respublica

It's the year 26 in Gainsville

No one at the University of Florida athletic department noticed until distribution day.  The idea was to use Roman numerals on the fall T-shirts instead of ordinary numbers.  2006.  What could possibly go wrong?

Seems they were ordered, made up, delivered, with the year XXVI.  26.  Pepsi paid for them.

Then someone handing them out as well as some of the students receiving them realized the error.  Should have read:  MMVI.  But of course you knew that without looking it up, right?  Think you know your Roman?  Take the Roman Numeral Challenge.

Oh, and those XXVI shirts?  20,000 were printed and a Pepsi spokesman said, "it's not clear what they will do with the shirts that are returned, but that they apologize for the error."

Shoot, I bet there are many students and collectors out there who would take one.  Probably show up on eBay.

When a sandwich is more than something to eat

Anyone who shops knows that Macy's has bought out a whole bunch of department stores in the midwest and maybe other parts of the country.  Locally, Famous Barr, a longtime St. Louis area institution, is now Macy's and Lord and Taylor, bought out by Macy's is just plain gone.  But, the biggest blow has to be in Chicago where the venerable Marshall Field's is a mere shell of its old glorious self as it too carries the Macy's name.

Not only did Macy's decide not to keep the Field's name, they are after anyone who mentions it.  A restaurant owner in downtown Chicago found this out recently when the Macy's control police demanded that he cease and desist serving his "Marshall Field's Special" sandwich.  This open-faced turkey sandwich topped with a wedge of iceberg lettuce, tomato, swiss cheese, bacon and Thousand Island dressing was a mainstay at Marshall Field's Walnut Room in downtown. 

Brad Rubin, owner of the Eleven City Diner says he merely wanted to "tip my hat to Marshall Fields", received a letter from Macy's which said, "To Protect our property, we must request that you terminate the use of this name as soon as possible and remove it from all menus, advertising and promotional materials."

Fields is gone, out of sight out of mind.  Everything is named Macy's now.  Don't dare speak the names of the old stores or you might get a threatening letter.  I went into a former Famous Barr store last weekend, now pretty much Macy's although their name hadn't been hung yet.  All evidence of Famous has been purged.  Most telling, however, was the merchandise now available.  Yuck. 

Marshall Fields was grand.  Macy's?  Not so much.

Swan dance after an 80 year run

This school year will see the end of Chief Illiniwek, the University of Illinois mascot whose continuing presence at Illinois sporting events has caused controversy over whether or not the chief is insulting to American Indians. 

Created in 1926 by two Illinois students interested in Indian lore, calls for an end to the Chief began in 1989 and have continued to the present day.  After his retirement, ownership to the rights to the chief will be given to a group representing 27 former students who played the chief during their college days.

I haven't heard what the school plans to use as its athletic symbol from here on out, but I would wager it will be pretty bland. 

But it's highly treatable

Ready for a new syndrome?  Night Eating Syndrome is a behavior which exhibits traits which include depressed mood, lack of morning hunger (morning anorexia), eating 25 percent or more of total daily food intake after dinner, and waking up and eating during the night.

And yes, it has its own self indentifying initials, what would a syndrome be without them.  NES

The same federal government we've got

From Mississippi Governor, Haley Barbour last night on Hannity and Colmes discussing the Hurricane Katrina/government blame story.

"I don't know enough about what's happened in Louisiana, but I do know this: We've got the same federal government Louisiana's got. And Texas has got the same federal government as Louisiana's got, and Alabama and Florida. If it's the federal government's problem, why didn't it happen in Mississippi, in Texas, in Alabama and Florida?" ("Hannity & Colmes," FNC, 8/29).

An appalling habit

The Anchoress weighs in on the story of the San Francisco man who drove his car into pedestrians yesterday, killing one and injuring many more. 

"I know this is rather an intemperate post for me, but I’m getting weary of watching the press and the people “in charge” go out of their way to downplay it anytime someone with an “Islamic” sort of name drives a car into people on a city street, or on a campus, or starts shooting people in a synagogue, or raises cain at an El Al counter at LAX."  Well worth the time it takes to read the whole thing.

Gateway Pundit has much more on this story, and as always, complete with photos.

Two things...

...I could care less about. 

1.   Pluto being taking off the planet list.

2.  The endless stories on the new baby elephant at the St. Louis zoo. 

Wireless networks coming to a neighborhood near you

Springfield is about to provide free wireless internet service to a 25 square mile area which includes Abe Lincoln's historic neighborhood.  Anyone living in that area will be able to laptop it onto the internet from backyards, street corners, private homes, businesses.  The best part for that city is that AT&T will be providing this service for free.

Further south in the Metro East, Granite City is comtemplating doing the same thing.  Good for them, it is an idea who's time has come.  I'm surprised more metro east cities haven't jumped on this.

Bits and pieces, good news and bad

State obesity rankings are out and by coming in 23rd, Illinois can make the claim, as the Sun-Times did, "We're fat, but far from fattest."

Illinois seniors outpaced the rest of the nation among those who took the SAT test last year.  The Illinois average for math was 609 while the rest of the nation averaged 519.  Critical reading, Illinois 591 other states 503.  New writing test, Illinois 586, other states 497.

East St. Louis elementary schools met the state standards required by the No Child Left Behind Act in 14 out of 18 schools.  This improves tremendously over last year when only 8 of the district's 22 schools met the standard.

In March, some really cool stores are to open in Fairview Heights on the property which was the former site of St. Albert the Great Catholic church.  What is being described as a "streetscape" type of shopping area across a parking lot from St. Clair Square, the Shoppes at St. Clair Square will welcome such tenants as Talbots (Yay), Ann Taylor Loft, J.Jill, and a number of others that have never seen the east side. 

Missouri plans to use $350 million they receive from selling off part of MOHELA, their non profit student loan group, to build new buildings on state university campuses.  University spokesmen cheer.  And why not, half the reason tuition is so high is because colleges think they have to keep building new buildings.  Will this help with tuition costs?  Probably not.

Concordia Seminary meets Favazza's

It's a cliche to say, "It's a small world" when paths cross for any reason that cannot be logically explained.  But, unlike many English professors who seem to despise cliches in their students' papers, I believe there is a lot of truth in those old "saws".  Clearly there is no way to explain the inexplicable way our lives crossed with that of D C blogger, Katie Favazza.  Two weeks ago I had never heard of her.  Then she helped publicize the blogger effort to pay tribute to the 2996 Americans who died on September 11.  I signed on to write a memorial to one of the 2996 and received a comment on this blog from Katie who recognized some of my links as being from the St. Louis area, her hometown.  Then, yesterday I visited her blog and read her mention of her father's restaurant on the Hill in St. Louis.  Turns out it is the same restaurant the Concordia Seminary faculty met at tonight for a pre-school year dinner.  I met her father and her brother and we had one of the better dinners we've had in a long time. 

Favazza's is on Southwest, about halfway between Kingshighway and Hampton. 

We met in the banquet room and spent about 45 minutes in Happy Hour mode.

The table decorations were a piece of Italy.

I had a nice talk about Katie with her father, Tony while everyone grabbed a glass of wine.  He is very proud of his daughter, easy to talk to and also quite knowledgeable about blogging.  A real gentleman. 

The dinner service was absolutely excellent...polite, unobtrusive and efficient.

One thing about Lutherans, we like to talk and we like to listen and we like to meet people new to us.  So, Seminary First Vice President, Andy Bartelt introduced Tony Favazza and everyone had the chance to let him know how much we appreciated his food and service.

Finally, we got to meet Katie's brother Mark who, it appears, has a lot to do with the food.  Here he is with the MAtH (man about the house).  Both Mark and Tony are very proud of Katie and Katie has many reasons to be proud of them.  What a great night.