OK, so I'm reprising Scrooge on the stage this Xmas. These words are in no way connected to an effort to toot mine or anyone else in the production's horn. Don't get me wrong; we'd love to see you when I'm busting Cratchit's chops or cowering like a gravy-sucking dog under the lash of Future. I'm just disclosing for the sake of disclosing since this blog is about fine arts around here.

Speaking of which, "Cats" was a wonder, with the makeup and the set and some of American theater's most well-known songs. My favorite moment among many was the Benson girls (no relation) Rachael as Gus the Theater Cat and Sarah (I hope I have that right) as Jellyorum. Beautiful song, well done.

Finally, I can't wait for Grand Island Northwest's annual spectacular this spring. Mr. Shack and Carol Quandt and the entire community out on North Road always stage a fabulous show. Between them and GISH in the fall, we are lucky to have such events.

That's just on stage. Lots of singers and musicians from La Camerata Singers at Xmas to City Singers to some of my contemporaries known as BD and the Boys to the beauty of number of individual voices who live, work and perform in Central Nebraska put us on the musical map . Check them out.

OK, playbill and review is over. All that is left is to enjoy.

Enjoy.

Meanwhile, the world keeps spinning, so here, without further putzing, is the best in random thinking:

OK, so the election is only a couple weeks away but that huge sucking sound is the modern process. Never do I remember so many people so annoyed with how we choose our leaders. Ricketts/Nelson is a no-brainer, but even the low-key Kleeb campaign, which has been long on intellect and short on nonsense, is getting edgier all the time. That, in my mind, means sympathy votes for Smith. We're tired. Somebody told me today that politics were even dirtier 100 years ago. Maybe. But personal attacks and lies serve no one. For exhibit A, step over to the executive summary of the latest Congress. If you look up "do nothing" in Webster's you‚ll see a team photo of this group.

I was reading some research this week that indicated most of us (42 percent) do not fall into a identifiable group such as conservative, populist, liberal, or libertarian. Perhaps club life is wearing thin on us, too, since assigning someone to a group often means that he or she shares only one thing in common with the other members.

My wife explained two things to me during Saturday's loss to Texas. 1) The players and coaches cannot hear me when I yell at the television and 2) I am going to Hell for my choice in language, especially certain combinations. While she has a point about my vocabulary in those situations (Mea culpa), I'm still not convinced that none of my suggestions get through.

Who We Are, An Ongoing Series: I read where a father of a youth football player in Pennsylvania pulled a gun on a coach after they argued about his kid‚s playing time. The league is for 6 and 7 year olds.

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I skipped the $2,100 photo op with the Veep when he was in GI, preferring to educate my kid at a later date, make a house payment next month and fill up the beast for the rest of the summer. Like I was invited. Besides, DC is one of my least favorite public people. The questions about who pays the overtime for the police are reasonable. In my mind if the vice president was making a major policy speech, you could argue the extra pay would be warranted. A fundraiser cuts a different path. Yes, he is the VP and I suppose that brings some notoriety to the city, but after Fortenberry left Lincoln with a huge bill under some similar circumstances, the question is not out of line. Last Cheney thought: So Adrian Smith beats Grand Island Mayor Jay Vavricek in the primary and then shows up at the Holiday Inn with the vice president in tow to raise some cash in the defeated mayor’s backyard. Ouch! Smith’s hometown Gering was booked?

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There’s a Murtha evisceration making the rounds on the Web. I got one yesterday. John Murtha is the veteran who was the first in Congress who had supported the Iraq invasion to say it was time to brings the troops home. Now his record as a soldier is being pounded. This is what passes for argument these days. Don’t like the guy’s point? Attack him personally, question his manhood, gut his reputation, make fun of his family. There, that ought to do it. Showed him. Some people call it swiftboating, after the clobbering John Kerry took in 2004 election about his military service aboard a Navy swiftboat. (Kerry is preparing a lawsuit to refute the questioning of military service.) It was an ugly time. Looks like it may be continuing.

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I will write about this more in print, but Grand Island has to be at the top of the list for a Congressional hearing on immigration. We have experienced seemingly part of the immigration issue, every nuance, every bit of misinformation, every polarization, every attempt to bring newcomers into the community, every opportunity to see the changes happen. Whatever side of the immigration question you find yourself, you deserve a hearing in your backyard because the story is in our backyard.

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Here’s the quote of the day from Espressions: “Procrastinate now. Don’t put it off.”
That works. Wait, maybe it doesn’t. Anyway I see menus and ice cream, so Espressions is definitely on the blog tour.

Could we construe Congress’ no call on immigration as a dither? Part of me is doing that as I write. Come on boys and girls, make a decision.

After a deep breath, consider this: Hearings across the country will reveal what seems to be taken for granted — that 90 percent of Americans are ready to send all 11 million illegal aliens back. I’m not buying that. Aside from a gauge on what we’re thinking, House and Senate members in hearings need also to consider what is the right thing to do. If we want to enforce the law down to the last immigrant, then let’s apply the law with the same vigor to tax cheats, deadbeat parents and those knuckleheads on the freeways who drive as if it’s their own private highway.

I’m not making light of our laws, but a combination of fines, deportments, better border control, and reformed paths to citizenship is more realistic. If the naturalization process takes six years or longer and is so riddled with bureaucratic nonsense, no wonder so many skip it. A better system would also ferret out bad players. A bigger fence will change only ways of beating the border, not immigration.

I’ve talked myself into thinking hearings are good thing. Let’s see who shows up and let’s hope they have a hearing here. Letting this thing fester helps no one.
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Does it seem to anyone else that the city of Grand Island simply showed up one night and claimed poverty? Three words come to mind: long range planning. I say that as a supporter of the Heartland Events Center, the primary suspect in the shortfall. It’s not that simple, I suspect.

I only wonder because by any number of other measures (receipts, construction, enthusiasm) the city seems to be bustling along. Now we’re told our middle name will be austerity for the near and far future, the place where long-range planning lives.
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Maybe I’m reading this all wrong, but the initial reception to Vice President Cheney’s visit has been a little tepid. Here in redder than red Nebraska? Go figure.

He was splattered on the windshield of a Chrysler yesterday in downtown Pittsburgh when a 62-year old woman turned left in front of his motorcycle.

I find a little irony in the idea that Big Ben refuses to wear his motorcycle helmet but puts one on when he plays football.

His crash did give Web sites and television news programs their poll question of the evening: “Should athletes be able to ride motorcycles?” I suppose that would be the business of the team and the player and the agent and the union.

I’m sorry Roethlisberger crashed and from every indication he’s a good guy. I hope he heals and returns to the field whole and complete. But the question becomes how much of an investment the guy is if his employer allows him to do what he wants, thereby compromising his profit-making potential. It would seem professional athletes have a small window to return their enormous salaries as profit for their employers. Frankly, if Roethlisberger and his team are cool with no helmet, they are reaping the benefits of their investment. No need for anyone to wring his hands.

CNN is reporting as I write this that Bush advisor Karl Rove will not be charged in the Valerie Palme outing. Rove has testified four times in front of a grand jury about the Plame case. One indictment — that against Scooter Libby, Cheney’s right hand man — has already been returned.

Rove is a political advisor, which in and of itself may not be indictable, but some among that fraternity has stubbed its legal toe over the years. I can think of couple that should have. A few went to jail. That’s because they took the bromide “politics is a dirty business” to its lowest floor.

Rove is a champ at getting his man elected — in this case Bush — but then so what? As we have seen in the last 30 years winning has supplanted governing as the focus in Washington. Until we put the interests of more Americans before those who can foot the bill for a what passes for a winning campaign these days, we’ll probably be seeing more grand juries.

This is my third blog from out in the community, the idea being writing where the public traffics will mean good ideas and an exchange I don’t get parked at my Dilbert station in the newsroom.

That works. Most of what people want to talk about is what’s going on in their lives: family, work, weather. Policy makers in Washington, Lincoln, and around here should come out and listen.

This morning, with those I know and those I don’t, I have discussed the vagaries of coaching Little League, Mediterranean recipes, and historical interpretation. What policy makers would find is obvious: everyone is different and their ideas of what is important, while similar, are as individual as a fingerprint.

I’m not buying it or rather didn’t. Not that I disregard all superstition. I’m as hinky as the next guy. You know, noticing black cats in my path; aware of Friday the 13th more than is probably necessary; standing too close to the hygienically-challenged. You get the picture.

Of course, 6-6-6, with its biblical origins carries more weight than walking under a ladder (not smart simply for the physics involved) and losing your rabbit’s foot.

The world already has enough evil that we needn’t read the tea leaves or turn the Tarots to see what’s up. Kind of reminds me of the current debate in Senate. If that august group would open a window, it would find war, high fuel costs, and immigration issues about to spill. So what are they talking about? Whom you can marry. Please. This has no chance of passing because too many Americans see it for what it is: a political ploy to deflect criticism of a messy run of policies. We’ve already decided this anyway.

We can see the forest but wonder if those in the political arena (the Senate in this case) keep planting trees.

Maybe they see something in the pattern or the numbers or the different shades of green. Maybe it’s policy making by superstition.

Or maybe they simply don’t get it. Happy 6-6-6.

Central Nebraska forgot to put its free admission where its votes were. “Forrest Gump” won the Independent’s Movie Madness tournament, but of the three shows than ran for free at the Grand last weekend, the Gumpster attracted the fewest folks. Don’t look a gift movie in the mouth.

We reversed out fortunes, actually. The Grand’s three choices were “Gump," “The Shawshank Redemption,” which was second, and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which came in third. But at the box office (it was free!) “Raiders” nearly doubled “Gump” and was well ahead of a runner-up “Shawshank.”

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Pete Letheby’s Friday column cut to the chase about those using the immigration issue to traffic in hate. His reference to Woody Guthrie’s music reminded me of the haunting beauty of Nancy Griffith’s rendition of Guthrie and Martin Hoffman’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” Read the piece. Listen to the music. I wrote a few weeks ago about keeping the debate in the reasonable range the president called the “rational middle.” Pete’s column reminds us that some of loudest voices will be neither.

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In my Friday column I recommended some summer reading including “Hippo Eats Dwarf,” which details the hoaxes and other crap floating in cyberspace that often take on not only lives of their own but a patina of truth. Readers often send me stories they have found or have been sent to them. These tales are often spectacular, gruesome, or exceedingly graphic. And completely false. Those of us who use the Internet extensively (or anyone for that matter) need to develop what the book calls “Reality Rules,” guides to sanity and the truth. Maybe we should even throw in some principles of logic along the way. Alex Boese, who wrote “Hippo,” reminds us that just because it is on the Internet does not make it the truth. To which I would add the 1,000 Person Rule: If 1,000 people say a stupid thing, it’s still a stupid thing. Yes, I know. This is on the Internet.

I’ll be blogging from Scooter’s next Tuesday afternoon.

Mercy rules exist in some youth sports. The 10-run rule, for example, is a staple of Little League with variations in other sports, all designed to take some of the sting out of a serious whuppin.

I suppose there are some practical matters, too. When 7-year olds are winning 37-1 and the 1 hasn’t throw a strike since his baptism, call it. Tournaments need to run on some sort of timely schedule, too.

But high school football is quite removed from kids chasing butterflies in right field. Even so, blowouts occur. You’ll always find a few knucklehead coaches who will run up the score, leaving in their starters when the outcome has long been decided. May they swallow their whistles.

Still, coaching or encouraging kids not to score is ridiculous.

If you play or coach long enough, you’ll understand what it’s like to open up a big ol’ can and what it’s like to be on the wrong end of it, too. Yes, there are powerhouse programs, but what goes around comes around — even for the winners.

Let market forces work. Wal-Mart does not suit up a high school team. Coaches who run it up will get theirs someday, even if it’s a reputation of being a jerk. I have seen that a couple times. Yeah, they win, but in the respect category, they never quite seem to find the end zone.

Nobody is on top forever, either. Exhibit A suits it up in red in Lincoln. If your third and fourth teamers are still kicking booty, maybe sports officials who make up the rules should look at the other guy.

Mercy rules might have their place in Little League, but leave them off the high school football field.

What to do with the charged atmosphere.

He encouraged us to find the “rationale middle ground” — which I applaud — in a highly emotional arena.

Weighing rational and emotional will be key. The president believes, as I do, that there is rationale middle ground among the details that remain to be worked out.

Rational either invites to change or weeds out those at the fringe of debate, those for whom this is all about race or those who believe we can go on indefinitely without some reform or those who believe it is a simple matter to determine someone’s citizenship or those who believe that the border is working.

It is not.

No reasonable person can argue that our borders are not both porous and currently difficult to make otherwise. A wall or a fence will change the landscape, but I’m skeptical about its return. Troops may make headlines but adding agents is the key. Bush said he has added agents, which is true, but a request for more was met with cold water.

According to Calvin Woodward of AP, Bush’s budget last year only requested 200 more agents when a 2004 immigration law set the requirement at 2,000.

Bush was right too when he said we sent back 6 million but, according to Woodward, the overall number of aliens caught dropped three years in a row until 2004 and has never been as high as the 1.6 million nabbed in 2000, the year before he took office.

Still, the president is doing the right thing by pushing the debate and urging it to be reasonable. His pleas for keeping politics out of the debate notwithstanding, we need to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons and leave expediency for PACs and talk shows.

Securing our borders has to be in combination with other “rational” parts of immigration reform. Stemming more illegal immigration can only go so far. The president wagged a metaphorical finger in our faces when he said it was unwise and unrealistic to think we could send all the illegals aliens home.

True, but it was an economic finger too, as a number of states’ economies are bolstered through cheap labor provided by undocumented workers.

And any plan with some teeth for employers hiring undocumented workers is only as good as a way to determine a worker’s status. Add to that the endless maze toward gaining citizenship and the government all but giving up on determining who is legal and who is not. Hence Bush’s caution of a reality check.

I read a piece recently about a Hispanic activist in California who said illegal workers should be given a choice of punishment: Pay a $2,000 fine or be sent home. She said that a financial consequence, which fits within Bush’s unwise and inefficient framework, will punish those here illegally. It may also set in motion the possibility of citizenship.

Of course for all that to happen many puzzle pieces would have to be in place, including a border that is secure and maintained that way and a naturalization process that works.

You get what you vote for.

No good waking up Wednesday morning with buyer’s remorse. Too late to say “What have we done?” Not good enough to wonder if just filling in the blanks made any difference. We get what we voted for.

Yes, we can analyze what happened (paralysis by analysis?). It might provide insight into the mood of the electorate, such as it is. “Electorate: noun; about a third of the people, on any given election day.”

The upshot of such enterprise is often confounding. On Election Day, a CBS News/NY Times poll indicated people found the Dems more favorable than their GOP rivals by nearly 20 percentage points. But when asked to rate specific Democrats — Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry — the bottom fell out of the donkey.

Political hacks — this is the season for them and their individual renditions of high dudgeon — may fawn over such trends and numbers and percentages. The rest of us, however, have to live with the results.

What is the relationship between what has been promised or bragged about and the real world, where we live. Should we wonder, too, if winning has become more important than governing. But then that is a question that needs to be asked before an election, isn’t it?

The yard signs have returned, urging us in various shades of red, white, and blue to do our civic duty. Oh yeah, and not be stupid. Vote for …

A few years ago Ellen Totzke, then a candidate for County Attorney had a big pink sign on Harrison. How refreshing. You don’t see a lot of pastels or day-glo in political signs.

They are about as bland as the messages we hear on television and radio. If I hear one more candidate drop “Nebraska values” into moody music and down-home looking folks, I think I’m going to scream. They are always telling us to vote for them because they traffic in Nebraska values, but they never tell us what those values are. Or how they might be different than Iowa values or Colorado values or property values.

Here’s a suggestion for a yard sign — in bright lime green with lemon accents: “Vote for me. I do not lie.”
Of course these days we would also have to list all the candidates that do lie and then we’d have a fight and deal for a reality show on Fox: “Celebrity Lying,” in which a movie star is matched with a local candidate in battle of honesty and ethics.

Right after “Cooking (or is it dancing?) with the Stars.”

I think the forums and debates are great. Anybody who wants to know where somebody stands has a chance to find out. And anybody who wants to put a sign in a yard with confidence can do so … in limited colors schemes, however.

They have chosen Dave Hergert.

Hergie looks like he is staying and the sens in Lincoln look like they are going with the biggest diss they have in their briefcases: impeachment. I wrote about this in a column, but, briefly, they have too much to do to pursue something they already know will not work.

Change the system, instead. Hergie has stubbed his and the Regents political toe. The next time somebody mentions that board, remind the speaker that Hergert is a member. Besides, at some point he’ll get the sympathy vote if we keep pounding on him. That would not sit well either.

While we’re at it, what’s up with the Osborne haters? Come on, you can dislike the guy’s policies and positions or favor Nabity (a distant relative of my wife) or the Gov., but the old-man-mired-in-his-dotage image is out there with a flat earth and Elvis at Burger King. The guy is bright and can manage and lead with anyone.

I also do not understand the ex-coach broadsides. Osborne hardly fits the whiskey-swilling, woman-chasing, cigar-chomping stereotype of guy who knows Xs and Os and little else. Hell, he has a doctorate in education.

And if you voted for Reagan — an actor — and are trashing a coach, you had better check your consistency gauge.

Finally, is it just me or is there a noticeable quiet on the state political scene. Or is that apathy? Or are we simply suffering from political fatigue at every level of government?

This morning Mike Bockoven, who reviews films for the paper, and I did our best Siskel and Ebert, handicapping the first 32 matchups.

The paper is trying to find Central Nebraska’s favorite movie since 1980. Of course the arguments started early when the staff got their grubby paws on the 64 flicks culled from “best of” lists.

Come on. Where was “Witness.” Where was “Phenomenon?” Where was “Michael?” Wait, did I just mention two John Travolta movies in succession? Oy!

Play the game. Enjoy.

Speaking of movies, what’s up with the kvetchers camped on “Brokeback Mountain.” The movie was the odds-on favorite going into the Oscars, only to lose to “Crash.” Now some of the principals behind the camera, including Annie Proulx, from whose short story the movie was taken, is accusing the “Crash” crowd of unfair politicking. They claim the Crashers blanketed Academy members with “Crash” DVDs and generally won the Oscar through campaigning.

I saw the movies and, while I liked both, neither was what I would consider a stunner. “Brokeback” was beautiful and haunting and, obviously, very edgy with its gay cowboy love story. By the way, stop with the sheepherder-not-cowboy shtick. Not that it makes any difference, but the story covers years after the summer on the mountain with sheep. Jack Twist becomes a rodeo cowboy for a time and Ennis works on cattle ranches for years.

“Crash” was set in my old neighborhood of Los Angeles and had a very familiar feel to it, that disconnect that Angelenos have and often nurture. The intersecting stories were terrific but I was surprised by its win, just as I was surprised to some extent by “Brokeback’s” favorite status.

Still, this is not a political race. It’s the Academy Awards. You have to flag “Brokeback Mountain’s” camp unsportsmanlike conduct and whining.

I couldn’t find a suggestion box on the side of my television, so I thought an appeal blog might do the trick.
Hate to grouse, fellas, but I have a couple questions/suggestions. Do you guys really think the potential for labor strife in the NFL merits such breathless, mind-numbing repetition of the same non-report of anything happening.

How many times can Chris Mortenson say the same damn thing, which is nothing?
That’s because nothing has happened. Or if it has, most football fans could care less. Show the games, talk strategy, and show replays. We already know owners are a richer version of spoiled athletes; they just don’t have the skills.

At least you gave it a rest to report the death of Kirby Puckett, a man for whom baseball was indeed life.
Saturday evening, on ESPN radio, the host was incredulous that the NFL labor issue was the top story of its broadcast. Hello? It was the top story because ESPN decided it was. It’s March. The National Football League is a marketing gorilla, but can we give it a rest for a while.

Suggestion #2 has to do with the theory that having Dick Vitale broadcast a college basketball game in which your team wins is only slight better than having him broadcast one in which your team loses. Is there any way you can put him the studio? At courtside he is propelled by the same stale launch codes: “He going to be a star,” “Get a TO baby,” and his endless praise of the obvious. He rarely offers insights but is long on shouting.

Finally, as a sports fan, the game has always been the focal point of my interest. But as your programmers who believe watching semi-clever sports writers argue among themselves is entertaining and the Terrell Owenses of the world, take over your network, please remember that ESPN was a great idea and has been the gold standard for life’s toy department for years.

The suggestion is to find the good in the games again.