type work and being L.A.-type people. Do creative, social, and civic attitudes change depending on where we live? Yes, I think so.How does this happen? Do they seep in surreptitiously through peer pressure and casual conversations? Is it the water, the light, the weather? Is there a Detroit sensibility? Memphis? New Orleans? (No doubt.) Austin? (Certainly.) Nashville? London?

Berlin? (I would say there's a Berlin sense of humor for sure.) Düsseldorf? Vienna? (Yes.) Paris? Osaka? Melbourne? Salvador? Bahia? (Absolutely.)

I was recently in Hong Kong and a friend there commented that China doesn't have a history of civic engagement. Traditionally in China one had to accommodate two aspects of humanity--the emperor and his bureaucracy, and one's own family. And even though that family might be fairly extended it doesn't include neighbors or coworkers, so a lot of the world is left out. To hell with them. As long as the emperor or his ministers aren't after me and my family is okay then all's right with the world. I had been marveling at the rate of destruction of anything having to do with social pleasures and civic interaction in Hong Kong--funky markets, parks, waterfront promenades, bike lanes (of course)--I was amazed how anything designed for the common good is quickly bulldozed, privatized, or replaced by a condo or office tower. According to my friend civic life is just not part of the culture. So in this case at least, the city is an accurate and physical reflection of how that culture views itself. The city is a 3-D manifestation of the social, and personal--and I'm suggesting that, in turn, a city, its physical being, reinforces those ethics and re-creates them in successive generations and in those who have immigrated to the city. Cities self-perpetuate the mind-set that made them.
Maybe every city has a unique sensibility but we don't have names for what they are or haven't identified them all. We can't pinpoint exactly what makes each city's people unique yet. How long does one have to be a resident before one starts to behave and think like a local? And where does this psychological city start? Is there a spot on the map where attitudes change? And is the inverse true? Is there a place where New Yorkers suddenly become Long Islanders? Will there be freeway signs with a picture of Billy Joel that alert motorists "attention, entering New York state of mind"?

Does living in New York City foster a hard-as-nails, no nonsense attitude? Is that how one would describe the New York state of mind? I've heard recently that Cariocas (residents of Rio) have a similar "okay, okay, get to the point" sensibility. Is that a legacy of the layers of historical happenstance that make up a particular city? Is that where it comes from? Is it a constantly morphing and slowly evolving worldview? Do the repercussions of local politics and the local laws foster how we view each other? Does it come from the socioeconomic-ethnic mix; are the proportions in the urban stew critical, like in a recipe? Does the evanescence of fame and glamour lie upon all of L.A. like whipped cream? Do the Latin and Asian populations that are fenced off from the celebrity playgrounds get mixed into this stew, resulting in a unique kind of social psychological fusion? Does that, and the way the hazy light looks on skin, make certain kinds of work and leisure activities more appropriate there?

Maybe this is all a bit of a myth, a willful desire to give each place its own unique aura. But doesn't any collective belief eventually become a kind of truth? If enough people act as if something is true, isn't it indeed "true," not objectively, but in the sense that it will determine how they will behave? The myth of unique urban character and unique sensibilities in different cities exists because we want it to exist.

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from BICYCLE DIARIES by David Byrne. Copyright © David Byrne, 2009

More in New York...

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-byrne/an-excerpt-from-embicycle_b_293402.html?view=screen

Witty Teabaggers Had a Big Day

2009-09-12T20:25:00.002-04:00

Hateful and stupid is a dangerous combination.

Update on Code Enforcement

2009-09-12T08:13:00.002-04:00

Earlier in the week I promised to get more information on the current state of code enforcement in New Albany.

In response to a question asked in a comment to a previous post, I laid out what I knew at the time. I had the opportunity to speak to Carl Malysz and pose the same question to him.

He essentially confirmed what I had written previously.

The only additional information he gave me is that the Building Commissioner's position is expected to be filled in a couple of weeks.

The filling of that position, along with the other code enforcement positions which were advertised as open positions, will constitute a complete reorganization of City's efforts to get serious about code issues. As many will recall, that was a platform plank from the Mayor's campaign. It was also touted as needed by several City Council candidates, myself included.

While it would have been nice to reach this point some time ago, I am hopeful that the City's on the right track now on that issue. I would think we should begin to see better results in the relatively near future, perhaps six to eight weeks.

Which Side Are You On?...Day 37

2009-09-07T20:16:00.002-04:00

After Baron Hill's meeting the other day, I commented here that I was feeling optimistic. After President Obama's Labor Day speech today in Cincinnati, I again feel optimistic.

Included here is a link to the "Mad As Hell Doctor's Tour". It's coming to Louisville. They are solidly behind a single-payer plan. By most estimates this isn't going to be the plan which emerges. The compromise of a strong public option must be the "line in the sand" President Obama draws. The Mad As Hell Doctors know the best prescription, but it is crucial to get something passed. At least a public option is a step which will place the U.S. a bit closer to the rest of the developed nations which offer their citizens universal health coverage as a right of citizenship.

Recess is over, Congress. Now it's back to work.

Thin Ice

2009-09-07T09:21:00.002-04:00

Reading about the lunatics' response to a proposed presidential taped message to school children, I have seen several references to Pink Floyd's great album "The Wall".

While the ones I've seen have not pulled out a specific line, I presume, from the tenor of their other comments, these people refer to the lines "We don't need no thought control" and "Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone."

In other words,we don't want the President of the United States to address our children because we think he'll take the opportunity to indoctrinate them into "socialism".

These people are in fact building a wall for their children brick by brick: a brick of intolerance, a brick of suspicion, a brick of racism, a brick of hate....

Perhaps these people should read further in the liner notes of the album for these lyrics:

The Thin Ice (Waters) 2:28

Momma loves her baby
And daddy loves you too.
And the sea may look warm to you babe
And the sky may look blue
But ooooh Baby
Ooooh baby blue
Oooooh babe.

If you should go skating
On the thin ice of modern life
Dragging behind you the silent reproach
Of a million tear-stained eyes
Don't be surprised when a crack in the ice
Appears under your feet.
You slip out of your depth and out of your mind
With your fear flowing out behind you
As you claw the thin ice.
(emphasis added)

Which Side Are You On?...Day 36

2009-09-06T10:57:00.002-04:00

Make or break.

Life or death.

These are the two sides Bill Moyers lays out in this excellent commentary.

Two sides, Mr. President, Which side are you on?

Which Side Are You On?...Day 35

2009-09-06T01:08:00.002-04:00

Worse, Republicans will see that bullying, being disruptive, and tapping into people's worst fears and instincts works, and will use it on each and every piece of legislation the White House tries to pass for the next 3 years. It's happening on climate change legislation now. Combine that with a disillusioned, disempowered activist left and I'm seeing damage to the Democratic Party well past the 2010 election cycle.

The above quote is from an article on firedoglake. Read the entire article here.It is nominally about health care reform, but it can be read also aprospos the ridiculous "don't-let-my-child-see-hear-contemplate-conjure-(or any other verb of cognition or perception)-the-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-crowd".

I would tone down the writer's wide netting of all Republicans. I'd rather limit it to the dangerous and whacked out fringe of the right wing, which unfortunately, but concidentally, finds itself rather welcome in the G.O.P.

Which Side Are You On?...Day 34

2009-09-04T15:40:00.003-04:00

I just had the good fortune today, of attending a meeting with Baron Hill. It was a small gathering at a constituent's home in Jeffersonville. The subject was health care reform.

Rep. Hill took questions from the small group for almost an hour and a half. The audience of about 15-20 friendly supporters was probably seen as a welcome respite from the contentious gatherings which have characterized many of the meetings on this subject held throughout the August recess.

While Rep. Hill spoke openly about a broad range of questions on the topic, one of his comments was particularly important for me. I have criticized Rep. Hill for what I perceived to be lukewarm support for health care reform. He early on walked away from the single payer plan, which I prefer, and which I still believe is the superior plan.

But now it appears, we have the Public Option as the last best hope for substantive reform. So, it was encouraging when Rep. Hill recounted a conversation with one of his wobbly colleagues and fellow Blue Dogs, in which he told the wobbly one to "get a spine", and support the Public Option. He went on to say that the time for delaying reform is over, and now it is time to act. He assessed the President's chances of achieving successful reform as good, if he "regains a hold on the issue" and controls the terms of the debate. But he cautioned, if the President fails to do so within about a week of his address, next Wednesday, to a joint session of Congress, reform might well be doomed. Any lingering doubts about Rep. Hill's sincere commitment to reform have, for me, vanished.

Rep. Hill, further bemoaned the acrid atmosphere seen in the Town Howl meetings. The lack of civility displayed in these gatherings is a serious failing for the nation, he said. And most disturbingly, he attributed the outrageous,venomous hate speech, loosed at some of the more extreme Town Howls, to raw, stupid, racism. The good of the country takes a back seat to intolerance and racism as "opposition" to health care reform becomes the convenient cudgel with which to deliver blows of racism and hatred against a black man in the White House.

Finally, and encouragingly, Rep. Hill said he believes that in "just the last couple of days, the big beast of public opinion has begun to turn in the direction of reform". It's his gut feeling, but I feel it too.

Which Side Are You On?...Day 33

2009-09-03T15:06:00.003-04:00

AP falsehood: Budget officials say Obama's plan could "increase the federal deficit" by $1 trillion

Truth: Budget officials said House bill would increase deficit by $239 billion -- not $1 trillion

The health care debate has strayed from the truth as opponents have misperceived facts, either intentionally or through inadequate understanding.

First is a piece from Media Matters which shows serial mistakes on the part of the Associated Press.

________________________________________________________

Mr. Hill stood in front of a mainly pro-health care group of federal workers at a Monday night forum at Indiana University Southeast. Mr. Hill, what did you expect to hear from a group that had nothing to fear or lose in the health care debate?

Mr. Hill had two New Albany Police Department officers waiting behind the curtains in case one of the mostly friendly, invitation-only group would become violent. Big chance of that happening before such a friendly group.

Ken Easterday, Jeffersonville

The letter excerpted here reports on a meeting which I attended. The writer's contention that the crowd was mostly friendy is wrong. Is it maliciously wrong or simply delusional? Who can say?

I offer as proof that the crowd was, in fact, not friendly toward Rep. Hill, a display of loutish behavior by the majority of the crowd: when Rep. Hill mentioned Senator Edward Kennedy, whom one might recall, had died and was buried only about 48 hours previously, the name was met with boos and catcalls. It was a disgusting display of right-wing bile spewed against a liberal standard bearer, not for a coherent reform plan or even against a reform plan. (I chose not to report this in my first post of the meeting Tuesday morning)

The conclusion I draw from this display is that these people have no facts on their side, they have hate and they have fear. And they don't want a black man in the White House. And they're mad because John McCain isn't President and Sarah Palin isn't Vice.

There may have been some who had legitimate concerns about health care reform, but their defensible opposition was colored by the bilious braying of the haters.