Shopping in The Land of the Lost

by Tim McMahan

by Tim McMahan

Somehow I keep ending up at Crossroads Mall and its vast, lonely emptiness.

Maybe it’s the memory of its once grand elegance that draws me in, a reminder that all things, no matter how wonderful, eventually come to an end. Crossroads seemed like perfect fodder for a column. But as I passed the fluorescent-bright nail salon oozing with the smell of ground skin and epoxy,...

You Are Invited

by Tim McMahan

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this.

Two weeks ago, I gave up the column I’d been writing for seven years that focused solely on Omaha’s indie music scene. I did it so I could begin to write this new, completely unstructured column.

The Reader’s publisher/editor, John Heaston, said I could write about anything I wanted. Anything. The sky’s the limit. It was as if a great...

Certainty in The Hand of Fundamentalists

by Matt Goodlet

In the first sentence of Frank Schaeffer’s most recent memoir Sex, Mom and God, he promises to explain how his family helped push the Republican Party into the embrace of the Religious Right and also chronicle his family’s “complicity in several murders.”

Schaeffer grew up home-schooled in a fundamentalist evangelical enclave in Switzerland known as L’Abri, which was run by his mother Edith...

The Privilege Pass

by Kyle McClellan

“I want to see your sources. Our library doesn’t have these sources.”

A college professor was scrutinizing one of Franklin Thompson’s papers during his post-graduate studies at the University of Southern Mississippi in the mid-90s. Now an Omaha City Councilman and University of Nebraska at Omaha professor who lectures on multicultural education and race relations, Thompson recalled battling...

Environmental Alchemy

by Brandon Vogel

When it rains in Omaha, it pours raw sewage, industrial waste and toxic chemicals into nearby waterways. The city’s century-old sewer system is designed to either put it there or into your basement. Neither is an inviting option. But that design is changing thanks to a federal mandate from the Environmental Protection Agency. The oldest part of the city — nearly everything east of 72nd St. — currently works...

Building Community Through History

by Jessica Clem-McClaren

If you have ever participated in a neighborhood cleanup, donated to save a historic building in your area, or traveled to a city just to enjoy its history, you are a member of a specific group. You may not even know it.

These are the acts of Local Preservationists.

According to research from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, there are now 15 million Local Preservationists in the United States, with...

The Young and the Talented: Omaha’s Design Innovators

by Jessica Clem-McClaren

On the eve of international designer Bruce Mau’s keynote speech at this year’s Young Professional Summit, The Reader contacted almost two dozen senior designers, professional associations and organizations to find a sampling of the some of the best young design talent in Omaha.

The six designers featured here have traveled the world to become among the best in their field,  from landscape architecture, graphic...

Raising the Political Bar

by Jessica Clem-McClaren

(The author is registered as a participant in the 2012 Ready to Run program)

“The way we teach our girls and boys to devalue women is exactly why women make up only 18 percent of America’s top leaders in business, the military, religion, media, culture and entertainment,” said Jennifer Siebel Newsom, director of the documentary "Miss Representation."

“All this while global monitoring studies continue to prove...