I just stopped by Woodrow Wilson High School in Northwest, hoping to talk to kids about the breaking news that at least one of their own is suspected in connection with a mostly-suburban drug ring with “plans” to sell marijuana to high school students. After finding more than $6,000 in cash and more than three pounds of marijuana in one student’s home (which leads me to believe the “plans” had already been realized), Montgomery County police arrested two students, from Winston Churchill High School in Potomac and Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, and two adults. More arrests were promised–potentially at Wilson. Police said they were proud they caught the little buggers before they had a chance to sell any drugs. Um, right.

Anyway, I figured this news would be the talk of the town at Wilson. Even though the campus was relatively busy this afternoon, I found only one student who’d heard anything. The gossip, she said, was something about “a white, 17-year-old girl” involved with selling drugs with kids from Maryland. The rest of the students I talked to were more concerned about another police action on campus today: the closure of Fort Reno park due to high arsenic levels in the soil. According to a group of students sitting on some steps at a business across from the school, at about 1:30 p.m., the park was their favorite place to ditch class. Now where will they go???

I understand their frustration. When I was in high school, we would sneak away to a place called Hamburger Mary’s in Portland. We would order home fries, douse them with Tabasco, nurse coffees and smoke Marlboro Reds. I was really not that much of a rebel, so we only skipped during assemblies or when we’d done something to make showing up in class riskier than getting caught skipping. When Hamburger Mary’s closed, we were distraught. We tried going to the fancier brew pub down the street, but the waiters quickly caught onto our game and gave us a time limit. The next year, our school started locking the doors during assemblies. That meant we actually had to go. And they were really, really bad. Wilson students, I feel your pain.

I thought we, as a civilization, were going downhill. Smoking bans are spreading across the country. New York is outlawing trans fat. Chicago (and soon California) put the kibosh on foie gras. Apparently it’s cruel. (Too bad it’s oh so delicious.) But there is light at the end of the smokeless, healthy, svelte tunnel. Chicago has overturned its two-year-old foie gras ban. Does this mark a new bellwether? Does my future involve eating a plate of foie gras, followed by a doughnut fried in trans fat, and finished off with a cigarette over a cocktail? One can only hope.

Earlier today, Gawker reported on a mysterious Facebook feature: Go to the search engine, press the “down” key on your keyboard, and find the name of five friends. Theories abound on what those names mean: Is it simply a random sampling of your online acquaintances? The five people you search the most? The five people who search you the most? Or is it something deeper? My theory: They are the last five people you will search for before you die. (Wes Craven, are you listening?)

Curious tidbit: Out of the friends that I’ve surveyed, nearly everyone has an ex on their list. Is Facebook now explicitly encouraging us all to rebound?

The online social networking community may never know. Since Gawker posted the item, the feature’s disappeared. It seems that, in the time it takes to change your relationship status from (intact heart) to (broken heart), Facebook has eliminated the mysterious list.

Predictably, Facebook users flipped their shit when they heard about this. I know I’ve been agonizing over the significance of my own five names since the fateful Facebook sign-on when I decided to push the down arrow, roughly two hours ago. One Gawker commenter claimed to get this response from a member of the Facebook team when they asked after the feature:

This is the canned response we’ve been using:

The five friends that you see below the search box are populated based on people whom we think you’d be most interested in. Taking into account various factors, we attempt to make an educated guess as to who it is you’re looking for when you start typing a name in the search box. Please note that this information is only visible to you and will not be shared with your friends. We hope that this feature is helpful and we appreciate your feedback. Let me know if you have further questions.“

Alright, Facebook. Obviously, you appear to know me better than I know myself. But enough about me. I’d like to learn something about you for a change. Next time you decide to add another creepy feature to help me live what increasingly does not resemble a “life,” no fair snatching the feature away before I come to understand it!

Update: Gawker clues us in. The feature can still be brought up by typing a period “.” into the search box.

Update update: The feature appears to have disappeared again.

With Wemple out on vacation, the proletariat takes over his office to discuss the changes they’d make as editor. Watch out, Wemple! Heed the voice of the people!

[Elsewhere at the City Paper, anarchy abounds as Amanda Hess fills in for Wemple in an upcoming episode of Fuego/Frio. Stay tuned!]