Jess Nobert | Senior Writer

I hope these snow days aren’t going to waste and everyone has a chance to catch up on homework and online discussion boards. I know that’s what I would be doing if I were there. Well, let’s be honest, I’d probably be hanging out in my room watching TiVo or sleeping.

But while APSU was closed, again, I made sure to catch up on my ridiculous news.

The top story of my week comes from a CBS/New York Times poll about the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. According to the Huffington Post, “Apparently, some 15 percent of Americans don’t know that ‘gay men and lesbians’ are homosexuals.”

“It turns out that 42 percent of Americans oppose allowing ‘homosexuals’ to serve openly in the military, but only 28 percent oppose allowing ‘gay men and lesbians’ to serve openly,” according to Geoffrey R. Stone, the author of the story.

Either way, that’s still the majority of people who agree to “allow” these citizens to serve in their nation’s military if they choose. I guarantee a few more people would be willing to sign up if they could be themselves.

Speaking of people, I hope your Toyota isn’t on the recall list. Granted, even though I see Toyotas almost every day, their accelerators aren’t sticking and killing people.

What’s the deal with this massive recall? It’s actually the largest recall in history. Really? I got that one from the AP. But this stuff happens. Sure, the tragic side of the recall isn’t ideal, but cars are machines, and they aren’t perfect.

Here’s the best part. Toyota must not be selling many cars here lately because I just saw a story from Reuters. Toyota is offering up to $2,000 in cash and rebates to buyers if they get a new car from them.

Talk about buying your way into the hearts of America. I just can’t be persuaded with cash money when people are dying. Get with it, Toyota, and make your cars safer.

As far as I can tell, traveling doesn’t sound so luxurious by car or plane these days, especially if you ask Kevin Smith, the famous director. According to a story from the Los Angeles Times, Smith was asked to deplane from his Southwest after he was already seated because he is too fat.

Smith admits he knows he is overweight but said, “I broke no regulation, offered no safety risk.”

According to the article, “Southwest is one of many airlines that require overweight customers to purchase two seats if they cannot comfortably fit into one seat. The airline determines this in part based on a passenger’s ability to lower both armrests while sitting on the plane. Smith insisted he could lower both armrests.”

But it gets better, since Smith was tweeting about his experience, Southwest made sure to apologize via Twitter, too. “Our apology to @ThatKevinSmith and more details regarding the events from last night …” The tweet was complete with a link to the airline’s blog which was titled, “Not So Silent Bob.”

Really? I hope he got a letter and a substantial amount of flight vouchers for his troubles. But wait, he got a $100 voucher and allegedly a phone call to accompany it.

Good job, Southwest. Way to alienate a few good people with this policy. I know we all joke about how large people should have to purchase a second seat, but this is ridiculous. And the fact that it’s been in place for 25 years, even worse.

Aside from travels, cars and gay people, I have very few things that come close to their ridiculousness this week. One more time on the snow, and I hope this is the last time.

What is this now, four snow days (as of press time Monday, Feb. 15)? I have Facebook, like many students, and I have never seen such activity as I have the last few days. So many people questioning the judgment of the university and safety of travels. Why?

Usually, on the first day of school, professors tell students about the attendance policy and one of those details involves inclement weather. If you can’t drive to school because of bad weather when the school is open, they are usually more concerned with your safety than your attendance. Obviously this is usually followed by a “don’t-abuse-this” speech.

If you can’t drive to school because your neighborhood isn’t plowed, then don’t. But don’t take it out on the university. Write a letter to the editor or even better, contact the City of Clarksville about getting their act together to clear the roads.

It’s no one’s fault the snow is on the ground. And if you want to go to school that badly, but the roads aren’t clear, get some snow tires.

I’ll close with everyone’s favorite topic, the Vancouver Olympic Games. I just know everyone has been glued to their TVs since the opening ceremonies. In case you couldn’t tell, that was my cynicism coming out.

I know Michael Phelps isn’t in this one, but these are the best athletes in our country.
Sure, Alpine skiing isn’t so popular in Clarksville, but let’s try to stick with these great athletes for the two weeks or so of the games. You never know, one day you might meet one of them and they will end up your hero.

By Jess Nobert | Senior Staff Writer

My first story actually came to me via a friend from Canada. She’s also on the Sweden exchange, and we have to get some good ole American gossip somehow. Have you heard about Heidi Montag’s plastic surgery? Apparently, even though she had 10 surgeries, and that’s what she would consider to be addictive, she’s not. Her claim is based on 10 separate surgeries.

Whatever Heidi. You look like a Barbie, but like my Canadian friend said, she looks like Joan Rivers. But it gets better. She almost died. “Like Michael Jackson.” She was in so much pain they kept pumping her full of Demerol and she almost stopped breathing. But that wasn’t her only comparison to MJ. She said in another interview her record should be as good as his music since she has a lot of his producers. Whatever. I think the difference here is he had some talent to start, and Heidi, you’re just “famous for being famous.”

And this next part can probably be seen during one of these interviews, but the Corn Refiners have this great Web site to tell us all about the great powers of high fructose corn syrup otherwise known as HFCS, on their site.

My favorite part was on the homepage. It was a quote saying HFCS is not a cause of obesity or diabetes. Seriously? Can this really be from an unbiased source? Of course not. The corn people run the site, of course it’s going to make those claims. No way they would admit their product is essentially killing people. Check it out for your self at www.sweetsurprise.com.

But heading in another direction of fun, I went with some friends to the local hockey team’s game over the weekend. It was possibly the best time I’ve had since I’ve been in Sweden. The best part, other than the win, was the fans. They were on their feet the entire time, and cheered throughout the entire 60 minutes of play. I wish I could see this kind of fandom in Tennessee, but I guess we just don’t have true fans down in those parts.

Now that we all have had our snow days … Oh wait, I haven’t. They don’t exist in Sweden. Never mind the three feet on the ground, you’d better be in class; even if it’s -26 degrees outside. Yes, that’s Fahrenheit.

So on that note, I had a good laugh on Friday, Jan. 29 when APSU was closed and it didn’t snow until the business day was almost over. That was cute. I remember those days. I had one in eighth grade when it rained in Memphis and they thought it was going to turn to ice and never did.

Next time you get a snow day, think of the three APSU students freezing in Sweden.

Jess Nobert | Senior Staff Writer

During the last week, I have been doing a lot of settling, rather than reading the news. However, I have found a solid handful of seriously ridiculous stories.

To start off, I’ve been following my Twitter a lot more closely since there isn’t any American news in English on the TV in Sweden. I got this first story from a CNN tweet. The White House has been hit in the housing crisis. According to a story on CNN.com, the property value has “dropped 5.1 percent—from $308 million to $292.5 million, according to the real estate Web site Zillow.” I guess America’s dream house isn’t immune to its own economy.

But the article had a more interesting point. Though 14 percent of Americans would want to share their back yard with the Obamas, second place was to be neighbors with the Palins. Seriously? What is it about this family that holds such appeal to Americans? There is no celebrity who I would want to be neighbors with. Can you imagine all the press who would end up on your property? And the constant need to have your lawn perfectly manicured? No thanks.

Going along with the national leader trend, this next story was the biggest shocker of the week, by far. Apparently Hugo Chavez is saying the U.S. has an “earthquake machine” that we used to cause the earthquake and aftershocks in Haiti. I don’t know how much press this crazy theory is catching at home, but I had to get it from Fox News, and most people remember how much I trust their “Fair and Balanced” reporting.

According to the article, “the 7.0 magnitude Haiti quake was caused by a U.S. test of an experimental shockwave system that can also create ‘weather anomalies to cause floods, droughts and hurricanes.’” Wow. The story went on to say the same machine caused a 6.0 quake in Eureka, Calif., just a few days before. Now this can’t possibly be true, and if it were, I guess the best way to defend against it would be to attack your own country first? Does that make any sense?

In other earth-shaking news, I come back to Lane Kiffin. I was going to write about how he wrecked his leased Lexus and the crash was practically shrugged off, but then I saw something better.

When I went back to the article about the wreck on ESPN.com, I found this interesting, and very ridiculous snippet:

“A Knoxville attorney has filed paperwork seeking to rename a local waste water treatment plant in honor of Lane Kiffin.

“Drew McElroy paid $262 and filed an application with the Knoxville City Council Public Properties and Facilities Naming Committee to rename the Kuwahee Wastewater Treatment Plant as the Lane Kiffin Sewage Center.”

McElroy, who is filing for this change, told WBIR-TV, a local NBC affiliate, “It dawned on me—Lane Kiffin told us that he hoped the fans would understand. I thought, ‘Well, naming the wastewater plant for him would let him know, I think very clearly, we do understand.’”

Though the group who will approve the name change hasn’t met yet, McElroy does intend to follow-up according to the article.

And finally, for my ridiculous news from Sweden: On MTV here, they actually show music videos, but that’s not the news.

During the running of this foreign programming, the network lets viewers text in with two names to this call center and then they broadcast if the two are compatible, in true love or what their perfect baby name would be. Seriously? I could not believe my eyes when I saw it for the first time, I could not believe it.

If you’re texting for a baby name, the lower part of the screen says something, roughly translated to, “the perfect name for Julia and Drake’s baby is…” and then there is a really bad cartoon baby with a little speech bubble with some, I assume, randomly generated name.

If you’re asking if you’re in true love, a heart separates the names. If the heart pulses for several seconds and it doesn’t break, it’s for real. But if it does, so sorry; not true love. I just couldn’t believe it. Think about it, the average audience for MTV is still teenagers, right?

The compatibility option just gives you a percent. But what is a truly compatible number? I don’t know, I still can’t speak much Swedish.

By Jess Nobert | Chief Copy Editor

This year was full of ridiculous. It started with Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl changing his name to Steelerstahl in honor of his team taking on the Ravens. We saw the famous water landing by Sully, Michael Phelps got busted for smoking pot and they stopped playing Fox News in Einstein’s.

Utah started requiring applications to get into the bar, a woman blocked a bullet with her weave and we saw the kid from “Slumdog Millionaire” get exploited by his father. Kids at a day care in Arkansas drank windshield wiper fluid, a Texas man robbed the bank via drive-thru and a guy in Michigan got busted for using a car wash vacuum for, um, personal reasons.

A guy’s body was exhumed after his family heard the undertaker may have cut his legs off to fit him into his casket. A woman in Texas called 911 because she didn’t get enough shrimp in her fried rice and an Ohio teacher took some of her students to the strip club.

Overall, we saw a lot of ridiculous this year, but here are what I classify the best of 2009.

There were a lot of fame seekers this year. A lot of them surfaced this summer and a few just in the last few months. The big ones started with Octomom. She made headlines after having octuplets, but already having six kids at home gave her story a new spin. Jon and Kate (plus their eight) made headlines with Jon’s midlife crises and his multiple girlfriends. Heidi and Spencer Pratt are more infamous with their reality show “The Hills,” and were all over the tabloids when they eloped in Mexico.

The most ridiculous fame seekers have to be balloon boy’s parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene. They had been trying to max out their 15 minutes, and I think they achieved their goal. Congratulations to the most ridiculous fame seekers.

With pop culture, we lost more people than participated in ridiculous acts. This year, we lost Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Walter Cronkite and Billy Mays among many others.

The most ridiculous pop icon had to be, by far, Kanye West. His improv show he put on at the Video Music Awards when he mortified Taylor Swift. Congratulations to Kanye for being ridiculous.

Sports saw a lot of headlines for off-the-field activities. Alex Rodriguez got called out for his steroid use. We have all had enough of Tiger. And Serena Williams went a little wild with her outburst over the foot fault. Brett Favre came back out of retirement, again, to play for the Vikings.

The most ridiculous athlete, however, has to be Allen Iverson. He signed with Memphis and never really got on the court. He took personal leave, then retired somewhat unexpectedly. Suddenly, he was playing for the 76ers. Wait, What? He was in retirement for like a week and then was back. Congratulations, AI, you take the cake for most ridiculous athlete this year.

Politicians are always doing something ridiculous. Blago, and Mark Sanford have to tie on this one. Rod Blagojevich was making the headlines right as the year was starting, and Sanford lied to everyone about his affair with the Appalachian Trail, er, a woman in Argentina. Congratulations, politicians, you never cease to be ridiculous.
These are the most ridiculous events of 2009 as I have seen them. Let’s hope 2010 doesn’t cease to amuse us with even more ridiculous acts.

By Jess Nobert | Chief Copy Editor
The story began like this when I read it from The Washington Post’s Web site Monday morning, Nov. 30: “The Secret Service director and the couple who crashed the Obama administration’s first state dinner have been called to testify before Congress on Thursday about the incident.”

The couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, just showed up uninvited to the White House State Dinner hosted for the Indian Prime Minister.

Who are these people? That’s what I was sayin’. According to the article, “Michaele Salahi is a reality TV hopeful trying to get on Bravo’s ‘The Real Housewives of D.C.’” Seriously?

Last week, while I was catching up on some backed up TiVo, I heard a story that left my mouth agape. U.S. Speed Skating was looking for a new sponsor and Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report and the leader of the so-called Colbert Nation signed an agreement to take on the role.

Again, seriously? A TV personality has enough influence to get people to donate that much money? In the first weekend alone, the “Nation” had already donated over $200,000.

What is even better, in some races over the last few weeks, the skaters actually wore stickers bearing the sponsor’s name, “Colbert Nation.” Hilarious. If you want to donate to the cause, you can do it on the Nation’s Web site.

I have the AP mobile app on my iPhone, just in case you couldn’t already tell from all of those AP references I’ve been making all this time. With this app, you can get breaking news sent to your phone so you know the most up-to-date information on “important” things. I say this because I don’t always think they’re that important.

A few weeks ago, I got a breaking update letting me know Jimmie Johnson had just won his fourth consecutive NASCAR championship.

Is this really necessary? I don’t really care for NASCAR, and I was hoping it might be something more along the lines of consumer confidence has gone up, or the housing market is improving. Not.

Then Friday, Nov. 27, I got another update. It was Tiger Woods this time. If he had died in the car accident, I get it. But he was just in a car accident. Whatever caused it is more breaking news at this point than the fact it happened.

I am please to announce that as of press time, Monday Nov. 30, there had not been any deaths reported where Black Friday shopping crazies were to blame. This is an improvement from last year. This could be because some Walmarts hired armed security and let people in before the sales started. They just had to wait to get the goods from those coveted plastic-wrapped pallets.

The best part of all of this, I went out this year with my oldest sister. I choose to not support Walmart because of the unfair wages and lack of reasonable benefits I have read about, but I don’t force my family to agree with me. So, I did go with her to Sam Walton’s famous store at 4:30 a.m.

Here’s the best part. I got to combine my two least favorite things when my sister made me wait for the “New Moon” board game at Walmart.

All the hype for these books is exciting because Stephenie Meyer is getting these tweens to read. Note, I had to do a Google search to find out her name. However, the people who bring the bound vampire stories to football games and other social gatherings because they just can’t put them down is outright ridiculous. If you can’t take a break, leave it at home. Then the movies came out and the box office went crazy.

The latest cinematic installment, the aforementioned “New Moon,” was listed as “the biggest autumn opening weekend in history and the third biggest three-day debut ever, according to early estimates from Hollywood.com Box Office,” in an article I read while following CNN on Twitter. But it still ranks 159 of all time as of Monday, Nov. 30.

If you’re one of those hooked on the “Twilight” fiasco, best of luck to you. I just hope you don’t dress up like the people did for “Harry Potter.” The team this guy or that guy shirts is where I’m going to draw the line.

I was watching my favorite program with Brian Williams last week and saw a story that left me stunned. The University of California school system is enacting a fee increase of up to 32 percent for students, which could equal $1,929 each year.

One student at the protest was interviewed and said, “rich people get educated and poor people don’t.”

Several students said they wouldn’t be able to afford to stay in school.

Imagine if this would happen to us. It would be insanely ridiculous.

Aside from school getting more expensive all over, I have seen students get more rude. I live on campus and regularly have my hands full when I have to swipe my ID card. You would not be surprised how many times someone with free hands has just stood there and watched me struggle.

Or when they see you coming, already with the door open, and look you in the face and just keep walking. Ridiculous.

Even better, when I was in the Peay Pod last week, the girl working was on her cell phone the whole time. I know of a lot of places won’t serve you if you’re on your phone, but this was tables turned. Rude. Ridiculous.

There were a few other stories I caught while watching the news. Not-so-ridiculous was that BusinessWeek just named Clarksville as the best place to raise your kids. According to their Web site, www.businessweek.com, “Clarksville, in Middle Tennessee, 40 miles northwest of Nashville, is among the nation’s fastest growing communities. It has lot of new buildings—schools, hospital and subdivisions. Its low cost of living and good schools make it a choice setting for families.”

I know of many people who have chosen Clarksville as their home, and I’d say this new ranking will help out our little city even more. Congratulations Clarksville.

In other rankings, Matt Lauer will be profiling his people of the year during a special scheduled to air on Thanksgiving. This years list boasts six famous and infamous names. Kobe Bryant, of the LA Lakers; Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who landed in the Hudson River; country music’s Taylor Swift; Susan Boyle, the shocking surprise from “Britain’s Got Talent;” Captain Richard Phillips, the captain of the ship that was bombarded by pirates; and my favorite, Nadya Suleman.

If you don’t know who she is, that would be the Octomom. Really? The Octomom is one of the people of the year. I could not believe my ears when I heard it, and I struggled to actually write it down. The Octomom is the queen of ridiculous.
While you’re waiting to tune in to Lauer’s special, which will air on NBC at 8 p.m. Central Time, be sure to enjoy the time with your family and friends for the holiday. Even if you don’t have an elaborate feast, be thankful for the two days of no classes. We are almost finished with the semester: That alone is something to be thankful for.