Here we go again

I don't often comment on my "hometown", which is the Omaha Nebraska/Council Bluffs Iowa area, because I was raised that if you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all. But sometimes that shithole of a town just irritates me enough that I HAVE to say something - and this is one of those times.

The Union Pacific Railroad recently constructed an amazingly banal headquarters building, which replaced the 1908 Headquarters building, which is quite a handsome structure. In typical Omaha fashion (they have a terrible inferiority complex there) the railroad foisted the old building off on the city, with the understanding that this was such a great deal: There would be a new building!!!!

Anyway, now the city has decided that the old building has to be demolished, which is in keeping with the planning concept that seems to be that they need to tear anything cool down. Or blow it up. Either way - as long as they can replace it with something inspiring to the intellect of the city (which usually means a parking lot)

In my time, they have sacrificed the following buildings:

A cool old "skyscraper" that, at 20 floors, was once the tallest building west of Chicago.

An amusement park that had the most AMAZING ballroom and outdoor dance floor (The amusement park, I could understand, but they were too dense to preserve the Ballroom)

A hotel with a terracotta "headdress" that was designed to resemble the ceremonial war bonnet of the Chief of the Omaha tribe. (the Fontenelle, which you can see on my website)

A whole SLEW of amazing riverfront warehouses. This is PARTICULARLY indicative of their stupidity: One of the very few "attractions" in this shithole of a town is the "Old Market" - a kitsch touristy place that is comprised of old buildings and regarded by the local yokels as "artsy". Unfortunately, the Old Market is only about two blocks long. Prior to this stupid "redevelopment" of the warehouses, they had about five more blocks to expand into - but they chose to redo that area into a "corporate campus" for ConAgra.

....I could go on, but why bother. It's just Omaha.


I have to concede, once again, that My mother was right. The only people who stay in Omaha are the ones to stupid to leave or who are stuck there by circumstance. The rest are people who are transferred there, and stay for a few years "paying their dues" and then get the hell out.

What's another school shooting?

So the Dear Leader can drag his sorry ass out of bed to make a grandiose statement about the whole Terry Schaivo thing, but can't say anything about the school shootings in Minnesota, eh?

Bush is such a prick.

In other news, I am converting over to a gas stove! I purchased a 60's era O'Keefe & Merritt double oven gas range. It's sort of a chocolate-y brown with a chrome top and lighted backsplash. It's everything you would want in a stove, including something called "hold-o-matic" and "pan-o-matic"!

And whither the flair? Well, that is up in the air. (poetry!) One of the burners is broken, and I don't know what the implications of that are. It will all be revealed in time.

I really need to get some new pictures up on the site. Maybe one of these fine sunny days.

Happy Easter, everyone.

A change of course.....

Dear Readers,

Sorry for the long parched dry period we’ve experienced here at danlangdon.com. It’s just that, with so much crap going on in the world, I just can’t find the inspiration to write about things like table linens and china patterns (not that they aren’t a seminal part of life, mind you – but they are not everything in life)

So with apologies to Sylvia, I am branching out. From now on, I’m going to write about whatever I damn well please, and a lot of that is probably going to be political.

With that said, here are some things I’ve been wanting to get off my chest:

1.) Terri Schiavo is dead. She’s been dead for a long time. That grisly animated corpse you see on that video tape is just a ghoulish sideshow for the “christian” mouth-breathers. My heart goes out to her, her family, and her husband – but she’s dead. Everyone, including the Catholic Church, needs to just butt out.

2.) I could give a flying fuck about Michael Jackson or Scott Peterson.

3.) George Bush’s idea about “reforming” Social Security sucks. Social Security is a great program that shows that you don’t have to be religious to take care of people. That’s part of the reason why the Bushies hate it. They also want to make money off of all the suckers who would be “investing their own money” under privatization.

4.) Bush’s plan to “reform” Amtrak will kill it. This will result in the loss of 24,000 living wage jobs AND a vital transportation link for rural areas where Greyhound has already pulled out and where there is essentially no air service. Not to mention the havoc it will wreak in the big cities that depend on Amtrak to provide their commuter services.

5.) The media and the government think we are stupid, and for the most part we are.

6.) George Bush is a liar and a jerk. The people that voted for him fall into two camps: The selfish and the stupid. These camps are not mutually exclusive, by the way.

7.) I am sick and tired of conservative’s paranoia and victim mentality.

8.) Why does everyone think John McCain is so great? He’s a stool pigeon with a masochistic complex.

9.) Who is Nick and Jessica, and why should we care?

Discuss amongst yourself.