Tuesday's Morning News

"E-mail is, like, so yesterday."

Booting up the computer and checking one's e-mail isn't second nature for most teens these days, reports the San Jose Mercury News. And Instant Messaging, another supposed essential, has lost 8% of teen users, according to a comScore survey. It would seem that MySpace and its ilk have done it again, as the "instant social scene" generators allow users to send comments and messages back and forth while browsing photos or updating blogs. But e-mail and other traditional forms of communication aren't dead in the water just yet: they now appear to be reserved for dealing with adults. "It's just too weird to communicate with your parents on MySpace," a 12-year-old told the Mercury News

Google gotcha!

Your resume may be picture perfect, but if your online persona stinks, it could cost you a job. The New York Times reports that companies are likely to Google possible hires, and look them up on Facebook or MySpace. And the background check isn't limited to students. "Wonder what that teaching aide or prospective 3rd grade teacher is really like?" asks This Week in Education. "Check out their MySpace and Facebook profile. Lots of folks are doing it."

Free Diapers? We're there!

A week's supply of free diapers appears to be an effective incentive for people to attend free parenting classes at Brownson House, a Catholic Charities community center in East Los Angeles. Staffer Hemmy So reports that the arrangement sprang from a partnership between the center and the nonprofit Los Angeles Diaper Drive:

"We didn't want to just give them a freebie, 'Here's a packet of diapers,' " said Melissa Ratcliff, a Los Angeles Diaper Drive co-founder. "Giving them something concrete they can use was important to us."

'King Dork' is so punk rock

New author and punk rocker Frank Portman's 'King Dork' has "created more of a sensation this year than any other in the (young adult) genre, with rapturous reviews to burn," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The book chronicles the days of Tom Henderson, a "precocious but alienated high schooler," who takes on the King Dork Nickname:

"I don't command a nerd army, or preside over a realm of the socially ill-equipped. I'm small for my age, young for my grade, uncomfortable in most situations, nearsighted, skinny, awkward, and nervous. And no good at sports. So Dork is accurate. The King part is pure sarcasm, though: there's nothing special or ultimate about me. I'm generic,'' Henderson ruminates in Portman's tale.

The book has been deemed "brainy, multilayered, outrageous, and compassionate" by Entertainment Weekly, and "a great punk-rock coming-of-age novel" by the Village Voice. The Chronicle notes that filmmakers have already begun to circle Portman like hawks.

Westminister supe resigns

We at School Me have been keeping our eyes on the trouble brewing in the Westminister School District over the past few weeks, sparked by the decision of several trustees to rescind the appointment of KimOanh Nguyen-Lam as the new superintendent. Nguyen-Lam was to be the first Vietnamese American supe in history, and critics called the move racist. Now, Times staffer Seema Mehta reports that amidst the controversy, the district's active supe, Mel Lopez, has resigned from his post.