Lincolnite

This Sunday is Mother's Day -- you remembered, right? -- so here are five things you should do with mom this weekend:

1. Visit the Haymarket Farmer's Market tomorrow morning. When she says "Isn't that pretty!" or "Doesn't that look tasty!", buy it for her.
2. Take her for a stroll at Pioneers Park. If you're feeling adventurous, follow the cross country (running) trail or wander through the Nature Center. Or if mom is the athletic type, you can't beat the MoPac trail.
3. Help her plant her flower garden. It should be a great weekend for it.
4. Take her to the Lincoln Children's Zoo and take lots of photographs, even if the youngest "kid" on the trip is 42.
5. Finish off the afternoon or evening with some ice cream at Ivanna Cone. Mmmm.

Edited to add: Apparently number six on the list should be "Go fly a kite".

It's not the most inspiring way to leave office, but one of Mayor Seng's last acts as Mayor came yesterday when she reminded Lincolnites to conserve water this summer. Her timing could have been better -- issuing a water warning after a big chunk of the state received 3+ inches of rain is always tough -- but hey, resource conservation is always hip.

Cable Advisory Board member Herb Friedman wants to "show the outrage" by requesting a 50% rebate from Time Warner Cable. I can't believe that Time Warner would comply with a rebate request even close to 50% -- the request is just that, the Board can't force Time Warner to pay up -- but hey, maybe they'll surprise me. On the other hand, 15% sounds perfectly reasonable to me. How much would you ask for? Would you try to be realistic and request a rebate that correlates with the actual inconveniences you faced? Or would you follow in Mr. Friedman's footsteps and "show the outrage"?

Looks like owner Brett Richardson hasn't quite made his goal of opening by now. The Missus and I tried to stop by 9 South Chargrill last night on our weekly Date Night, but the restaurant was closed. I didn't get out of the car to take a close look, but it looked like the interior was reasonably close to being ready. If any of you happen to notice that it has opened, please let me know. Since our first choice was a bust, The Missus and I decided to go down to Arturo's in the Haymarket. I had never been to Arturo's, and The Missus had only been to the (former) 70th and Van Dorn location years ago. The food was fine and the atmosphere was nice, but the service was pretty awful. It was our server's first night on the job and he was ... bad. I don't place all of the blame on him, though. He clearly had not received much training. (Or if he did, it hadn't sunk in.) He should not have been taking tables solo yet. I shudder to think what will happen to the poor guy if he has to tackle a busy weekend night.

Poor Ken Svoboda. May just isn't his month. First he lost in his bid for Mayor. Now his company has been denied an extension for finishing work on several medians around the city. Wait, did I say poor Ken Svoboda? I meant why the hell are we still dealing with this three years after the original deadline?! I have no doubt that it is difficult to get plants to grow in the medians, but Ray's Lawn Care has had 2004, 2005, 2006, and spring 2007 to throw some plants in the ground. Enough already. So, what should we do with the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars in fines? Oh, right, there's that $9 million budget deficit...

Michael Baker's LPS website has been stripped of all of its content. But those who want to learn more about the man can gain quite a bit of insight by viewing Google's cached versions of Mr. Baker's pages. Just click the "cached" link below each item you want to view. I didn't run across anything too offensive as I browsed through the archives. Mr. Baker's likely ideology becomes clear through the many posted articles that one would also find on any number of left wing blogs, but there is no commentary on those articles from Mr. Baker. There's plenty to generate complaints from parents and students who lean to the political right, but nothing (in my opinion) worth putting a stop to. Anyway, if you are curious, as I am, about Michael Baker's "retirement" and, like me, you don't know much about him, you might spend some time snooping around. Google's cache won't be around forever, and considering the secrecy with which LPS has dealt with this matter, it's possible the district may even request that Google drop the 215 pages from their cache. Take a look while you still can.

Looks like Lincoln's power grid is experiencing some hiccups right now. The affected area appears to be spotty within 1st to 48th, Cornhusker to Calvert -- that's a big area!

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Downtown Lincoln Association want you to stiff the panhandlers Downtown. Their new campaign features posters with the text "I didn't need your money. I just needed a change.", along with silhouette "shadow people" holding the signs stationed around Downtown. The argument is that giving panhandlers pocket change does nothing to aid them over the long haul, whereas giving money to local aid agencies actually helps people. UNL Professor Fran Kaye isn't convinced. She thinks UNL "must work harder to embrace diversity" -- why the hell would UNL want to embrace the "diversity" of homelessness? -- and that the effort is in poor taste. It certainly is attention-getting. LJS commenter makes a good point:

If you want people to give the change they would have given to the people on the street to programs for the homeless instead, are opportunities easily available downtown to do so? Collection containers or some other method? If you want to change the behaviors of the donators you'll need to make it easy to do the alternative donation.

She is right. Without providing an easy way for folks to redirect their donations (or to generate new donations), this program starts to look more anti-homeless than anti-homelessness.

I don't have any major gripes with the new school names. Adams Elementary and Kooser Elementary are just fine by me. But come on, Schoo School? That sounds like the set-up for a bad Abbott and Costello wanna-be routine: Grandma: Where do you go to school, Junior? Junior: Schoo School. Grandma: Yes, but what is your school called? Junior: Schoo. Grandma: *sigh* Kids these days have awful annunciation. What, you're too lazy to pronounce the 'L' at the end of school? Too much work for you? Junior: No grandma, I go to Schoo. Schoo School. Grandma: Since when do you have a stutter?

Deena Winter reports that trucks on Highway 2 will have to stay to the right from now on. Supposedly the goal is to improve traffic flow by preventing trucks from driving side-by-side and impeding other vehicles. But then Ms. Winter quotes Public Works director Karl Fredrickson as saying "Some of those trucks -- once they get going, they don’t like to slow down" and "the third one back doesn’t like to stop". Neither quote has anything to do with side-by-side driving. In fact, the second quote tells what happens when trucks are not allowed to drive side-by-side: they caravan, and all the trucks in the line try to stick together, red lights be damned. So I'm confused. Is the city trying to solve a problem or make an existing problem worse? In my experience with Highway 2 -- I have lived within 1/2 mile of Highway 2 since 1981, and I have lived within 2 blocks of Highway 2 since 2001 -- trucks driving side-by-side is not a problem, or at least not the problem we need to be solving. It simply doesn't happen very often because trucks already tend to stay in the right lane. The trucks that drive in the left lane tend to be empty and are thus less likely to bog down traffic. No, the problem we need to solve is trucks blowing through red lights. (If we're being honest we really should talk about all vehicles running red lights, but since the topic here is trucks, I'll stick to that.) There are a couple solutions. One is to require trucks to obey a lower speed limit, making them more likely to be able to stop at red lights. Since empty trucks can stop pretty easily, the speed limit could be made to apply just to trucks over some specified weight. The second solution is to install flashing "Prepare to Stop" signs. Improved enforcement would also help. I agree that something needs to be done to improve traffic safety on Highway 2. I have seen many close calls over the years, and I am amazed that there haven't been more deaths along the road. If you ask me, forcing trucks to the right isn't the solution we're looking for.

Michael Baker, a sometimes-controversial teacher at Lincoln East High School, has retired. Or been fired (sorry, "asked to retire"). Or something. We don't really know for sure, but he is no longer at the school. You might recall Baker as the history teacher who taught history backwards, from the present to the past. The School Board got in a huff over that a couple years ago. This spring, Baker showed the graphic HBO documentary Baghdad ER in class. Was that the straw that broke the camel's back? I don't know Mr. Baker and I know very little about him, so I have no idea if he or his teaching methods should be attacked or defended (or ignored). I do hope that this isn't yet another example of the dumbing down of public education by eliminating those who challenge students using unorthodox, but effective, methods of instruction. (Just to be clear, that's a dig on public education nationwide, not specifically on LPS.) Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Maybe the guy has terminal cancer and the timing is just a coincidence. Who knows? If anybody knows more about this situation, or if you know Mr. Baker, please share.