Day: February 6, 2010

Super bowl crowd? Chickenfeed . . .

. . . compared to the hundreds of thousands who watched chariot races in Nero’s day.  The Circus, where the races were held, had room for 300,000, in a city, Rome, with about 2 million people.  “The roar that assails my eardrums,” wrote Juvenal,

Means, I am pretty sure, that the Greens have won — otherwise,

You’d see such gloomy faces, such sheer astonishment

As greeted the Cannae disaster, after our consuls

Had bitten the dust.

The Greens were one of the top two teams, the other was the Blues.  At Cannae, in 216 b.c., Hannibal defeated the Romans.  Two consuls — comparable to the U.S. president, the highest elected officials — died in that battle.  But fans are fans, and you’d think the president had died, to look at them when their team had lost.

The translation and explanation are by Peter Green in his 1974 book, The Six Satires (Penguin).  Get it at ABE Books for a dollar plus $4 shipping.  Very clever and entertaining read, but always with an edge.

A store grows in Oak Park

Some nice creative financing is going on at The Villager, family-owned and closing but meaning to stay in business.  Investor meetings are planned, under a community-input aegis, which is Oak Park is how everyone does it — except a grocery store, so far.  The 24-year-old son of owner Butch Novak comments:

“This is the path we have to go down right now,” Joe Novak said. “I don’t think there should be anything to hide. This is for the community, and ultimately it’s for us and our employees to make a living. That’s what this store has always been about.”

Nothing wrong with that.  Building better mousetraps is the American way, but with all respect I’d put it this way: “This is for the community, but ultimately it’s for us and our employees to make a living by serving our customers.”

Lest we go overboard on the community-venture notion.

Judy Baar-none for doggy issues

Tom Roeser on his game with dissection of Sneed-Topinka axis.  Sneed delivers:

another Judy Baar Topinka exclusive! Topinka’s dog, coyly named “Bella Beagle”…the same one who went wee-wee in 10 countries…has just had cancer surgery!  So the woman Sneed calls “irrepressible” (barf) spent election night eating a can of tuna fish caring for the perp—so she phoned in to Sneed.

. . . who ran with it.

As for Madame T.:

Because she isn’t very good at issues (although she served as state Rep, state Senator and state Treasurer)…so bad in fact she faced Rod Blagojevich with zilch ideas (her idea to cut the budget was to eliminate the warming rods under the sidewalks to Blago’s mansion)…she’s cutesy pie-like turned herself into a (supposedly) lovable human brand: Penny-pinching Bohemian lady who pinches pennies (ergo the Dunkin Donuts, McDonald’s touch) to convince you she’ll do the same as state comptroller, the post she’s been nominated by a mindless GOP electorate for.

She keeps Republicans in the running for most mindless candidates.