Just Had to Get It Off My Chest

Seen in the last twenty-four hours.

Street Sign in Glenview: Schools Open
What did the schools open? Maybe now that SCHOOL'S open, someone will be able to write the rest of the sentence on the sign.

Local Newspaper Article: The talented young musicians visited their maternal family in Columbia. While in Columbia they..... When they left Columbia.....
Where is Columbia? Never heard of such a country. There is, however, a country called Colombia in NW South America. Maybe these talented musicians from the fictional Columbia should visit COLOMBIA some day. Wonder if schools open there?

Message on a listserv I read: X is so much better then Y.
Then is Y better also? Other THAN being a grammatically incorrect sentence, I'm actually of the opinion that Y is better THAN X.

So this afternoon, maybe I'll go to Glenview where schools open and sit in on a Spanish class where I'll learn that Columbia is farther north then Argentina.

Or maybe the Spanish class will actually be conducted in Spanish and I'll hear "Las escuelas ESTÁN abiertas y COLOMBIA está más al norte QUE la Argentina." Maybe then some of the above grammatical pain will go away. Ouch, ouch, ouch!