The Southern View's Guide on Being Cool

Hey, dawg, the weather’s turnin’ coolio and so should you! Here’s The Southern View’s Guide to Being Cool!

1. Regular letters are lame, especially S an C, so replace them with their cooler replacementz Z and K whenever possible.

Ex: -  Yo, man, still workin’ on your mekanikal engineering degree?

- Nah, bro, I had a zeriez of revelationz about who I really waz instead of who my parentz wanted me to be. Now I’m purzuing an education in liberal artz.

2. Normal words are yesterday’s rage! Make up your own words whenever you can.

Ex: - Hey, bro, how you been flibniting?

     - Eh, it’s been okay. My boss is a total kardinian redenboxer.

3. Use your considerable knowledge of current events to spice up regular conversation.

Ex: - Hey, what happened to that girl you asked to sweethearts?

    - She faked her own death and now is on the run to Russia, just like    

Edward Snowden.

4. Everyone loves archaic slang! Ex: - Hey, that gal is the total bee’s knees!

     - Now you’re on the trolley!

    - I renounce the Treaty of Versailles!

    - Az do I! Polio!

Voices of the Studentzenship

Q: What do you think of the fact that this year Edina had a record number of houses demolished to make way for bigger houses, in an increasingly common practice called “Tear-downs”?

“They get the people out of the houses first, right?”

• Stan Mertens, junior

“This is a classic example of the big houses taking unfair advantage of their smaller brothers.”

• Martain Pines, sophomore

“Any news on whether ‘burn-downs’ are legal yet?”

• Gina Larson, junior

Q: Edina Cross Country finished ninth in the nation on the Nike Cross Nationals race. What’s your opinion?

“Is there any way I can really be opposed to this?”

• Walter Jackson, senior

“Maybe this could finally get Edina back on the map!”

• Christopher Van Buren, sophomore

Q: What do you think of the recent decision to change the scheduling of the semester so finals now take place just before winter break?

“It matters not! For you see, regardless of the school board does it stop it, fall will yet again turn to winter, and winter in turn to spring. The world will keep turning on its celestial axis, just as it did years before and will far into the future. What we do in our short lives in insignificant almost to the point of humor. Hahaha! We might as well eat expired fireworks now and accept our future as headstones! Do you understand me, journalist? WE ARE MEANINGLESS! WE ARE MEANINGLESS! WE ARE MEANINGLESS.”

• Arch-Philosopher of Cromwell, Sir William P. Hazelton, sophomore

“I dunno. Seems okay, I guess.”

• Hannah Dodson, senior

Profile on: Aaron Lark

If you were asked what you thought the average Edina teen does when they know something is wrong with the world, you’d probably respond, “Well, they’d most likely just complain about it on the world wide web, then go out back and eat expired fireworks.”

While that might hold true for the teens you know, there’s one kid in Edina who defies that stereotype. What’s his name? Aaron Lark. How does he defy it? By writing letters.

Yes, every day young Lark comes home from school and starts working on a new letter that he hopes will change the world. Don’t believe a young person could do that? Just look at what he wrote to a prominent media figure last week:

“Dear The Number 7, please pull your sponsorship from Sesame Street, which I feel portrays negative stereotypes of monsters.”

That’s just plain inspiring.

He knows that he can’t possibly know every tiny detail of the problems he sees in the world, so he keeps his letters brief but strong.

“Dear Florida, I find that you are offensively shaped and I want you to change it as soon as possible.”

But he doesn’t just write letters to complain. He also takes time from his tireless crusade to make the world a better place to check in on friends or support celebrities.

“Dear Cousin Tedford, what is your favorite deadly sin? Mine is vainglory.”

“Dear Jason Schwartzman, how much blood do you have? It must be a lot, right?”

If only every millennial did this!

While Aaron himself declined to be interviewed, his mother, Earletta Lark, talked to us about the first letter he ever wrote. “It was when he was just a preschooler he asked me if I would help him write a letter to his imaginary friend, Fat Jimmy, to tell him that he was going to eat him. So I told him the letters to write and he sent it and soon enough he did eat Fat Jimmy and it was beautiful.”

Earletta got choked up with nostalgia after she said that. Truly beautiful.

He doesn’t always get responses, some of the people he writes to are too busy to write back or simply don’t care to help him change the world. But he is proud to say that  Harper Lee, Senator Ted Cruz, Santa, The Number 7, Fat Steve, Jason Schwartzman, The Physical Embodiment of Greed have all written back kindly, promptly, and sincerely. He has their response letters framed about his bed.

Now, if that’s not incredible than I don’t know what is.

Getting-to-Know-You Activity Becomes Grim Retelling of Injuries

Sources confirmed this Thursday that a standard “getting-to-know-you” activity, occurring in a middle school sunday school group at St. Harper’s Catholic church in Macon, Georgia, had slowly but surely degraded into a truly disturbing recounting of injuries suffered by the adolescent members.

Eye-witness reports say that the parade of recountings of physical harm began when 21 year-old group leader Olivia Larson prompted the 28 middle-schoolers to list “one unique thing about themselves”.

“It started out okay,” said participant and 8th grader Greg Roffulette. “The first couple kids said stuff like ‘I have a cat named Ruffles’ or ‘I’m short’. Things really went off the rails when Jenny Mumford told us about the time her first time bear-hunting trip went violently wrong.”

From there on the entire activity became almost entirely oriented around explicitly described, bloody accidents suffered by the members. “I really thought it would be a good way to bring these kids together,” said Minister Raymond Gernette, who was “horrified” when he reportedly walked into the room to hear 6th grader Tyson Climby describe how he bit his own tongue off on two non-consecutive occasions.

Despite Gernette’s assertion that “nothing good could have come out of such violent, oddly specific stories of pain and misery”, many of the Sunday schoolers reported forming meaningful relationships with their peers due to the activity. “I always used to think that David Yelsten was a bit of a cry baby wimp,” said 8th grader Bruce Fredrickson, “But today he said that he split his chin open in Mexico and he had to go to a quack doctor who stapled it back together without any anesthetic or anything. That must have taken some guts!”

This has also been a record-breaking display of honesty at St. Harper’s church. “I’ve been trying to get these kids to confess their sins for six months now,” said Larson, “And now what finally gets Jimmy Ericson to admit he’s been recreationally fighting dogs is a chance for him to tell everyone where he got his scars?”

Despite her disappointment that he hadn’t admitted his misdeed with more orthodox methods, Larson did admit that his scars looked “wicked cool.”

Exclusive: An Interview With Seventeen Magazine's "Hot Guy Panel"

As a result of a recent hostage negotiation, we at The Southern View got the once-in-a-lifetime chance to sit down with Seventeen Magazine’s trademark “Hot Guy Panel”! See what they had to say!

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Q 1: What is the perfect way to score a kiss at a New Year’s Eve party?

Bryan: I primp big time with a new tie and good slacks!

Alex: I use my dog as a wingman!

Jeremy: I plant a thirst trap on facebook, posting a selfie with the caption “I wonder who I will kiss tonight?”

Q 2: What is the best way to woo your crush?

Bryan: I try to compliment her on how appealing her clothing is!

Alex: Can I say the same thing as Bryan?

Jeremy: I plant a thirst trap for that too!

Q 3: Follow up question, Why do you want to woo your crush? Do you get true happiness out of a relationship, or just fleeting joy of artificial love before running off to your next object of desire?

Bryan: Um, yeah, I feel happy I guess. Sort of. Wow, I never thought about it like that before. Huh.

Alex: I suppose ever since my father left when I was in fifth grade I’ve tried to fill the vacuum in my heart he left with an endless string of short-lived girlfriends.

Jeremy: That’s a quandary even a thirst trap can’t answer.

Q 4: Free will: good or bad?

Bryan: You know, having someone else making all the tough decisions for me would be pretty awesome. I’d say bad.

Alex: I just don’t know any more.

Jeremy: There is no free will. We’re all just robots, subject to what the powers that be tell us to do.

 
Q 5: Say you died right now. Would St. Peter let you through the pearly gates?

Bryan: Maybe, but I wouldn’t deserve it.

Alex: No.

Jeremy: Just leave me alone.

Fully Secularized Santa now Delivering "Solstice Positive Reinforcement Packages"

Santa Claus, who has for centuries been known as the Christmas-specific provider of gifts for children, has decided to take his present-delivery in a more secular direction. “In order to stay away from discriminating against the billions of non-Christian children worldwide,” said Santa, “We are now delivering ‘Positive Reinforcement Packages’ on the winter solstice.”

There were other changes to Santa’s policies too. He has denounced his sainthood, the elves have been replaced by mostly robots and minimum-wage laborers, his previous North Pole location has been moved to a commune in Central Connecticut, and his flying, reindeer-pulled sleigh is now a scientifically-explainable aircraft.

“We’re really excited about the new direction of the program,” said the (now saintless) Nicholas, “Now that the old magic-y stuff has been done away with, we have the possibility to modernize the once-archaic industry of present-giving.”

The new, progressive strategy of Santa has been received well by a wide variety of non-Christian households. Some are more excited than others. Cultists worldwide have been some of the most vigorous supporters of the new policies, with Brotherhood of the Dark Ascension leader Terrence Hendrix saying “Now all children, whether they believe in The Ultimate Worm of Power or not, can be rewarded for their good behavior!” There has also been severe lashback among Christian communities and out of work elves. “First they take prayer out of schools, then they defame the founding fathers, and now these politically correct thugs have gotten to Santa!” said St. Louis-area mother and anti-Santa protester Millicent Scamp.

“And,” continued Scamp, “If we keep raising our kids in this environment, they’ll all end up as worm-worshipping, sun-hugging lunatics who get their kicks out of eating expired fireworks!”

"Shots" fired... at the Flu!

The Absolute WORST Places to Spend Collaborative Time!

Everyone loves the new two-hour collaborative time block, there’s no question about it. But it’s a well known fact that to spend the time well, whether you’re chatting with friends or getting ahead on your school work, you need a calm and peaceful environment. So we at The Southern View took the time to put together a list of places you shouldn’t even THINK about spending collab time.

1. Inside the walls: Sure, these small bits of space might seem like a good place to study at first. Quiet, dark, with friendly rats coming to your for companionship every so often. But try studying in there for more than ten minutes and you’ll see a totally different story. It’s impossible to get any light to see your textbook, it’s too cramped for a normal humanoid person to fit, and the “friendly mice” often resort to biting if they feel threatened.
2. In Mr. Squeg’s classroom: It’s a common misconception that a teacher will welcome any student searching for a place to work or chat with open arms. Mr. Squeg will NEVER provide a peaceful workplace, mostly because he doesn’t exist. Squeg isn’t a real name. I made it up when I was tired and tried telling my brother he needed to pick up a squid and an egg at the supermarket.
3. In the ruins of The EHS Monorail: When the Edina school board of 1981 approved plans to spend $60,000 to create an inter-school monorail to bus students from class to class, most people thought they had gone insane. And they had. The train crashed almost immediately. The remains are stashed mostly in the rarely-used sub-basement level of the school. Sure, the janitors will give you a key to go down there if you ask, but the moans of the ghosts make it far from an ideal study zone.
4. The Secondary House of Pancakes
5. New Orleans: The vibrant culture and friendly citizenry might make it seem worth it to take a trip down there for collab time. We’ve tried it, though, and we’ve got only bad things to say. It’s hot, it’s noisy, it’s approximately 1,200 miles away, and Mardi Gras isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
6. Fick Auditorium: Quiet study time? Nope. Sorry, but administration really should have planned it out better, since the moans from the ruins of the EHS Monorail make focusing on anything LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE!

Administration Plans on Buying Better Students With Black Friday Deals

Just before Thanksgiving break, the Edina Public School system revealed their plan to take advantage of special black friday deals at stores such as Target and Walmart to purchase new, more intelligent students. While these figures are preliminary, teachers and administrators are hoping to replace up to 35% of each grade with superior pupils purchased for as low as $7.91 each.

“Sure, it’s a bit of an investment,” said Valley View math teacher John Hub, “But if we can replace our older, slower models with maybe a handful of Lalit Braxtons or Reed Patels or maybe even a Heather Adamson, we could potentially give our standardized tests a huge boost and overall improve the quality of our student body.”

Not everyone is thrilled about the potential student-buying spree. Vice-Principal of Concord Elementary School Moe Johnson told reporters, “Doesn’t everyone remember the terrible debacle this exact same plan turned out to be last year? We disposed of more than half of our students and replaced them with Tim Hightower's who turned out to be defective! “

The other hot-button issue with this proposal was the old students who would become obsolete with the introduction of new students. “It’s just another example of the wastefulness in keeping-up-with-the-Jones’s type education,” said community member Hamdy Elliot. “If we keep up this rate we’ll be buying new students every year and throwing out the old ones, wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars in the process.”

The school board responded to this criticism by proposing a system in which old students would be shipped to poorer school districts who couldn’t normally afford them.

Edina Model U.N. Hopes Someday to Take Over Real U.N.

After doing well at a Model United Nations conference, members of the Edina Model U.N. team agreed unanimously to one day take over the actual U.N.

Russian mock-representative Hilary Blaszak told reporters, “Really, it’s just common sense. While we effectively solved the international energy crisis at our conference, the actual U.N. can hardly agree on something as simple as how to dispose a dictator or what to do with nuclear waste!”

Despite this, Blaszak did admit that it might be “Sort of hard,” to do away with the previous conference and that they’d need “A really good plan to get rid of them.”

The Ed-ventures of Eddie the Ex-patriot Elephant, Jr.!

The Setup

Eddie the Ex-patriot Elephant Jr. was sitting by himself in preschool, coloring with crayons, when a bloodcurdling scream was heard. Eddie Jr. rushed over.

He found the scream had come from Alex the Anti-establishment Anteater Jr.! “What’s wrong?” Eddie Jr. asked him.

“Someone stole my favorite pencil,” screeched Alex Jr., “And I will continue screaming until I find out who took it!”

“Well, you’re my best friend and I can’t stand to hear you scream,” said the brave, 5-year-old Mammal, “I will to take down whoever stole your pencil in bloody vengeance!”

Alex Jr. screamed in joy.

Eddie Jr. rounded up three suspects. One was a classmate, Winston the War-hawk Walrus Jr., who hated Alex Jr. due to a decades-old blood feud between their families. Terrance the Transcendentalist Teacher was their teacher and he had been angry at the world ever since Ralph Waldo Emerson died, and took it out his students. Lastly, Sarah the Sadist Symbionese Liberation Army Veteran Jr. just liked stealing things from her wealthier classmates.

The Solution

After a number of half-baked theories and violent accusals, Eddie Jr. found out that the pencil had just been lost the whole time! That was poor compensation, however, for the number of injuries that had been inflicted upon his classmates while in search of his fiery revenge. It also did little to rebuild the wing of the school Eddie burnt down or free him from juvenile hall from his numerous crimes.

EHS Bathroom Mirrors Given Life Expectancy of Two Weeks

A pair of mirrors, which have been recently installed in the second-floor boy’s lavatory, were given a life expectancy of roughly two weeks by a team of highly knowledgeable experts. Head-of-Research Mark Burns told reporters, “Using in-depth psychological analysis of teenage boys and statistics on the mirrors’ ability to be vandalized, we found that in all likelihood these mirrors will be stolen, broken, covered in pizza sauce, bent, or obscured with inappropriate symbols in roughly a fortnight.”

The research included interviews with various male members of the student body, including sophomore Andrew Johanson. “Yeah, a bunch of guys in white coats came up to me and asked me what I thought about the new mirrors in the bathroom. I told them the truth, that every time I walk past them I am filled with a primal urge to take out a permanent marker and write my name in huge letters,” said Johanson.

History backs up this research, too. All past attempts to put a reflective surface in that bathroom has ended in its inevitable destruction.

Principal Doctor Locklear, however, claimed to trust the student body to keep the mirror in good repair. “I don’t care what these researchers say, I believe in these kids to go as long as possible before defiling those mirrors. Why, they might actually be able to hold their destructive nature back a full month!”

UPDATE: Twenty minutes before press time, the mirror was found covered in green paint, corroded by some sort of acid, and vandalized with the words “Bite me.”

Slominski Pre-calc lecture Oct. 7,2014

 

Last week, critically acclaimed math teacher Mrs. Slominski produced one of her finest masterpieces, a lecture enthralling as well as captivating, utilizing motifs and metaphors to engage her audience like never before.

The lecture started off small, describing the graphic shape of the algebraic expression (X-5)^2=Y. While the average layman may simply take this at face value, experienced cultural critics such as myself immediately identified it as a metaphor the religious idea of the afterlife. The X axis represents happiness, of course, and the Y time. As a parabola, the graph illustrates how before and after our lives we are truly in a state of bliss while our short, miserable lives are our lowest point. This began the recurring motif of pre-natal and post-death experiences that would continue throughout the lecture. The number 5 was also deeply symbolic.

The lecture continued, only becoming more interesting as it went on. Jumping from mathematical example to mathematical example, there were long pauses in which Slominski asked the audience (referred to as students as a metaphor for how we are all students in this life) to try to find the “solutions” to the problems. While some poorly educated lugards around me attempted to actually solve the problems, I sat back, the only one in the room who truly got the meaning. Because there are no real solutions to the problems of life, toiling in search for superficial answers is a fool’s errand.

Perhaps my only criticism of the otherwise excellent lecture is the continual references to “your test next week.” Try as I might, I can’t conceive what this could be a metaphor for. Perhaps the impending test is symbolic of death, but that doesn’t work because, while we have no idea when death will strike, the test is already pre-scheduled. Is it maybe a commentary on how we are all implicitly judged (or “tested, if you will”) by society? But that isn’t a good comparison either.

But the strongest part of the lecture by far was the twist ending. Slominski was saying, “Homework problems for tomorrow will be problems 5 through--” when the bell suddenly cut her off. As the lecture ended and the audience filed out, so many questions flooded my mind. What are the lost homework questions? What do they represent? Was this a planned metaphor or was it the sort of spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment philosophization that comes from such a sophisticated mind? How does the symbolism of 5 work in here?

All in all, while some may criticize Slominski for her convoluted story-telling methods and elitist structuring, I believe her overly-veiled way of revealing the eternal truths of humanity actually increase the profoundness of it all.

Score out of 8 stars: 5

A special message from the director of the Edina Blood Drive

Thank you all so very much for allowing me to extract your precious blood. 
As I sit here in my castle in Transylvania, dictating this letter to my mindless servant, I think of those less fortunate than I. That is who we’re pretending to donate this to, right, servant? Yes, of course.

What was I saying? Oh yes, I think of those less fortunate than I. That’s not to say that I haven’t encountered any hardship in my life. There was that time I almost ate garlic, the time I was banished from my home town, the time my reputation was tarnished by that godawful Twilight series. But I digress.

The point is that you made the right decision to enter into my blood donation van. You also made the right decision to allow us to blindfolds on you so you couldn’t see the equipment we were using. Don’t worry, my fangs, I mean, the needles were very clean.

Also, do not worry if you begin having some side-effects such as light-headedness, drowsiness, insomnia, low body temperature, suddenly gaining the ability to fly, a sudden hatred of werewolves, not appearing in reflections. My alchemist tells me these are all perfectly normal and harmless.

And now a word about safety. After giving blood, you are recommended to refrain from strenuous activity, operating heavy machinery, or entering holy spaces for at least one eternity. Please take this under advisement.

I apologize for the long wait which may have made you late to class. The draining of blood and darkening of the soul takes longer than you’d expect.

I would like to take this space to clarify that your blood can not be given back.

If you are more devoted to, er, charity than most, please show up at my Transylvanian castle at midnight before the rainy season. The rest of your blood can be very delicious. I mean, delicious to the needy people we’re giving it to. That’s what they do with it, drink it, right?

Never mind.

Good luck on the PSAT and happy Halloween!

DICTATED NOT SIGNED

Chancellor Ludvig von Hellscream

Robotics team 65% sure robot won't turn evil this year

Responding to fears expressed by the community that this year’s Edina Robotics team robot would turn evil, the team (known as Green Machine) told reporters that they were roughly 65% sure that their creation would not gain self-awareness and attack the community like before.

“Look, I know we have a bad track record with this sort of stuff,” said team leader Jenny Sorenson, “But you have to trust us to do everything in our power to make sure this robot doesn’t pose a threat to humanity. You can sleep soundly knowing that there’s only an outside chance that the robot we make will burn down EPAC or give the the key to the school to the Russian mafia.”

“The past incidents weren’t entirely our fault,” added Sorenson. “The competition has a disturbing trend of issuing challenges that lend themselves to evil robots. I mean, ‘make a robot capable of posing a threat to humanity’ really limits your options in terms of non-malicious automatons.”

Wii-U sky-rockets in sales, combination of Mario-Kart 8 and power to absolve sin

Despite terrible sales for the first part of the year, the new Nintendo gaming console has recently shot up in sales over the past few weeks. In the past month alone sales have increased 800%, bringing the struggling Japanese gaming company Nintendo into the black in terms of profits.

Why the sparked popularity? Nintendo sales executive manager Hubert Jameston explained it to reporters. “Part of it is obviously interest in Mario Kart 8, the newest installment in the Mario Kart series. The part, other part is, of course, the fact that purchasing a Wii U can absolve you or one of your loved ones of guilt for any past misdeeds.”

Many economic experts are attributing the spike in sales to the Wii U’s current, aggressive ad campaign. Jameston explained that, too, saying, “We were very careful about where we placed the ads. We made sure that ads for Mario Kart 8 went on kid’s shows, highlighting the game’s exciting premise and bright visuals. Likewise, we made sure that we put commercials that highlight the Wii U’s power to clean the moral conscience of even the most tortured soul on situational comedies, which are only watched by sad, lonely peopled riddled with regret.”

Top ten Edina-themed horror movies

1. After 15 Minutes, If There’s No Teacher, You Can Leave Class… If You’re Still Alive.
2. Combatative Time
3. Dial P for Pre-Ap English 10-related Swamp Monster
4. The Writer’s Blood
5. All the Teacher’s Assistants are Zombies!
6. Who would have thought the Edina Hornet had a taste for human flesh?
7. EPAC: Edina Psychotic-Arsonist Center
8. Who would have thought the Edina Hornet had a taste for human flesh 2: The Minnetonka Skipper gets in on the action!
9. Don’t break the iPhone screen… or the iPhone screen breaks you!
10. Trying to get out of the parking lot