Amazing, or at least interesting, isn’t it, the things you learn from reading weblogs?

For example, reading No More Mr. Nice Blog, via TBogg, I was directed to an article in Fast Money, “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know,” from which I learned there’s something called the J.C. Penney Center for Retailing Excellence.

Really, there is. I’m serious.

The center, based at Southern Methodist University, was established in 2001 by a $1 million donation from -- you guessed it -- J.C. Penney Co., and is headed by Edward Fox, assistant professor of marketing at SMU’s Edwin L. Cox School of Business, who is quoted in the Fast Company article.

Now, I have a great deal of respect for Alan Questrom, who took the top job at Penney in September 2000. If anyone can turn the ship around, Questrom can, and the performance of Penney’s common stock reflects his accomplishments to-date on the enormous task that was set before him.

But I mean, really, “excellence”?

Penney is a decent operation as far as it goes, particularly given the ruthless and oft-times less than wholly ethical challenge presented by the likes of the odious Wal-Mart Stores Inc., but given the disaster that resulted from what should have been Penney’s brainless acquisition of the Eckerd drugstore chain, among other missteps, “excellence” is a bit of a stretch, even -- or especially -- when a company is tooting its own horn.