Roger Baylor for President?

Apparently, Roger's temerity in challenging the gavel of Jeff Gahan has generated a groundswell of netroots support in less than 24 hours. View this news report.

Congratulations, NA Confidential

Allow us to use this space to offer high praise and commendation to the staff of NA Confidential, New Albany's preeminent blog.

250,000 visitors is a major accomplishment for a blog so locally specific. Former and future residents from around the country read NA Confidential to keep up with the atmosphere. Some even use it to help them decide to come and join us in the struggle for progress.

Roger Baylor and Jeff Gillenwater provide a hybrid that New Albany cannot do without. With humor and intelligence, they steer the conversations around here and put the spotlight on issues of culture, government, and commerce.

In the best of all possible worlds, culture, government, and commerce would be one and the same thing, and outlets like NA Confidential are helping us move toward a day when our community, our businesses, and our neighborhoods become allies in a common objective.

Congratulations, guys. You deserve it. When that counter trips past the quarter-million mark later this month, we want to say we were the first to say "Well Done!"

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?

Do you realize it has been 39 1/2 years since Robert Kennedy visited New Albany?

Shortly after his visit to Southern Indiana, Kennedy was killed in a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles. A lot of dreams died that night...dreams that were inspired by Bobby.

Bobby Kennedy was no saint. He was a tortured man, a complex man. But despite his flaws, he consistently articulated a vision of an America where the future was something to look forward to and not something to be dreaded.

I note that NA Confidential's "senior" editor issued his endorsement in the mayoral campaign today. Not unexpectedly, The New Albanian encouraged his readers to cast a vote for the Democratic candidate, Doug England.

One might ask, who cares?

Granted, it takes no small amount of ego to believe that others might care to know who you think they should vote for. But Mr. Baylor has, through his persistent reporting and commentary, earned the right to declare his endorsement.

This blogger, for one, will take that endorsement under serious consideration. It now appears to be a given that the traditional medium of journalism, The Tribune, will not be offering endorsements of any kind. This qualifies as a betrayal, in my point of view. Setting aside the fact that endorsements were promised, it is an abdication of responsibility for the principal organ of news reporting to decline to endorse a candidate.

Bobby Kennedy, love him or hate him, took a position. I believe Mr. Baylor harks back to a time when candidates were unafraid to express real opinions. In Mr. England, Mr. Baylor has found a champion who espouses many of his opinions, making the NAC endorsement completely understandable.

Four Years of Fear?

Nineteen more days before we learn our fates.

For the vast majority of New Albanians, there is nothing significant about Nov. 6. Assuredly, most won't vote. Most don't think it has anything to do with them.

Shadow5, this writer, hopes to "meet" others willing to shadow the council destined to be sworn in after New Year's Eve. NA Shadow Council is intended to be a log for nine men and women, good and true, who will study the issues and figuratively cast votes on the agenda over the next few years.

But in reality, we will be, for four years, at the mercy of nine men and women and a new mayor and his administration.

Will New Albany's destiny be for sale to the highest bidder? Blogger Supreme, Roger Baylor, seems to embrace the possibility of a restoration of the England style of municipal government. There is speculation that the incoming council will, in distinction to the past four years, be compliant and complacent about Doug England's initiatives.

NA Confidential, among others, has advocated strongly for ordinance enforcement and the institution of a rental inspection program. Presumably, Baylor is satisfied that England is the best hope for such initiatives.

But what if he is wrong? What if, instead, Doug England, with literal or figurative palm outstretched, governs for those who "back" him, with cash or other valuable consideration? Worse, what if England chooses to use the estimable powers at his disposal to punish or otherwise extort those who don't?

Whichever of the two men triumphs on Nov. 6, this blogger promises to remain independent. Willing to be convinced, but independent and wary.

Weekend fun

It's the weekend (and what a weekend -- a massive Harvest Homecoming turnout that does little or nothing to rejuvenate the year-round merchants, but that does enrich the coffers of the [now] two national beer purveyors, plus numerous gypsy festival vendors. Yes, a Boy Scout troop or two and a varied mix of churches pick up a buck or two, but it seems as if the permanent residents of the business district have to write off the weekend...well, not the swill-bars, but then that is further enrichment of the mega-corp brewers, isn't it?)

I chuckled when reading the illogic exposed over at NA Confidential this week. "Self-proclaimed" blog tsar Roger Baylor was taken to task by someone who self-proclaims him/herself "HoosierPundit" and by FC Repub chairman Matthews. The "HP" shows his ignorance first by using the term web blog. A first-year newspaperperson will tell you that it's always "Web," with a capital "W." And the term "web blog" is pretty much a redundancy. "Blog" is the shortened form of Weblog, or 'blog. You simply can't write a log on the Web without being a 'blog. But I digress.

Baylor, more than any other commentator (including, notably, the local newspaper of record), has accurately reported the reality of the local political situation. Considering the fact that "The New Albanian" obtains absolutely no benefits from his efforts, his critics show infantile tendencies in their feeble attacks on his commentaries. Rather than engage Mr. Baylor, they resort to the "so's your mother!" caliber of retort.

I've met the senior editor of NAC and spent a considerable amount of time conversing with him and enjoying his fine craft beers. I would venture to guess that if the reluctant mayoral candidate put forward by the Republican Party had presented a platform that indicated any kind of understanding of the the needs of this city (no, Steve, they aren't "wants," they are crying needs.), Mr. Baylor may have swallowed his instinctive repulsion to the GOP creed and lent his voice to support a Republican candidacy for the office of mayor.

By all accounts, Mr. Hubbard not only doesn't want to be mayor, he doesn't even intend to serve as mayor. Already, rumors circulate that he will resign for "health reasons" and step aside for his party to appoint his successor. His nominal campaign manager, a man who calls himself a Democrat, is superceded by the county party chairman, who campaigns against the city's brilliant investment in Scribner Place. Hubbard himself blithely boasts about his ignorance of the issues important to New Albany and promises to "let the people decide."

Let the people decide??? That quote came in response to a question about reverting the city's downtown traffic patterns to two-way traffic, something that would immediately revitalize the business district, calm traffic, and make our core neighborhoods eminently safer. Can we expect drivers to take the decision into their own hands as to whether to turn left or right at the corner of Bank and Spring? Would some moron driving east from Bank Street on Spring Street be able to cite "Mayor Hubbard's" inanity as a defense for driving east on "East" Spring?

Like The New Albanian and many others, it is irrelevant to shadowna5 what high school a candidate may have graduated from. I don't care how many children a candidate has or how many years he or she has been married to the same spouse. And I most assuredly don't care to hear what church the candidate attends. The mere fact that a candidate feels like it's relevant to tell me he or she attends a particular church offends me. That's about as relevant as what make of car the candidate drives or which NASCAR driver is his or her favorite. UK, U of L, IU? Coke or Pepsi? Latin Mass or vernacular? Who cares?

[In the interest of full disclosure, shadowna5 lives and dies with Tony Stewart. Go "Smoke!" And to provide T.M.I., this blogger cannot fathom the "Tsar's" adoration of the NBA. I do like "Elector," though.]

Weekends should be fun. And the manufactured attack on NAC and its senior editor is nothing but frivolity. It insults the intelligence. Had it not been for Roger Baylor's entry into the fray, readers of The Tribune would not have been entertained OR informed.

And speaking of the much-improved local press organ, where are those promised endorsements and issue editorials? Your Indiucky Pride slogan is cool, but even the Courier-Journal expresses an opinion from time to time. Doesn't The Tribune have the balls to take a stand?