Thereader131031

A MANUFACTURING COMPANY located in Missouri Valley, IA, is seeking to hire a Plant Manager.

We are looking for someone with hands-on manufacturing supervision and management experience. Candidates must meet the following requirements: - 4 year degree- Management, business or related field - 5 year front line supervision experience in manufacturing environment - 2 year department/plant leadership experience (production manager, superintendent, plant manager) - Knowledge and experience in continuous improvement methodologies (Lean, TPS, Six Sigma) - Assembly experience - Welding experience a plus - Proficient email and MS Office user Position is salary plus bonus with paid vacation and 401K. Send resume to manufacturing11@gmail.com.

AMERICAN FENCE COMPANY. Contact k.nicolini@americanfence.com. Go to OmahaJobs.com.

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OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

OCTOBER 9 JOB FAIR PARTICIPANTS

HEAD COACH—MEN’S SOCCER Bellevue, Nebraska to provide leadership and organization for all aspects of the men’s soccer program including monitoring both the academic and social development of the studentathletes; observing, evaluating and recruiting student-athletes; developing a schedule for competition and directing Assistant Coaching staff. Must follow University coaching guidelines and expectations including the rules and regulations of the National Association of Intercollegiate (NAIA) and Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference (MCAC).

Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education, Sports Management or related field and 2 years experience with competitive soccer.

Will accept part-time employment as club/summer coach pursuant to industry standard.

Must have CPR/First Aid certification, Soccer Coaching license/ certification and driver’s license required. Send resumes to: Bellevue University, Attn: Norie Rich, 1000 Galvin Road South, Bellevue, NE 68005.

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BENCH CRAFT COMPANY. Sales. Motivated People. Contact gbarnhart@benchcraftcompany. com. Go to OmahaJobs.com.

THE METRO SHIELD, INC. Ticket sales. Contact jnkoliver@ cox.net. Go to OmahaJobs.com for information.

SNELLING STAFFING SERVICES. Many, many great positions. Contact office@snelling-staffing. com. Go to OmahaJobs.com.

CONVERGYS. Sales & Service Representative.

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NATIONAL SERVICE COOPERATIVE. Customer Service Coordinator.

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omaha jobs

AT&T. Retail Sales Opportunity/ Omaha.

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AMERICAN FENCE COMPANY. Fence Installer Foreman. Contact k.nicolini@americanfence.com.

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TAKEDA PHARMACEUTICALS NORTH AMERICA, INC. Target – Team members. Contact samara.alvarez@tmp.com.

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KRYGER GLASS. Warehouse/Delivery. Contact ssealock@krygerglass.com. Go to OmahaJobs.com for more information.

ITC SERVICE GROUP, INC. Prism Installation Technician.

Contact kedwards@callitc. com. Go to OmahaJobs.com for more information.

KRYGER GLASS. Distribution Supervisor. Contact ssealock@krygerglass. com. Go to OmahaJobs.com for information.

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topnews

Violent Crime Up

But not the worst in the last decade

O

BY RYAN BEHRENS

n Sept. 16 the FBI released its annual Crime in the United States report, a statistical compilation of criminal offenses and arrests known to law enforcement agencies for the year 2012. The report includes data voluntarily reported by 18,290 law enforcement agencies nationwide that participate in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program.

According to the report, “the number of violent crimes increased 0.7 percent” nationwide in 2012. Violent crimes included in the report are homicide, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The reported rate of violent crime nationally was 386.9 offenses per 100,000 residents in 2012, up slightly from the 2011 rate of 386.3. Although small, any increase in violent crime is notable because the rate of reported violent crime has trended downward since its peak in 1991.

Of the municipalities in the Omaha metro area, Council Bluffs, Iowa had the highest violent crime rate –1,186 offenses per 100,000 residents that was twice that of Omaha’s rate and three times the national rate. Carter Lake, Iowa had the second highest violent crime rate in the metro area, 602 offenses per 100,000 residents.

Omaha’s reported rate of violent crime was 595 offenses per 100,000 residents, third highest in the metro area and well above the national average.

Omaha’s total of 2,485 violent crimes was up from 2,309 in 2011 and 2,263 in 2010, but was only the city’s sixth highest violent crime total in the last ten years. The highest two years during that ten year span were in 2008 and 2003, with 2,684 and 2,627 total violent crimes in those years.

All other municipalities in the Omaha metro area had violent crime rates that were well below the national average. The violent crime rates for Ralston, Bellevue, La Vista and Papillion were 115, 106, 62 and 42, respectively.

Those surprised by Council Bluffs’ remarkably high violent crime rate should know that its 2012 rate is by no means an anomaly. Over the past decade, Council Bluffs’ violent crime rate has well-exceeded the national average each year, and the city has reported a higher violent crime rate than Omaha in each of those years. In fact, Council Bluffs’ violent crime rate has been twice that of Omaha in numerous years during that period.

But despite Council Bluffs’ high overall violent crime rate, fueled by high levels of forcible rape and

aggravated assault, Omaha’s eastern neighbor has a consistently lower murder rate than Omaha. Council Bluffs had only 1 murder in 2012, and had a 10year average of only 2.2 homicides per year, a rate of 3.5 homicides per 100,000 residents. In contrast, Omaha had 41 murders in 2012, and had a 10-year average of 35.3 total homicides per year, a rate of 8.4 homicides per 100,000 residents. While Council Bluffs’ highest homicide total over the last decade was 5 in 2003, Omaha’s highest homicide total was 44 in 2008.

The FBI’s report also shows that property crime nationwide decreased by 0.9 percent in 2012, “marking the 10th straight year of declines” in the number of property crime offenses. Property crimes included in the report are burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft.

In total, there were a reported 8,975,438 property crimes in the United States in 2012, a rate of 2,859 offenses per 100,000 residents. The number of burglaries declined by 3.7 percent, larceny-thefts remained virtually unchanged and motor vehicle thefts increased by 0.6 percent nationwide in 2012.

Not surprisingly, Council Bluffs also had the highest property crime rate in the Omaha metro area. Council Bluffs’ property crime rate of 6,841 offenses per 100,000 residents is roughly one and a half times that of both Carter Lake (4,588) and Omaha (4,484). Council Bluffs, Carter Lake, Omaha and Ralston (3,544) all had property crime rates that were well above the national average of 2,859 offenses per 100,000 residents.

All other municipalities in the Omaha metro area – Papillion (2,281), Bellevue (2,210) and La Vista (1,613) – have rates below the national average.

While the annual FBI report is interesting for the public, the report is not all that useful for law enforcement agencies.

“The information in the report is known to the individual departments long before it’s published,” said one Omaha police officer who wished to remain anonymous. “We know by the week – or even by the day – when certain crimes are increasing or decreasing.”

There are doubts about the report’s accuracy.

The FBI reports only crimes that are known to the police. Researchers have long found that most crimes are not reported to the police, so the report undoubtedly underreports the number of crimes committed. The report also relies on police agencies to self-report crime data. There have been incidents across the country where police departments were found to have altered data to make their city’s crime problem seem less severe. Atlanta, for instance, was found to have altered their crime data while bidding to host the 1996 Summer Olympics. ,

VISIONS FROM FIVE MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE • OCTOBER 31, 2013 • Thanks to evolving architectural design techniques, buildings will be able to change their shape and color with the flip of a switch. Chain stores will take advantage of this to have holiday versions of their store -- on Halloween, the store will suddenly

become orange, black, and red and seem strangely gothic, while on Christmas the store will turn red and green and take on the appearance of Santa's castle in the North Pole.

Quickly, this will also become a popular trend in home design.

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news

| THE READER |

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

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ost of October, Americans have had their panties in a bunch because a website is crashing. Wow. Humans are so easily distracted; like kittens with a ball of yarn or puppies with a tennis ball. “Ooooh! Shiny!” Like we dropped acid and now stand in front of the biggest, blinking-est Christmas tree in town. Yes, healthcare.gov isn’t working as smoothly as Amazon.com. But that’s not the real problem. Hell, it’s a website for chrissakes! And before you say, “Yeah, it’s Obamacare that is the problem/solution,” forget that, too.

Besides, where did this “Obamacare” moniker come from? I’m no Obamapologist, far from it. For better or worse, I still think he gets a rotten deal having his name attached to a pet project for the rest of history.

FDR’s legacy of 1930s socialist reform is called the New Deal, not FDRdeal. And the interstate highway system, a landmark of Eisenhower’s regime isn’t called the Ike’sWay System. The 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco isn’t called Kennedycrash.

Even Watergate wasn’t called Nixongate. I can’t think of any other president in history who was saddled with such an eponymous edict as Obamacare.

All that aside, let’s escape fantasy land and respect the real goal of the Affordable Care Act: getting more Americans into the American medical system. With that perspective, the problem becomes clear. The ACA is meant to funnel more Americans into a system that is broken, inherently dangerous and in need of major overhaul. That makes what we’re doing a little like the government sending Americans on a free, expense-paid cruise on the Titanic or providing vouchers for citizens to buy 1977 Ford Pintos. Anybody want a ride on Apollo 13? Who wants to go?

There is much to praise about the amazing feats performed daily in emergency rooms and trauma centers across America. Acute care for crashing bodies is remarkable. But in nearly every other area of medicine, when measured against global standards, our system falls short of providing acceptable healthcare.

The real problem is that our system is not a healthcare system. It’s a sick care system. It’s a profitbased system of corporate-driven decisions made by wealthy CEOs and scalawags who are legally insulated from any modicum of liability. Vaccine makers are protected by Congress from lawsuits. Corporations are managed by executives far removed from any culpability for inadequate care.

Real problems. The primary failings of the system are the over-reliance on technology and drugs and the profit-motivated nature of the business.

It’s a system we should be trying to keep people out of, not get them into.

Pharmaceutical drugs exact a yearly toll of 106,000 deaths from adverse drug reactions from legally prescribed and properly administered drugs. According to peer-reviewed research, the number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million. “The number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million. Summary of the research found the annual number of medicine-caused deaths is 783,936, making our medical system the leading cause of death and injury in the United States.”

Broken system breaks the bank. Pharmaceutical companies far outspend every other lobby in Washington, nearly a million a day. Overall, Big Pharma spends north of $30 billion yearly to get us hooked. And the Affordable Care Act wants more people to take advantage of that system? Forget that the current American medical model is a threat to health. The irony of the Affordable Care Act is that that we can’t afford it.

Every other industrial nation outside the United States spends far less on healthcare with far better results.

Studies show that advancing healthcare costs in the US are the very cause of our national debt crisis. And it only gets worse in the future. It doesn’t matter if private individuals, private insurance or government subsidies are paying the costs. It’s the out-of-line profit scale, the waste and ineptitude inherent in the system that will crash it. We need life support for our life support.

More insurance is not the answer. Increased insurance coverage is not the answer. In fact, it’s the problem.

No other industrialized nation has our kind of system and no other country has our kind of problem. People with insurance rush to the doctor or the emergency room for the slightest woe. Data shows that the insured are the reason emergency rooms are crowded, going for non-emergent situations that could be handled either at home or by a family doctor. You have to ask yourself, which do you want: Health or health insurance?

Studies show that most Americans turn to alternative therapies before turning to mainstream medicine.

Will Obamacare pay for the kind of healthcare practitioners many people prefer? Will it cover vitamins, supplements, herbal tinctures, homeopathics, acupuncture, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, tai chi, massage, yoga? Those and many others are known effective healing modalities. We can’t afford the Affordable Healthcare Act. It’s a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

Be well. ,

HEARTLAND HEALING is a New Age polemic describing alternatives to conventional methods

of healing the body, mind and planet. It is provided as information and entertainment, certainly not medical advice. It is not an endorsement of any particular therapy, either by the writer or The Reader. Visit HeartlandHealing.com for more information.

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OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

| THE READER |

heartland healing

| THE READER |

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

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C

hris Pohl, is co-owner of one of Omaha’s newest restaurants, the Pita Pit. Though this is his first foray into the restaurant industry, Chris is quick to point out he doesn’t have a crazy story about he got into the business.

“Truthfully, I was looking at this other restaurant. It was something I’d kicked around for awhile. But the group of guys I am in-

volved with have some pretty solid experience with Pita Pit and it just kind of went from talking about things to them actually happening,” said Chris.

He said they’d had some experience working together before so when they asked him if he wanted to join them, he said “yes.” It didn’t hurt that one of his partners was already a co-owner of a handful of other Pita Pit restaurants.

The process took a little over a year. Chris said he and his partners started talking about opening the restaurant in May of 2012 and looked at their current building on September 25 of last year. The Pita Pit is located at 120th and L in the L Street Marketplace.

So far, he said he’s enjoying working in the restaurant industry.

Chris feels Omaha has been really good to them and that he’s met nothing but helpful people.

“My neighbors around here and the other food industries have been supportive and sharing. It’s been a pleasant experience overall,” said Chris.

The Pita Pit’s atmosphere is bright, lively and colorful. Chris said the menu is pretty simple. “We do three things here: pita, chips and cookies. And I’ve got an awesome pop machine.”

Chris said the restaurant offers a variety of meats including chicken, gyro, prime rib and philly steak. He said all pitas are made fresh and items like avocado and hummus that cost extra elsewhere are all part of the deal.

“There are suggested toppings but you are allowed to move through the line and pick anything you want the pita rollers to make you,” Chris explained.

Because it’s difficult to find a quick, healthy meal, Chris said the Pita Pit is a good alternative for those on the go who want more than the

n The Omaha Restaurant Association is hosting Celebrate Taste, a charity event featuring many of Omaha’s finest chefs who will be offering a sampling of their restaurants’ menu items at Anthony’s Steakhouse, 7229 F St., Sunday, Nov 3, from 5=8 p.m. This event is in honor of friend, fellow chef and owner of Catering Creations, Jeff Snow, who was hit by a car while bicycling with his children in August. Snow sustained terrible injuries that lead

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OCT. 31 - NOV.6, 2013

same greasy fast food.

“We offer meat and vegetables with a lot less bread,” he said.

The restaurant had a soft opening on September 16th and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Chris explained about 50% of the customers who have been to the restaurant so far had been to other Pita Pit restaurants in the past.

“A lot of them tell us they had eaten at a Pita Pit when they were in college. That’s really where these restaurants got a foothold, around the college scene. There are a lot of folks who used to eat at the Lawrence or Iowa City stores.

They tell us which restaurant they used to eat at and that they’re glad we are here,” Chris said.

He and his partners are planning on opening a minimum of two more Pita Pit restaurants. Chris doesn’t know where they are putting them yet but have some solid ideas and are in the process of looking at sites.

Chris loves meeting the people that come into the restaurant to eat.

He loves to talk to people and hear their stories.

“At the end of the day, I hope people will tell me how great they think the food was and that they will be back,” he said. , Pita Pit, L Street Marketplace, Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., visit pitapitusa.com or call 402.934.4100.

to 8 days in intensive care followed by 5 weeks of hospital care. Thankfully, Snow will be back to work after the first of the year. But of course, there are many expenses that were incurred during this process. The Chef’s of Omaha have truly shown their camaraderie by coming together to show their support to Chef Snow and his family. This event is by paid reservations only. Tickets are $75 per person.

To reserve your spot or to make a Monetary Gift, Please make checks payable to: Jeff Snow’s Charitable Donation Account and mail to the Omaha

| THE READER |

dish

Restaurant Association, C/O Jeff Snow’s Charitable Donation Account, 4270 N. 139th St. 68164. n This Saturday, Nov. 2, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. is the third annual Read It and Eat Culinary Conference at the W Dale Clark Omaha Public Library, 215 S. 15th St. This year’s event is focused on condiments, sauces and spices. Below is the menu of events: 11am: Greeting with Lois Friedman 11:15: Honey and Cheese Tasting and Pairing with Marina Marchese of Red Bee ® Honey Noon: Break for lunch

12:30: Colin & Jessica Duggan of Kitchen Table 1pm: Patty Trebbien of Chef^2 oils and vinegars 1:30: Isa Chandra Moskowitz of Post Punk Kitchen 2:15: Infusions with bartenders Binoy Fernandez & Clark Ross 2:45: Rachel Mulder of Jane’s Health Market For more information on this event, visit www.omahalibrary.org or call 402.444.4800.

— Krista O’Malley Crumbs is about indulging in food and celebrating its many forms. Send information about area food and drink businesses to crumbs@thereader.com.

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OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

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F

or 37 years, Project Censored has worked with college students and faculty to issue an annual list of the Top 25 Underreported or Censored Stories from the previous year. Below we reprint the capsules from the Top 5, listing sources and researchers, briefly capsulize the next 10 and list the final 10. Full details and links are available at www. projectcensored.org.

1. Bradley Manning and the Failure of Corporate Media

In February 2013, United States military intelligence analyst Bradley Manning confessed in court to providing vast archives of military and diplomatic files to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, saying he wanted the information to become public “to make the world a better place” and that he hoped to “spark a domestic debate on the role of the military in (US) foreign policy.” The 700,000 released documents revealed a multitude of previously secret crimes and acts of deceit and corruption by US military and government officials.

According to Manning’s testimony in February 2013, he tried to release the Afghanistan and Iraq War Logs through conventional sources. In winter 2010, he contacted the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Politico in hopes that they would publish the materials. Only after being rebuffed by these three outlets did Manning begin uploading documents to WikiLeaks.

US corporate media have largely shunned Manning’s case, not to mention the importance of the information he released. When corporate media have focused on Manning, this coverage has often emphasized his sexual orientation and past life, rather than his First Amendment rights or the abusive nature of his imprisonment, which includes almost three years without trial and nearly one year in “administrative segregation,” the military equivalent of solitary.

In his February 2013 court appearance, Manning pled guilty to twelve of the twenty-two charges against him, including the capital offense of “aiding and abetting the enemy.” He faces the possibility of a life sentence without parole. His severe treatment is a warning to other possible whistleblowers.

Sources: FireDogLake, Guardian, Rolling Stone, and Al Jazeera English Researchers: Amanda Renteria and Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)

2. Richest Global 1 Percent Hide Trillions in Tax Havens

The global 1 percent hold $21-32 trillion in offshore havens in order to evade taxes, according to James S. Henry, the former chief economist at the global management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company.

Based on data from the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and 139 countries, Henry found that the top 1 percent hid more than the total annual economic output of the US and Japan combined. For perspective, this hidden wealth is at least seven times the amount—$3 trillion—that many estimates suggest would be necessary to end global poverty.

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OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

Domestically, the Federal Reserve reported that the top seven US banks hold more than $10 trillion in assets, recorded in over 14,000 created “subsidiaries” to avoid taxes.

Sources: Washington’s Blog, Tax Justice Network Researchers: Lyndsey Casey and Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

| THE READER |

cover story

3. Trans-Pacific Partnership Threatens a Regime of Corporate Global Governance

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), branded as a trade agreement and negotiated in unprecedented secrecy, is actually an enforceable transfer of sov-

ereignty from nations and their people to foreign corporations.

As of December 2012, eleven countries were involved—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States—with the possibility of more joining in the future due to inclusion of an unusual “docking agreement.” continued on page 10 y

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10/24/13 3:47 PM

y continued from page 8 While the public, US Congress, and the press are locked out, 600 corporate advisors are meeting with officials of signatory governments behind closed doors to complete text for the world’s biggest multinational trade agreement, which aims to penalize countries that protect their workers, consumers, or environment.

Leaked text from the thirty-chapter agreement has revealed that negotiators have already agreed to many radical terms, granting expansive new rights and privileges for foreign investors and their enforcement through extrajudicial “investor-state” tribunals. Through these, corporations would be given special authority to dispute laws, regulations, and court decisions. Foreign firms could extract unlimited amounts of taxpayer money as compensation for “financial damages” to “expected future profits” caused by efforts to protect domestic finance, health, labor, environment, land use, and other laws they claim undermine their new TPP privileges.

Sources: Global Research, Democracy Now!, Truthout, Yes! Magazine Researchers: Tricia Boreta, Kyndace Safa and Susan Rahman (College of Marin), Andy Lee Roth (Sonoma State University)

4. Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

Obama signed both the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, expanding whistleblower protections, in November 2012, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) furthering these protections in January 2013. His NDAA signing statement, however, undermines these protections, stating that those expanded protections “could be interpreted in a manner that would interfere with my authority to manage and direct executive branch officials.” Thus, in his signing statement, Obama promised to ignore expanded whistleblower protections if they conflicted with his power to “supervise, control, and correct employees’ communications with the Congress in cases where such communications would be unlawful or would reveal information that is properly privileged or otherwise confidential.”

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Obama administration is targeting government whistleblowers, having invoked the otherwise dormant Espionage Act of 1917 seven times. The Obama justice department has also used the Intelligence Identities Protection Act to obtain a conviction against Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower John Kiriakou for exposing the waterboarding of prisoners, ironically making Kiriakou the first CIA official to be sentenced to prison in connection with the torture program. The justice department charged former National Security Agency senior executive Thomas Drake with espionage for exposing hundreds of millions of dollars of waste.

Sources: Mother Jones, Guardian Researchers: Shannon Polvino, William Scannapieco, Kathyrn La Juett, and Justin Lewis, Michael I. Niman (State University of New York–Buffalo)

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OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

5. Hate Groups and Antigovernment Groups on Rise across US

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate groups and antigovernment groups, released a report showing that 1,360 radical, antigovernment “patriot” groups and 321 militias actively operate within the United States. Released in March 2013, these statistics show an 813 percent rise in the number of such groups since 2008, with increasing numbers each year. Hate groups are most prevalent in California, with eighty-four total; Texas was second among states with sixty-two.

The SPLC counted over 1,000 hate groups in the US in 2012. By the SPLC’s standards, hate groups “have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” and their activities can include “criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing.”

With the numbers of Patriot groups now much higher now than they were during the peak of the militia movement in the 1990s, the threat of domestic terror attacks is very real. After the SPLC’s report was released, the Center’s president, Richard Cohen, sent a letter to the US attorney general as well as the Home-

| THE READER |

cover story

land Security secretary requesting them to “create a new task force to ensure the government is devoting the resources needed to address domestic terrorism.”

Hate groups are now transitioning from racist hatred to hatred focused on the government and its representatives. The patriot and militia groups are some of the fastest growing groups, and their goals and rhetoric must be understood in order to implement successful strategies to counter their behavior if it should become violent, according to the SPLC. The SPLC also identified “sovereign citizens,” who often operate as “lone wolves,” breaking away from the group to perform the violent acts. Unfortunately, with the use of social media and the Internet, hate groups are able to recruit and spread their beliefs more readily than in the past.

Corporate media have paid scattered attention to the SPLC report and its findings. Both the New York Times and MSNBC covered the report on the day the SPLC issued it, but otherwise, establishment media have done little to shed light on this subject.

Sources: Huffington Post, Southern Poverty Law Center, National Memo Researchers: Sunnie Ayers and Ben Parry (Sonoma State University); Jackson Hand, Amanda Baron and Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

6. Billionaires’ Rising Wealth Intensifies Poverty and Inequality

As a direct result of existing financial policies, the world’s one hundred richest people grew to be $241 billion richer in 2012. This makes them collectively worth $1.9 trillion, just slightly less than the United Kingdom’s total economic output.

7. Merchants of Death and Nuclear Weapons

The Physicians for Social Responsibility released a study estimating that one billion people—oneseventh of the human race—could starve over the decade following a single nuclear detonation. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) released its 180-page study showing that nuclear-armed nations spend over $100 billion each year assembling new warheads, modernizing old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers, and submarines to launch them. The US still has about 2,500 nuclear weapons deployed and 2,600 more as backup. Washington and Moscow account for 90 percent of all nuclear weapons.

8. Bank Interests Inflate Global Prices by 35 to 40 Percent

A stunning 35 to 40 percent of everything we buy goes to interest. As Ellen Brown reported, “That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street.” In her report, Brown cited the work of Margrit Kennedy, PhD, whose research in Germany documents interest charges ranging from 12 percent for garbage collection, to 38 percent for drinking water, and 77 percent for rent in public housing.

Kennedy found that the bottom 80 percent pay the hidden interest charges that the top 10 percent collect, making interest a strongly regressive tax that the poor pay to the rich.

Drawing on Kennedy’s data, Brown estimated that if we had a financial system that returned the interest collected from the public directly to the public, 35 percent could be lopped off the price of everything we buy.

9. Icelanders Vote to Include Commons in Their Constitution

In October 2012, Icelanders voted in an advisory referendum regarding six proposed policy changes to the nation’s 1944 Constitution. In response to the question, “In the new Constitution, do you want natural resources that are not privately owned to be declared national property?,” Iceland’s citizens responded with a decisive “yes.” Eighty-one percent of those voting supported the commons proposal.

10. A “Culture of Cruelty” 11. Bush Blocked Iran along Mexico–US Border Nuclear Deal Migrants crossing the Mexico–US border not only face dangers posed by an unforgiving desert but also abuse at the hands of the US Border Patrol.

During their journey through the desert, migrants risk dehydration, starvation, exhaustion, and the possibility of being threatened and robbed. Unfortunately, the dangers continue if they come in contact with the Border Patrol. In “A Culture of Cruelty,” the organization No More Deaths revealed human rights violations by the US Border Patrol including limiting or denying migrants water and food, verbal and physical abuse, and failing to provide necessary medical attention. Female migrants face additional violations including sexual abuse, according to No More Deaths. As Erika L. Sánchez reported, “Dehumanization of immigrants is actually part of the Border Patrol’s institutional culture.

Instances of misconduct are not aberrations, but common practice.” The Border Patrol has denied any wrongdoing and has not been held responsible for these abuses.

Public debate on immigration tends to ignore not only the potential dangers of crossing the desert, but also the reasons for the migration of undocumented immigrants to the US. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by US president Bill Clinton and Mexican president Carlos Salinas in 1994, displaced many Mexican farmers and workers from their farms. Lack of employment resulting from NAFTA continues to motivate many to migrate to the US.

According to a former top Iranian negotiator, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, in 2005 Iran offered a deal to the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom that would have made it impossible for Iran to build nuclear weapons. At that time, Iran did not have the capability to fabricate fuel rods. The offer included the plan to ship its uranium to an “agreed upon country” for enrichment in exchange for yellowcake, the raw material used to make fuel rods. Once uranium is fabricated into fuel rods, it is practically impossible to reconvert for military purposes. As Gareth Porter reports for Consortium News, Mousavian’s account makes it clear that President George W. Bush’s administration “refused to countenance any Iranian enrichment capability, regardless of the circumstances.”

Now a visiting research scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Mousavian was arrested by the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration on charges of espionage in April 2007.

12. The US Has Left Iraq with an Epidemic of Cancers and Birth Defects

High levels of lead, mercury, and depleted uranium are believed to be causing birth defects, miscarriages, and cancer for people living in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Fallujah. Researchers have claimed that the United States bombings of Basra and Fallujah are to blame for this rapidly increasing health crisis.

A recent study showed more than 50 percent of babies born in Fallujah have a birth defect, while one in six pregnancies ends in a miscarriage.

13. A Fifth of Americans Go Hungry

An August 2012 Gallup poll showed that 18.2 percent of Americans lacked sufficient money for needed food at least once over the previous year.

To make matters worse, the worst drought in half a century impacted 80 percent of agricultural lands in the country, increasing food prices. Despite this, in 2012, Congress considered cutting support for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)— the official name of its food stamp program—as part of the 2013 Farm Bill.

Proposed Senate cuts would cost approximately 500,000 households about ninety dollars a month in nutritional assistance. Proposed cuts in the House of Representatives would go much further than the ones in the Senate, and would have removed at least 1.8 million people from SNAP. Republicans controlling the House have been eager to cut spending and were the primary supporters of food stamp cuts.

Opponents have expressed concern over the harm the cuts would cause to society’s more vulnerable members, including seniors, children, and working families. Rising food prices would hit Southern states the hardest, while Mountain-Plains and Midwest states would be least affected. Despite all the food hardship, the National Resources Defense Council reported that 40 percent of food in the country goes to waste.

cover story

14. Wireless Technology a Looming Health Crisis

As a multitude of hazardous wireless technologies are deployed in homes, schools, and workplaces, government officials and industry representatives continue to insist on their safety despite growing evidence to the contrary. Extensive deployment of “smart grid” technology hastens this looming health crisis.

15. Food Riots: The New Normal?

Reduced land productivity, combined with elevated oil costs and population growth, threaten a systemic, global food crisis. Citing findings from a study by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, published by the Royal Society, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed identified the links among intensifying economic inequality, debt, climate change, and fossil fuel dependency to conclude that a global food crisis is now “undeniable.”

“Global food prices have been consistently higher than in preceding decades,” reported Ahmed, leading to dramatic price increases in staple foods and triggering food riots across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. The crux of this global phenomenon is climate change: severe natural disasters including drought, flood, heat waves, and monsoons have affected major regional food baskets. By mid-century, Ahmed reported, “world crop yields could fall as much as 20–40 percent because of climate change alone.”

And 10 more...

16. Journalism Under Attack Around the Globe 17. The Creative Commons Celebrates Ten Years of Sharing and Cultural Creation 18. Fracking Our Food Supply 19. The Power of Peaceful Revolution in Iceland 20. Israel Counted Minimum Calorie Needs in Gaza Blockade 21. Monsanto and India’s “Suicide Economy” 22. Pennsylvania Law Gags Doctors to Protect Big Oil’s “Proprietary Secrets” 23. Transaction Tax Helps Civilize Wall Street and Lower the National Debt 24. Widespread GMO Contamination: Did Monsanto Plant GMOs Before USDA Approval?

25. Israel Gave Birth Control to Ethiopian Immigrants Without Their Consent

| THE READER |

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

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T H E R E A D E R ’ S E N T E RTA I N M E N T P I C K S O C T. 3 1 - N O V. 6 , 2 01 3

DAYS

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GRAYSKUL

Oct. 31

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Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a Comin’ Tuesday, 9 p.m. (PBS)

Hard to believe, but in the four decades since Jimi Hendrix died, no one has made a great documentary about him. Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a Comin’ on American Masters fixes that problem. It capably tells the story of Jimi’s rise from impoverished Seattle youth to rock star to drug casualty — an extraordinary journey of just 27 years.

The film is a treasure trove of rare photos, previously unseen concert footage, intimate letters and revealing home movies. Hendrix’s friends and colleagues (including a star-struck Paul McCartney) describe a shy young man who utterly transformed when he walked onstage with an electric guitar. Indeed, it’s hard to connect the quiet Jimi in archival interviews with the strutting psychedelic god who slashes through “Purple Haze” and “Foxy Lady.” None of the commentators can adequately explain the power of his music, whose mix of the earthy and the ethereal still raises hairs on the back of your neck.

I can’t explain it either. Stop reading this review and just watch Hendrix in action on Tuesday night.

— Dean Robbins

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OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

Two Halloween events will basically invert the reputations of two downtown venues Thursday, October 31st. The Slowdown, 729 North 14th St., will host Boo Goo, a dance party event featuring a performance by Mean Street. So since Slowdown, the rock club, won’t be hosting a lineup of live bands, House of Loom, 1012 South 10th St., is taking a night off from dance parties to host a lineup of live bands. Digital Leather, Plack Blague and Solid Goldberg will team up for a show that seems perfectly suited for the holiday night.

– Chris Aponick Oct. 31

CONGOS CIRCLE W/ ROCK PAPER DYNAMITE & MOJO VOODOO Voodoo Lounge, 6118 Military Avenue 8 p.m., Free

Don’t be a Halloween weenie and miss out on this spooktacular event at MoJoPo’s Voodoo Lounge in Benson. Situated accross the street from Jake’s, the Voodoo Lounge will start the night off with a

| THE READER |

picks

congo drum circle to invoke the spirits cade. Comprised of Onry Ozzborn and of all hallows eve and, perhaps, awaken JFK, formerly of the hip-hop collecyour own inner dance demon. After the tive Oldominion, Grayskul teamed up drum circle comes to an end, local rock n’ with bassist Rob Castro to complete rollers, Rock Paper Dynamite, will comanthe lineup. The group released its deer the stage and possess your bodies with Rhymesayers debut, Deadlivtheir sharp guitar hooks and rhythmic beats. ers, in 2005, which received Dancing is very much recommended as is mostly favorable reviews. Now swooning over front-man, Joey “Animal” signed to Connecticut’s small Janousek. Commencing after RPD wraps indie label, Fake Four Inc., their set up with be the MoJo Voodoo Grayskul is in the middle of band. As MoJo himself says, “It’s where touring in support of its latthe magique happens.” He also says, est effort, Zenith. Zenith JOE JANOUSEK “If you don’t know you can’t go.” So abandons the darkness of now that you know, feel free to go. their previous material in – James Derrick Schott favor of a wide-range of sounds indirect enough to maintain the group’s originality, but also allowing for momentary excursions into popular rap and electronic music styles of the moment. Production credits start Nov. 4 with indie favorite Aesop Rock and tread further GRAYSKUL FEATURING ONRY OZZBORN underground with names like Smoke, Void Pedal and Moodie Black. With Zenith, Grayskul has AND JFK House of Loom, 1012 S. 10th St., done its part in keeping Seattle hip- hop off-kilter 8 p.m., Tickets are $5, houseofloom.com and erratic. Grayskul makes a once in a blue moon Hailing from Seattle, Washington, Grayskul has appearance at the House of Loom on Monday.

– Kyle Eustice been turning out indie hip-hop for the past de-

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| THE READER |

Four insurance companies Now that you can sign-up for health care insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you may wonder which insurance companies offer coverage within the state. There are four companies authorized to offer coverage to Nebraskans. n Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, founded in 1938, is headquartered in Omaha with an office in Lincoln.

Operating with 1,200 employees, they serve 700,000 customers. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska is the only health insurance company based in the state.

Blue Cross offers high-quality, affordable health insurance on the largest network of doctors and hospitals in Nebraska.

The company is also a non-profit and owned by members. Its SelectBlue Plus plan is the lowest cost, tax-credible health insurance company based in Nebraska. n Coventry Health Care, established in 1986, is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, with 14,500 employees.

At 5 million members strong nationwide, Coventry has had a solid presence in Nebraska for more than two decades.

Coventry offers benefit plans designed specifically to meet the needs of Nebraska employers and individuals. Serving all 93 counties in Nebraska, Coventry features a local provider network throughout the state. n Health Alliance Midwest, founded in 1980 by Carle Clinic Association, is headquartered in Illinois with 500-plus employees. At 300,000 members strong in Illinois and Iowa, the company is one of the nation’s biggest multi-speciality group practices. The company is expanding into Nebraska in 2014 as one of the state’s licensed ACA providers.

Health Alliance offers access to tens of thousands of network physicians and hundreds of network hospitals in its coverage area. n CoOpportunity Health, began selling health insurance policies in Nebraska at the beginning of October with 12 employees in senior leadership and a transitional board of directors with five members. Headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, the company was approved for a federal lowinterest loan program to establish a Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) in Iowa and Nebraska.

CoOpportunity offers unique products offering the “three for free” benefit, with the first three office visits free of charge.

The company’s healthy rewards program offers a $100 Visa gift card for members who get a physical and complete an online health survey. CoOpportunity offers products for companies of various sizes and offers access to a provider network with 97 percent of the clinicians and 100 percent of the hospitals in Nebraska.

N

ebraskans searching for health insurance coverage on the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace website will have not only four companies to choose from, but also multiple plan levels as well as several choices when it comes to network size.

All plans on the marketplace fall into one of four plan levels: platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Each plan level carries with it a percentage of costs covered by the insurance company as well as corresponding levels of premiums.

Generally speaking, plans with lower premiums will have higher out-of-pocket costs.

According to the Nebraska Department of Insurance, here’s how they break down: n Platinum: 90% of costs covered by the insurance company n Gold: 80% of costs covered n Silver: 70% of costs covered n Bronze: 60% of costs covered The bronze level plans tend to have the lowest premiums but higher out-of-pocket costs, while the platinum level plans will have high monthly premiums but low out-of pocket costs.

Beyond the plan levels, though, very few things will be similar from company to company, including network and provider savings, said Matt Leonard, sales manager of consumer sales for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska.

In Nebraska, Leonard said, Blue Cross offers two types of networks: the traditional PPO, which features an extensive list of providers, and SelectBlue (available only in the Omaha

metro area), which features a narrower list of providers, but greater cost savings for the consumer.

Providers listed under Selectblue, Leonard said, will typically come from the Methodist, University of Nebraska Medical Center and Children’s facilities.

“That’s not to say an Alegent-Creighton facility wouldn’t be covered,” he said, “but the savings wouldn’t be as much.

It’s a product that’s at a lower cost, because we have better provider discounts. For folks living in Omaha, a majority will select that plan, because it’s a lower premium and they don’t see a big difference in provider choice.”

Those in the Omaha area looking to purchase an individual plan, as opposed to a group plan under an employer, will likely gravitate toward the SelectBlue plan, because of the lower cost associated with it, Leonard said.

“Individual members tend to be more cost sensitive,” he said. “With the cost assistance available they won’t be paying 100 percent like they have before, but they still really pay attention to that.”

All products offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska on the marketplace are identical to plans offered off the marketplace to groups, Leonard said.

While searching for health insurance plans on the new marketplace, consider which metallic plan (platinum, gold, silver or bronze) is right for you and your family and then determine which provider network will serve your needs best.

| THE READER |

OCT. 31 - NOV.6, 2013

15

overtheedge

COLUMN BY TIM MCMAHAN

MAKING MOVIES IN FLYOVER COUNTRY

I

know Neva Cozine, one of the producers of the film Flyover Country, from one of her past lives, back when she spent her days in a tiny cubical in a downtown Omaha office building. When I got an invitation out of the blue to her film’s premiere at the Omaha Community Playhouse Nov. 8 and 9, I had to find out what she’s been up to and how she got involved in filmmaking, which led to our meeting last Saturday at Caffeine Dreams. She brought along the film’s director, Jim Fields, to fill in the blanks.

As part of the research for this column, I got a sneak peek at Flyover Country. I won’t tell you what I thought of it — I’ll leave that up to you and the film critics to make those judgments.

I will say that it’s an impressive feature film that got every penny out of its $15,000 budget, 4-person crew and single-camera cinematography.

“We hacked a Panasonic DSLR that doubled the quality of its image,” said Fields about his lone camera. “A lot of local films will use a lot more equipment, dolly rails, that sort of thing. We didn’t have any of that. Luckily (cinematographer) Matt (Patterson) has a steady hand.”

Believe me, you’ll be impressed at the quality. But before we get to that, more on Cozine. Flyover Country is merely her latest project in a film career that began with Anthony Fankhauser’s homemade horror flick Nites of Ak-Sar-Ben back in 2003.

Neva said her break came at age 58 by answering an ad in The Reader looking for film crew. She signed on as a production assistant. “The first night of shooting I was afraid they’d think I was too old,” she said. Of course she had nothing to worry about, quickly finding

Film Streams at the Ruth Sokolof Theater 14th & Mike Fahey Street (formerly Webster Street) More info & showtimes 402.933.0259 · filmstreams.org Facebook & Twitter: @filmstreams

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OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

herself traveling from Scottsbluff to the seedy Fitzgerald Apartments in north downtown Omaha, all in an effort to make Fankhauser’s vision a reality.

Since then, Cozine has worked on feature films including Lovely Still, For the Love of Amy, Ulterior Motives and Out of Omaha, as well as made two award-winning short films of her own: Duval’s Gift and Edgar, Barbara and Tuti.

She met Fields at a local film conference and ended up working on Bugeaters, his documentary about the 1890 University of Nebraska football team. Up ‘til Flyover Country, Fields had only made documentaries, including 416, Saving the Indian Hills and Preserve This Seat.

“Neva was the first person to believe in this script,” he said of Flyover Country, an oddity for local productions in that the script is not a screwball comedy or slasher film. “People were telling me it can’t be made because it’s too uncommercial.”

This week!

Inequality for All First-Run (PG)

Dir. Jacob Kornbluth.

Through Thursday, October 31 Robert Reich explores growing economic disparity. One week only!

Mother of George First-Run (R)

“I told him, ‘You’re pretty brave to write a script like this in Omaha,’” Cozine said. Brave because the film deals with a character struggling with issues of homosexuality. Neva, who has a gay son, said she was interested in people “learning and understanding about being gay.”

Are gay issues really that controversial in this day and age? Apparently so. Fields said he had an open casting call via Facebook and the Theater Arts Guild. “Some people stormed out of the auditions when they found out what the movie was about,” he said. “Others got offered roles and turned them down.”

In the end, he said he got lucky with his cast, which includes Mike Mecek and Myles Dabbs in the leading roles. Joined by third co-producer Shaun Vetick, shooting began June 1, 2012, at Jackson Street Booksellers and wrapped this past July in a parking lot near Creighton.

So what does a producer do? When you’re talking about a four-person crew, the answer is everything except shoot and act. “It’s a go-fer job,” Cozine said.

“I helped with the lights and was the script supervisor. You do what needs to be done. Someone has to sew badges on the police uniforms; someone has to do the slate.”

Fields shook his head. “It helped having Neva there because of her experience, she knew how things should be run,” he said. “Neva knew how to run a set. For me, it was a learning experience.

She taught me how to be prepared. This movie wouldn’t have worked without her.”

All is Lost First-Run (PG-13) Dir. J.C. Chandor.

Starts Friday, November 1 In this sea adventure, Robert Redford proves he’s one of our greatest actors.

American Promise First-Run Dirs. Joe Brewster & Michèle Stephenson.

Starts Friday, November 1 Dir. Andrew Dosunmu.

A documentary about Through Thursday, October 31 achievement gaps in education.

A drama set in Brooklyn’s Nigerian immigrant community. Last chance!

Enough Said First-Run (PG-13)

Coming Soon

Through Thursday, October 31 Last chance!

Blue is the Warmest Color (NC-17) Nebraska First-Run (R) Inside Llewyn Davis First-Run (R)

Dir. Nicole Holofcener.

| THE READER |

over the edge

Now with its premiere scheduled (along with a soundtrack CD release party Nov. 7 at The Waiting Room), Fields says he plans to take Flyover Country on the road. “We’ll take it on tour next year throughout the Midwest and enter it into festivals,” he said. “We’ve already been rejected by the Iowa Independent Film Festival because of the LGBT content of the film. We’ll keep submitting it to more festivals.”

What about getting distribution? “It used to be a lot easier for no-budget films with no stars to be picked up by a distributor,” Fields said, pointing at Clerks as an example. “But now the bar has been raised to commercial-film levels. You have to have stars and a multi-million-dollar budget (to attract a distributor), and it’s ruining indie films.”

At least Fields won’t be strapped with debt.

Flyover Country was a pay-as-you-go production, which is one reason it took so long to make.

Fields, whose day job is teaching English at Iowa Western Community College, said he taught extra classes to help make ends meet, and when things got really tight, Cozine threw money in the hat.

“She saved the day.”

Cozine and Fields already are thinking about their next film — a feature about the Omaha music scene that will star local bands. With the odds against any locally produced indie films ever getting national attention or making money, why keep making them?

“Well, it’s a lot of fun,” Neva said. “Tilda Swinton said, ‘Does a movie really have to make money to be good?’ Sometimes it’s not a commercial success, but something you can be proud of, and I’m proud of this movie and its message.” , Over The Edge is a weekly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com. http://www.flyovermovie.com/ images/map_large.gif

Alexander Forever Young Admission just $2.50 for Payne Presents kids 12 and under!

Tokyo Story 1953

The Monster Squad 1987

November 1 & 4

October 31

Dersu Uzala 1975 (G)

The Black Stallion 1979

November 3 & 6

November 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 14

Dir. Yasujirô Ozu.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa.

Dir. Fred Dekker.

Dir. Carroll Ballard.

Alexander Payne, Bruce Dern & Will Forte in conversation with Kurt Andersen Sunday, November 24, 2013 | Holland Performing Arts Center

“T

his is a story of a love that should never have been,” said J. Gawf, Music Director of Opera Omaha’s upcoming production Carmen.

Written by composer Georges Bizet in 1875, Carmen was not very successful when it first debuted. In fact, Bizet died before the opera flourished.

The character of Carmen is traditionally seen as sexy and sultry, often wearing a flamenco dress and a red rose behind one ear. That’s what most of us picture when we think of the iconic character. But Gawf is quick to point out that’s NOT all that’s going on in Opera Omaha’s version.

“This is a different take on Carmen as a character. She’s not just sexy, she’s also a little crazy. This woman is dangerous,” explained Gawf.

He said it’s a little edgier than other productions of Carmen that have been done in the past. A director friend of Gawf ’s suggested this is the non-glamorized version of Carmen the character.

The Carmen we meet in the opera is living a poor gypsy life. This is life as it really was in the 19th century so Gawf said it’s grittier and more rustic than other productions people may have seen According to Gawf, Opera Omaha purchased the set and costumes from the New York City Opera about a year ago when they were having a fire sale.

“So it’s a set and costume that has been presented at the New York City Opera on a number of occasions. In fact, we have the original designer Paul

Shortt. He is here and will be reworking some of it, adding to it and changing it around somewhat,” Gawf said.

Carmen will have a traditional feel to it. Opera Omaha did not update it to a different time period.

Said Gawf, “Carmen started a new era in opera.

It was a turning point for composers because everything before then had been about the hierarchy, of kings and queens. This was the beginning of ‘verismo,’ which means ‘realism,’ in opera. This opera brought real people and daily ideas to the stage instead of these lofty hierarchical ideals.”

Carmen is a gypsy who has a job in a cigarette factory but also belongs to a band of thieves and thugs. One day she gets into a fight with another worker and is arrested by one of the soldiers outside the facJ. GAWF tory. She is taken to jail where she is watched over by a soldier named Don Jose.

She seduces Don Jose and tricks him into letting her go. Unfortunately, he does this in front of the other soldiers and is subsequently arrested because he helped her.

Gawf referred to the love affair between Carmen and Don Jose as a dangerous love and a dangerous attraction. He said this is mirrored in a fate theme that plays at different moments throughout the opera including the overture.

Over time it is explained that Don Jose left his town because he killed a man there and so cannot go back. At one point, his love from this other city,

an innocent woman named Micaela, comes looking for him.

Though she initially misses him, when he does come back, Don Jose and Micaela share a beautiful duet.

Act II will feature nine dancers from Ballet Nebraska. Gawf said the dancers are helping augment the production. He said there is Flamenco and all sorts of wonderful dancing. Act II is also where the audience meets Escamillo, the lead bullfighter that Carmen falls in love with while Don Jose is in prison.

And this is only the beginning of the story that Gawf deemed “tragic.” The entire opera of Carmen is comprised of four acts. There’s definitely a lot to it.

There are 41 local chorus members supporting the 10 principals as well as 21 youth ragazzi who play street urchins/street kids. There are also supernumeraries – people onstage who don’t sing – and nine ballet members.

“So at any one point, there could be as many as 97 people onstage, plus two goats that make an appearance. That’s as large a group as we’ve had onstage during my tenure here,” said Gawf.

He said it’s spectacle but not flashy, glittery and beautiful. It has more to do with how many forces are up there onstage and how much story there is. In addition to the cast members onstage, 55 Omaha Symphony musicians will be playing in the orchestra pit.

Gawf theorized that the reason Carmen sticks with people is because everyone can relate to it. Everybody has had an attraction that doesn’t or can’t work out.

“I think today’s audiences are able to relate to the story. Maybe the relationship they are in doesn’t go as far as this but everyone can understand that type of relationship,” he said.

The other big draw of Carmen is definitely the music. The familiarity of the music cannot be denied.

culture

Whether people have heard the tunes in commercials or movies, the music is recognizable to audiences.

“The Toreador (Bullfighter) song is a little dangerous. Then there’s Carmen’s first act aria, “The Habanera.” Everyone has heard these pieces because they have been used so often,” said Gawf.

He said he thinks people like to leave the opera humming something. Gawf finds it interesting to hear what people take away or think is their favorite part because everyone is unique in that way.

Gawf encourages first-time opera-goers to give Carmen a shot. He said it’s a good production for those who are intimidated by opera. Though it’s sung in French, there will be super titles in English above the stage so you can follow along.

But Gawf said the great thing about opera is you can easily tell what’s going on just by watching it.

And he said the familiar tunes reinforce the idea that this opera is accessible.

There will be an intermission between Act I and Act II and a break between Act II and Act III. Gawf said Act III and Act IV have been put together with two orchestral interludes. Ballet Nebraska will dance these interludes while the crew is changing the sets behind the curtain.

Carmen will run about three hours and 15 minutes, intermissions included. So Friday’s 7:30 performance will end around 10:45 while Sunday’s 2:00 matinee should conclude by 5:15.

“Carmen is an outlandish character and the production is quite unique. There’s just nothing similar to it in the repertoire. It’s one of a kind,” Gawf said. , Carmen is at the Orpheum Theater, 409 S 16th Street, Friday, November 1st at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 3rd at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $19-$99 at 402.345.0606 or www.ticketomaha.com.

| THE READER |

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

17

“I

’m going to become the ambassador of world peace,” Chaz Bundick says with a laugh. Better known as Toro y Moi, the (almost) 27-year-old musician is at a turning point in his life where he’s beginning to see his music can be used more like a platform.

“We were listening to a couple of jazz records the other day and they were spreading this whole message of world peace,” he explains. “I thought that would be a good idea to make songs about world peace again, but take a psychedelic approach. I think that would be a cool approach to it.”

He has a point. The late ‘70s and early ‘80s had artists like John Lennon spreading that message, but what were we left with after his murder? Twisted Sister? Lil’ Wayne? Katy Perry?

“There’s a lot of pop music that is simple and mindless,” he says.

“They’re singing about having ‘fun’ tonight [laughs]. What exactly is ‘having fun?’ If you see what young hipster kids are listening to, it’s not indie rock guitar based stuff anymore. It’s more like dance and hip-hop, which is fine. It’s totally good stuff. But crazy stuff surrounds it. It’s glorified in the media.”

Toro y Moi’s fan base is mostly mixed of young hipster kids, but that’s probably because he was anointed the “father of chillwave” early on in his career. According to writer Corban Goble at the Kansas City Pitch, “songs were digestible, but often forgettable, snippets of sample pop accented by reverb-heavy vocals leaning heavily on the DIY aesthetic.”

Although Bundick has clearly moved past this intrusive and restrictive categorization, he recognizes its relevance.

“I don’t agree with it, but I don’t disagree with it,” he says matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty neutral about it. If I agree, then it sounds like I’m a big shot.

If I disagree, it sounds like I’m being angst-y. I just try to stay indifferent.”

Whatever you call it, Toro y Moi’s music is undeniably all his own.

The soft-spoken artist clearly thrives in the studio where, presumably, he feels most comfortable. There’s a sense during the interview that talking about himself isn’t his most favorite thing in the world. Although it could be that he’s waking up in yet another strange place somewhere in Texas and needs his coffee. He’s in the middle of a massive nationwide tour, which started in May and doesn’t wrap up until February.

“I guess because I’ve been doing it so much, being on the road is kind of normal,” he says. “I’ve been adjusting well. It’s as eventful as any other day when you’re working a job. There are a handful of things you do. You wake up, you leave, you travel, sound check, play a show, eat dinner, pack up and head to the hotel.

“I need coffee every morning though,” he adds. “Probably my favorite is Super 8 coffee [laughs]. Actually, my favorite coffee is like Blue Bottle Coffee. They’re a really good company.”

n A whole new way to experience Shakespeare will be coming to the Metro area thanks to the Iowa Western Theatre Department.

Iowa Western professor Moira Mangiameli was looking for a Shakespearean comedy to include in the community college’s theatre season. The problem was, many of Shakespeare’s lighter comedies have all been done recently around the Omaha area. Moreover, Mangiameli wanted to find a way to get her students engaged and excited about the works of one of the greatest writers of all time.

18

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

At this point, we’ve established coffee is a really good motivator for getting your work done. Aside from constantly creating music for his various projects, including Sides of Chaz and Les Sins, he stays busy designing his own ephemera. Armed with a degree in graphic design from the University of South Carolina, this is to be expected.

“I just like to constantly make music and create album covers, Tshirts or whatever,” he confirms. “It’s always fun to constantly be doing something like that. I really don’t like to be bored. I make the time to do a bunch of stuff. I mostly use Illustrator and Photoshop. I like how those work. I do a lot of hand drawn stuff, too, to give it some character and originality.”

Bundick’s attitude is so laid back, it’s almost strange, but he has a way of making you feel like you’re just talking to a friend, not some “famous” artist with an ego the size of Russia. Perhaps this is why he isn’t all over the media like some of his peers, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’m trying to take it as big as it can go,” he says, but I’m going to stay instrumental to my creativity and personality and, I don’t know, my personal life. I see a lot of musicians going down the wrong path so it’s probably best to stay low key about it.”

Toro y Moi’s most recent album, Anything in Return, is further evidence of Bundick’s experimental nature. This time, the album is a tribute of sorts to ’90s dance music, another once dying genre breathing new life.

The solution was to write her own show, one that would cover many of The Bard’s different works while being funny and engaging to today’s younger audiences. The end result is Shakespeare: The Game Show - An Interactive Shakespearience.

“I think it’s incredibly arrogant of me because I just thought ‘Oh, I’ll just write a full length play!’ even though I’ve never done it before in my life!” Mangiameli said, “But necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. I wanted to have something that the actors could really have fun with and it also answered a lot of needs.”

During the show, audiences will gain a new understanding and appreciation for Shakespeare’s language

| THE READER |

culture

“I think my appreciation for deep house kind of sparked that whole sound or my approach to that,” he says. “I just wanted to do ‘90s type house that was more pop-y.”

From the lead track, “Harm in Change,” to the last, “How’s It Wrong,” there’s a pleasant infectiousness that won’t let up. It’s mellow, but at the same time exciting. Coupled with Bundick’s airy vocals, it’s pure bliss. The first single, “Say That,” reels you in with its unrelenting and hypnotic bass.

As the nearly 53-minute album comes to a close, it feels like you’ve just spent that time, well, just “chilling.” While it doesn’t waver too much in tempo, it’s still packed with enough interesting sounds to keep it fresh. As the tour for Anything in Return tapers off, his evolution seems to kick into high gear. As he approaches 30, he sees things in a different light.

“This whole fascination with drugs,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s the internet that makes it spread faster and wider, but I guess more kids are interested in hip-hop and dance music, but the drug culture isn’t what it used to be. It’s more dangerous. I find myself starting to care more about personal health and stuff like that. Small stuff. I’m just going to seize the moment and not waste it at all.” , Toro y Moi with Classixx, November 4, at The Waiting Room, 6212 Maple St., 9 p.m. Tickets are $15/ADV and $17/DOS. Visit www.onepercentproductions.com for more information.

and characters while they serve as judges, actors, and contestants in a high energy, interactive showcase.

The acting company along with audience members will travel from game to game, exploring characters, themes, and text from many of Shakespeare’s finest works.

Some of the game shows in the play include Show You Think You Can Act, Shakes-Fear Factor, Family Feudal and Love’s Labour’s Lost Connection. The show also includes several of the two-minute Shakespeare pieces that Mangiameli wrote for the past few seasons of Shakespeare on the Green. The best part about the process of rehearsing the show, Mangiameli said, is being able to introduce students to the world’s

great plays in such a way that those students end up wanting to know more about them.

Mangiameli said, “I’ve had students say ‘I never knew anything about Shakespeare before and I thought it was so boring, but this has really opened my eyes.’ It’s great. That’s what you want to hear.”

Shakespeare: The Game Show will run from November 7th through the 16th at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa. For ticket information, call (712) 388-7140.

—Bill Grennan Cold Cream looks at theater in the metro area. Email information to mixedmedia@thereader.com

O

f Montreal mines its experimentally-tinged psychedelic pop from the insular mind of bandleader and only constant member Kevin Barnes.

Barnes has crafted much of the last decade of Of Montreal material on his own, often building songs piece by piece on a computer.

But the band’s new album, Lousy With Sylvianbriar, sees Barnes reinventing and reinvigorating the band by embracing a collaborative and rock-classicist approach for recording the album.

As Barnes began working with his band, he says he didn’t even view it as being an Of Montreal project. “I kind of approached it as if I was starting a new band,” he says.

That enabled Barnes to free himself from the baggage of having to create work that carried on Of Montreal’s lineage. With the idea that it was a wholly new band, it allowed Barnes and company to take new chances.

“It enabled me to think about it with a new perspective,” Barnes says.

Actually working in a recording room with bandmates turned the collaborative key for the entire process of making the album. It’s the first live collaborative Of Montreal effort since 2002’s Aldhils Arboretum.

The time in between that album and Lousy With Sylvianbriar saw Barnes disappearing down an increasingly solo process. If Barnes wanted input, he’d reach out to a contributor and those parts would often be exchanged and worked on via email.

Barnes admits that the process lends itself to seeming very homogenous. All the sounds are coming just from one person’s brain. Building songs one instrument at a time while staring at a computer screen just became a boring process, Barnes says. “I was getting kind of lazy,” he admits.

So all of those crutches had become barriers so Barnes tossed them all out. This time, a 24-track tape machine, running gloriously analog strings of two-inch tape replaced the dull glow of computer tracking.

Email collaborations were ditched for the flesh-and-blood reality of living and working in a studio as a full band. “I wanted to make a record that was a more communal experience,” Barnes says.

Barnes specifically was culling inspiration from his favorite ’60s and ’70s rock records. Albums made by humans and recorded on equipment with its own quirks and imperfects. “They create this organism together,” Barnes says of many of those recordings.

So Barnes built his own recording organism, culling together a backing band of past collaborators and two people he had never even played with before. “I just followed my instincts on who I picked to be in the group,” Barnes says.

Then the band embarked on 12 and 14 hours days as they crafted Lousy With Sylvianbriar, while living in a shared space.

Barnes still came in with demos of everything, with most of the skeletal song structures in place. However, the working band added flourishes

STONE ROSES

and grooves to bring the songs alive. Key tracks like “Triumph of Destruction”, a song that will ultimately rank as one of Of Montreal’s finest, and “She Ain’t Speaking Now” both underwent several versions before the band found a definitive version.

Barnes says the process ended up being an easy-going and fun break from how he had been crafting his music. “I haven’t enjoyed an album on that level production wise in forever,” he says.

Barnes even embraced the imperfect element of analog recording and working as a live band in the studio. Unlike computer tracks, tape reels are not an unlimited and forgiving format. Flaws that can be covered up with digital editing are laid bare on tape. But that organic element is what Barnes sought. “You can’t hide anything. I like that there are flaws,” Barnes says.

Nor are there any shortcuts or repeating a groove so it sounds right with each repetition. “You have to be playing on every moment of every song,” Barnes notes.

The process too carried a lot of surprises, especially on how well the collaborators got along. Most of the recording band is now playing on the band’s current tour.

Barnes too was surprised at how well the group understood and contributed to his vision for the record. After working on his own for so long, simply grabbing his band and hitting the studio wasn’t exactly the most familiar thing for Barnes to do, he admits. “It was definitely an experiment,” he says.

n Marcus Theatres in Omaha, Bellevue and Lincoln will screen Stone Roses concert documentary Made of Stone Wednesday, Nov. 6, and Tuesday, Nov. 12. The documentary by Shane Meadows covers the Manchester band’s 2012 and 2013 reunion tours, which culminated with a headlining spot at the 2013 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in California. The Eng-

But Barnes says the influence from classic rock records was the guide there too. He wanted to feel connected to that lineage and more importantly, he wanted music that stood up when broken down into its simplest components. “What I really wanted was a record that would really work on an acoustic guitar,” Barnes says.

That idea of having a vocal and lyric-led song in the vein of Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen comes through though Barnes says he knows his own stamp on it shines through. “I just have my style of writing,” he says.

The album is marked both by a retro-tinged style and the distinct trademark of Of Montreal’s best psych-pop nuggets. Barnes is more direct here lyrically than some of his more verbose songs in the past. Synths are tucked away and in its place is a 60s-indebted collection of songs that show that Barnes has rediscovered wrinkles in his songcraft that have not been explored for nearly eight years.

Barnes says he still keeps an eye on being true to his voice even in the collaborative atmosphere. Part of that involves not taking stock in outside influences despite his band’s sizable fan following.

It’s all about making something that Barnes feels excited about in a given moment without being self-conscious about what’s being created.

“I want it to be just this pure form of expression,” he says. , Of Montreal w/ La Luz play the Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. Saturday, November 2nd. Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 day-of-show. For more information, visit onepercentproductions.com.

lish band is known for their 1989 debut album, which served as a bridge between the post-punk Madchester sound and the explosion of Brit-pop in the 1990s. Village Pointe Cinema, 304 N. 174th St., Twin Creek Cinema, 3909 Raynor Parkway in Bellevue, and Lincoln’s Grand Cinema, 1101 P St. will also show the film. n Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies are more than halfway through their Kickstarter campaign to fund the mixing, mastering and manufacturing of their next album. The band plans to

music

host a spring release show with the proceeds.

That show will be free if the band hits its $7,500 target before Halloween. The band had raised more than $2,300 as of Monday, Oct. 28. Consider giving at Kickstarter.com.

— Chris Aponick The Reader’s Backbeat column seeks to cover the local music scene from all corners of the sound spectrum. Whether it’s news of new bands, farewell shows, album releases or special events, the Reader’s music team wants to hear from you. Got a tip? Email it to backbeat@thereader.com.

| THE READER |

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

19

livemusiccalendar

SEND CALENDAR INFORMATION — including addresses, dates, times, costs and phone numbers — to The Reader’s calendar editor. Mail to or drop off information at P.O. Box 7360 Omaha, NE 68107; email to listings@thereader.com; fax to (402) 341.6967. Deadline is 5 p.m. the Thursday prior to issue date.

THURSDAY 31

HALLOWEEN PARTY W/ BRYAN LEE, (Blues) 5:30 pm, 21st

Saloon, $10.

DURTY THURSDAY - E BROWN, 9 pm, Bar 415, Free.

READER RECOMMENDS KRIS LAGER BAND HALLOWEEN PARTY, (Rock) 8 pm,

Bourbon Theater, $5: ADV | $10: DOS | $5: DOS

w/ Costume.

COYOTE WILLY’S HALLOWEEN PARTY WITH 5 MILE BRIDGE,

(Country) 8 pm, Coyote Willy’s, $5.

NEW MOON SONGWRITERS NIGHT, (Folk/Singer-Song writer) 7 pm, Crescent Moon Coffee, FREE.

READER RECOMMENDS SOLID PLACKOUT: HALLOWEEN NIGHT W/ DIGITAL LEATHER,

PLACK BLAQUE, SOLID GOLDBERG, SUPERSTAR & STA,

9 pm, House Of Loom, $5 with Facebook RSVP /

$8 at the door.

HALLOWEEN: RED CITIES, VIOLENT DEATH EQUIPMENT, CYNGE, 9 pm, Knickerbockers, Contact

Knickerbockers for cover charge.

SHADOW RIDGE, 9 pm, OzoNE Lounge at Anthony’s

Steakhouse, Free.

HALLOWEEN PARTY WITH D*FUNK, 9 pm, Red9, Contact

Red9 for cover charge.

LAZERWOLFE: HALLOWEEN BASH!, 8 pm, Rococo Theater, $5.

BOO GOO, (DJ/Electronic) 8 pm, Slowdown, $5.

SOMETHING ELSE TOUR 2013 - TECH 9YNE, (Hip-Hop/Rap)

8 pm, Sokol Hall & Auditorium, Contact the Sokol

for cover charges.

HALLOWEEN PARTY WITH HOOKT, 8:30 pm, The Grove, $5

if not in full costume.

HIDDEN AGENDA, (Cover Band) 9 pm, Two Fine

Irishmen, Contact Two Fine Irishmen for cover charge.

ACOUSTIC MUSIC THURSDAYS!, 8 pm, Two Fine Irishmen,

Contact Two Fine Irishmen for cover charge.

READER RECOMMENDS CONGOS CIRCLE W/ ROCK PAPER DYNAMITE, MOJO VOODOO

SHOW AT MIDNIGHT, 8 pm, Voodoo Lounge, Free .

LIVING COLOUR, THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF VIVID, BEING

PLAYED COVER TO COVER W/ VOODOO METHOD, (Rock)

9 pm, Waiting Room, $25.

READER RECOMMENDS STEVE VAI, 8 pm, Whiskey Roadhouse (Horseshoe

Casino), $37.

BUD HEAVY & THE HIGH LIFES/ROOT MARM CHICKEN FARM

JUG BAND, 6 pm, Zoo Bar, $5.

SISTER SPARROW AND THE DIRTY BIRDS (BROOKLYN) W/ A

FEROCIOUS JUNGLE CAT HALLOWEEN BASH!, 9 pm,

Zoo Bar, $8ADV / $10DOS.

FRIDAY 1

3D IN YOUR FACE, (Cover Band) 9 pm, 21st Saloon, $5.

THE FOOLS, (Cover Band) 8 pm, Arena Bar & Grill, Free.

THOSE FAR OUT ARROWS, 9 pm, Barley Street Tavern, $5.

READER RECOMMENDS TECH N9NE SOMETHING ELSE TOUR, (Hip-Hop/Rap) 8 pm,

Bourbon Theater, $35.

138’S ANNUAL COSTUME PARTY, 9 pm, Brothers Lounge, $5.

BLACKWATER, (Country) 8 pm, Coyote Willy’s, $5.

THE BRITS, 8 pm, Firewater Grille, Contact the

Firewater Grill for cover charge.

KARAOKE THEATRE, 8:30 pm, House Of Loom, Free.

DIWALI BOLLYWOOD BASH | INDIAN FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS,

8 pm, House Of Loom, $5.

20

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

| THE READER |

music listings

A NIGHT WITH SWAMPBOY BLUES BAND, (Blues) 7 pm,

Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, Free.

DOWN IN CIRCLES, 6 pm, Knickerbockers, Contact

Knickerbockers for cover charge.

TREV TAILOR, AUSTIN FRIESEN, TRIPLE THREAT, 9 pm,

Knickerbockers, Contact Knickerbockers for

cover charge.

PERSONICS, (Cover Band) 11 am, Loose Moose, Free.

THA BARISTAZ, 8 pm, Louis Bar and Grill, $6.

ECKOPHONIC - HALLOWEEN BASH, (Cover Band) 9 pm,

OzoNE Lounge at Anthony’s Steakhouse, Free.

JOY STICK, 9 pm, Red9, Contact Red9 for cover charge.

MAN ON EARTH (NY), GRUMBLE, FALLIBLE & LOW LONG SIGNAL, 8 pm, Shamrock’s Pub & Grill, Contact

Shamrock’s for cover charge.

DEER TICK W/ ROBERT ELLIS, (Indie) 8 pm, Slowdown,

$15 ADV /$17 DOS.

READER RECOMMENDS RON WAX AND KILLER BLOW, 9 pm, Sweatshop Gallery, Free.

PRO MAGMUN W/ ROUTINE ESCORTS & TOUCH PEOPLE,

9 pm, The Sydney, Contact The Sydney for cover charge.

LEMON FRESH DAY, (Cover Band) 9 pm, Two Fine

Irishmen, Contact Two Fine Irishmen for cover charge.

READER RECOMMENDS SATCHEL GRANDE WITH MARIACHI ZAPATA, 9 pm, Waiting

Room, $7.

READER RECOMMENDS MEZCAL BROS., (Blues) 5 pm, Zoo Bar, $5.

DRUMSTICK REUNION WITH CHARLIE BURTON, 8 pm, Zoo

Bar, Contact the Zoo Bar for cover charge.

SATURDAY 2

SINNERS & SAINTS, 8 pm, Arena Bar & Grill, Free.

ALL SOULS’ DAY TRIBUTE TO NICK DRAKE W/ VIRGINIA

KATHRYN TANOUS-GALLNER AND FRIENDS, 9 pm, Barley

Street Tavern, $5.

TOUCH PEOPLE HALLOWEEN, 8 pm, Bourbon Theater, $5:

21 and up | $7: 18 and up.

HOOKT WITH LINEAR AGGRESSION, 9 pm, Duggan’s Pub, $5.

KARAOKE, 8 pm, Firewater Grille, Contact Firewater

Grille for cover charges.

LOOM WEAVES DAY OF THE DEAD, 8 pm, House Of Loom, $5.

FOR EDWARD, DAVE LEVERETT, 9 pm, Knickerbockers,

Contact Knickerbockers for cover charge.

SECRET WEAPON, (Cover Band) 11 am, Loose Moose, Free.

ROUGH CUT, (Cover Band) 9 pm, OzoNE Lounge at

Anthony’s Steakhouse, Free.

FOOTBALL SATURDAY WITH D*FUNK!, (Hip-Hop/Rap) 9 pm,

Red9, Contact Red9 for cover charge.

SILAS CREEK, 8 pm, Shamrock’s Pub & Grill, Contact

Shamrock’s for cover charge.

HI-FI HANGOVER, (Cover Band) 9 pm, Two Fine Irishmen,

Contact Two Fine Irishmen for cover charge.

OF MONTREAL W/ LA LUZ, 9 pm, Waiting Room, $18 ADV

/ $20 DOS.

READER RECOMMENDS JERRY PRANKSTERS, 9 pm, Zoo Bar, $6.

SUNDAY 3

THE BLIND PETS W/ POWERS, BOGUSMAN, 8 pm, Duffy’s

Tavern, $5.

PIERCE PETTIS, 7:30 pm, FolkHouse, $20 Artist

Donation Requested.

MUSIC FROM AROUND THE WORLD, 7 pm, Holland

Performing Arts Center, $10 Adults, $5 students/ seniors.

SALSA SUNDAY @ LATIN MADNESS, 7 pm, House Of Loom, $5.

NEBRASKA WESLEYAN WOMEN’S CHOIR, MEN’S GLEE AND

JAZZ CHOIR, 3 pm, Nebraska Wesleyan, Free for

UNL students with a valid NCard | $5 for all others.

O’LEAVER’S OPEN MIC NIGHT, 9 pm, O’Leaver’s Pub, Free.

PRIL AND JOHNNY, 2 pm, Soaring Wings Vineyard, Free.

SUNDAY ROADHOUSE PRESENTS: ROBBIE FULKS, 5 pm,

Waiting Room, $17 ADV / $20 DOS.

MONDAY 4

OPEN MIC & SONGWRITER SHOWCASE, (Folk/Singer-Song writer) 9 pm, Barley Street Tavern, FREE. FIRST CUT INDUSTRY NIGHT W/DJ DRDRIGGS, (DJ/Electronic)

9 pm, House Of Loom, Contact House of Loom

for cover charge.

ZENITH TOUR W/GRAYSKULL X GRAVES33, (Hip-Hop/Rap)

8 pm, House Of Loom, $5.

BIG BAND MONDAY FEATURING GOOCH AND HIS LAS VEGAS

LAB BAND, (Jazz) 6:30 pm, OzoNE Lounge at

Anthony’s Steakhouse, FREE. OPEN MIC NIGHT!, 8 pm, Red9, Free.

READER RECOMMENDS COLD WAR KIDS W/ IN THE VALLEY BELOW, 8 pm, Slowdown, $20.

WAITING ROOM MUSIC QUIZ, 8 pm, Waiting Room, FREE. PIANO HOUR W/ EMILY BASS, 5 pm, Zoo Bar, contact the

Zoo Bar for cover charge.

ZOO BAR HOUSE BAND, 7 pm, Zoo Bar, $3.

TUESDAY 5

A WASTED EFFORT W/ THE BLIND PETS, 9 pm, Barley

Street Tavern, $5.

NONPOINT, MY TICKET HOME, DIGITAL COLLAPSE, SECTION 8,

9 pm, Knickerbockers, $15.

JR HOSS, 9 pm, OzoNE Lounge at Anthony’s

Steakhouse, Free.

DA CRABBY BLUES BAND, (Blues) 6 pm, Shucks 119th

St., FREE.

READER RECOMMENDS UNL FACULTY JAZZ ENSEMBLE, (Jazz) 7:30 pm, University

of Nebraska-Lincoln, Free.

JAZZOCRACY, (Jazz) 6 pm, Zoo Bar, Free.

WEDNESDAY 6

CRASH & BURN BLUES JAM, (Blues) 6 pm, Barley Street

Tavern, Free .

DICEY RILEYS, 7 pm, Brazen Head Irish Pub, Free.

THE QUICK & EASY BOYS W/ THE WIND-UP, COMMANDER KILROY, 8 pm, Duffy’s Tavern, $5.

TRACY SKRETTA, (Cover Band) 8 pm, Firewater Grille,

Contact the Firewater Grill for cover charge.

WARPED WAX W/TURNTABLIST CMB, (DJ/Electronic)

8 pm, House Of Loom, Free.

READER RECOMMENDS CRATE & CRAFT CLUB | JAZZ VINYL W/ANDREW MONSON,

(Jazz) 8 pm, House Of Loom, Free.

GRANGER SMITH, EARL DIBBLES JR., 9 pm, Knickerbockers, $15.

WEST OF ALDINE, (Rock) 9 pm, Louis Bar and Grill,

Contact Louis Bar & Grill for cover charge.

THE GREAT IMPOSTERS, (Cover Band) 9 pm, OzoNE

Lounge at Anthony’s Steakhouse, Free.

READER RECOMMENDS RICH PATTON, 8:30 pm, Pizza Shoppe Collective, Free.

DOT DOT CURVE W/ BRUISED BUT NOT BROKEN, NEUROTIC

NOVEMBER & SCRAPHIM, 6 pm, Red9, $7.

READER RECOMMENDS HEARTLESS, GRIZZLY ATOM$, HARRISON MAXWELL, JOHHNY

OUTLAW, KARL LEWIS, (Hip-Hop/Rap) 8 pm,

Slowdown, $8.

CALEB HAWLEY W/ THE TALBOTT BROTHERS, 9 pm, Waiting

Room, $8.

JW JONES, 6 pm, Zoo Bar, $8.

DJ RELIC, (DJ/Electronic) 9 pm, Zoo Bar, Free.

BY B.J. HUCHTEMANN

Get Your Boooos On

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alloween falls on Thursday night and there are lots of roots music events to get your boooos on. The 21st Saloon hosts a Halloween Party with Braille Blues Daddy Bryan Lee & The Blues Power Band. The New Orleans guitarist is touring behind Play One For Me (Severn).

Eric Clapton calls Lee “one of the best bluesman I have ever heard.” See braillebluesdaddy.com.

Meanwhile Lincoln has two parties. The Zoo Bar’s 6-9 p.m. show offers roots bands Bud Heavy & the High Lifes and Root Marm Chicken Farm Jug Band. Then the official Halloween Bash kicks off with A Ferocious Jungle Cat and the Zoo debut of New York’s Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds. Critics and fans are raving about Sister Sparrow’s funk-laced R&B and danceinducing grooves.

Kris Lager Band presents a 9 p.m. Halloween party at Lincoln’s Bourbon Theatre with The Giving Tree.

Admission is only $5 day of show if you are in costume.

Living Colour plays a 25th anniversary reunion show on Halloween at Waiting Room, 9 p.m. Voodoo Method opens.

The Horseshoe Casino’s Whiskey Roadhouse in Council Bluffs presents guitar star Steve Vai, 8 p.m.

See horseshoecouncilbluffs.com.

hoodoo

Robbie Fulks: The Sunday Roadhouse concert series brings back Robbie Fulks Sunday, Nov. 3, 5 p.m. at The Waiting Room. Fulks’ tenth disc is Gone Away Backward (Bloodshot). Reviewers praise Fulks’ “sharper-than-atack, wry genius, gold-dusted vocals and prodigious guitar pickin’” and his shows match his fine musicianship with clever, witty humor. Spin magazine calls Fulks “America’s most unjustly unsung singer/songwriter.” See sundayroadhouse.com. Bill Kirchen is up on Sunday, Nov. 17, also at The Waiting Room.

Indigenous Headlines Toy Drive: Mark your calendar now for Sunday, Dec. 8, when Mato Nanji and Indigenous headline the 11th Annual Toy Drive for Pine Ridge to benefit the children and families on the Pine Ridge Reservation. This year there is one event at Sokol Hall. See toydriveforpineridge.com. I’ll be joining Larry (Lash LaRue) Dunn and many musical guests Dec. 8 on Rick Galusha’s “Pacific Street Blues” radio program on KIWR, 89.7 The River, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

Hot Notes: Excellent jump-blues guitarist Rockin’ Johnny Burgin was here last spring with the legendary Tail Dragger and performed locally with OEA Blues Nominee Honeyboy Turner Band. Burgin started out playing in the West Side Chicago clubs. Burgin and top Canadian bluesman J.W. Jones share the bill at The 21st Saloon Thursday, Nov. 7, 6-9 p.m. Jones also plays Lincoln’s Zoo Bar Wednesday, Nov. 6, 6-9 p.m. ,

HOODOO is a weekly column focusing on blues, roots, Americana and occasional other music styles with an emphasis on live music performances. Hoodoo columnist B.J. Huchtemann is a Reader senior contributing writer and veteran music journalist who has covered the local music scene for nearly 20 years. Follow her blog at hoodoorootsblues.blogspot.com.

hoodoo blues

| THE READER |

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

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■ Although they had me at “friend green beans” and “not completely butchering the movie experience just because they are a big cineplex,” Aksarben Cinema (aksarbencinema.com) apparently wants me to love them more. How else do you explain the addition of Aksarben Café, which will offer casual entrees like cheeseburgers, grilled chicken sandwiches, tacos and more food that should get in my belly.

Wisely, the theater is opting not to ruin the movie experience by serving food in the theater, you have to go to the lobby yourself. Hey, the extra walk will do you good after you order that cheeseburger anyway.

■ Ben Affleck will quickly learn that if he says anything, and I do mean anything, about his role as Batman in the upcoming Batman vs Superman we will freak out. In a casual interview, Affleck let slip that director Zack Snyder has a “surprising” take on the character. Cue the Internet speculation based on one word! My guess: the new direction is apathetic.

Bat-fleck just sits on a couch yelling “Robin! Robin! Hey, Robin! The Joker did stuff again, can you get that!”

■ I know I’m in the minority on this, but the recently anLADY GAGA

Cutting Room provides breaking local and national movie news … complete with added sarcasm. Send any relevant information to film@ thereader.com. Check out Ryan on Movieha!, a weekly half-hour movie podcast (movieha.libsyn.com/rss), catch him on the radio on CD 105.9 (cd1059.com) on Fridays around 7:30 a.m. and on KVNO 90.7 (kvno.org) at 8:30 a.m. on Fridays and follow him on Twitter (twitter. com/thereaderfilm).

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REPORTCARD

nounced Thanksgiving special on ABC called “Lady Gaga & The Muppets’ Holiday Spectacular” has me crazy happy.

Not only do I tend to give Ms. Gaga a lot of love for her pop art antics, but The Muppets are back on TV, which is an early Christmas miracle. With news that Sir Elton John and Joseph GordonLevitt will appear, this is as excited as I have been for a holiday special since they canceled “Robocop on Ice.” ■ We may not get an Entourage movie because Adrian Grenier, Kevin Connolly, Jerry Ferrara and Kevin Dillon are pissed about how much money Jeremy Piven is set to make for reprising his role from the HBO show. So, if you have time to send a thank you card to Piven’s ego for preventing this trainwreck from unfolding, please do so.

—Ryan Syrek

et’s just get right to it: The 12-minute graphic lesbian sex scene at the heart of Blue is the Warmest Color is crazy problematic. Not because the hauntingly talented participants, Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Emma (Léa Seydoux), aren’t infusing the scene with honest passion and sexual self-discovery. No, it’s more that it doesn’t feel “right;” the framing and pace, along with several “logistical” components, seems wrong.

It felt like a porn scene between two women directed by a man for male pleasure.

That’s because it was a porn scene between two women directed by a man for male pleasure. That’s a hell of an accusation, but the undeniable feeling of disingenuousness was felt even by this heterosexual male. It was like an alarm yelling “Wrong! Wrong! This isn’t how this goes! Wrong!” Usually, what goes on behind the scenes Captain Phillips C A fake-feeling real-life story that’s fine but unnecessary.

The Fifth Estate As exciting as actually watching people type!

C

Rush B+ A movie based on a true story about a sport we don’t care about that you’ll actually care about!

| THE READER |

is irrelevant, as it is our job to engage only the work. But calling writer/director Abdellatif Kechiche, who worked from a graphic novel by Julie Maroh, a pornographer who exploited his lead actresses requires evidence. Lo and behold, evidence exists.

Seydoux and Exarchopoulos have gone on record, describing the 10 day shoot of this one scene as torturous. While both stop short of outright calling Kechiche an icky, icky perv-man, they did agree they wouldn’t work with him again. And then Maroh came out and blasted the scene as wholly false and insincere, owing to the fact that the women involved had no “real-world” experience in that type of sexytime so they couldn’t make it authentic on their end and Kechiche was apparently content to put them in heterosexual sex positions that made READER RECOMMENDS

Gravity A Thrilling and thoughtful: Two great tastes that taste great in space.

ON DVD

Before Midnight A One more time, with (all the) feelings!

R.I.P.D D Do you know how hard you have to try to be unfavorably compared to Men in Black?

no sense when you stopped and thought about it.

Which you have time to do. It lasts 12 full minutes.

Listen, women’s sexuality (especially women who love other women) rarely gets any legitimate screen time. The prospect of a movie like this, which is a thoughtful three-hour journey of a girl (Adèle) discovering the truth of the beautiful woman she was frightened to become, is fantastic. And when it isn’t interrupted with such invasive and gratuitous intercourse, it’s magnificent. Exarchopoulos effortlessly moves from concealing her sexuality beneath forced heterosexual experiences to fully loving Emma, a blue-haired woman with a capital W. Emma knows who she is and, at first, is slow to walk backwards to where Adèle is in her life. But the love between them demands it.

All that is great, even if Weekend did a better job on the passion and Pariah did a better job on the individual acceptance of same sex love. But Kechiche totally dirts the whole thing. Both through the objectifying male gaze he shoots through and in the bloated, completely indulgent three hour running time. Had he used the time to further unpack these complex characters, maybe it could be justified. Instead, Blue is the Warmest Color is half spectacularly moving and half Larry Flynt’s email inbox. , GRADE: C

film

sports

Deja Vu and Details Huskers need strong finish following loss

BY MIKE BABCOCK

R

ewind to last football season, late October.

Nebraska had been embarrassed by Ohio State in Columbus – 63-38 if you don’t recall, or maybe don’t care to recall – and was preparing to play Northwestern, also on the road. Husker nation was in an uproar. The forecast for the remainder of the season was dire.

Starting with Northwestern, the Huskers won six in a row to advance to the Big Ten championship game against Wisconsin, a rematch. The Badgers were standing in for Ohio State, which was ineligible ROSS ELS for the championship game as well as for a bowl.

For purposes here, let’s limit last season’s reference to the six consecutive victories. What happened after that – well, as I said, let’s limit ourselves to the victories.

“The biggest thing is, just everything that we want is still out there,” said the Huskers’ Quincy Enunwa, a senior wide receiver and cocaptain. “We have the same record we did last year at this time, and we shouldn’t get down on ourselves just from a loss.”

The loss, Nebraska’s second, was against Minnesota. And there’s the heart of the matter. The Gophers hadn’t defeated Nebraska since 1960, 16 consecutive losses. And the Huskers had won the last 10 games by an average of 43 points So Husker nation is now in an uproar. The forecast for the remainder of the season is dire.

Actually, Nebraska is one-victory better than it was after the Ohio State game a year ago. The Northwestern victory gave the Huskers a 5-2 record. So Enunwa was actually referring to that point in the season.

“We can still do everything we want to accomplish this year,” he said. “We just have to make sure we learn from our mistakes. Last year, we came back (from) 5-2; we won the rest of our games and got to the Big Ten championship game. There’s no reason why we can’t do that again this year.”

Except, possibly, the perception that a 34-23 loss to Minnesota is worse than the loss at Ohio State a year ago. Minnesota rushed for 271 yards, controlled the clock, was painfully successful on first down and

limited the Husker offense, directed by an almosthealthy Taylor Martinez, to 328 yards.

Martinez returned after a three-game absence because of what wasn’t a turf toe, as it turns out, but another toe and shoulder problem. Now he might not play against Northwestern because of a hip-pointer. “If we played today, Tommy (Armstrong Jr.) would start with Ron (Kellogg III) filling in,” coach Bo Pelini said during his weekly news conference on Monday.

Armstrong didn’t play at Minnesota, by the way. And neither did Kellogg.

In any case, the health of Martinez wasn’t the reason for the loss. “He didn’t look like a guy that was gimping around out there,” said Pelini. “That wasn’t our issue.”

What was? As the popular idiom goes, the devil is in the details, “just the small, small details,” redshirt freshman linebacker Michael Rose said.

“It’s always been the case as long as I’ve been coaching football,” said Pelini. “Success lies in the details. You have to understand that. You have to apply it. You have to live it.”

Case in point; on Sunday after the game, linebackers coach Ross Els asked his players to say what their check calls were while watching video of the plays Minnesota ran.

“We made ‘em perfectly fine,” Rose said. “I guess hindsight’s 20-20 but, I mean, it’s really nothing special, nothing we haven’t seen, nothing that we can’t adjust to on the fly. They were lining up in some unfamiliar sets, but they were getting back into the sets they wanted to get in.”

In the meeting room, the defense recognized what it was supposed to do. “That was pretty much it,” said Rose. “So I don’t see why we can’t translate that to on the field.”

The Huskers will translate from here on out, he said. “These next five weeks, we’re going to come out with a lot more focus and attention to detail, and we’re going to correct those things.”

Which brings us back to where we began.

“Don’t think that just because we lost the game that all of a sudden, the season is over,” Enunwa said.

“Minnesota played their hearts out. They played a great game against us. There (were) just too many mistakes on our side, and obviously when you don’t play a great game, you’re going to have a loss. We just need to learn from our mistakes and come back next week with a better attitude.” ,

NO RULES. NO MERCY. PURE FIGHTING.

VIOLENCE.

STARTS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1

Omaha AMC Oakview 24 (888) AMC-4FUN

OMAHA READER WED: 10/30 1/8 PG. (4.9”) X 2.4” ALL.MTC.1030.OREMAIL

sports

| THE READER |

AM/SR

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

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newsoftheweird

T H E WO R L D G O N E F R E A K Y B Y C H U C K S H E P H E R D W I T H I L LU S T R AT I O N S B Y T O M B R I S C O E

Imminent Swirling Vortex of Damnation

L

and developers for the iconic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo. (famous as the inspiration for the hotel in Stephen King’s “The Shining”) announced recently that they need more space and thus will dig up and move the hotel’s 12-gravesite pet cemetery. Neighbors told the Fort Collins Coloradoan in September that they feared the construction noise, but somehow ignored the potential release of departed spirits (though an “Animal Planet” “dog psychic” who lives in Estes Park seemed to volunteer her services to calm the pets’ souls).

The War Against “Doing the Right Thing” Teach Our Children Well: (1) Officials at Milford Haven School in Pembrokeshire county, Wales, punished Rhys Johnson, 14, in October for violating the dress code against shaved heads. He was helping raise money for an anti-cancer charity after a third relative of his contracted the illness. (2) North Andover (Mass.) High School punished honor student and volleyball captain Erin Cox in October for giving a drunk classmate a ride home. Cox was clean-and-sober, but violated the school’s “zero tolerance” attitude toward alcohol users (even though more student drunk-driving might result if sober friends feared school punishment).

Walter Dixon knew that he was about to be relocated in December 2012 from a Joliet, Ill., correctional facility to begin serving a new federal drug conspiracy sentence, but instead, state officials mistakenly freed him. Dixon protested, but said he was aggressively dismissed from the premises. It was not until September that he was finally re-arrested and began his new sentence. (Dixon was easily located because, though free, he had met regularly with his parole officer and was taking several vocational courses.)

Advice of Counsel After consulting with a lawyer, Evan Dobelle, president of Massachusetts’ Westfield State University,

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| THE READER |

weird news

accused of billing the state for unauthorized travel expenses, is reportedly considering claiming that he actually “self-reported” the violations as soon as suspicions turned up. Dobelle says he would thus be entitled to the protection of the state “whistleblower” statute, which shields inside informers when they expose wrongdoing. (Dobelle was placed on paid leave in October.)

In September, landlord Elwyn Gene Miller, 64, went on trial in Iowa City, Iowa, for spying on tenants in the small apartment building he owns -- after apparently having constructed peepholes allowing him views into bathrooms and other areas, and having been spotted climbing from a crawl space after accessing one peephole. Nonetheless, as Miller’s lawyer pointed out, the law applies only to peeping for “sexual gratification,” and there is no “first-hand knowledge or observation” that Miller was “aroused” at the time he was spotted. (At press time, the judge was mulling a decision.)

William Woodward of Titusville, Fla., awaiting trial on two murder counts in September, might normally have a weak defense under the state’s “stand your ground” law (which requires an “imminent” threat of a forcible felony) because evidence indicates that any threats against him were made previously and not at the time of the shooting. However, in a court filing, Woodward’s lawyers justified the pre-emptive groundstanding by referring to the “Bush Doctrine” employed by the U.S. in invading Iraq in 2003 (the U.S. “standing its ground” against Iraqi weapons of mass destruction). (The judge promised a ruling by November.)

Compelling Explanations Perfect Sense: A 77-year-old motorist told police in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, that he was going the wrong way on the Takamatsu Expressway only because he had missed his exit 1 km back and thought it best just to turn the car around and retrace the path back to the ramp. Police said his short September jaunt had caused a collision, not affecting the man’s own car.

Lame: (1) In October, Jeffrey Laub, 39, was sentenced on several traffic charges, including leading police

COPYRIGHT 2013 CHUCK SHEPHERD. Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at NewsoftheWeird. blogspot.com or NewsoftheWeird.com. Send Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679. Illustrations by Tom Briscoe (smallworldcomics.com).

on a 111 mph, “Dukes of Hazzard-style” chase through Logan Canyon near Logan, Utah, with the explanation only that he needed an emergency restroom because of something he ate. Judge Thomas Willmore called the excuse “one of the worst” he had heard, since Laub had passed several public toilets during the chase.

(2) Riverview, Fla., schoolteacher Ethel Anderson, 31, was convicted in September of having sex with a 12-year-old boy she was tutoring, despite her attempt to explain away the key evidence -- “hundreds” of sexual text messages -- as mere “rewards” to get his attention and encourage progress in math.

Latest Human “Right” In September, an appeals tribunal reinstated Gwent, Wales, police officer Shaun Jenkins, 36, who was fired in 2010 for having sex with a woman while on duty. The head of a police court concluded that Jenkins was on an authorized break at the time -- no more improper than stopping for “a spot of tea.” (Investigators originally found it appalling that Jenkins was out of uniform during the escapade, but he pointed out that his gun remained on his person at all times, albeit down around his ankles.)

Ironies The city council in Washington City, Utah, recently approved the construction of a firing range next to the Dixie GunWorx shop, even though the firing range’s neighbor on the other side is a women’s domesticabuse shelter (whose officials fear that gunfire might retraumatize some of the victims who had sought refuge). Dixie’s CEO hinted to KSTU-TV that if the shelter victims had been armed in the first place, they could have prevented the abuse.

People With Issues Among the many arrested recently for having solitary sex in public was Philip Milne, 74, ultimately convicted in the U.K.’s Bedford Magistrates’ Court of touching himself on a transit bus although he claimed he was merely “shampooing” his troubled genital area and resented “being treated like a hardened criminal.” Also, Stuart Clarke, 48, of Provo,

Utah, had explaining to do after an incident on Delta Air Lines in 2012. He said that he was rubbing his exposed penis only because it burned from accidental contamination with peppermint oil (which so distressed him that, upon landing, he left behind a checked bag). The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force found that out and is currently investigating whether there is more to the “peppermint oil” story than embarrassment-avoidance.

The facilities are

TOP-NOTCH. Not only are you learning from

REAL CHEFS,

Least Competent Criminals (1) A Tucson, Ariz., man apparently escaped a traffic stop in August, but not unscathed. After fleeing to a dead-end street, he climbed out the passenger window, but his foot got caught, and his still-moving car's back tire ran over his sprawled torso. The motorcycle officer was not able to catch the injured man, who staggered off into the neighborhood. (2) Lucas Burke, 21, and Ethan Keeler, 20, attempting to break into a safe at New Yard Landscaping in Hopkinton, N.H., in October, possibly seeking drug money, unwisely chose to use an acetylene torch. Included in the safe's contents was a supply of consumer fireworks, and, according to the police report, the resultant explosion "blew their bodies apart."

but you are also making

CONTACTS.

— Mario Ochoa, former student and working chef

A News of the Weird Classic (February 2008) It’s the “holy grail” of beers, said a Boston pub manager, but still, only 60,000 cases a year of Westvleteren are brewed because the Belgian Trappist monks with the centuries-old recipe refuse to expand their business (and even take to the phones to harass black- marketers).

Westvleteren is sold only at the monastery gate, by appointment, with a two-case-amonth limit, at a price that’s reasonable for retail beer, but anyone who gets it from a re-seller will pay 10 times that much. Producing more, said Brother Joris, to a Wall Street Journal reporter in November (2007), “would interfere with our job of being a monk.”

Furthermore, said Brother Joris, referencing the Bible, “(I)f you can’t have it, possibly you do not really need it.” ,

Winter quarter begins Dec. 2

Roth IRA: To convert, or not to convert?

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| THE READER |

OCT. 31 - NOV. 6, 2013

25

planetpower W E E K L Y

H O R O S C O P E S

H

appy Halloween! Let your subconscious desires flow as the twilight fades into the black of the night of the year. Don’t fear the night. You have friends, parties and the desire to be naughty to get you through. Welcome into and through the New Moon in Scorpio — which is exactly conjunct Saturn and just finishing a conjunction with the retrograde Mercury — as you turn your clock back to Standard Time. Something or somebody from the past is due to haunt you. Happy Halloween!

—MOJOPOPlanetPower.com h SCORPIO (10.22-11.20) Everything seems alright…always a bad sign during Mercury retrograde in Scorpio. Maybe it’s not really such a bad sign? Maybe everything is just forcing you to go deeper, below the surface, beneath the veil of illusion?

Insure yourself with a backup plan, check out the details twice, beware of any Virgos or Geminis with “the best intentions,” seek the potential —not the manifestation — and try not to commit to anything ’til after Veterans’ Day, November 11th. You are going to have a hard time keeping it in your pants this weekend, due to the Scorpio New Moon. i SAGITTARIUS (11.21-12.20) Take care of any and all home improvements before you use the weather as your excuse not to. Your ruler Jupiter, which is in Cancer, moves retrograde next week, putting/ forcing you deeper into your shell. You’ve got this week to make sure it’s a nice, comfortable, safe shell. j CAPRICORN (12.21-1.18) The New Moon in Scorpio this weekend, conjunct a retrograding Mercury, is also exactly conjunct your ruler, Saturn.

Potentialize only. It’s all in your theoretical 11th House of the unexpected, amidst/affecting a group of your friends and colleagues at a party or a gathering of some kind. You’re there to provide some/a foundation “for the good of all.” k AQUARIUS (1.19-2.17) Keep it in your pants for a week! Save it for next weekend, when you’ll surf the lunar wave of the Moon, transiting Aquarius from late afternoon on Friday, the 8th, ’til after sunset on Sunday, the 10th. Beware of rumors from this weekend’s New Moon, conjunct Saturn and Mercury retrograde in your theoretical 10 House of fame and fortune. Lowprofile for a short while. l PISCES (2.18-3.19) You’re deep in your own process. The New Moon will be activating your 5th House of pleasure, children and artistic expression.

Creativity will/must be the key. Jupiter, your mundane ruler, retrogrades in your 9th House of travel, philosophy and education, raising questions regarding where you want to live. And Neptune, your esoteric ruler, is retrograde in Pisces for 2 more short weeks,

CALL OR CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR MOVIE TIMES AND PRICES

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| THE READER |

planet power

B Y

M O J O P O

casting a light on your illusions regarding your mystical self. Time for your poetry(?). a ARIES (3.20-4.18) I’d suggest that you keep it in your pants, but I can see you letting it all hang out over your EXTENDED Halloween weekend! Let the Virgos pick up the pieces; that’s what they’re paid for. I see you at a party with a rubber raincoat on as a disguise — only it’s a see-through raincoat! Happy Halloweenie, Jelly Beanie! b TAURUS (4.19-5.19) A lover from the past in time, or in/on your mind? You’ve got a metaphysical weekend to discover your past, present and current undercover lover. Who came to mind? You’ve got a week to think to define your (new?) romantic design.

Look deep. It’s not food that you seek… It’s love from above(?). Love will show the way…after lust has its say! c GEMINI (5.20-6.19) Here comes the crazy upon crazy! The New Moon in Scorpio (the most enigmatic sign in the zodiac) is exactly conjunct Saturn, while also conjuncting your ruler Mercury, which is retrograde. There’s bound to be tons of underwear strewn haphazardly all across the highways and bi-ways of your life. Enjoy this whole Halloween weekend, be whomever you want or wish to be, be with whomever you want or wish to be with and give ’em a “kith” for me; Michael P. d CANCER (6.20-7.21) Well, with the New Moon in Scorpio, food isn’t going to be your answer — this week!

Now, please read Gemini. With Saturn in the mix, there’s a specter from your loving past looking for a fix (f )or one last gasp. How does the MOJO know? Maybe he’s a/the know-it-all Scorpio? e LEO (7.22-8.21) The New Moon in Scorpio calls for a regeneration of/in your 4th House home center.

You’re either setting up a move or setting the new groove for a/your rad pad. “Redecorate or die” is/will be your battle cry. f VIRGO (8.22-9.21) You’ll receive a blast from the past. The New Moon in Scorpio, conjunct your retrograding ruler Mercury, is also conjunct Saturn.

It’s time to get in touch with a certain older relative.

They want communication, but vagueness seems to be obscuring the way. Clear out/up the cobwebs of/from the past with a well-timed phone call and/or a visit.

Surf the craziness and read Gemini for clues. g LIBRA (9.22-10.21) Have a wild Halloween weekend! Your ruler Venus is conjunct the Hunab Ku, the God of the Maya and the galactic center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The holy word could come through a few of you. What you want to be for Halloween will provide a clue. Next week starts your meditation on the responsibilities of love, but don’t let that slow you down as you continue on your unbridled gallop through Sagittarius until the 5th. ,

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LOVING COUPLE LOOKING To Adopt A Baby. We Look Forward To Making Our Family Grow. All Information Confidential, All Medical Expenses Paid. Please Call Us Anytime. Gloria and Joseph 888-229-9383 (MCN) PREGNANT? CONSIDERING ADOPTION? Open or closed adoption. YOU choose the family. LIVING EXPENSES PAID. Abby’s One True Gift Adoptions. Call 24/7.

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WANTED: ALL MOTORCYCLES Before 1980, Running or Not. Japanese, British, American, European. Any Condition Accepted. Top Cash Paid, Free Pick Up. Please Call 1-315-5698094 (MCN) CASH FOR CARS: Any Make, Model or Year. We Pay MORE! Running or Not Sellyour Car or Truck TODAY Free Towing! Instant Offer: 1-888-420-3805 (MCN) MACHINERY CONSIGNMENT SALE Mon., Nov. 18, 2013 at 9:00 A.M. Consign early

by Nov. 4, 2013 for complete advertising. No Small Items, Tires or Pallet Items Accepted After Friday, Nov. 8. Gilbert’s Sale Yard, LLC, 641-398-2218. 2 Mi. N. of Floyd, IA On Hwy. 218.

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HORSE SALE: Belle Plaine Western Exchange, Belle Plaine, IA. Next Scheduled Sale:Saturday, November 9, 2013. Tack 10:00 a.m., Horses immediately following. Sale 2nd Saturday of every month. Upcoming Sale: “Christmas Tack Special” December 14, 2013. Check out our website for details and sale results: www.westernexchange.com; Info/To Consign: 319-444-2320; email: bpwe@netins.net (MCN)

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