The Northern Star doles out grades for current events. But, unlike your least favorite professor, we reveal the explanation behind the grade we give.

Opposition Party: PASS.

For managing to break Venezuela President Hugo Chavez’s stranglehold on the National Party, the opposition party gets a passing grade.

While Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela still has a majority in the legislature, they no longer have the supermajority, which is necessary to stop Chavez from giving himself more power.

Hopefully, a more substantive presence of an opposition will undo some of the damage of Chavez’s regime, like politicizing the police and military.

Cell Phones: FAIL.

With reports that Facebook is looking to develop a phone for itself, and that the new Windows 7 phone will have Xbox Live, this whole genre of technology deserves a failing grade.

Think about everyone you know that has an iPhone or a Droid. In every social setting, they seem to have their phone out, commenting on somebody’s Facebook profile or looking at their “cool apps.”

In other words, the most important person to them is not you, but the person they’re messaging to.

But this seems ridiculous. Texting is one thing, but with these phones, it seems inevitable that people will spend more time improving their Mafia Wars ranking or getting more Xbox achievements than talking and conversing with people at social settings.

For some people, points on the go will be more important than you.

Seriously, ditch this.