As noted yesterday:
The NA Confidential blog is being scaled back. Writing for pay as I’m doing now takes time, and the blogging quota will fall to two posts per day, down from four in 2017. If a news item takes more than 20 minutes to write and format, it won’t be posted. I’ll be riffing off the rising generation of dissidents, and doing longer-form commentary less often. I no longer have 25 hours a week to devote to research.
I haven’t decided what this means for the monthly Top Ten wrap-up, and there’s a chance I won’t do it at all. Probably it will be scaled back to Top Three or Top Five.
For now, the usual drill, in ascending order. Thanks for reading.
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FIVE (5) HONORABLE MENTION for December 2019
609
Marcus Green at WDRB: ” ‘Shermageddon’ 2? New Albany waits for Sherman Minton Bridge plan.”
It’s ironic. The next five years of life in New Albany, especially downtown, will be determined by the ripple effects of the bridge repair project, given that we’re a purely automobile-centric metropolitan area. It is of immense significance, but had a space alien been monitoring the recently concluded municipal election, she’d have noted almost no mention of it.
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636
An anchor-free public art tale of two dragons, in New Albany and far away to the east of Silver Creek.
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667
Best wishes to Susan Kerber, as “Bridge Liquors in New Albany has new owner.”
GREAT JOB, GUYS. That’s endurance. Now have some fun without having to reply to the alarm at 4:00 a.m. when a stray moth activated the sensor.
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682
ON THE AVENUES: These parents oppose their children’s exposure to the PURE Initiative as part of the NA-FC Schools curriculum. Here’s why.
Let’s have a look at faith-based abstinence as a component of health education in New Albany-Floyd County Schools. But first, just a bit of background to explain how the topic came to my attention.
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687
BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Why is Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout on tap at Pints&union?
When Nadorff’s Jason Mott asked me if we’d like to have the only 1/6 barrel of Bourbon County Brand Stout that his wholesale house was allocated, I thought about it long and hard before immediately agreeing to purchase it. By doing so I was happily patronizing a locally-owned business with deep roots in New Albany.
TOP TEN (10) for December 2019
695
ON THE AVENUES: He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.
Anyone that clueless with so much money should be opposed on general principle alone, and to repeat, I’ve no regrets at having written the alternative history and formulated the case against Gahan from precepts ranging far beyond simple contrarianism, even if I inherited my father’s stubbornness. Posterity will be kind to me, indeed, and all I need do is live long enough to see it happen.
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713
“Barack Obama is using his post-presidency to attack the Left and protect the status quo.”
In the beginning, I was a fan, but in the end, one must allow facts to be facts. It isn’t always easy. Maybe we learn something, maybe not. Barack Obama disappointed while in office, and continues to do so amid his post-presidency.
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736
ON THE AVENUES: Four more years? Heaven help us all, but there are five reasons to be optimistic.
My innate stubbornness eliminates the possibility that these kingpin nitwits will ever govern MY head space. Rather than dwell on the dipshittsian dysfunctionals, let’s see if there is a case to be made for this municipal glass being half-full with our delicious Pilsner Urquell, rather than half depleted of their Bud Light Mang-o-Rita pet shampoo. Because I promised … here are FIVE POSITIVE TAKEWAYS FROM THE NOVEMBER 5 ELECTION.
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825
Forget the ugly sweaters, because here’s the winner of the NA Confidential Ugly Christmas Greeting Banner Contest for 2019.
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869
GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Social media reports indicate that New Albany’s venerable Red Men club will vacate its Main Street space.
Folks are saying that New Albany’s 120-year-old Red Men club is giving up its storefront on Main Street (at the very least) or perhaps even calling it quits permanently in the face of declining membership, aging and mortality.
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1,125
The morning after the return from Croatia, Slovenia and Trieste.
We took seven flights in all, four outbound (to Zagreb) and three inbound returning to Louisville. All seven were delayed, five of them significantly. In terms of actual time in the air, these series of flights theoretically total 24 hours, or twelve hours each way. The sum total of the delays, not including the usual time spent waiting, cost us 28 hours, including an overnight stay on the way back.
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1,148
Gahan’s public records scandal: WDRB’s Marcus Green breaks it down as the News and Tribune flails ineffectually.
On Christmas Eve, Marcus Green of WDRB broke down Jeff Gahan’s public records scandal; the screenshots and transcriptions follow. Green concludes with three questions:
Why didn’t (city hall) respond to the citizens’ request before (the judge’s ruling)?
Does it believe it doesn’t have to respond to requests it deems politically motivated?
Why didn’t it respond to the access counselor?
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1,349
Todd Coleman’s Classic Furniture (corner Pearl and Main) is sprouting windows.
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1,519
Sadly, Bliss Artisan is closed. The franchise lasted ten months at The Breakwater.
I have little to say; this closing seems to have escaped notice, and I thought it should be noted. As for whether it “means” anything, my hunch is the terms of the lease might tell us a lot. This isn’t a good space for a business like this, at least in my estimation.
Martini bar, anyone?
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3,227
ASK THE BORED: The wonderful world of Market Street trip hazards.
These stakes jut up from the cute gravel on the north side of Market Street between Pearl and State, where in 2019 Team Gahan spent lots more money than the Horseshoe Foundation donated to them in order to beautify according to the suburban design templates of HWC Engineering. It’s an aesthetic atrocity overall, more reminiscent of Mussolini’s fascist Italy than anything belonging in a Midwestern city, but that’s a topic for future archaeologists to consider.
