By George Minkowski

“Boom” went the oilrig 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, 2010. “Uh-oh” went the United States Coast Guard two days after the explosion when they noticed crude oil leaking from the rig at a rate of 210,000 gallons per day. That number has been increasing in the wake of several failed attempts to control the spill including their promising idea to duct tape the leak and their slightly less promising idea to pray away the leak. The thousands of animals killed or displaced by the spill were just as surprised that the duct tape didn’t work.

The leak continues as you read this, but the situation is not without hope. BP, the company mainly responsible for this devastating spill, announced yesterday at brunch-time (Central Standard Time) that they have a plan to save their precious oil.

BP CEO Tony Hayward is devastated by all of the oil lost but believes that his team of yes-men has developed a sound plan to recover at least 80% of their “liquid money.”

“We are sorry to our investors and we are sorry to those affected by the spill. I’m forgetting something. I know it,” said Hayward. “Oh, and the animals. Sorry, animals.” Hayward then brought out a man in a white coat to describe their two-part plan to resolve the situation.

“Phase one,” said the man in the white coat, “is to try duct tape again. Problem almost solved. Phase two is a little more complicated. We allow the animals to keep swimming around in our oil until they absorb it all. Then, we ring them out in a giant bucket. We get our oil back; the animals are oil-free. It’s win-win.”

Environmentalists like Duke University marine biologist Larry Crowder says “ringing animals out like they are wet towels will lead to death 100% of the time.” He suggests a more traditional approach to dealing with the spill like having engineers come out to assess the problem while people rescue, clean, and rehabilitate the animals until it is safe for them to be released back into their environment. Asked Hayward sarcastically, “do you have that kind of money, pretty boy?”

Nobody has that kind of money, except of course for the BP executives who are determined to find a way to fix the spill without costing them any money (preferably making them money). For now, they are waiting on board approval for their plan. Approval, however, will not be that difficult to obtain as the BP Board of Directors is comprised entirely of soulless, real-life monopoly men.

Popularity: 15% [?]

By Gunter Hausman

NEW YORK CITY— Roger Lumenick, film critic from the New York Times, tried his best to fight his most recent assignment but ultimately failed. As a result, he ended up in a 6:30 showing of Furry Vengeance (Rated PG) last Friday night. Lumenick was the only adult in the theater and was reportedly made “quite uncomfortable” by the situation.

Furry Vengeance is a film about a real estate developer who tries to build a new development on an Oregon forest. The animals fight back. It’s man versus nature and the fur is gonna fly! “I swear I was only there because I’m a film critic,” said Lumenick.

The movie stars Brandon Fraser, Angela Kinsey, and Matt Prokop. Who were those last two? Good question. Evidently, these actors’ performances were not quite good enough to attract just one adult to see the film, or even accompany their children to it. “I have kids,” said Lumenick. “I mean I am their father.”

Lumenick sat in the back row of the theater. One of the moviegoers, Tommy Jackson, 7, went to the ticket counter to alert the theater of a suspicious man. The theater manager prided Tommy on his mastery of the principles of stranger-danger and proceeded to Theater 4 to see the man for himself.

The manager saw Lumenick nervously taking notes and had a look at his notes to make sure Lumenick wasn’t a threat. His notes said the following:

Why are those kids looking at me? I’m just trying to do my job…Wow. This movie is awful. Is the title a pun or something? I wish I could give half stars… I went to the Northwestern School Journalism. I don’t need this… Seriously? No parents decided to stay with their kids?

Lumenick sat through the whole movie for the sole reason that “Brook Shields is still kind of hot.” Regardless, he gave the movie only one star and a scathing review. “Furry Vengeance was terrible. The hour and half film was 90 minutes too long. It was a thin premise stretched far beyond reason- able length. By the way, I was only there because I’m a film critic. I would never have gone to see Furry Vengeance if I had the choice. Consider it a blessing that you do.”

Luckily for Lumenick, the animals don’t talk in this movie. If they did, he would have seemed a lot more out of place there. Still, being the only one old enough to drive or even get into a PG-13 movie was plenty creepy for the film critic.

The moral of this story, unlike the moral of Furry Vengeance which was some crap about ecological balance, is that Brandan Fraser is a sorry excuse for an actor.

Popularity: 16% [?]

By George Minkowski

In 2008, District 113 received a lot of media attention for teaching the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” In 2009, the administration was back in the news for their controversial decision to suspend the entire senior class of swimmers on allegations of hazing during the team’s “Senior Night” festivities. After these two publicity stunts, citizens of the North Chicago suburbs were left asking, “What on earth will District 113 do next?!”

That question was answered when they decided to not allow Highland Park’s Girls Basketball team to travel to Arizona next year for a tournament. Superintendent George V. Fornero said in a release that the decision to cancel the trip to Arizona was “not a political statement regarding the State of Arizona’s recently enacted legislation regarding immigration.” Honestly, no one is really buying that. As a result of this decision, a highly charged debate has broken out. The difference between the two sides? Politics. “Whoops…” said one administrator sarcastically who couldn’t hide his excitement.

The administration knew that just whispering words “political statement” would cause a media blitzkrieg, so instead, they shouted it. Their plan has been working. This story made the front page of the Chicago Tribune, has been on WGN, ABC, and America Live with Megyn Kelly on FOX where Former Alaska Governor and Hockey-Mom Sarah Palin gave her two cents on the issue. She believes the girls have the right to “play ball” and should “go rogue” if need be. Her opinion, however, is being dismissed by most because the only sport she is qualified to comment on is hunting large mammals from a helicopter.

But still, the majority of those with an opinion support the team playing in the tournament. According to Facebook, the group denouncing the administration’s decision has over 12,000 more members than the group supporting the decision of boycotting the entire state of Arizona. (Boycotting a state seems a little impractical, especially if they make such delicious iced tea.) Either way, the administration wins as they get another 15 minutes of fame.

On Monday night, a statement was delivered by the District 113 Board of Education President claiming to “regret the unwanted media attention our district has been subjected to.” The President of the Board then went on to sell some District 113 merchandise. The basketball team signed and sold several copies of the Chicago Tribune, only to be outsold by the administration who sold 200 novelty Fornero bobble-heads and tickets to their next press conference which they hope to hold in the United Center.

We sat down with an administrator who surprisingly didn’t want to have their name published. “It’s a ‘shame’ that we are getting so much attention for this whole ordeal. We really just want to run the district ‘efficiently’ and with ‘little’ controversy. Oh, who am I kidding? We live for this!”

Popularity: 18% [?]

By George Minkowski
DEERFIELD, IL— The Prairie State Achievement Test was designed to test students’ knowledge of science trivia, sign reading, and Illinois-related math skills. The test was implemented in 2005 to assess whether or not high school students were ready to graduate and face their future of working on a farm. Last week, DHS Juniors had their farm-operating aptitude tested during a late start and reports are already coming in indicating how woefully unprepared they would be if they were to start their predetermined agricultural careers tomorrow.
According to the Illinois State Board of Education, Deerfield High School “totally rocked” the science trivia section and scored “better than Highland Park, at least” on the sign reading test. However, Deerfield’s performance on the “applied”
mat section was an “epic fail.” State Superintendant Dr. Christopher Koch lamented Deerfield’s performance on this section. “A simple question: students are given a diagram of their house on a map labeled in miles and given the amount of corn they grew. We tell them how many pounds of corn go into a bushel, but ask them how many bushels per acre they grew. How could they not figure that one out?!” Students thought this question was exceedingly difficult only because they didn’t have the “Farm Facts” application on their calculators that all other Illinois students have.
The application contains useful features like a calculator that determines how many hours you must work to harvest a certain amount of soy beans if your cousin, Jebediah, contracts Mad Cow Disease and urinates on 1/8 of the beans you harvest every 37 minutes. It also adds numbers together. Deerfield students needed to crunch numbers logically and in dozens of intelligent steps, a strategy that simply doesn’t work on the Illinois standardized tests where “anything goes.” Until Deerfield can get its numbers up on this life-determining test, it’s Blue Ribbon will temporarily be taken away. “This is an absolute shame,” said some administrator. “It is simply inexcusable that Deerfield students wouldn’t know how to deliver a calf when they are inevitably confronted with the situation as Illinois citizens.” In fact, Deerfield scored in the bottom 1% of the state in farm- proficiency, the only thing the test is really supposed to determine. As a result, Deerfield plans to make several changes to its course offerings and requirements.
First and foremost, the Freshman Advisory program will be cut because “there are no friends on an Illinois farm—only hard work and sadness.” Courses that teach evolution with be replaced with courses that teach the “why does it matter?” doctrine. Each homeroom will be responsible for a gaggle of geese, a warren of rabbits, and an agitated armadillo. Additionally, manure will be added as a medium for all AP Art classes.
These changes are undoubtedly going to cause a great deal of controversy, however, Deerfield’s sub-sub-par achievement on the obviously necessary Prairie State test cannot be continually ignored. Changes need to be made before every Deerfield graduate ends up on a farm not knowing how many scarecrows to install if he or she only has $75 dollars to spend, 28 pounds of hay and unlimited access to Cousin Steve’s dresser if each scarecrow has a scare radius of 1.5 acres.

Popularity: 15% [?]

By George Minkowski
DEERFIELD, IL – The 2009-2010 school year will be the last of a veteran French teacher here at Deerfield. As she leaves the classroom, she also leaves behind a hole to be filled. Who will teach her classes? That call was answered by the current World Languages department chair who has decided to return to the classroom. But who will run the entire department?
The administration, in an effort to appear sympathetic, put an ad on Craig’s List to fill the position. It said, “Yo, we need a dep’t chair ASAP. The pay ain’t good and the benefits… well we can’t offer you any benefits. Any takers?”
Surprisingly, there were no takers, but that didn’t discourage our benevolent leaders. They initially looked into appointing either a Ouija Board or Magic 8 Ball as department chair, but decided that would be rude to the teachers. They attempted to find a human to fill the position, but no teacher was really that enthusiastic about taking on a second full time job for no additional pay besides Celine Dion tickets.
Luckily, Auto-Pilot stepped up at the last minute. “Auto-Pilot is perfect for the job,” said an assistant principal. “We don’t need to pay it and it’ll keep the school going in the same direction it has been recently. I think we can all agree that this is a good thing.”
Several World Languages teachers attempted to voice their dissent in the administration’s decision, but the language barrier was too much to overcome.
“We were speaking English,” said a Spanish teacher. “I think they didn’t understand how to deal with criticism.”
“No Español,” said the administrator.

Popularity: 17% [?]

By Gunther Hausman
This past Friday, the rap group Endiskize came to DHS to film their music video for the song “We Don’t Back Down.” The largely obscure rap group was inspired by our school spirit and thought it would be appropriate to disrupt a full day of learning to film their video.
Many were opposed to the idea, but administrators and teachers alike were assured that their students would be returned to them as soon as they were finished shooting.
Endiskize, with over 160 (but under 162) MySpace friends, is the third most popular music group to come out of the west Chicago suburbs behind only Dr. DJ Stein, MD, PIMP and Justin Bieber’s cousin. Their semi-widespread fame and unique message (tolerance maybe?) evidently earned them enough “cred” that when they said we would be on MTV, we were actually impressed.
Ms. China, a member of the rap trio, believes those who participated in the music video did not waste their time. “Being in the video was a learning experience or whatever. Those kids learned that they can get as excited as they want to be in a video, but we will just edit them out if they have acne.
“Word,” added co-member, BooMan.
Perhaps most impressive was Endiskize’s attention to detail. Most would anticipate a simple scene where the students walk through D-hall would take around twenty minutes, maybe a half hour. Wrong! Three hours of filming later, Endiskize finally had a shot they could be happy with: a culturally and socially diverse school population generally excited about learning. If they ever add a best co-actor in a music video category to the Oscars, Deerfield High School students will certainly get the nod.
Another testament to their attention to detail was BooMan’s shirt: sleeveless flannel. Because apparently he can discern such a great temperature difference between his arms and torso that his shirt choice was hardly even an option.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Popularity: 15% [?]

Popularity: 15% [?]

By George Minkowski
When Obama’s historic health care reform bill (HR 3590) was signed into law on Tuesday, Republican leaders cried louder than ever to block the bill. Twelve state attorney generals, all of whom are Republican, have already filed suits to block the health care bill on the grounds that its font is “unconstitutional and un-American.” These efforts are seen by many as a desperate, last-ditch attempt to kill the bill and have it go back to committee where the margins and font of the bill can be tweaked to please the GOP.
The last time a piece of legislation was called “unconstitutional” based on aesthetics was in 1940 when Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) accused the Democrats for being communists for using red ink on their edits of the Second Revenue Act of 1940 bill. Later, McCarthy retracted his accusation for being, “totally paranoid.” However current GOP leaders are standing firmly by their claim.
HR 3590 was typed in the font Courier New with standard 1.5” margins. The claim that the bill is unconstitutional stems from that idea that all pieces of legislation are unconstitutional unless they look like the Constitution. That said, the Republicans want the bill to be in Blackadder ITC but would settle for Vladamir Script. They hope that the Supreme Court will deem the law unconstitutional thus restarting the process to health care reform.
Representative Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) who is widely known for great decisions like shouting “baby killer” is one of the key Republicans who thought up another problem with the bill after it was signed into law. “If you rearrange the letters in ‘Courier New’ and spell it horribly wrong, you get ‘baby killer.’ That’s what I was trying to say,” Rep. Neugebauer said yesterday in a formal “apology.” “I really meant no offense. I just couldn’t wait my turn.”
But still, many Republicans refuse to be as polite as the man who shouted “baby killer” during a session of Congress. Some of these men and women include most of the men and women. One of them, Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL). “I disagree with virtually everything in the bill,” Rep. Kirk said in a recent interview on Fox News. “The font, the margins, the affordable health care—it’s simply un-American.”
It’s still too soon to tell if the evil, radical, left-wing, Grandma-killing, polar bear loving, socialist elitists in charge of the country will allow the horribly bland bill to be taken back to committee for a little, “spicing up.” However, NRA members around the nation are gaining support for the cause. (Semi-automatic assault rifles can be pretty persuasive.)
Also persuasive, health care— “but not like this,” say Republicans. Minority leader Representative John Boehner (R-OH) Twittered this to his 30+ followers. “The goal is health care [wink, wink], but we need a bill with a font that doesn’t say, ‘Hey, Russia! Come occupy

Popularity: 17% [?]

By George Minkowski
DEERFIELD– After becoming fed up with not understanding the baseball metaphors for sex in teen movies, two local parents worked up the courage to ask their son what it all meant.
Billy and Sandy Reaves initiated the awkward conversation with their son, Jason, at dinner last Thursday night. The moments that ensued reportedly felt like they lasted for hours and will certainly not be soon forgotten by either party.
The first question asked was what “first base” was. Jason instantly understood the question but hoped he was wrong in his interpretation. He responded by giving a brief description of baseball. Unfortunately for him, his parents were already familiar with America’s past-time.
“No, silly,” said Sandy Reaves. “‘First base’ in relationships.”
Jason mustered up the courage to describe “first base” as just “hooking up,” but that only raised more questions.
“What’s ‘hooking up’?” asked Billy Reaves.
“Kill me,” responded Jason.
The three sat at the table trying to communicate across generations until they finally arrived at a mutual definition of “hooking up.”
“I really understood what Jason was saying when he put it in Harry Potter terms,” Sandy Reaves told Flipside reporters. “First base is like ‘snogging.’”
Jason frequently tried to excuse himself from the table but wasn’t permitted until they got to the bottom of the whole “nth base thing.”
The entire ordeal lasted around 15 minutes, the bulk of the time being spent on explaining second base. However, Jason somehow managed to get the point across without mentioning human beings.
Both Billy and Sandy Reaves reported feeling “much better after having this conversation.” Jason, on the other hand, could not be reached for comment as he is currently barricaded inside of his room.

Popularity: 23% [?]