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Home - Cover Stories
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Kleeb’s Components - |
Breaking down a prairie politician
by Warren Francke
The question about Scott Kleeb, as he runs for the United States Senate, gets down to image v. substance: Is he more ranch hand, academic or politician?
He looks the tall cowboy as you follow him from a fund-raiser north of Memorial Park to a Democratic Party meeting near Clancy’s Pub off 72nd Street. Then to a rock concert downtown at Slowdown and, finally on Sunday, after a pancake breakfast in a south Omaha union hall, he sits down long enough at a Starbucks on West Center to talk about his past life and his present Senate campaign.
Sure, you could hear what Scott Kleeb had to say at the fund-raiser and at the party committee meeting. Later, he didn’t compete with the folk rock wailing of The Night Gallery as Sara White sang and sawed her cello at Slowdown.
“It’s their show,” he explained, referring to four bands at the “Listen Up!” rally. So he didn’t say much there or at the AFL-CIO breakfast where union president Kenny Mass was raffling meat in the packinghouse hangout west of the tracks on Q Street.
But then came a chance encounter just as he sat down with a slab of pumpkin loaf and a cup of black coffee. “No whiskey,” his communication director, Joe Zepecky, joked.
If you read his Yale tabloid treatment as one of the 50 most beautiful people on campus, “the paragon of prairie perfection,” you saw him described as a “whiskey-and-black-coffee-drinking type of man,” not to mention “bull-riding, steak-eating and tobacco-spitting.” |
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Classical Cowboy - |
On a horse, Spanish guitar progeny is the Real McCoy
by Leo Adam Biga
Spanish classical guitar could be said to flow from a single source — Francisco Tarrega. At the turn of the 20th century, Tarrega, the father of this passionate art form, passed on his legacy to his musical progeny — a few prized pupils.
These pupils, in turn, taught the art to select disciples, and so on down the line.
Improbably, this line of maestros, the great interpreters of Spanish classical guitar, includes a longtime area resident who is an American to boot.
Hadley Heavin grew up a cowboy, jock and blues-rock lead guitar player in Baxter Springs, Kan. He learned guitar at 5 and began riding horses soon after, eventually adding rodeo, football, basketball, track and baseball to his resume.
Since 1982, the Vietnam combat vet has been a University of Nebraska at Omaha music instructor.
In the late ’70s, Heavin became the primary student of the late Segundo Pastor. Decades before, Pastor was the favorite student of Daniel Fortea, once the anointed disciple of Tarrega himself.
So it is that this musical lineage has been passed from Tarrega to Fortea to Pastor to Heavin.
“When I play Spanish music, I play it very much probably how Tarrega played it, because it was passed down that way,” Heavin said. “I’m probably just one of a handful of people in the world that got that experience.” |
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Unequivocally Ernie - |
UNICAMERAL AND NEBRASKA LOSE HISTORIC INGREDIENT
by Tessa Jeffers
Lincoln — On the way to Room 1107, other offices welcome visitors with nameplates on open doors and beaming secretaries at the ready. The door to Room 1107 is shut, unmarked; no nameplate.
Knockers must persist (some, like former state senator Kermit Brashear, have a secret knock). Once the door opens, it’s radical. Stacks upon stacks of papers, boxes atop boxes, hand-written notes, typed poems, yellowed newspaper clippings taped haphazardly in organized chaos. Literature on the death penalty, abortion, education — virtually every hot-button issue. One box is simply labeled “problems.”
In an interview where she praised Sen. Ernie Chambers’ accomplishments and storied career, Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln joked, “I just don’t want Ernie to get a bigger head than he already has.”
These loads of information in piles loom as knowledge evidence.
One can infer that it’s all been taken in. No wonder his head is so big. “I have probably the biggest but healthiest ego of anybody you ever will meet,” Chambers said. “It is not based on illusion or delusion, but recognition of the abilities that I have and the fact that I will stand for what I believe. And whenever you do that, you’re comfortable with yourself. That is the best status to occupy on this Earth.” |
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Making the Switch - |
Switchgrass offers more environmentally friendly ethanol.
But with high corn and soybean prices, will
farmers buy into this crop?
By Sean McCarthy
Last summer, United States Department of Agriculture Research Agronomist Rob Mitchell brought a few scientists from Japan to a poorly lit munitions depot near Mead, Neb. Today the depot stores tons of bales of grass; during World War II, it stored bombs destined for Japan.
“They thought, ‘Wow, that’s kind of cool,’” Mitchell said.
The Japanese scientists were examining the possible energy benefits of switchgrass, which gained worldwide attention when President George W. Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address called it a possible fuel alternative to reduce America’s foreign-oil “addiction.”
Studies have shown three times more ethanol can be derived from an acre of switchgrass than an acre of corn, while producing 90 percent fewer greenhouse gases. The problem is that the grass is inefficient for farmers to produce on a short-term basis and Nebraska has no large plants capable of turning switchgrass into biofuel.
Still, outside forces could bode well for switchgrass.
Some environmental organizations and studies have concluded that, as much as oil, corn-based ethanol has negative social and environmental impact. Time magazine’s April 7 cover story examined how corn-based ethanol has led to deforestation and increased food prices worldwide.
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Saving Species - |
Omaha Zoo's Conservation Mission
By Lindsay Trapnell
Sitting down to talk to Dr. Doug Armstrong is akin to my vision of a Proust scholar, or a chess wizard. An expert within a specific, complex and somewhat insular field, he bubbles with enthusiasm at the opportunity to share his knowledge with me, the average layperson.
Armstrong, associate director of medicine and research, heads a hardworking team at the Henry Doorly Zoo’s Bill and Berniece Grewcock Center for Conservation and Research (CCR). He is passionate about conservation, and appropriately proud of the work he’s doing.
CCR scientists are part of a network seeking to ensure survival of animal and plant species. No small task.
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TrashTalk - |
Recycling for the economy is the new green
by Andrea Heisinger
Recycling has become one of many buzz words in the green movement of recent years, alongside hybrid cars and Al Gore.
It’s even become a source of internet humor, listed at No. 64 on the popular blog “Stuff White People Like.”
One may wonder if anyone actually recycles in Omaha. The answer is a tepid Wasteline newsletter.
Green bins can be seen lining curbs on certain days of the week, containing that which would otherwise end up in the tangle of refuse at the landfill.
So who picks it up? And where does it go? |
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Producing Peace - |
Converting a permanent war economy
by Andrew Norman
Standing on a Colorado Springs street corner Monday, April 7, Mary Beth Sullivan answered the phone as she put down a sign that read, “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”
Sullivan is a peacenik of the unabashed variety. A tree-hugging, rabblerousing idealist whose doomsday environmental scenarios and books-not-bombs economic schemes prove her naiveté.
She thinks Americans care that 42.2 percent of their 2007 income tax dollars went to military spending, while just over 4 percent and 3 percent went to education and to the environment respectively, according to the National Priorities Project.
If Sullivan is nuts it’s because she thinks Americans will consider their children’s children when they hear that government money devoted to healthcare, education, environmental sustainability and infrastructure can generate up to twice as many jobs per dollar as military spending, according to a 2007 study by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute (PERI).
If Sullivan is wacko it’s because she believes Americans are ready to talk about converting a permanent war economy into one promoting sustainability and peace.
Other innocents and would-be kooks will hear her revolutionary notions when she speaks at the 16th-annual Space Organizing Conference & Protest at St. John’s Parish basement at Creighton University April 11-13. Local and national social leaders and activists like Los Alamos Study Group Director Greg Mello, Des Moines Catholic Worker co-founder Frank Cordaro and Lindis Percy, from England’s Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases, will offer workshops focused on U.S. Strategic Command’s recent mission evolution, missile-defense systems in Europe, U.S. military bases abroad and wars of the future. The event begins at 4 p.m. Friday with a rally at StratCom’s Kinney Gate. |
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The Bob and Mike Show - |
Something Strange Is Happening at The Daily
By Warren Francke
A newspaper once boasted on page one, “Irreverence is our only sacred cow.” It wasn’t the Omaha World-Herald.
But then the daily didn’t have Robert Nelson writing columns that tug the teats on an entire herd of Nebraska’s sacred cows. He even refers to what he does as “being a jerk.”
Fans would never call his fellow columnist a jerk, but Mike Kelly sparked controversy when by picking on “our state religion and my personal religion,” Cornhusker football and his own Roman Catholic faith.
“Stop squawking and become a Protestant,” a critic complained.
What’s an alternative weekly like The Reader to do when a gray lady like the Herald zings sacred cows?
Well, write about it. Answer questions. Like, what hath Nelson, the refugee from an alt-weekly, wrought, and will Cincinnati Mike try to out-jerk the kid from Falls City?
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The Reader Weekly News - |
Sewer Confidential:
The Secret Plan and Foolproof Financing, Underground People Rise Up
Though Sewer Director Bo Flush denied allegations that he had a secret plan all along to build a new sewage system, it recently came to light that a secret plan is floating around regarding just how in the hell we’re supposed to pay for a new state-of-the-art excrement exiting system.
As Flush revealed in today’s press conference, his plan is simple. “Since we’ve ridden this pony about as far as it’s going to go, it’s clear that we need to build a new waste wash-away. Today I’m proud to unveil my plan for funding the new one: I’m asking all Omaha residents to get second or in some cases, third, jobs.”
“No sh*t,” was the reply from Bob Hole, the spokesperson for the city’s Underground People opposed to the plan. “What’s wrong with the existing crap clean-up."
Claiming that “we’re all in this together,” Flush pointed out the hundreds of listings at job sites such as Omahajobs.com and Careerlink.org as examples. “Yes, some of these positions are highly skilled. That means those individuals will be able to contribute even more money. But everyone can do their part — I mean, what else are we going to do with this stuff.”
His plan includes residents of all ages, including children under 18 and the elderly. “As this program rolls, the babysitting market in Omaha will explode,” he enthused.
Elkhorn Resident: ‘I Honestly Thought We’d All be Dead by Now’
Having stockpiled enough grain, gunpowder and bottled water to successfully fight a war on two continents, one Elkhorn man has regrets.
“The way they were talking, I sincerely believed martial law would have been declared,” he opines.
Having begun home schooling his children, purchased 76 fire extinguishers and deputized his own police force, this resident felt prepared. “If things keep going at this rate, I’m going to feel really stupid for using all my vacation time to dig that moat.”
Local Man Regrets That Shot of Goldschläger. So Do Bar Patrons, Staff
“It sounded good at the time,” Kevin Rightman moaned after completing a 12-minute round of projectile vomiting that begin near the jukebox of Frank’s Pub around 12:30 a.m. Saturday and ended at the front door.
Rightman was referring to the shots of Goldschläger he ordered for himself and his two roommates. After consuming seven pitchers of Busch Light, Rightman loudly announced it was time to “go for the gold.” He promptly downed a shot of the strong cinnamon schnapps. His roommates, Eric Thomas and Jerry Ryan, wisely abstained. Rightman’s face quickly lost all color before he deposited his Arby’s combo meal all over the floor.
In addition to the side of the bar’s jukebox, other barfed-on targets included two upholstered bar stools, a pool table, a neon Corona sign (“completely shot,” said bar owner Matt Johnson), the shoulder of Terry Ames, and the brand-new brown velvet shoes of Chelsea Anderson of Papillion.
Rightman offered a halfhearted apology as he was dragged to Thomas’ Grand Am for a ride home. |
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Penis Sword Fights and Gorilla Masks - |
A reporter’s SXSW notebook
by Andrew Norman
The first show we hit at the South By Southwest Music Festival was Chicago post-hardcore pioneers Naked Raygun Tuesday night at Red 7. The band reformed in 2006 after about a 15-year absence. It’s always strange seeing a band, especially a rock band, reliving its youth. It’s impossible to regain the energy, so it often leaves musicians stationary, playing their instruments as hard as they can while trying not to crap out. There was no stage diving or jump kicks, but the band drew on its extensive catalog of steady, up-tempo, melodic hardcore songs and left the physical antics to the audience, who seemed to know every word.
Wednesday afternoon we ventured west to catch Lincoln’s Eagle Seagull at an unofficial day show at some DJ club about five blocks west of the festival epicenter. Day shows are hit-or-miss at SXSW; there must be free beer. At this venue a Lone Star cost $4, which is $3 more than one should ever pay for the Texas lager. Not surprisingly, only a small crowd watched ES’ indie pop. I’m told the band’s official show went better.
After SXSW, ES was spending two weeks on the road with recent Saddle Creek Records signee Tokyo Police Club. After that, the band will tour for two weeks with the B-52s. Violinist Carrie Butler said the “Love Shack” band’s riders demanded two hair stylists capable of doing beehives. She planned to take advantage.
Returning to Sixth Street we passed an eight-piece old-timey street band of crusty punks playing Leftover Crack’s “Crack Rock Steady” with their mangy dogs by their side. Excellent. |
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Nebraska Invades Texas - |
How local bands fared in Austin
by Jeremy Buckley
The tables were set with nice linen for another evening’s rush at Botticelli’s Restaurant. Candles remained unlit, waiting for couples longing for a little romance with their spaghetti and meatballs. Only a few people sat waiting to order in the cozy eating establishment as the members of Brimstone Howl tuned their instruments on the back patio, ready to blast anyone listening with a wall of lo-fi garage rock reverb and feedback.
Even without Jon Zeigler on vocals, the band was able to make an impression on the crowd: good for some, bad for others. Older patrons who didn’t dig the whole South By Southwest vibe that permeates Austin for the week were quick to pay their tabs and bounce. Others, hearing the music from inside, meandered outside, children in tow, to see what the restaurant’s owners had cooked up for live entertainment.
The 2008 SXSW lineup featured an impressive array of Nebraska talent. Last year’s event featured five Nebraska-based bands, including Cursive and The Faint; 2006 only saw Tilly and the Wall. This year the festival, which hosted more than 1,600 bands from all over the world, invited 11 bands from Lincoln and Omaha to entertain the possibility of becoming the “next big thing.” |
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Humble Shots - |
by Darren Keen
My name is Darren. I play in a one man band called The Show is the
Rainbow. It’s weird and I rap and dance and scream and tell amazing jokes, all while videos play behind me in perfect synchronization to my every stroke of musical genius.
I wasn’t surprised when I found out I was one of the bands invited to play the South by Southwest music festival this year. The Reader was smart to ask me to document my trip. (Editor’s Note: He asked us.) Here it is. |
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Immigration Intimidation - |
Why did Heineman and Bruning target a federal issue as their top priority?
by Tessa Jeffers
Dr. Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, political science professor and assistant director of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s OLLAS (Office of Latino/Latin American Studies), isn’t surprised at what he ran into during the Unicameral’s committee debate of LB 963, a bill targeting illegal immigrants.
“When I first walked in [to the hearing], there was a gentleman with a red vest on, a disheveled looking little man, and he bumped right into me — he pushed me,” Benjamin-Alvarado remembers. “He started mumbling under his breath, ‘f***in’ Mexican’ or something like that.” The situation was halted by a state trooper who was there for peacekeeping, who intervened and told the man to get out of the way.
Unprovoked incidents like this happen all the time, says Benjamin-Alvarado, who testified against LB 963. “And unfortunately, they’re on ‘robocall’ to the governor’s office.”
Politics is a contact sport, says Republican Sen. Mike Friend of Omaha, who introduced the bill. In the case of the nation’s inflamed immigration debate, Sen. Brad Ashford says the issue is being tossed around like a “political football.” |
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New Washington - |
Young Democrats Esch and Carter believe regime change starts in Nebraska
by Andrew Norman
The Iraq war begins year five this month. A Nobel Prize-winning economist says the cost could wind up reaching $5 trillion. It has already cost some 4,000 American lives; 43 of them Nebraskans.
The leading Republican presidential candidate indicates he could envision American troops being there for another 100 years. Warren Buffett says the United States is in a recession. The national debt has increased $3.6 trillion in the last seven years. About 15,000 low-income Nebraska children will go without health insurance because President Bush vetoed an expansion to the State Children Health Insurance Program. The country’s infrastructure needs more than $1.6 trillion in repairs. An estimated 12 million immigrants live in the country illegally. The wage gap is increasing and Exxon Mobil earned a record $41 billion in 2007. Gas costs more than $3 per gallon and is climbing.
Do you know where your congressman is?
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Eclectic Evolution - |
Creative savvy allowed Drastic Plastic to adapt and thrive for decades
by Nicole Blauw
A stereotype exists about snobby record store clerks. The kind seen in movies like High Fidelity, where your worth as a human being is quantified solely by your musical taste. They make you scared witless to bring that Gin Blossoms CD you found in the used section to the register, even though you’re buying it for your friend, for like nostalgic reasons, or whatever. They instill fear into the hearts of people who only know Belle and Sebastian as beloved Disney characters, Crazy Horse as some monument in South Dakota and think TheThe is a speech impediment. You might want to hold off on that Xanadu soundtrack because the snooty record store clerk is no myth. Those guys really exist. Just not at Drastic Plastic.
The clerks at Drastic are more like your cooler older brother who makes you hip by association; who educates and somehow, against all odds, seamlessly ushers you from your prepubescent proclivity for bubble gum pop toward Iggy Pop, and won’t call you an idiot for not owning The Idiot. At least not to your face. |
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Polishing A Gem - |
Behind the John Beasley Theater’s staging of an August Wilson classic
by Leo Adam Biga
The play’s the thing, they say. Bringing a playwright’s words to life before a live audience is an organic, enervating experience: A never-to-be-repeated human exchange with the power to transform its participants.
Mounting a production has its own dynamic. Discoveries happen incrementally over weeks. The creative process unfolds among a theater family in readings and rehearsals.
It means late nights, running lines, working scenes over and over until truth emerges. Developing a play is by turns grueling, moving, satisfying. It’s all about exposing and confronting your fears. |
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Omaha’s Oscar - |
Academy Award Nomination Captured a
Church and Community’s Struggle with Racism
What Would Jesus Do Today?
by Leo Adam Biga
On the eve of the 1968 Oscars, a nominee for best documentary feature, filmed in Omaha, foretold the violence that was ripping America apart. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination six days earlier in Memphis was the match that lit the fire. The riots that followed spread to more than 100 cities.
About once every generation a seminal film takes an unblinking look at race in America. Crash took the incendiary subject head-on in the 2000s. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing hit all the hot buttons in the 80s. Roots offered a hard history lesson in the 70s. A Time for Burning arguably made the most righteous contribution to the topic in the 60s. |
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It’s Complicated - |
Online networks take dating to a whole new realm
by Lindsey and Sarah Baker
Once upon a time, long ago and not so far away, dating was a series of letters, negotiations and blessed marriages with a sight-unseen mate.
It was, to a certain extent, all about social networking — names and family lines and bank accounts. It was an alignment (perhaps sometimes of the stars), a union (perhaps sometimes of the souls).
Today, we’d like to think we’ve updated dating, have given it a name and routine not so antiquated as our stately, stoic forebears. To that degree, well, we are frankly fooling ourselves. The proof: MySpace. Facebook. Friendster. |
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The Magical Mystery Tour of Omaha’s Magic Theatre - |
… a Megan Terry and Jo Ann Schmidman Production
by Leo Adam Biga
Even in the counter-cultural maelstrom of the late 1960s, the idea conservative Omaha could support an experimental theater with a strong feminist, gay/lesbian bent defied logic.
Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?
When native Jo Ann Schmidman founded the Omaha Magic Theatre in 1968 as a center for avant garde expression in the Old Market, she followed her muse. The fact she was barely out of her teens, between her sophomore and junior years as a Boston University theater major, only added to what many must have regarded as folly. That’s not how she saw it.
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Shadow of Doubt - |
Characterization of sex-abuse victim underscores immigration myths
by Warren Francke
Grinning from a puffy face, the lawyer spies more cameras and spouts, “Still think he’s a 13-year-old?” Once more, James Martin Davis paints Fernando Rodriguez as a macho Mexican villain, rather than the victim of the sixth-grade teacher that Davis is representing.
Amy Peck, the boy’s attorney, tells a different story.
“I can say with certainty that the information put forth so far about him has been inaccurate, misleading, and has played to all the stereotypes about undocumented people,” she said. “What has been lost is the basic truth that a 13-year-old boy has been sexually abused by a trusted adult in a position of authority.”
Peck reminds that Kelsey Peterson, 25, accused of kidnapping and taking Rodriguez across state lines to engage in sexual activity, began the alleged sexual abuse when he was 12. She was twice his age. Now Rodriguez sits in Mexicali, Mexico, living with strangers, unable to attend school, far from his mother, stepfather and brothers in Lexington, Neb.
Fernando didn’t swagger into Kelsey’s life, twirling a dark mustache. He didn’t sneak across the border by choice. He arrived at age 5 with his mother “and doesn’t remember anything about Mexico,” Peck said. |
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