apparently, steve & barry’s totally screwed the daily over in advertising dollars, and the wall street journal is on the case.

For those doing business with Steve & Barry’s, it has become hard to reconcile the hype with reality. As the chain was inking high-profile licensing deals and attracting national media acclaim, small vendors across the country — along with overseas apparel manufacturers — say they were going unpaid, or enduring months of lag time between payments.

For instance, Steve & Barry’s is no longer allowed to advertise in the University of Michigan student newspaper, The Michigan Daily. The company was the paper’s largest advertiser for the 2006-07 school year.

Newspaper business manager and University of Michigan senior Elaina Bugli said the retailer fell months behind on $36,000 in bills and still owes $20,326 for ads bought more than a year ago.

“It’s by far our largest unpaid debt. They owe us more than we set aside for all unpaid debts for the year,” Ms. Bugli said. Meanwhile, Steve & Barry’s is a prominent licensee of merchandise for the University of Michigan, which ranks fourth in collegiate apparel sales.

that shit sucks b/c writers’ paychecks are definitely based on ad sales. turns out it’s easy to run a low-cost retail chain when you don’t pay any of your bills. go figure.

high five to jack for the heads up.

michigan is one of four states that spends more on its corrections system than higher ed.

now i know numbers like these can’t really be compared, especially b/c the states on this list (vermont, oregon, and connecticut) are of varying sizes, geographically and population-wise, but i think i can confidently say that being #2 on this is no good.

the real problem is less our higher ed funding is low, but rather…we have SO MANY PRISONERS. we are the 8th most populous state, yet we have the 6th largest prison population. at least we’re not texas, whose prisoner to nonprisoner ratio is 1:140 (michigan’s is 1:200).

feel free to look at the report and wikipedia to check my numbers.

tommy amaker, former men’s basketball coach at michigan, is doing his best at bringing some state school flavor to harvard.

Like all the universities in the Ivy League, Harvard does not award athletic scholarships.
Yet the group of six recruits expected to join the team next season is rated among the nation’s 25 best. This is partly because Harvard Coach Tommy Amaker, who starred at Duke and coached in the Big East and Big Ten conferences, has set his sights on top-flight recruits. It is also because Harvard is willing to consider players with a lower academic standing than previous staff members said they were allowed to. Harvard has also adopted aggressive recruiting tactics that skirt or, in some cases, may even violate National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.

i also like how he “starred at Duke and coached in the Big East and Big Ten conferences.” we can’t even get a real shout out? ugh. i guess a 43-53 conference record will do that. hiyo. anyway, i just like how amaker is ushering in a “new era” of shadiness for harvard sports. a more succinct description of his shenanigans here.

also, if you needed any other michigan sports-related news to take pride in, our dear women’s basketball coach showing the composure of a true michigan man:

embed to come … still working on some blog bugs.

and yes, it’s before 8am as a write this post. just got off a redeye and went straight to work. did you know there are no eating facilities open at 6:45? my stomach hates me right now.

lady, your hair is outrageous. that look might be OK in west virginia, but that shit don’t fly in ann arbor. and for the love of god, go buy a northface fleece.

from inside higher ed:

The Georgia Board of Regents voted Wednesday to lift a ban on placing college logos on coffins, clearing the way for fans of the state’s universities to hold on to a little bit of alma mater for eternity, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. A 1982 policy barred logos on coffins, alcohol containers, sex toys and other places deemed inappropriate, and the board only made a partial change. “You still can’t put a logo on a toilet seat, but you can now put one on a casket,” said John Millsaps, a board spokesman.

i wonder if michigan has any similar policies. and does a beer koozie count as an “alcohol container?” the sex toys joke is too easy.

this whole casket thing is a moot point for me anyway; i don’t want to be buried in a casket. i want to be a lifegem, or if that’s too freaky, then a green burial will do.

like recruiting michigan quarterbacks?

i hope it’s true.

my great state has managed to really muck things up.

The clever people in Michigan who decided to get into a game of chicken with New Hampshire last fall over the timing of their Democratic primary should be having second thoughts this weekend.
Had Michigan Democrats not engaged in gamesmanship over the shape of the nomination calendar, they would be holding the premier contest on today’s slate, by far the biggest and most influential of the events between Super Tuesday and next week’s Potomac primaries, rather than the nonbinding event that was held Jan. 15.
Michigan Democrats long argued that the party needed a major industrial state playing an early and influential role in the nominating process. Instead, Michigan Democrats — and those in Florida — have left their party with a monumental problem: what to do about their delegations to the national convention in Denver in August.

what the post is basically saying is that this whole michigan/florida problem has the potential to completely destroy the democratic run—making it sort of like the auto industry (hiyo).

Other happy news from michigan:

speaking of the auto industry, ford will cut 8,000 jobs.

detroit still has a sweet mayor.

and terrelle pryor might now go to oregon.

thanks to lloyd carr, this year’s january 1 was a marked improvement over the last. hooray to michigan football for not allowing me to watch the bowl game in a DC bar. alone. wearing the maize and blue. meeting a stage actor from michigan who was recently in an episode of law and order. taking a shot every time USC scored. and subsequently getting absolutely wrecked only having to show up to work the next morning on my 3rd full week at the job. (true story)

programming note: sorry for the blogging vacation i took, but there will be mass reports of my time spent in michigan. a teaser: snow, babies, pictionary, movies, and guitar hero.