Friday, November 04, 2005

Drinking Liberally - coming soon to Rich O's?

I've received a pleasant e-mail from one of the founders of Louisville's Drinking Liberally chapter.

Before divulging the note's contents, you should know what Drinking Liberally is, and here's the answer, courtesy of the organization's national web site.

Drinking Liberally: An informal, inclusive Democratic drinking club. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher. Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don't need to be a policy expert and this isn't a book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it's not taboo to talk politics.

Bars are democratic spaces - you talk to strangers, you share booths, you feel the bond of common ground. Bring democratic discourse to your local democratic space - build Democracy one drink at a time.

Drinking Liberally's motto is, "Promoting democracy one pint at a time," and this sounds suitably noble. Already I'm considering matching certain styles of beer with particular topics.

All this has come up because some regular patrons of the Louisville chapter's Thursday night gatherings, which are held at the original Bluegrass Brewing Company on Shelbyville Road, believe there may be sentiment for a New Albany chapter, which would meet at Rich O's and quaff $8 pints of Progressive Beer.

As a counterweight, albeit tiny, to the prevailing crackpot sentiments of theocratic fascism washing over Indiana's shores (see 'Intelligent design' debate coming in this morning's Courier-Journal), I'd be delighted to host Drinking Liberally at my pub, perhaps in the new conference/banquet wing that we're hoping to have finished in December.

Negotiations toward this end have been initiated, so stay tuned for further details.

(Crossposted at NA Confidential)

1 comment:

edward parish said...

What will the already entrenched neo-cons: Wan_King, Sid of Deep Purple, UPS Reid and others say to all of this?

Grand idea and hats off to whom ever started this idea stateside. As noted, it has been in the pubs of Europe for ions.