respublica

A ten year old vet?

Yep, a ten year old girl with an online certification as a veterinarian's assistant.

An amazing video.

Washington U says no to Obama

Students at Wash U are unhappy with a ruling by school administrators who denied a request by the Obama campaign to hold a candidate visit on the campus this Saturday. 

According to the IRS Web site, under current tax code the University would need to provide "equal opportunity to the political candidates seeking the same office," could not "indicate any support of or opposition to the candidate" and could not allow any political fundraising at the event.

"In order to open our doors to one candidate, we are obligated to open our doors to all candidates," said Rob Wild, assistant to the chancellor. "In order to minimize disruptions, the University has made the decision [not to invite any candidates]."

The Obama campaign will instead be heading to the Jones Dome, 9 p.m. Saturday, open to the public.

Students everywhere are frustrated with their administration this week.  See post below. 

First they came for the huggers and then they came for the cheerleaders

The Mascoutah school district is in the news again.  Back in the fall a junior high student was suspended for hugging a classmate good bye for the weekend setting in motion a whole lot of media attention.  This week school officials found themselves back at the top of the news when they decided to uphold a very old policy banning participation in events held on Wednesday nights or Sundays.

The junior varsity cheerleading squad has qualified for the state finals which will be held in Springfield on the weekend of February 9-10.  The varsity squad also qualified.  Problem is the varsity competition will be on Saturday while the J-V's will be on Sunday.  The school will not allow the J-V squad to participate because of the Sunday ban.

No one is satisfied with this ruling, especially the students and their parents.  Superintendent Sam McGowen: "McGowen said the administration was unwilling to make an exception to the decades-old no Sunday and Wednesday nights rule because school leaders believe it reflects the values of the community.

"We believe as a school district that there are times that students need to be home with their parents and participate in family activities," McGowen said. "We attempt to work with our community and live by the standards and the values that they set, and this is something the community, as a whole, wants."

Most school districts attempt to avoid Sunday and Wedesday competition as much as possible, but most do not have a specific policy forbidding it. 

Will this decision make the students, or their parents for that matter, enjoy their time at home on February 10th?  I doubt it and most likely they'll all be in Springfield anyway, watching others do what they cannot.  School districts should be commended for making every attempt to allow families to have a Sunday off from activities and to worship as they will, but to take such a harsh "no exceptions" stand that these girls may miss a once in a lifetime opportunity seems cruel. 

Mascoutah is certainly having a year to remember.

Philadelphia closer to the soccer franchise

Looks like Major League Soccer officials will get what they really want, a franchise in Philadelphia now that Chester Pa will announce today that they have a $45 million funding agreement with the state.  Philadelphia is more desirable in the eyes of the soccer powers that be than St. Louis due to its large TV market, the 4th largest in the nation. 

So what does this mean for Collinsville and Jeff Cooper's stadium plans?  Full steam ahead according to Cooper because MLS claims to have plans to enlarge the league to 18 which will add 2 additional teams in the next year or two and he hopes they will look favorably on him.  However, other cities like Miami and New York have suddenly begun making noises like they're interested in getting a team now and MLS officials are drooling over them. 

Like the idea of a soccer stadium in Collinsville or not, people in the St. Louis area have a right, I believe, to be very annoyed and, yes, insulted by how MLS has treated this part of the country.

Ironic headline from Philly:  Philadelphia unveils crackdown on violent crime

More house drop outs

3 more republican members of the House of Representatives announced today that they will not be seeking re-election in November.

Ron Lewis of Kentucky, Tom Davis of Virginia and Ken Hulshof of Missouri will not be returning.  These are just the latest in what seems like an almost wholesale leaving of Congress by republicans.  In the case of Hulshof, however, he plans to run for Missouri governor.

Concordia Seminary makes the sports report

KSDK Channel 5 in St. Louis had a video report by Frank Cusumano on one of the seminary's basketball players, Steve Caretto.

The link to watch this story about a great BB shooter and man of faith as well as a look at the inside of the Seminary's Fieldhouse, which looks pretty darn good.  The playing floor in the fieldhouse is renowned for being one of the best and truest, basketball surfaces in the entire St. Louis area.

Jejune

Reading Maureen Dowd's column this morning I came across this sentence, "But Obama’s outrage makes him seem a little jejune."

What? 

After a bit of investigating, I find that jejune has quite a history and not a little controversy over its meaning.  It comes from the Latin jejunus, meaning "empty stomach", "fasting".  In the 17th Century it appeared in English, probably in England, and meant meagre or empty, bare land.  Moving through the centuries, jejune gains in usage but its meaning changes a bit more, morphing into "youthful" "immature", "naive".

In 1992 Collins Shorter English Dictionary finally settled on "naive", "unsophisticated" as the definition.

I'm guessing somewhere along the line the pronunciation of jejune sounded to English speaking ears similar to the French word for young-jeune and that is how we got from empty stomach to naive.

So is Obama a jeune fil or a jejune young man?

Most unappetizing headline of the day

Customs officers seize hundreds of headless rats destined for London restaurants.

Read more if you can stomach it.  Oh, wait.  The rat bodies had been smoked to improve their flavor. 

That's ok then.

Political shorts on a long political season

According to Breitbart News, John Edwards will give a speech in New Orleans this afternoon and announce that he is ending his run for the democratic presidential nomination.  Whether he will give an endorsement to Obama or Clinton is not known.  Although he did not win any of the early caucuses or primaries and except for Iowa found himself in third place most of the time, he does have some delegates to put in play.

Nothing like a state of Florida election to get stomachs churning.  On the democratic side all of the candidates had made a pledge not to campaign or accept delegates due to Florida's holding an early election against DNC dictates.  The important words here are, "Candidates made a pledge/promise."  Seems as though Hillary Clinton is the only one who thinks that shouldn't count now that she received the most votes.  However, that victory came from voters who cast ballots very early, those who voted yesterday had Obama either matching her vote for vote, or had him ahead.  Hillary's big victory speech and hints that she may try to get those delegates in her column may not go over too well with many national democrats.

As to the above Clinton/Florida story, even though the cable news networks all spent some time televising and talking about Hillary's victory speech in Davie Florida, most moved away from her pretty fast.  And, this morning most national news outlets are giving only cursory reports on Clinton.  The New York Times hardly mentioned it at all and not on the front page.

On the republican side, it looks as though Rudy Guiliani will be exiting the race as well.  Huckabee appears to be staying in just a bit longer, and maybe he should as he does have more than a couple of delegates to use for endorsement purposes later on.  I wonder whose idea it was for Guiliani to spend most of his time in Florida, pretty much ignoring the earlier elections.  Much as so many of us hate the influence of Iowa and New Hampshire on these races, they are of major importance in getting face time.  Guiliani had a commanding national poll lead in November and squandered it by emphasizing a late January primary.

This is all getting to be really fascinating.  What was tiresome for most of 2007 has now become almost a cross between an addictive soap opera story line and a super bowl/world series.  It's hard to move away from the news.

"An announcement that will forever change the landscape of Missouri politics"

Political rhetoric is over the top these days, we've seen it everywhere, including CNN's primary title, the "something bowl 2008" and those ridiculous time countdowns on all cable news screens.  We woke up this morning to see 12:33.06 hours/minutes/seconds until the polls close in Florida. 

Missouri candidates are no slouches when it comes to extreme language.  Consider this bulletin sent out by Republican congressman Kenny Hulshof's office yesterday as a prelude to his announcement that he will run for governor.

"Kenny Hulshof, currently serving as the United States Congressman from Missouri's 9th District, will make a major announcement tomorrow that will forever change the landscape of Missouri politics."

He will be the third official republican candidate to jump into the ring, while Rep. Jo Ann Emerson has announced that she will not seek the governor's office. "Ending my service to the 8th district in Congress requires a darn good reason, and today for me the race for governor just isn't it." Much better language.