Nebraska State Capitol

Yesterday, I took a tour of our state capitol. It is truly a beautiful building. I would recommend that everyone go there and take a personal tour. If you cannot go personally, go on line to www.capitol .org.

The tour was of the second floor. Even though I have been to the capitol many times, a tour is always interesting. There are beautiful mosaics on the walls depicting a variety of Nebraska scenes and stories. One is of the 1888 blizzard. There are books about this blizzard that took many lives--particularly school students. One of the books is a recent one "The Children's Blizzard" by David Laskin. The cover says, "In three minutes, the front subtracted eighteen degrees from the air's temperature. Then evening gathered in, and temperatures kept dropping in the northwest gale. By morning on Friday, January 13, 1888, more than a hundred children lay dead on the Dakota-Nebraska prairie. . . Minnie Mae Freeman, a 19 year old school teacher, had to take her 16 students from the school because the roof of the school house blew off. She had the wisdom to use a rope to keep all the children together. This is the story depicted in the mosaic.

The capitol has a hall of fame with busts of some of our famous Nebraskans. Nebraska is the only state that has a unicameral. This seems wise and far less confusing than the two house legislatures other states use.

The state capitol is where our Supreme Court. The court is beautiful and has wonderful acoustics. The ceiling is beautiful and all parts of the capitol represent all the diverse aspects of our state. The court has become modernized and arguments can be viewed on line on the supreme court website.

We also went to the 14th floor to watch from the observatory. That floor also has beautiful art. Don't miss it.

We'll see more photos and have more discussions of the capitol as time permits.

Nebraska Nellie

The Famous and the Infamous

Happy Birthday, Dick Cheney.

Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on this day in 1941. He attended Calvert Elementary School. He lived in Lincoln until he was 13 when the family moved to Casper, Wyoming. Cheney claims Wyoming as his home state. In spite of the fact that Nebraska is a very conservative state, I believe most of Nebraska is probably glad he wants to claim that state or any other state as his home.

He worked for Reagan, Bush 41, and was vice president to Bush 43. Some believe Cheney was the real president. He also was the head of Haliburton, which ironically got a lot of government contracts in Iraq.

Cheney is a hero to stand up comics everywhere. Jon Stewart loves him. Some believe he is Darth Vader.

Cheney enjoys his outdoor activities such as hunting. Who could forget Cheney's hunting trip when he shot his friend in the face?

Cheney has been able to do very high stress jobs with his heart problems. One may wonder if it's stressful to him.

Despite his very right wing views, he has been relatively positive about his lesbian daughter and his wife, Lynn, has been a very active woman in her life.

Happy birthday, Dick. I hope you get this at your undisclosed location.

Nebraska Nellie

E. A. Krall

Today I would like to put a plug in for E. A. Krall. He has put in years of work to acknowledge Nebraska's famous people. Please google 900 famous Nebraskans or 700 famous Nebraskans to see his work. He has separated the people by categories of their work.

Mr. Krall has worked tirelessly and his work is accessible to all of us and I'm sure you will be amazed to see how many interesting we have here.

Nebraska Nellie

Happy Birthday Harley Jane Kozak

Harley Jane Kozak was born Susan Jane Kozak in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on January 28, 1957. She was the youngest of eight children. She grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I am fortunate to have an autographed photograph that she signed for me at a booksigning here in Lincoln at Lee's Bookstore.

Harley is a very talented person in that she is an actress and an author. She has starred in several movies, including Arachnophobia, All I want for Christmas, Parenthood, and When Harry Met Sally. She has also starred in the soap operas Texas and Guiding Light.

She is also an author and written a series of novels--"Dating Dead Men", "Dating is Murder: A Novel", "Dead Ex", and "A Date You Can't Refuse". Kozak lives in California and has three children.

Her website is harleyjanekozak.com.

We hope she has a great birthday.

Nebraska Nellie

Celebrating famous Nebraskans

In the last 10 years, I have collected memorabilia for famous Nebraskans-primarily our famous actors. My last office was decorated with photos of my favorites. My very favorite actor is Robert Taylor. I love movies from his era. He was handsome and from everything I have seen or read about him, he was a very nice person.

It is surprising how many famous people we have from Nebraska. I plan to write about some of them throughout the year--perhaps mixing in some of my favorite non-Nebraskans here and there.

I will be starting tomorrow and I hope you enjoy it and will celebrate our famous (and a few infamous) together.

Have a good day.

Nebraska Nellie

Massachussetts Senate Race

For at least the last 10 years, I have found politics fascinating and love to watch the political talk shows. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I don't.

Martha Coakley, Democrat and attorney general, won the primary to replace Ted Kennedy vs. Scott Brown, Republican and attorney who practices family law. So many interesting factors to think about. What effect is it that she is a woman? Everyone concedes that she ran a lousy campaign. Is Brown a tea partier? Did Coakley's vacation to the Carribean from December 19 to January 5 cost her the campaign. Did she really think she was "entitled" to the seat?

In October, 2009, I took a wonderful vacation to Massachussetts. I saw a debate for the senate primary. I heard Coakley and her positions. A day or two later, my friend and I went to Quincy, Mass. to see the John Adams house and church. It was a chilly, rainy day and on our way back to Newton, there were some people out in the rain with campaign signs. It was Scott Brown and some campaigners. My timing was great to see Coakley and Brown early in the campaign.

They have now announced that Brown is the projected winner according to the AP. Earlier today Mike Barnicle said that if Brown won, the democrats would be out in full force for the next election.

Now we'll have to see how Brown's election plays out on the national scale. What will happen with Obama's health care bills. Will Obama start to listen to what the people want? Will Congress or will they want to ram things through regardless of what the people want?

Only time will tell.

Seminar

Last Friday, I attended a seminar on ethics using movies as the way to discuss ethics. We looked at clips about movies such as 12 Angry Men, My Cousin Vinny, The Verdict, and Michael Clayton to discuss the various points. I signed up for this seminar because it was just my cup of tea. I had seen most of the movies.

It is interesting to ponder the differences and the similarities between morals and ethics. They are different but it seemed hard to articulate. As we discussed it, it seems that morals are more of a personal code whereas ethics are more rule oriented.

I bring this seminar up because it meshes with my interest in movies.

Film festival planned

I love classic movies and I bought my pass to the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival in Hollywood this April. This is just my kind of thing. There will be events at the Grauman's Chinese and Grauman's Egyptian Theatres as well as the Roosevelt Hotel. There will be lots of movies to see. I hope there will be some with my favorite Nebraska movie stars. Robert Osborne will be there and it should be lots of fun.

It should be a great photo opportunity for me as well. I can't wait to report on my activities from Hollywood.