sweet home omaha

is the title of an op-ed by a guy named Richard Dooling from today's New York Times. It's a very clichéd city-mouse/country-mouse article that spends a lot of boring time making fun of Omaha. Here's a typical paragraph:

"Before you recoil in horror at the thought of living in Omaha, a city of 414,000 souls, consider that this year Money magazine ranked it seventh of the nation’s 10 best big cities to live in, ahead of New York City, which ranked 10th. O.K., now you may recoil in horror."

I have about a thousand responses to this article, but what's the point? Many New Yorkers are simply unable to appreciate Nebraska, just as many Nebraskans, when they visit New York, clutch their purses and their children with white-knuckled fists and can't stop wrinkling their noses at the dirt, crime, expense, and tiny apartments. This, obviously, is a little tiresome for people who live here. But the thing is, Dooling, you see, it works both ways. Nebraska, as you paint it, is a beautiful little straw man.

I can't resist pointing out just one of the many stupid parts of this article: the author is so clever as to turn each one of his list of pros of living in Nebraska into a con of living in Nebraska. One of the pros-turned-con is "Cornhusker football (the morbidly obese fellow next to you is wearing a Go Big Red cowboy hat, red Sansabelt slacks and white shoes)." At least attendance at Cornhusker football games are a., optional, and b., only once a week, for part of the year. By contrast, being mushed up against all sorts of people is inherent in taking the subway, which, for many of us in New York, is a., unavoidable, and b., a bi-daily occurence. Oh, SNAP!

As far as I can tell, Mr. Dooling took the time to write this article merely to be catty + statistics. It doesn't seem that he's ever even been to Omaha. Thank you for your oh-so-thoughtful commentary, Richard Dooling. So glad you took the time to educate us all about "flyover country." However, to be fair, if you ignore his stupid op-eding, the stats are interesting.

. . .