Yes, the accompanying photo for our local news headlines is a snapshot of the Princeton Junction parking lot (source: nj.com).

Meanwhile, PFML kids continue to gripe about their GPAs/futures and get insecure about girlfriends’ IIP-sponsored summer flings. PJ’s announces a new partnership with the guy who brought us Princeton Sports Bar this year. And a random naked dude gets arrested for running around in the parking lot of NJ Transit’s Princeton Junction!

Okay, so you know that Triangle is right (”Nothing ever happens in Princeton/Princeton is like an old folks’ home”) when we make much ado about some kid taking off his clothes after getting high and thrill to the thought of having salad and pasta options alongside our pancakes. But small as our town is, it serves as setting for the kinds of minds that do have their names scattered throughout national and global news, whether in commentary, direct participation or surprising background inspiration.

On the domestic front, Cornel West got annoyed at both Reid and Boehner’s budget plans and complained that left, right, and Obama were all failing the poor citizens of America. In true brotha-loving fashion, he also announced an upcoming “poverty tour” to “spotlight… working people['s] humanity, their dignity and their sense of resiliency.”

Outside the U.S., Anne-Marie Slaughter went to a China conference in Singapore and published her meeting notes, listing bullet-pointed observations on how ”Chinese youth really like blogs” and “Businesspeople don’t like hearing about potential problems with Chinese growth.”

Finally, this reading of Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto reveals an unexpected Princeton connection. Breivik directly cites MOL/WWS professor Lee Silver’s book Remaking Eden as partial inspiration for his warped eugenics beliefs. Of course, the article quickly clarifies that Silver is by no means responsible for Breivik’s mass murder crimes. But just the fact of connections like these is a reminder of how far Princetonian influence spreads, for better or for worse, even from a town as quaint (read: kind-of-sort-of-boring) as ours.

Woodrow Wilson: Wearer of Fascinating Glasses

Today didn’t feel like a Monday. The line for PJ’s was out the door; people seemed happy and chipper to just be out and about in the sunshine. What’s going on?

Wait a minute! Happy Presidents Day!

Normally this would be the point in the blog post where I rant about how Princeton doesn’t give us the day off for Monday holidays. But as a college student with a three-day weekend and a grand total of eleven hours of class every week, it feels a little disingenuous for me to be complaining about, well, anything.

So instead, here’s a tribute to former Princeton and American President Woodrow Wilson, the man Nerve.com just ranked the 16th sexiest US President. (Teddy Roosevelt just beat out JFK for the number one spot. If you ask us, Taft got robbed.)

Here’s what Nerve had to say about Wilson:

Tall, fatherly and only a little bit creepy. He might be a bit too Mr. Rogers for some people, but he has some good bone structure.

And, if the above picture is any indication, a rocking pair of rimless glasses.

Should we be proud? Probably not. Are we? Yep.

In tangentially related news, applications for Woody Woo are due tomorrow at 1 p.m. Maybe someday Nerve will say that you, too, are really, really, ridiculously, sort of good looking.

(Hat tip to Daily Intel for posting the Nerve story.)

(image source: http://royalromania.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/president_woodrow_wilson_po.jpg)