What cities are the best for book lovers? Apparently Pensacola is one of them.

When you think of Pensacola, FL, you don't usually think of a hotbed of literary action. Let's assume they just have supper clubs run by people named Louanne and Karen where they comb the latest Jodi Picoult book.

According to ApartmentGuide.com, Pensacola lands at #3 on their top ten list for best cities for book lovers.

The website's criteria was fairly straightforward. They looked at 14,000 cities that had at least one bookstore or library of any sort. Then, they eliminated any city that didn't have at least 50,000 people. That left the site with 764 cities. They then calculated the ratio per 100,000 citizens to figure out the most book-saturated cities.

The Top Ten:

1.)  Cambridge, MA

2.)  Berkeley, CA

3.)  Pensacola, FL

4.)  Ann Arbor, MI

5.)  Chapel Hill, NC

6.)  Santa Fe, NM

7.)  Marietta, GA

8.)  Saint Louis, MO

9.)  Cincinnati, OH

10.)  Birmingham, AL

Some of these cities are understandable as towns with a massive university as its backbone (Chapel Hill, Ann Arbor). While Berkeley is a mix of a college enclave and former hippie extension of San Francisco.

And ApartmentGuide.com says about Cambridge:

"Make no mistake, in the end, Cambridge is the ultimate high-end university town. Smart people matriculate here and smart people live here. And as the best city in America for booklovers, that shouldn't change any time soon."

You probably envision walking the streets of Cambridge and seeing small and cozy mom and pop bookstores holding casual readings with new authors--some tea and cookies in the corner, while a cat yawns from a nap in a window. Later, you might dream of passing austere universities like Harvard and MIT, laced in ivy and dappled in sunlight, like a Renoir painting come to life.

As someone who was born in Cambridge (and raised in the adjacent city), all I can say is...yeah--no. Smart people don't matriculate in Cambridge. Well-connected and well-to-do people do. Not smart people.

There's a difference.

As for Pensacola, don't underestimate the power of Louanne's homemade green bean casserole and a good book.



Sure, this sort of list doesn't include book clubs or writing circles, but have you ever been to a book club or writing circle? At least 75% of those people potentially have a restraining order against them.

The newest Ernest Hemingway look-a-like has been crowned.

Ernest Hemingway or Santa Claus--you decide.

If you have a thing for pleasantly plump senior citizen men with a striking resemblance to Santa Claus, but men who instead have an unwavering dedication to wearing varying shades of beige, I have good news. The annual Ernest Hemingway look-a-like contest occurred recently.

The overload of everything Ernest was held to coincide with what would have been the Nobel prize winning author's 118th birthday. The festivities were at Sloppy Joe's Bar in Key West, FL (a hangout Hemingway used to visit when he lived there), and the event attracted 153 entrants, including Paula Deen's husband.

No, seriously. Paula Deen's husband, Michael Groover, entered, and he actually came in 5th place. What a time to be alive.





The winner was 71-year old Richard Filip, who had entered the contest the previous six years. According to South Florida Reporter, Filip says he shares a lot in common with Hemingway beyond just the pretty face. "With Ernest Hemingway, I feel like he’s my brother from another mother," he said. "I fish a lot, I hunt a lot … I drink a lot, then I drink a little more, and then I drink a little more!"

In other breaking news, the phrase "brother from another mother" died today after a long battle with lameness. It was 87-years old.

Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here: Key West, Florida

Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here is where we check out cities or towns that--you guessed it--a famous writer once lived. Picture the illegitimate lovechild between the US Census report and a tourist pamphlet from a local chamber of commerce. What's it like there today? Here's where we find out.


Today:  Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and others once lived in Key West, Florida:

The Florida Keys are like a Diet Hawaii with half the travel time to get there in you live in the 48 contiguous states. You won't get leis, volcanoes, and the smooth, smooth rhythm of Don Ho's music to spice up your day like you would in Hawaii, but the Keys offer retirees in abundance, narrow roads, and the dulcet tones and bum lifestyle of Jimmy Buffet.

Diet Hawaiian waves as well.

While there are 1700 islands in the archipelago that makes up the Keys, most islands are ignored like a red-headed stepchild. Celebrities and tourists flock to Key West mostly, including Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. You know how you were forced to read To Have and Have Not in high school by your English teacher? You can blame Key West for stirring Hemingway's creative juices, as he wrote the book there.


The basics of Key West, Florida:

Location:
Nearly 160 miles from Miami via car, Key West is only 94 miles from the Cuban coastline. Whichever direction you choose to go, you'll end up at a nightclub swiveling your hips, which is probably a sight no one wants to see.

2010 Census:
Population: 24,649, down 3.3% from the 2000 Census. Florida is God's waiting room after all, so it looks like God's been busy.

Racial Makeup: 83.8% white, 9.7% African American, 2.1% two or more races, 1.6% Asian, and 0.4% Native American. No word on how many identify as Jimmy Buffet Parrotheads.

Great news for single women, as 55.4% of the population is made up of men. As long as you don't mind the smell of cheap beer, suntan lotion, and illicit Cuban cigars, you've got it made.

12.9% of locals live below the poverty line. Apparently poverty wasn't interesting enough for Hemingway to write about, though.


What to see, what to do in Key West:

Do you live in the middle of the desert and have never been to an aquarium before? The MOTE Marine Laboratory & Aquarium is there to fill the void in your life. On their website, they say, "The answers are in the ocean." I don't know what that actually means, but I hope it's the answer to what the Powerball numbers are for tonight's drawing.

Where were the answers in the ocean that night, MOTE?? Hmm?

If you're jonesing for a fix of Hemingway, don't worry. Key West is practically a shrine to the man, with a Hemingway Days festival held every July. The highlight is the Hemingway look-a-like contest, where mildly overweight 60-ish year old men with white hair and beards dress up like they're on safari. It's kind of like when your crazy uncle Frank forgets to take his meds and drinks too much at Thanksgiving.

Hemingway dress-up not enough for you? You can tour the house he lived in for nearly a decade, now a museum, and come across 50+ felines. Hemingway loved cats back in the day, and was once given a polydactyl (six-toed) cat called Snow White by a passing boat captain. Snow White was seemingly the amorous sort, as today there is an untold number of cats in Key West--including the 50+ at Hemingway's house--that are polydactyl.

One of Hemingway's cat's descendants with a mitt large enough to play baseball.

If you really need a break from Hemingway, there's always the Tennessee Williams Key West Exhibit. The exhibit is in a separate building and is not the house Williams owned and lived in from 1949 until his death in 1983. That house is privately owned today, and apparently the owners aren't interested in inviting hundreds of tourists into their living room every afternoon. So much for HGTV-style "entertaining."

The Chamber of Commerce has a section on their website about "Places to Propose" if you want to get married. The website page proceeds to simply tell you how much the license fee is ($93.50!),  some basic rules, and that you can get married in the Clerk of Courts office. After all, nothing says romance like the Clerk of Courts office. But let it be known that at no point on the "Places to Propose" page does the Chamber of Commerce actually tell you where to propose. Small missed detail.


Where to eat in Key West:

Looking for that restaurant that hitches its wagon to famous writers some way or another? There's the Hot Tin Roof restaurant. Sure, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof deals with alcoholism, but why focus on the negative? The restaurant is upscale, and charges $22 for a basic cheeseburger, showing that alcohol might even affect menu pricing decisions, too. That's called synergy, folks!

Time to get boozin'.

Two Friends Patio Restaurant claims its history goes back to 1886, where it opened as a saloon. They say the restaurant's name came sometime after World War One, but don't explain how. Personally, I always enjoy vague allusions in my history lessons. Keeps me guessing.

If you REALLY want to see that Ernest Hemingway look-a-like contest mentioned earlier, swing over to Sloppy Joe's Cafe, where it's held annually. Get your fix of impersonators and cheap American beer all in one.

So...much...Ernest.

To cap off the night, there's Better Than Sex, which is an intimate dessert-only restaurant. Their drinks go by the names "The Klimax," "Shelby's Shocker," and "The 'Money' Shot," while their desserts are named the likes of "Cookie Nookie Pie," "Tongue Bath Truffle," "The Missionary Crisp," and "Fork You Fondue." I don't know if any of this is better than sex, but my curiosity is piqued.



Isn't Judy Blume occasionally a resident of Key West, too?

She is, but no word if she has a polydactyl cat.


Tennessee Williams' thoughts on Key West:

"There are punks here. That’s because a couple of gay magazines publicized this place as if it were the Fire Island of Florida. It isn’t. One Fire Island is quite enough. But it attracted the wrong sort of people here: the predators who are looking for homosexuals. I think the violence will be gone by next year."

Followed up with: "I’ve been here longer than (the predators of Key West) have, and I’m not leaving."

Public university president? No worries if you're in Texas.

Good news if you're the president of a public college or university and find that a salary under a million dollars, bonuses, and special accommodations aren't enough for your struggling lifestyle of driving only a Maserati. According to Forbes, things are looking up, especially if you're in Texas.

The Chronicle of Higher Education released their latest report on the highest paid public school presidents and chancellors, and two of the top three--and three of the top ten--come from the Texas system, all of whom made over seven figure salaries.

News gets even better for the poor schlub presidents scraping by on $800,000 a year: Salaries rose by 5%, on average, for public school administrators. This is compared to the usual 2-3% annual raise typically seen.

So who are the top ten paid public university presidents and chancellors?

1. Michael Crow, President, Arizona State University $1,554,058

2. William McRaven, Chancellor, University of Texas system $1,500,000

3. John Sharp, Chancellor, Texas A&M University system office, $1,280,438

4. W. Kent Fuchs, President, University of Florida, $1,102,862

5. Michael A. McRobbie, President Indiana University system $1,067,074

6. Eric J. Barron, President, Pennsylvania State University at University Park, $1,039,717

7. Michael V. Drake, President, Ohio State University, $1,034,574

8. Michael K. Young, President, Texas A&M at College Station, $1,000,000

9. Jean E. Robillard, Interim President, University of Iowa, $929,045

10. Raymond Watts, President, University of Alabama at Birmingham, $890,000

Let's not forget that both Texas A&M and the University of Texas' head football coaches made roughly $5 million EACH last year. The basketball coaches? Potentially around $3 million.

I already knew the stereotype that everything was bigger in Texas. I just never knew that meant public higher education salaries as well.



Let's not kid ourselves, though. Tenured faculty is always told there is no room in the budget for salary increases. Likewise, colleges and universities--public and private--are relying more and more on assistant professors that can be paid on the cheap with little to no benefits offered.

But at least the administrators found money in the budget for themselves. Phew--I was worried there for a moment.

The city of Orlando is looking to hire a poet laureate.

Admittedly, you'll be going up against Donald Duck and Shamu for the job, but interested applicants can apply here.

...and Louisiana definitely can't spell "definitely."

It was the week of the National Spelling Bee, when every awkward 6-to-14 year old who will be your future boss got on stage and impressed everyone with knowledge of obscure Latin-by-way-of-Middle-French words. This led everyone to question their own personal spelling abilities--and that's where Google came in.

The Great Google Machine dove into its search trends and found the most misspelled word by each state. They used search queries that started with "how to spell" followed by the word troubling people. The results turned out to be a snapshot of each state's psyche.

New Hampshire can't spell "diarrhea," nor can Arizona.

Florida struggles with "tomorrow," potentially because half of its residents might die before then.

South Dakota trips up on "gray," as the cold, desolate misery of living there infects their spelling. Michigan has "gray" concerns as well. But, you know. Michigan.

Minnesota wonders how to spell "broccoli," a mythical vegetable believed by locals to exist in faraway warmer climates.

Texas can't spell "niece," nor Nevada "cousin." Two words tripping up thousands of married couples in each state since the 1850s.

And then there's Massachusetts...which can't spell itself. That's right. The state with the most letters in its name, haphazardly thrown together as if blended in a Cuisinart, is troubling its own citizens to such a degree that people turn to Google for help.

Ohio doesn't have such problems since saying the state's name out loud practically spells itself. But Ohio can't spell "banana," so what do they know?

Florida governor suggests Yale University should leave Connecticut for--yes--Florida.

Gov. Scott just daydreamed of Yale.

First:  It's Florida.

Second:  It's a politician.

Third:  It's Yale, so we shouldn't really care.

Florida governor--and all around good time to have a laugh at--Rick Scott decided to offer a press release in the wake of news that the state of Connecticut is debating whether to tax the profits on Yale's $26 billion endowment, which gained a $2.6 billion return last year.

Obviously, a 315-year old university long established in one spot in this country might pick up and move on a whim--so you have to strike while there's momentum, Rick Scott!

"With news that the Connecticut Legislature wants to unfairly tax one of the nation’s most renowned universities to deal with the state’s budget shortfall, it is clear that all businesses in Connecticut, including Yale, should look to move to Florida," said a press release from Scott's office.

Exactly. I mean, what's holding Oxford back while we're at it? England? Time to pick up and head to Florida, too. But as long as it's ALL Connecticut businesses the governor wants, so ESPN can lead the caravan out of Bristol and pick up Yale on the way down.

What else, Governor?

"We would welcome a world-renowned university like Yale to our state and I can commit that we will not raise taxes on their endowment. This would add yet another great university to our state," he continued.

Oh, you could nearly squeeze his cheeks, he's so adorable with his innocence! There's really only one university worth noting in Florida, that being the University of Miami, which is what Scott must be referencing. After that you're playing with alchemy if you venture to Florida State or the University of Florida, as there's more silver than gold there.

Case in point, as the New York Post notes, Florida State ranked number three on Playboy's best party schools.

It's exactly like Yale if Yale forgot the whole 'education' angle.

A fire-breather, standing on an inflated bouncy house ramp, accidentally injures twenty people at high school pep rally.

Even Smokey doesn't know what to say.

Officials at a south Florida high school claim that--

Never mind. Florida. That's all you really need to know.

The only real development here is you expect this sort of behavior from panhandle citizens, not south Florida folk.

Some Congress members don't want to name a post office after Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou--poet, activist, Medal of Freedom winner, Oprah enthusiast, and notorious slow talker--has touched the third rail of politics from beyond the grave.

How?

Some members of Congress voted against naming a Winston-Salem, NC, post office after her.

Yes, those largely derelict buildings with squat, blue boxes out front that you rarely walk into still exist, and occasionally they're formally named after someone or something. Case in point, a post office in California was recently named "Medal of Honor," and Congress voted 381-0 in favor of such a resolution.

But Angelou? Nine congressional members, all Republican, from states as varied as Wisconsin and Alabama, voted against the naming measure for her, largely with the same excuse: She once said nice things about Fidel Castro.

Lauren Vandiver, a spokesperson for Rep. Mo Brooks (AL), told NBC News in a statement:


"While Maya Angelou did many good things in her life, Congressman Mo Brooks did not believe it appropriate to name an American Post Office after a communist sympathizer and thereby honor a person who openly opposed America's interest by supporting Fidel Castro and his regime of civil rights suppression, torture and murder of freedom-loving Cubans."


We all know that when we think of the great triumvirate of communists, it's Lenin, Stalin, and Maya Angelou.

It's notable that no Floridian congressional member voted against Angelou--and they arguably have the most to answer to Cuban-Americans--and no congressional member from Angelou's state, North Carolina, dissented either.

Communist sympathizers, clearly, all of them.

Now you, too, can sleep like a villain in a sci-fi movie.

The average college student doesn't sleep nearly enough, as reports show the studying masses rest to a tune of 6-to-6.9 hours a night, which single-handedly explains the magical allure of Monster energy drinks. Remember, just because it looks and tastes like antifreeze doesn't mean it's a bottle of Prestone.

The school you attend also likely plays a factor into your sleep cycles. Take the University of Miami. According to the website Niche, The U ranks amongst the nation's highest for attractive male students, female students, and party culture. That's subtly saying that no one has been asleep for more than 15 minutes at the University of Miami since 1980.

Miami's club culture, beaches, and penchant for rock-hard abs and honey-kissed skin means The U's student body is dragging, which explains how $9,000 sleep pods now exist on its campus. Do they look like something from a bad 1960's Japanese sci-fi movie? Why, yes! Yes they do:

Claustrophobia included at no extra charge.

A New York company called MetroNaps developed the pods, which wrap the user behind a visor and treats them to an aural experience of ambient noise for 20 minutes, allowing one to fall into a brief nap before cajoling them awake through subtle noises. Subtle noises like the club beats thumping from down the street, I assume.

The University of Miami has placed the pods--along with a massage chair, too, for pod-phobic people apparently--on campus for students to use free of charge. Nightmares not included.




Photo: MetroNaps

Where Dead Writers Reside, Part Seven: Seamus Heaney, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Zora Neale Hurston, William Shakespeare

It's October, and that requires obligatory Halloween-inspired posts. And nothing is more obligatorily macabre than looking at the tombstones of those who have died.

Every year we do this. Now through Halloween we'll occasionally post collections of tombstones to see where famous writers are hanging out today.

Today:  Seamus Heaney, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Zora Neale Hurston, William Shakespeare


Seamus Heaney:

You know that kid in class that always won everything? You knew they were smart and talented, but, damnit, you just wished you could come out on top once?

That kid was Seamus Heaney. From winning scholarships to attend high school, to winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995--to seemingly every possible award granted in poetry--Heaney always won eventually. The only thing he ever really lost? His life.

In 2013, Heaney fell coming out of a Dublin restaurant. He went to a private hospital to have a procedure done the following morning (nothing specific was ever detailed), but died before he ever made the operating table. Irish food has killed lesser men.

According to Heaney's son, the 74-year old poet texted his wife minutes before he died. Ever the literary type, Heaney texted in Latin (you mean you don't text in Latin?) to his wife "noli timere"--or, for us living in the 21st century, "do not be afraid."

I'm afraid someone else is going to win a poetry award from this point onward though.

Tombstone Notes:
Originally Heaney was buried with just a wooden cross over his plot, but he eventually received a tombstone months later. The epitaph says, "Walk on air against your better judgment," proving that even Nobel laureates can end on a low note.


Nathaniel Hawthorne:

New England writers from the 1800s always seemed to stay in New England. They might hopscotch around, visit Europe, but they all seemed to die somewhere back in those six little states.

Hawthorne was born in Salem, MA, then moved to Maine with his family, attended college in the same state, bouncing around all of Massachusetts working various jobs (like being the official surveyor of the towns of Salem and Beverly, or the official weigher and gauger at Boston's Custom House), all the while writing.

Somehow, in all his travels, he befriended a slew of other famous people. He met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in college, became close to future president Franklin Pierce after randomly meeting him at a stage stop in Maine, and once went to a picnic where he met Herman Melville before Moby Dick was ever written.

He also befriended death on one of his travels. While not feeling well in 1864 (so much so that his neighbor, Amos Bronson Alcott [yes, Louisa May's dad], suggested he stay home and rest), Hawthorne decided to visit New Hampshire's White Mountains with (now former president) Pierce. He went to bed one night and never woke up.

Alcott never opened a psychic business, but he should have.

Tombstone Notes:
Buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, MA, on Author's Ridge, nearby Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and anyone else who felt like going by three names--Hawthorne bucks the trend. And only his last name appears on the grave marker in an understated manner you'd expect from a pauper.


Zora Neale Hurston

When you think about small town living, you think about the sort of town Zora Neale Hurston was born in. Odds are if you know of Notasulga, Alabama, it's because you live there. The town has an estimated population in 2014 of 868 people. That's down from 965 in 2010. No one is sticking around, and neither did Hurston.

Hurston's life was like the worst adaptation of Cinderella possible, with no happy ending. Her family moved to Florida when she was three, and a decade later her mom died. Hurston's father quickly remarried. The new stepmom and Hurston's dad shipped young Zora off to boarding school--but then eventually stopped paying her tuition. Hurston ended up expelled from the school and on her own as a 15-year old. But Hurston worked odd jobs for years to survive, and was determined to finish high school. She did, graduating at the age of 26.

Hurston attended Barnard College at Columbia University, graduating with her B.A. in anthropology at the age of 37. She worked various positions before publishing her seminal work Their Eyes Were Watching God. But widespread fame eluded her. For every Hawthorne who had it easy, there's a Hurston who had it hard.

By the time old age rolled around, Hurston was poverty stricken, to the degree she was forced to live at the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. There she suffered a stroke--and later died of heart disease by 1960.

Tombstone Note:
Hurston was buried in an unmarked grave. By 1973, novelist Alice Walker and others searched for Hurston's plot and, based on a best guess where Hurston was buried, placed a burial marker. No one is certain Hurston actually exists under the tombstone. Nonetheless, an educational placard is placed beside the tombstone, so by Florida standards it's official.


William Shakespeare

Do you really need a short biography of him?

No. No you do not.

Tombstone Notes:
Shakespeare died suddenly at 52-years of age for reasons unknown. He was buried at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, underneath a stone slab with an epitaph that swears a curse on anyone who moves his bones. The threat (in modern spelling):

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

Two snaps and a twist! Isn't he gettin' sassy?!

And guess what? The threat worked. When the church was undergoing restoration in 2008, the Bard's grave remained untouched.

$1.2 million house for sale for the cost of a 300 word essay and $285 entrance fee.

Do you love Mickey Mouse enough that you want him to be your neighbor? Do you feel like you need more Donald Duck in your life? Good news then! Dreams really can come true! Mickey hasn't been lying to us all these years!

Celebration, Florida, is a planned community that originally was the lovechild idea of the Walt Disney Corporation in the 1990s. Most of the town straddles Interstate 4, connected directly to Disney World via a street called World Drive, and tries to be an idealized version of what an American neighborhood should look like. Some have described it as a wannabe Utopia or Xanadu. Some have described is as straight out of The Stepford Wives.

Now, a $1.2 million home located in Celebration can be yours for a crafty essay under 300 words and a $285 entrance fee.

Says Mark Rutecki, the administrator of the sale:

"How often do you get a chance to buy a beautiful Celebration Florida home for only $285 and a few well-chosen words? This is one of those opportunities that rarely knocks, so fire up your imagination."

Well, Mark, I imagine there's a comma between Celebration and Florida (c'mon, man), but I digress. This opportunity actually does knock occasionally, more than Mark might admit. Just recently, a bed and breakfast in Maine was sold using the same method, albeit for a cheaper entrance fee of $125 and the burden of knowing you'd have to live in Maine.

The Celebration home has five bedrooms, five full bathrooms and two half bathrooms (so you're never more than 10ft away from relief!) spread out over 6,700sq. ft.

Celebration no longer has any official relationship with the Walt Disney Corporation, as Mickey and friends divested nearly all their controlling interest in the planned community.

But that doesn't mean you can't be BFFs with Mickey. He's just down the road after all.

Ernest Hemingway still has a lot of six-toed cats on his Key West property.

Six-toed cats were considered good luck amongst fishermen at the turn of the last century, and those littlle felines became all the rage in port towns.

As Yahoo reports, by the time Ernest Hemingway moved to Key West, FL, in 1928, its own port town was overrun by a slew of six-toed cats--and Hemingway, never one to avoid jumping on a bandwagon, wanted his own six-toed cat. 

The cat did come, from the brood of a sea captain named Stanley Dexter whose feline, Snow White, had a litter of kittens. That litter offered Hemingway his first six-toed cat, Snowball. Within years, Snow White and her progeny left 50 different six-toed cats on the Hemingway property.

Today, the extra-digit cats still exist at Hemingway's former estate, roaming inside and out, and generally avoiding the rules. As this one photo from the Hemingway House Shows:

Photos: Hemingway House, Jo Piazza, via Yahoo

Florida state rep doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news, but the Common Core Standards will turn your kids gay.

It's a plot by government officials, says State Representative Charles Van Sant, "to attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can."

Van Sant told the Operation Education Conference in Orlando, FL, that he "hates to bring you that news" about the budding gay army of grade school students, "but you need to know."

And to think some thought the Common Core just limited access to a variety of great literature. Now it has to power to change sexuality!

Here's Van Sant speaking at the conference:

Florida teenager graduates from college, then graduates from high school.

For most students, that sounds backwards. For Grace Bush, it's normal.

Did I mention she's only 16-years old, too?

Bush, a Miami, Florida, native, graduated from Florida Atlantic University recently, earning a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. She earned her degree while participating in FAU's dual enrollment program which allows intelligent high school students to register and obtain credit for similar courses.

Home-schooled by her mother, Bush started college when she was 13-years old, working year-round without a break in order to attain her bachelor's as quickly as possible.

In case you didn't feel humbled enough by your own fairly benign academic standards, Bush also plays the flute in two orchestras.

Her next goal, as she tells CBS Miami, is to get a full scholarship to a good law school. But why stop there?

"I would eventually like to become chief justice of the United States," Bush tells the television station.

The current chief justice, John Roberts, better watch his back.




photo: cbsnews.com

UPS delivers a government drone to college student by mistake.

A college student who ordered a workout bench was delivered just that from UPS. In the process, UPS also delivered a $350,000 United States government drone as well.

In a surprise to no one, the student didn't order said drone from Amazon.

The student, who refuses to be identified, posted his delivery to the website Reddit, displaying photos of what appears to be a drone for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which uses them to monitor wildlife and the environment. NOAA had sent eight boxes containing all the parts of a drone from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL, to a facility in Massachusetts, but only seven arrived.

According to the website Vice.com, the student wrote that he called UPS to let them know of the gaffe, but Big Brown said they didn't know what they could do for him.

“Just called UPS," the student wrote. "They told me that it was one of the undelivered packages in their office, and asked if I’ve ever had an undelivered package. I said no, but he insisted that it was mine, and said that it was up to me if I want to keep it or not."

Not the type to monitor wildlife via drones, the student contacted NOAA on his own. The agency, through the anonymous student's help, is currently in the process of getting their drone back.



photo: via Reddit

How many public schools teach creationism in America?

It's a question Slate decided to document via a map.

Whether it's a public school, or just a tax-funded charter institution, schools in Texas, Utah, Florida, Oklahoma, Georgia, Indiana and countless others receive some sort of taxpayer money, yet also are allowed to blur the line between church and state.

All public schools in Louisiana and Tennessee--those great bedrocks of forward scientific thought--are allowed to teach creationism (whether or not they choose to do so is unknown), whereas the state's largest charter program in Texas, Responsive Ed, takes it a step further. As Slate describes:

The state’s largest charter program, Responsive Ed, receives $82 million in taxpayer money each year, but that hasn’t stopped its schools from adopting a creationist curriculum that seriously misrepresents the science of evolution. These materials wrongly portray the fossil record and the age of Earth as scientifically controversial, assert that there is a lack of “transitional fossils,” and claim evolution is untestable.

Damn right! Earth might be 4.540 billion years old, it might be 4.54001 billion years old--we can't handle this kind of controversy!




Map: Portion of Slate map, found here.

Jacksonville high school named after KKK grand wizard to be rebranded something less racist.

Voting unanimously, the Duval County (FL) School Board decided to rename the Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. The school was originally named after Forrest, a former Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, back in 1959 during the height of the civil rights era.

While Forrest renounced his affiliations with the KKK late in life, his connection to the hate group's early years sparked outrage among modern Jacksonville citizens.

New potential school names include Westside High and Firestone High.

Florida student receives a C and D on his report card, is placed on honor roll. Mom is not pleased.

It's smooth sailing at the Pasco Middle School in Dade City, FL, where everyone's a winner!

Douglas Tillack, a student at Pasco, received a large number of As, but also a C and D on his latest report card. Those last two grades might cause a moderate rebuke from the school, but his report card said "good job" with a smiley face.

Because everyone wins!

This wasn't enough to please his mother, Beth Tillack, who didn't take kindly to her son being praised for such varied grading. In Beth Tillack's world, a C and D don't cut it for the honor roll. Mom wanted some educational frontier justice for little Dougie, so she complained to the principal at Pasco.

But everyone wins!

Kim Anderson, the principal at Pasco, tells ABC News that, technically, a student can receive an F in a class and still make the honor roll, because a student only need a cumulative GPA of 3.15. A boat load of As and one F equals a 3.15. Moreover, according to Anderson, 45-to-50 percent of all students make the honor roll at the school.

Because everyone wins!

It's a numbers game, says the principal--teachers have no say in what constitutes an honor student. Even better, says Anderson, "I'm not sure if we'll change it, but we're looking into it."

But everyone wins!





photo: ABC Action News

Florida school board considers whether school should remain named after former KKK leader.

A proposal has been brought forth to the Duval County Public Schools (FL) board to change the name of Jacksonville's Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. The reason? Nathan Bedford Forrest--a former Confederate lieutenant general--was a member of the original Ku Klux Klan in 1866, and potentially its first Grand Wizard.

This isn't the first time the issue was brought up to the board. In 2007, a similar proposal was floated by local citizens, but was voted down 5-2 by board members, entirely on racial lines.

Now, a petition begun on Change.org by Omotayo Richmond, who has a daughter in the school system, is gaining traction. Over 160,000 people from across the country have signed Richmond's proposal voicing approval for a name change, although not everyone in Jacksonville is supportive.

"I believe it's outrageous that this could even be questioned by anybody…that anybody could even come to the defense of this man," Richmond told ABC News. The high school in question was named after Forrest in 1959 when the Daughters of the Confederacy--angered over 1954's Brown v. The Board of Education Supreme Court ruling--urged local leaders to do so.

The defense in keeping the name isn't purely by white southerners claiming tradition, but on Forrest's merits. While a general in the Civil War, Forrest was skilled, although ruthless, often killing surrendering Union soldiers, black and white alike. Later, in the early years of its creation, Forrest became a member of the KKK--and while the historical record is murky, some reports suggest he was the first Grand Wizard.

Where do things gain traction in Forrest's defense? Years later, Forrest renounced his Ku Klux Klax affiliation, and later gave speeches in favor of racial conciliation. In 1875, in a speech to black southerners which the New York Times said was "friendly," Forrest said, "We were born on the same soil, breathe the same air, and live in the same land. Why, then, can we not live as brothers?...We may differ in color, but not in sentiment."

And so we have a quagmire. An old, formerly racist, Confederate general who was part of the KKK--but later changed his belief system--has a school named after him. Do we honor the racist? Do we honor the reformed man? Or do we not honor the man at all?

That's for the Duval County School Board to decide.