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!

---

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!