Sorry, I guess I'm on a Roll

I'm not a kill-joy. Really I'm not. I like to have as much fun as the next person, but seriously I read an article in the good old Ogden Standard Examiner that I thought was simply ridiculous and I can't pass up this opportunity to share my thoughts. First I'll post the article so that you all have the great pleasure of being able to read it.

FRONTPAGE: Weber High Wins Jessica / Text-message blitz brings singer to high school in radio contest Tuesday, September 16, 2008By DI LEWIS & JANAE FRANCIS Standard-Examiner staff

PLEASANT VIEW -- "Keep texting for Jessica!" was the mantra repeated by many Weber High School students throughout the last week. And it worked.
Actor/singer Jessica Simpson made a brief Monday morning appearance for an audience of 1,800 at Weber High as the prize for the winning school in a K-Bull 93 FM texting contest.
Weber beat out second-place Fremont High School by about 250,000 texts, coming in the winner with a total of 571,795.
Pat Garrett, afternoon deejay for K-Bull, said the station got more than 1 million texts.
"It's absolutely amazing. We've got moms over here saying, 'We want to see her, too. We're paying the bills,' " Garrett said.
While senior Liz Jessop said she thought the contest was more about beating rival Fremont High than seeing Simpson, she was still excited.
Senior Jonathan Androtti said, "We hate Fremont and (Simpson's) hot."
Simpson arrived at 11:30 a.m. to talk to student body officers and the two most prolific texters, then moved to the gym, where the rest of the student body greeted her with a deafening roar.
Several members of the media were frustrated at being shut out of the school by Simpson's staff after having been told by the radio station that they would be allowed into her presentation.
In her trademark Texan drawl, Simpson fielded a few questions from students, giving answers that could barely be heard above the cheering.
She talked about high school, dealing with public scrutiny with the help of family, friends and faith, her move to country music, and her relationship with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.
"I just like ridin' in the car and talkin' and pullin' over and kissin'," she said, when asked about her most exciting date with Romo.
A handful of students received hugs and kisses on the cheek from Simpson. She laughed after giving one boy a hug, saying, "I think he's shaking."
Students were shown the video for Simpson's latest single "Come on Over," from her new country music album, which Simpson calls her "best album yet."
About 25 minutes after she entered the gym, Simpson was ushered out again.
Senior Kylie Spilker was the second-place texter with more than 18,000 texts in the last week.
She said Simpson's visit was "way cool" and the time she spent texting between classes, at lunch and at home was worth getting a hug from the superstar.
However, Spilker said she had to be "very sneaky" to avoid getting her phone confiscated under the school's classtime cell-phone ban.
"I love her. I mean, she's just about the prettiest lady in the world."
Josh Naylor, a Weber junior, sent more than 23,000 texts to propel himself to first place so he could meet Simpson.
Both Naylor and Spilker said unlimited texting plans were key to their success.
But even with the flood of messages pouring into K-Bull, teachers said they didn't really think the contest distracted students.
Don Kenyon, who teaches business, said most teachers kept the school's cell-phone ban in place during the last week, but a few allowed students to send texts if they were for the contest.
Special-education teacher Connie Perry said she thinks more phones were taken away from students in the last week than during any other time.
"We see that (Simpson's visit) as a spectacular, fun way for Weber High to kick off Homecoming Week," said Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart, "but it's not the type of distraction we'd want to occur on a regular basis."

Where do I even start with this? How about the ridiculous waste of time sending 571,795 text messages is. Not to mention the kid that sent 23,000 all by himself. 23,000 text messages, in 7 days. Now if my little computer calculator is working correctly that means he sent on average 3,285.7 texts every day. I hope he has an unlimited texting plan. But ok, I'll give them a break they are high school kids. But what about the moms? "Oh we'll help you text since we pay for it, and we'd love to have some skanky pop star come and talk to you about how she makes out with her football star boyfriend on the side of the road." Um, where's the educational value in that might I ask? I'm sure glad our tax dollars support the public school system so they can provide this kind of "education" for the kids. I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh here, maybe she said something else that really was inspiring in some way, but all I'm going off of is what the article said.

This kind of reminds me of an occasion when I was in high school. Chelsi maybe you'll remember, because I know we spent a lot of time in the journalism room discussing how stupid it was. Anyways when I was in high school I remember two different events that happened probably within a month of each other. The first event was that the history department invited a few WWII veterans who lived in the community to come and talk to the students about their experiences in the war. This mini assembly took place during school hours. Teachers were encouraged to let their students out of class to go and listen to these men. A few did, most teachers did not, and the majority of the student body did not get to hear what the veterans had to say. The second event was that a girl from Utah who had been on the TV show Survivor came to the school to do, I don't even remember what actually. But the whole school day got reorganized so that there could be an assembly in her honor.

Now don't get me wrong, it's cool that this girl got to be on Survivor and I suppose in some people's minds it's cool that Jessica Simpson got to be at Weber High for all of 25 minutes. But what I think is absolutely mind boggling is the emphasis the student body and especially the administration and staff put on the pop culture events, and how little attention is given to say the WWII veterans that came to speak when I was in high school. I think it was Chelsi, way back then, who said There will be a point in history when there are no WWII veterans left alive to come and speak, but there will always be pop stars out there. So I guess the point I'm trying to make isn't that I don't think fun things should happen in high school, but I do think that a lot of the time too big of a deal is made out of something that really has little or no value, and those things are often times put in place of the things that really do matter or could really make a difference.

*I was going to post a picture of Jessica, but I can't even find one in which she is wearing a decent amount of clothing.