respublica

36 Things You Obviously Need in Your House

From Buzzfeed with photos of outlandish, too rich for my blood, but also pretty cool. It appears as though each of these can be found in various real homes.

At least a couple I would like to have such as:  number 24 stairs you can walk under, 15-a bone shaped pool for my dog, 9-glass encased fireplace, and 3-chilled produce drawers in the kitchen. I'll never have any of these but it's fun to dream.  

 

Descriptive words we should pack away

When you read the comments section of many news stories, the same words pop up by partisan people and maybe it's time to use logic and facts to frame an argument rather than spitting out words that insult. 

You could probably come up with more but here are some I'd like to see less of.

Lame stream media, fauxnews, PMSnbc, interwebs, libtards, wingnuts, tea bagger, repugs, dummocrats.

I tossed in interwebs because it or a version of internet is used to make the writer seem above all that type of media. It's not a new thing folks, the internet is here to stay and we almost all use it. 

They caught a thief, now what?

A Clayton police report states that a person was arrested for stealing a bicycle from someone on our campus. Each year the neighborhood around us has spates of car break-ins and thefts but we rarely hear of anyone being caught much less arrested. The same is true in downtown St. Louis and in Forest Park and other places. Theft and broken car glass time after time.

So now what? They arrested whoever it was but most likely he was out in minutes and back doing the same things in another area.

Welcome to the world of tech, St Louis

Last night there was a forum of local small business owners and some local officials who got together to attempt to reach an understanding about how best to encourage new business. The meeting had a twitter tag #letstalk and one big thing came out of it.

It was the strong concensus of the business owners that it was just too hard to deal with all the paperwork and regulations the city requires before they can get their business up and running. There is an office for this and another for that. Most cities, at least the cities who go after new business, do things much more efficiently which means using a one stop website.

Mayor Slay tweeted during the forum and said this: "Most government offices are still organized around a service window and paper documents."

Then he said, "A lesson from #letstalk, city government must do better than it has in the past."

Ok. How long has Slay been mayor? How long has the internet been around? How many years has it been since other cities, schools, businesses began using websites to get the nitty gritty work done?

My answer would be, "many years". What has made St. Louis city so far behind that they still make people go from one office to another and fill out forms in one office after another before they can get going?

Things to do over Labor Day weekend

This is a big event time of year in St Louis, if you don't care to just sit around the house or work in the yard, there is something for everyone.

1. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church Greek Festival at Kingshighway and Forest Park is one of the top draws. The food is fantastic, the crowds are huge, there is music and Greek dancing and fun. It's great to grab a table and just eat and watch other people. 11-9 through Monday.

2. Japanese Festival with art, dance, food and entertainment  in Shaw's Garden-admission needed here-

$15 Admission (ages 13 & older)

$5 Children (ages 3–12)

$5 Garden members (free for member children 3–12) 

Hours are Saturday and Sunday 10-8, Monday 10-5

3. Muddy Blues Festival on Laclede's Landing Saturday and Sunday-Lucas and Morgan Street stage are free, the Budweiser Stage is 13 dollars per day.

4. This is the last day to see the zoo's penguins who will be leaving for two years or until the new polar bear habitat is constructed.

5. Art Fair in Queeny Park-6-9 tonight, 10-6 Saturday and 11-4 on Sunday. 

6. Labor Day parade downtown St. Louis 9 on Monday. 

Good news for Illinois drivers

IDOT will stop all road construction work through the Labor Day weekend. Drive in peace.

Thanks guys

For this birthday surprise.

You're all the best.

Now it's blood worms

One more thing to worry about. Colcord Oklahoma residents are suddenly seeing Blood Worms in their water. Authorities have warned Colcord’s 800 residents not to drink, cook with or brush their teeth with the worm-infested tap water.

Blood Worms are small, red insect larvae a quarter to a half inch in length and have defied every filtering system tried thus far. Supposedly they do not present any harm (that anyone knows of) but officials do not know when the water will be safe to drink and as such schools have closed and there is most likely a run on bottled water. 

Most watched cable news programs in August

It's kind of fun to track this sort of thing.

Fox News had the top 13 programs in August in total viewers, and the top 11 programs in the key adults 25-54 demo. Rachel Maddow led MSNBC coming in 14th.

Where are the worst drivers?

A survey done by Allstate Insurance lists lots and lots of cities in order of collision frequency. They include so many cities I confess I haven't heard of some of them. But anyway, the worst drivers are in DC which is not surprising if you have every attempted to drive out there. The best drivers are in Fort Collins Colorado which is also not surprising since everyone is on a bike out there.

The entire list of cities from best to worse is here.