First snow of the season gives Midtown a Currier and Ives look

Feed the Hungry....WWJD

Just in time for Thanksgiving I happened to witness something that gave me not only a reality check but a sense that I fail as a Christian. Last Saturday the weather was nice so I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. I walked up to the yards at the Joslyn Castle then west to our neighborhood park. While walking around the park, checking on all the plants and trees, I noticed to old ladies in the park. They were very familiar to me. I had noticed them often this summer as they walked up and down California Street. They stood out among all others because of the rural folksy way they dressed, a style of dress not unfamiliar to my grandparents or my aunts and uncles who are old time farmers. The one primary thing that always caught my eye was the bandanas that they wore on their heads. My mother always wore one when going out into the field to work, when my parents were still farming. One of the two ladies had a foam matt rolled up and tucked under her arm. One lady dug in the trash without taking it out of the can. Then the second lady dug out the trash and then put it back in the can. I am not sure they could see me across the park but I certainly could see them.

It was without a doubt they were digging in the trash for something to eat. I only feel this way because many workers from the University Medical Center eat lunch in our park because it near by. There are usually lots of fast food sacks in the trash cans. I knew I only had about $5 on me but I could take them to Subway Sandwich and buy them at least one sandwich. I froze. I didn't know what to do or even how to approach them to see if they would like something to eat. But I wanted to do something. I stood still as I watched them exit the park and round the first house. I then walked quickly after them, not knowing what I would do if I caught up with them. 42nd Street 'teebones' in the direction the ladies walked. They either went left or right. As I got to the corner house I looked up to see if my friend Dee was home and could help me in finding a way to help. Dee was not home. I saw the ladies about 4 blocks down the street. I walked after them. However, once they met busy Saddle Creek Road I halted my pursued. I turned and headed back home.

All the way home I tried to convince myself that I could find out where they lived in the neighborhood and could help them later. I felt deeply depressed. To know that someone I passed by on a regular basis and may live in my neighborhood may be very hungry, that I did nothing is disturbing.

I keep asking everyone if they know where these ladies live and still keeping my eyes out for them. I haven't figured it out yet. I am still disturbed.

Dreaming of Sweaters and a cute girl

I watched Intermission last night and hoped to have a home spun movie review to post today but I dont think that will happen.

Instead I had a dream last night that I remember quite well. The dream goes like this. It is set in a store, kind of like a Bananna Republic like place. I pick up a natural colored cotton sweater. The sweater was all one color. I held the sweater up to my face and sniffed it. As I do this a women approaches me and I seem to think she is a employee. You know how dream usually go, senses or feelings often take the place of words. I say to her, they smell so fresh. She then asks me what I think of her sweater. As she asks she does a turn to reveal the back of the sweater also. The sweater is a button up cardigan kind of thing and is knit to resemble cougar spots and it also has a big fuzzy color like a funky (or what I would call stylish) women's winter coat. The girl was also wearing a wide collared, cream colored ,button front, dress shirt. I say to her it is very nice but depends on your taste. She was immediately thrilled by my response. Still cluching the sweater that I had raised to my face earlier, she grasps both my left hand and the material in it with her fingers. I quickly drop the sweater with my right hand and grasp her fingers as though I was going to kiss her hand, like in an old fashion movie. I even wanted to kiss her hand but I didn't. The dream ends there.

So I spend this day thinking about what this dream means?

Sideways

I haven't done a movie review on this bloc yet and but I will post my written review of
Sideways. My "review" of the movie was put into script after a friend of mine refused to accept that there may be something good about this movie. I really dont get her rantings but respect her opinion of the movie. The whole thing started after a Saturday evening viewing of the latest by local boy Alexander Pane. I post her email to those that went to the movie together, obviously she entirely disagrees with our enjoyment of and assessment of the movie as a whole.

Ranting Friend....
"Okay one more thing....If we feel that Miles was an empathetic character (or whatever) have we forgotten the beginning of the movie?????He shows up @ his mother's on her birthday (or day before) lets her make a big meal for him, then STEALS a substantial sum of money from her, and then doesn't even say good-bye. what an &*(^%$#. So we're supposed to feel for him? he's despicable. And the one likeable character (Maya) is NOT waiting for him. She knows he would completely sap her. she ran, smart woman. so there!"


Email response: Boy, still on this topic? Ok then, I will give it a run. Mary and I always analyze movies after we see them.
Well Bor Kelorap the movie reviewer says "The message that I thought the movie represents is that none of us are prefect and we are all human and have faults. You can't pick and choose which parts of a person you like, you have to take it all. The mother did that. Loved her son even though he ruined his marriage, stole money from her before (otherwise how would he know where the can was) and hardly ever visited. A. Pane is not asking anyone to sympathize with anyone, just recognize that life, as well as people, are complicated and at the end of the movie have everyone say 'yes this is the reality of life'. If you want to see a feel good movie and sympathize with the main character go rent Lassie. As for the end of the movie, it is wide open for interpretation. No force fed Hollywood ending, how euro-cinema of him. Rating... Four out of five stars."

Unfunded cost from Sprawl

I have a nack for connecting topics that to what some might seem unrelated. On Oct 29 this diagram ran in the local paper warning of the unfunded roads that need to be built to accommodate traffic by 2025. $1.6 Billion is a large bite to chew for a city that annually spends only $12 million a year on road building. Developers pay no impact fees to offset the skyrocketing cost to all city tax payers to foot the bill to build these roads. The development community always complains that it would cut into their profit margins or would be passed on to the purchasers of newly built properties. Well, I would think the cost of paving a street to your front door should be paid for those who will most directly benefit from that street. That would be the person that owns that front door. Not by all city tax payers. I paid for my street in front of my house already, you can pay for yours also.

I read an article titled Bangalore: Tech Eden No More in the Nov issue of Business Week the same week as the Oct 29 OWH article. The article in BW tells the reader that "Choked roads, poor sanitation, pollution, and an iffy water supply" threaten the prosperity of the Silicon Valley of India. It seems that the city fathers in Bangalore refused to head the warning signs as do my city fathers. Omaha's District 3 city councilmen was quoted as saying "we have no development problems in Omaha!" Well the Oct. 29 Omaha World Herald report seems to point to the exact opposite conclusion. If developers don't start paying now for the cost of city infrastructure, that their new construction creates, west Omaha will become a sea of single lane arterials that choke off commerce and economic development.

What is not mentioned in the article is that by 2025 all of the buildable land that Omaha can annex will be built on. If the roads are not built and paid for now they will become a $1.6 Billion tax burden on the entire city of Omaha's tax payers.

We should all wake up and smell the coffee before our pocket books are much lighter.