Honor Roll Assembly Rolls Back
In previous years Mount Vernon has held its ceremony in the morning with breakfast food like muffins and doughnuts and parents were invited to join their children in the celebration of their academic achievement...However, this year was the first annual Honor Roll Pep Rally with slight changes...

MV Teacher Gets Certified
On November 4th, minutes before 9:00am, teachers all over Mount Vernon feverishly pressed the refresh button on their computers so they could find out if they would be on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. When the clock struck nine, seven lucky teachers accomplished just that...

Under King, Spirit Surges
Students at Mount Vernon love to show support for their school and it is always very evident  at pep rallies and spirit weeks, and has improved immensely over the past few years according to Ms. King and SGA sponsors Mr. Peppel and Ms. McManus...

Box Top Bonanza
In late November, the SGA started the annual box top drive for all the grade levels at MVHS.  According to SGA President, Stefanie Bannon, "We've been doing this for a couple of years now." The box tops are collected by individual students and submitted to their sub-schools.  The goal is to earn spirit points for their class...

Lady Majors Serve Up A Winning Night
The jingling of bells and echoes of jolly laughter were not the only sounds coursing through Mount Vernon's halls this past Saturday, December 13th. On the contrary, the slight noise of stirring pots, scraping pans, and rebounding basketballs reverberated from the cafeteria. The Lady Majors basketball teams were preparing for yet another round of their heavy-hitter fundraiser...

Perfume Smells Like Trouble
From the fiery fever created by Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, to the stir of outrage at J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, scores of controversial books have been yanked from the hands of curious teens and emptied from lofty school library shelves for many years...

Tier Three Threatens Mount VernonIn September, the county released three possible levels of budget cuts called tiers, all which cut different programs. Tier one has the least damaging cuts, while tier three makes the deepest cuts and eliminates the most money from the budget...

Pelkey Fundraiser
From January 26-27, any and all juniors or seniors with 15 bucks to spare are invited to an all-night fundraiser.  The activity?  Video Games.  A lot of ‘em.  That's right, from 9 am to 9 am, students will be playing video games to raise money for Child's Play, a charitable organization...

Pancakes with Santa
The whole idea of the Pancakes with Santa breakfast is to raise money for the senior trip and banquet.  However for most of the seniors,  it wasn't just about being able to get money.  They actually have fun interacting with these kids and making pancakes; and so did the parent volunteers who have helped out over the years...

SAT vs. ACT: The Decision
One of the biggest factors on whether a student in high school can advance to collegiate level schooling is the student's test scores. Whether the student takes the SAT or the ACT, these tests could ultimately be the deciding factor on where they go to college...

Saturday Night Live features "my friends," Barack Obama and John McCain.

"Oh, are we not doing the talent portion?"

If you ever see Sarah Palin ask this at a Vice Presidential debate, then you aren't really watching a Vice Presidential debate. You are probably watching the hit show, Saturday Night Live. Oh, and that isn't Sarah Palin, it is actually Tina Fey.

Saturday Night Live is well known for its political impersonations and satire. It all started off in 1975 when the actors took on the role of President Ford and now 34 seasons later, the tradition continues with presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. So far this season, they have spoofed all three presidential debates, the vice presidential debate, a public endorsement by President Bush for McCain and Palin and a rap made for Palin but sung by Amy Poehler. On November 3rd, SNL will be having a two hour, pre-election day show, and gigantic spoof bonanza called Saturday Night Live Presidential Bash 2008. The two candidates Barack Obama (Fred Armisen) and John McCain (Darrel Hammond) will be there with their running mates Joe Biden (Jason Sudeikis) and Sarah Palin (Tina Fey). Guest appearances may, and most likely will include Ralph Nader (Bill Hader), the current president of the United States, George W. Bush (Will Ferrel) and Hillary Clinton (Amy Poehler). SNL has released that during this two hour primetime event, they will be showing a collection of new and vintage political skits.

There has been some controversy over whether these spoofs are affecting the actual views on the candidates and their popularity. It has been speculated that these skits are to blame for the candidate's declining popularity in the polls entirely on the parodies and political sketches. Who is to blame them though? These sketches have moved on from national television sensations. It has escalated to a global phenomenon. This is not only a testament to the writers but to the people's craving for all things political.

When people have cravings for something, they tend to run wild until they get what they want; what they want is the November 4th election. Along the political war-path to the presidency, it is expected that jokes will be thrown around. The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, has been "tracking comic barbs from August 29 to September 30 and found that the Republicans were the punch line 568 times, compared to 87 for the Democrats." McCain can thank his "moose-hunting hockey-mom running maverick mate" for most of the laughs because she brought in 327 of the jokes.

The point "there is no such thing as bad publicity" is arguable, especially for the students at Mount Vernon. Some think that the above quote is true and some feel the opposite. The most common of all topics revolving around the publicity of candidates is Sarah Palin. Republican and Sophomore PJ Virosteck believes, "It has effected how they (the voters) view VP candidate Sarah Palin in a bad way."

Junior Marcy Hoath, an Obama girl, feels sympathy for the much poked and joked at Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. "I feel bad for her (Sarah Palin) because she has had some pretty personal attacks. If people are avid supporters of their candidates then this shouldn't affect their outlooks on the candidates. Only the uneducated voters should be affected by this." 

Junior Luke Sienkiewicz believes neither. "It hasn't affected anything in the election." When asked what party he would vote with, if he could, in the upcoming election Sienkiewicz said, "I vote for a person, not a party." He declined to specify after that.

Taylor Robinson, a junior and upstanding McCain supporter said, "They (Saturday Night Live) make Sarah Palin look really bad by using her accent to make her look dumb. They also make Barack Obama look like a good guy but he is really not. He is a bad guy. Obama has no real experience and is a socialist. McCain is the only one with real military background and has real executive experience."

While the spoofs are all in good fun, there is an effect to every cause. Whether the effects will have a positive or negative on the campaigns, only time will tell. That time is drawing closer. On November 4th, votes will speak louder than jokes.