History....When Do We Learn From It?

As a round about belated birthday/anniversary present my wife and I spent yesterday at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

As an ardent student of the arts one of her favorite subjects is the Greek and Roman period. As it happens there is curently an exhibit of Roman Art from the Lourve in Indy. This made my gift shopping an easy one this year.

As we browsed through the displays of marble statues and read the history of their origin it ocurred to me that much of the good in our form of government and the freedoms we share as citizens is patterned after the Roman Empire.

Continuing on through a few more viewings and readings however, it became equally obvious that much of the graft and corruption we see in our government from the local all the way up through the federal levels has its roots in the same era.

The framework for a slave to become a freedman, obtain citizenship and have a voice, however small in his local government, along side the emperor's and Senates propensity to sell out to the highest bidder should it suit the purpose of either at a particular juncture.

So hence the question. When do we or have we learned from history? The inbreeding, arrogance, and greed of the Roman Empire ultimately led to its demise.

Are we as a democracy (oops! a representative republic) destined to suffer the same fate? Or will we choose to learn from the mistakes of the past and strike a new path? Will we use our freedoms to preserve our way of life by getting involved in the process or stand silently by as we watch it slip from our grasp?

Pertinent questions I think for citizens, candidates and current office holeders alike.

Happy campaign season!

Progressives at Work....

I woke up this morning to find, to my hearts delight, two very positive and hopeful posts in the blogisphere.

The first concerns the salvation & resurrection of another historic landmark in New Albany as reported over at NAC ; In spite of the neglect by it's owner, The Daisy Supply Medical building may survive. http://www.cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/

The other in reference to a neighborhood coming together to save itself from more multifamily infestation in a single family atmosphere; Score One for the Good Guys reported by
http://kerberoskorner.blogspot.com/

These stories along with others of late concerning citizens involvement in the preserving what we have and entrepreneurs willingness to take a chance downtown assure me that our dreams & ideas of progress are alive and well here in New Albany. This inspite of the ongoing efforts of many in our midst to sqeulch such.

My congratulations to all involved for jobs well done!

Democracy Works (when you try !!)

After a long evening of much wailing and gnashing of teeth concerning city employees, job displacements, salaries, benefits, TIF monies, EDIT monies, and the ghosts of Christmas past as they pertained to parking garages & Scribner place, the crescendo increased during the afterglow.

When the floor was opened for public comments concerning items not on the agenda for the evening, I approached the podium to offer this Council yet another alternative to avoid a costly court battle as it concerns redistricting of New Albany.

In essence what was proposed was that a committee be formed by the Council made up of the three at large Councilmen to meet with a delegation of Plaintiffs involved in the aforementioned lawsuit and hammer out an agreement of principle to redistrict in such a manner as to end up with equal population numbers in each of the six districts as nearly as possible.

The plaintiffs still hold that the bodycount can and should by law be much closer than a 600 person difference as was proposed by the Councils previous offering.

Following my proposal, Roger followed with a history lesson as to the actions and inactions that have thus far transpired in this matter.

Randy brought up the rear with a very concise and understandable explanation as to how TIF monies better serve a community for certain projects than do EDIT monies.

Then just as President Kochert was about to call for adjournment and drop the gavel, Councilmen Gahan presented a motion and received a second to form the aforementioned exploratory committee and a vote was called far.

At this point the volume level rose a few decibels and despite the exuberant efforts of both President Kochert and CM Coffee to squash the idea, their Attorney stated he saw no legal reason not to if the majority was in favor of the idea, and the final vote was 5 to 3 in favor of the motion with CM Schmidt abstaining.

Unfortunately for the public, the Tribune reporter had already left the room so the blogisphere and the street is where this event will be reported for now.

Regardless of what speculation may follow, I want to reinterate that the Plaintiffs only goal in this case is for the Common Council of New Albany to do that which it is required by statute to do in order to assure that ALL citizens of ou city have equal representation across the board.

I'm sure there will be much more discussion of this matter throughout the next days and weeks but at least for now I say "Chalk one up for the Gipper!"

It's a Bird, it's a Plane!- oh it's only him...

After a long absence for various boring reasons that I shant go into I revisited this site today and found that I have had many visitors during my absence.

When last I checked the Site Meter, the body count was in the 4600 range. To my personal delight and surprise ( no thanks to my lax effort), it now registers in excess of 11,000.

To further encourage my return to the blogisphere, I've had visitors from as far away as Atlanta Georgia, Fort Collins, Colorado, and even the Netherlands. Ain't the internet great!

I wish to thank you all for checking in, whomever you may be!

I guess I'm going to have rack my underworked brain cells and come up with something to write about. Although at the moment there seems to be no shortage of material to comment on locally.

Happy Reading!