Eights were wild when Fergus Falls reported birth statistics

Will Chapman Publisher

I’ve written before how I frequently find the most interesting news in a newspaper isn’t a big article but is most often a smaller item tucked away on an inside page.

Another example of that, I think, comes from under the Odds & Ends heading in this newspaper this past Monday, with an Associated Press report out of Fergus Falls, Minn.

The story told about two babies born in that area, at 8:08 a.m. on 8/8/08, and how each weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces.

One of the babies is the eighth grandchild for his mother’s family, and has a sibling with a numerically interesting birth date, 4/5/06.

That story is “ate up” with eights.

And what an extra rare coincidence it is that two children were born with all of those eights in the same circulation area of one smaller newspaper.

Wow!

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Most everyone in Louisiana took pride earlier this year in the LSU football Tigers winning the BCS Football Championship, ending the year with the No. 1 ranking.

Fast forward to this summer and poll the parents of LSU students from the Teche Area, and I’ll bet you’ll find a big number that are happy to know the school has dropped out of the Top 20 — for partying.

LSU for many years was ranked among the best partying schools in various rankings, but has slipped in recent years.

In 2000, LSU was ranked No. 1 on The Princeton Reviews Top Party Schools list, and was No. 2 in 2001. Last year LSU was 13th.

This year’s list reportedly has LSU out of the Top 20.

“Clearly, we’re gratified we’re not on the list,” said interim LSU Chancellor William Jenkins.

Clearly most parents of LSU students take at least some comfort from the lower ranking as well.

The rankings are based on surveys of students, and are not scientific, but subjective.

The University of Florida was No. 1 this year, with Ole Miss No. 2. Tulane was 15th and Loyola was 20th.

Not pleasing to this father of an LSU undergrad is the school’s ranking of eighth in the “Students Study Least” and eighth in “Class Discussions Rare.”

I’ve been in Baton Rouge plenty in recent years and am confident LSU students aren’t spending all of their free time in the library.

There are plenty of indications that the students still enjoy themselves, especially on home football game days.

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Seeing is believing, right?

Not necessarily.

It has been interesting to read how the cute little Chinese girl who was shown on TV singing “Ode to the Motherland” was actually lip-synching, as government officials decided she was cute enough to put on display, but did not sing well enough.

So the 9-year old was shown, while a 7-year-old, who was reportedly not good looking enough, did the actual singing.

“The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks ...” said one official later.

And we’ve since learned that the 29 gigantic firework footprints shown in the night sky weren’t all there, that some of those images were computer generated or were filmed previously and fed to the networks since poor visibility in the sky the night of the actual event kept the real fireworks from displaying as nicely.

Will Chapman is publisher of The Daily Iberian.