Guest Editorial Contest

THE NORTHERN PLIGHT NOW BRINGS YOU, YOU!

Be a part of the 2nd or 3rd most popular NCU satire blog in North Central history! The Plight is now opening up the proverbial flood gates and letting in the equally proverbial running water as well as otters with clams that they’re busting open with rocks. Except instead of clams, they’re satire stories and instead of otters, they’re you! The rocks? Well, the rocks are something else that fits the metaphor… the internet or google or something.

Are you an aspiring writer? Do you pretend to be one at parties? Do you have a bone to pick and you know North Central would never let you publish it? A ‘yes’ to any of these questions, means the Northern Plight Guest Editorial Contest is for you! Here’s the deal:

Send us an article in the style of the Northern Plight before midnight on

Friday November 9th.

We’ll publish our picks for the 3 best stories before chapel on

Monday November 12th.

The three winners will receive a free Northern Plight T-Shirt!

Here are the rules for your articles:

1. NO NAMES OR DETAILS WHICH WOULD IDENTIFY A SPECIFIC PERSON
It’s just not cool. People deserve to be plighted, we understand this, but be creative enough to get them without indicating specifically who they are.

2. NO PERSONAL ATTACKS
Seriously, don’t be a douchebag. You know what’s appropriate and what’s not. Criticize by creating something original and clever, not raunchy or underhanded.

3. GIVE US YOUR PREFERRED PSEUDONYM
Or we’ll pick one for you. Of course, you can publish under your real name if you want … but that’s no fun.

4. KEEP IT SHORT
We wont put a cap on your article’s word count but bear in mind if your article is much over 700 words, people probably aren’t going to read all of it, and that’s a shame if you saved a real zinger for the last paragraph.

5. STAY ON TOPIC
This is more advice than anything else. Pick the one or two issues you wish to address and stick to ‘em. Putting every single little complaint you have about NCU or christian culture into an article can get confusing and will cause your words to lose poignancy.

(more rules to come probably)

In honor of the contest, we’re posting an advance Guest Editorial from Ed Rockwell. Check it out.

We’re accepting submissions now! Email: northernplight@gmail.com

2 Self-Righteous Seniors Create NCU Satire Blog

A screenshot from the stuck-up students’ website

NORTH CENTRAL UNIVERSITY, MINNEAPOLIS – For the last 4 months, 2 disillusioned North Central seniors using childish pseudonyms have been posting fake news stories on an online blog about the Bible college they attend. The Northern Plight (the name itself is a lampoon on the previous name for the school newspaper, The Northern Light) is “a satyrical news blog in the tradition of The Onion and Lark News” according to it’s creators and attempts to parody various aspects of college life using chincy humor and simplistic headlines.

Hiding behind gimmicky identities derived from Peanuts characters and veiled Watergate references, the authors have attempted to avoid taking any responsibility for the sucker punch muck raking they dish out.

“Frankly, the whole blog is just one big valiant attempt to get attention,” says co-editor Linus Woodward. “I’m hoping when it’s all done and people finally figure out who we are, I’ll get a girlfriend out of this thing.”

“Since my freshmen year I’ve had a huge chip on my shoulder,” adds Schroeder Bernstein. “This is my way of getting back at the institution I blame for all my financial and relationship problems.”

Whether or not the authors’ shallow attempts at original satire and overly preachy articles ever amount to anything useful has yet to be seen. But it appears, at least for this year, nothing will stop these misdirected almost college grads from releasing their pent up passive aggresive pet peeves into the anonymous quagmire of the internet. – WOODWARD

Interview With Obscure Bible Reference Ministries International (OBRMI)

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – When Evan Pentington from Obscure Bible Reference Ministries International contacted me seeking an interview, I was overwhelmed by our fortune. The Northern Plight had reached a point where major organizations in the realms of ministry both at home and abroad were seeking us out to get the word out on their projects. If you’re unfamiliar with Evan Pentinington and OBRMI, so was I. But I’ll let the transcript of our meeting at a local, trendy independent coffee shop introduce him to you.

Linus Woodward: Mr. Pentington thank you so much for meeting with me today. You have no idea what an honor it is for a little blog like ours to have an exclusive interview with someone in your position.

Evan Pentington: The pleasure is all mine, Leonard. I’ve enjoyed reading your Christian magazine or major online news source ever since its inception in (checking his notes) 2007.

LW: You must do these kinds of interviews often.

EP: Only because OBRMI’s message of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, shaking the nations, and being a light is so important.

LW: So why don’t you tell me a little bit about Obscure Bible Reference Ministries International. Is this an organization you founded?

EP: OBRMI started out of a vision I had for making Jesus famous in this land. We live in a hurting world, Linwood, and in the Bible Jesus tells us that if we don’t reach out to that hurting world and make it an unhurting world, than he’ll have to die on a cross. That’s the vision of OBRMI. To see every soul won for the cause of Christ.

LW: I suppose I don’t understand exactly. Is your organization primarily evangelistic in nature, or is it like a social gospel thing?

EP: I’m happy you asked, because really were both. But were also neither. Obscure Bible Reference isn’t about labels, Lionel. Some people call us Evangelistic, some call us Social goggle, some even call us the nectar of Heaven in a non-profit skin. But that’s not really what it’s about. It doesn’t really matter what people think we do with the money they donate to us, as long as somewhere, someone is being a planet shaker, doing what Jesus would do, and we have a cool logo and a website.

LW: Let’s talk about the website. I checked it out yesterday and…

EP: Did you join our email newsletter list?

LW: Yes, you sent me a prayer card, a pdf of a picture of Jesus holding a lamb that looked like you scanned it from a coloring book, and a computer virus.

EP: But we have a flash intro.

LW: Yes, that was my problem. I couldn’t really find out anything about OBRMI. It was just a flash animation on a continuous loop playing Hillsong music and a display of various startling stats from around the world zooming across the screen.

EP: I bet you never realized that 9 out of 10 of all Albanians have never heard of OBRMI.

LW: What does that name even mean? Obscure Bible Reference? And why do you have International on it? Do you even own a passport?

EP: Well, I’m glad you asked Lewis. At first, our name was Balaam’s Ass Ministries, but we got into copyright trouble with a feed company. Then it was Jaazaniah Son Of Azzur International. This name is taken from Ezekiel 11, where it says Jaazaniah was a leader among the people, which is something we thought we’d like to represent us. Eventually we just kind of threw them both together. We feel that it’s a name that really represents the 2 core values of our organization.

LW: Ambiguity and misdirection?

EP: Sounding Important and Relationships

LW: What is it that you do anyway? Why are you here in Minneapolis?

EP: It’s simple Lenny, I do the will of God. Today, God tells me to have a meeting with a concerned-looking reportery person like you, tomorrow he might tell me to set up a booth at your school, Northcenter, and ask impressionable college kids to join my ministry. You see the will of God is a lot like this plush chair. It contours to your body when you sit in it but it never stops being a chair. And that’s the key, it never stops being a chair. Remember what Moses said about the will of God? It’s not what you can do for the will of God but what the will of God can do for you.

LW: Mr. Pentington that makes absolutely no sense and I’m almost certain is heresy. Frankly, all you’ve done for the past 20 minutes is string together Christian buzzwords, praise a vague institution you claim to have founded that meets needs in the world, and call me no less than 5 first names; none of which are my own.

EP: You know you seem like an intelligent young man, Leroy. How’d you like to intern with me next summer?

LW: This interview is over.

The Post All Plight Fans Must Read

Dearest Friends,

This post concerns the future of our beloved Plight, but first, a huge thank you.

Since our switch to wordpress as a host and getting dot commed, we’ve experienced massive growth. It took 3 months to get the blogger site to 60 hits per day. Within a week of the switch, we were averaging around 160. The response is exciting, and we want to thank everyone for checking out the blog. (If you’re curious, our best days are generally on Sundays where it’s not uncommon to have well over 200 hits. It seems a lot of you are sitting in front of your computers reading the Plight when you really should be writing papers you’ve procrastinated completing over the weekend. We appreciate this, since it is normally when we should be writing papers that you’ll find Bernstein and I writing Plight articles.)

The future of the Northern Plight is a major discussion topic for the 2 of us right now. From the very beginning, we had a big vision for the blog as something that would last beyond our time at North Central and mean more then simply an entertaining venue for people to vent their opinions. The growth of the blog since September has given us new insights and ideas into just what our readers would want our site to offer.

That is where this post comes in. Some of the items we’ve discussed thus far include:

1. t-shirts and merchandise

2. a recurring guest editorial contest and/or eventually a separate section where non plight staff could post their articles

3. well maintained, positive, and appropriate forums

4. a bulletin board for various student events both in and outside of the school

5. expanding the staff to include more writers as well as web publishers, musicians, and visual artists

6. Northern Plight Tamagotchi Club

Much of this is already in the works, but we want to hear your ideas. What can we do to make The Northern Plight more useful for you? a better conversation starter? a catalyst for positive change at North Central? Right now is a critical time for the Plight. If you have an idea, a comment, a suggestion, a criticism, or a favorite color, please let us know.

Thank you.

Your Editors,
Woodward and Bernstein

A Letter From The Editors To You

Dear Truth-Seekers, Link-Followers, Curiosity-Quellers, and Debate-Starters (our readers),

Thank you so much for checking out our little plight. Your support has helped make The Northern Plight the 2nd or 3rd most popular satirical news blog with a pigeon logo in NCU history. The following statistics are real (I know sometimes it’s hard to tell with us)

- From it’s inception on July 21 to the minute I’m writing this, The Northern Plight has had 1,319 page visits from 388 Absolute Unique Visitors from 13 countries and 29 states (including Alaska but not Hawaii).

- 1/3 of our entire visits have occurred in the last 7 days and we are now averaging over 60 hits per day.

We are both shocked and a little humbled by the response we’ve seen and still don’t know exactly what to do with ourselves. Frankly, it’s amazing to imagine people other then professors are reading something we’ve written, and even sometimes having something to say about it!

We think people like what they’re seeing here, and appreciate it more then you might realize. Even if you disagree with us, it hasn’t stopped you from stopping by, and at times, telling us so.

Thanks for your patience with us as we continue to develop our writing styles and topics into something worth your attention. We believe there is potential for this silly little blog to spark something very good at North Central. We hope you’ll stick around to see it played out.

Your editors
Woodward and Bernstein