It seems that every spring university newspapers decide to eschew real news for misplaced headlines and stupid opinion pieces. Hmm, come to think of it this was business as usual at the ol' Maroon. Does anybody remember when the People Were Robbed: That Sucks and Hannah MM is a bitch headlines came out?
Seems that the good people at the Emory Wheel aren't immune to this with their latest opinion Who's that?". Some choice lines.
Graduates remember commencement as the day when their years at Emory culminated with a grand ceremony and a famous speaker. Desmond Tutu. The Dalai Lama. Mikhail Gorbachev. Tom Brokaw. Graduates' families were impressed; friends at other schools were jealous.
Yes. Over at the University of Chicago I was hopping mad when our commencement speaker wasn't as famous as Northwestern's. My e-mail was covered to the rim with jealous tirades to my friends at Oregon and Michigan. Wait a second. No it wasn't. I didn't give a rat's ass.
This year's speaker is Marian Wright Edelman, a lawyer, educator and children's advocate, famous for founding the Children's Defense Fund, of which she is the president. In 1963, she broke barriers as the first African-American woman admitted to the Mississippi state bar. The Wheel editorial board believes that she will be a riveting speaker with a plethora of unique experiences to draw on.
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter simply how interesting the speaker is. What matters the most is name recognition.
...
We're not asking for Tom Cruise or Gwen Stefani to sprinkle Hollywood glitter all over the Quad; we simply want a speaker whose name we recognize. After spending four or more years in college, we recognize the names of philanthropists, authors, politicos and other notables. So when the list of possible Commencement speakers is full of names we've never heard of, it's safe to say that our families and peers haven't heard of them either.
Sorry, Ms. Edelman. Despite the fact that you are a leading educational scholar who cares deeply about the plight of students in America, the Wheel's editorial board would rather have a name they recognize. In their defense, however, I would most definitely appreciate the musical stylings of Gwen Stefani at my commencement. I'd take time out of my busy schedule to write a biting rejoinder but, thankfully, Lewis's sister has already done that for me.
That you have never heard of her is not a reflection of Emory's poor decision making. Instead, it highlights your own sheltered existence and the sense of entitlement that emerges from such privilege ... Perhaps you should be upset with Emory. To stand on the eve of graduation after "spending four or more years in college" and to not know Edelman's work, to not have the ability to find out about her accomplishments, and/or to not possess the well-roundedness to recognize greatness, means that something has gone terribly wrong.
You would think that with the Red Sox's win in 2004 that he could rest but evidently that error will live on. In RBI Baseball. You heard me right. In RBI Baseball.
Those of you old enough to remember this game will recall that everyone was a giant round-headed Charlie Brown type character and that errors were portrayed with a crying baseball player. With that in mind watch this because it is, in a word, awesome.
For those of you who haven't experienced the crack that is Oblivion, it's featured this week as GoGamers 48 Hour Madness at $34.90. Go forth and help Picard shut the gates of Oblivion.
To the surprise of no one, I'm not going to make my original taxday estimation, but I think I'll come close. In honor of that, I bring you the Fake Handshake Countdown to Chlamydia. That is, a countdown that actually isn't a countdown. So don't expect to find a MySpace account with awful graphics, music, and something about not putting babies in corners. Instead, surf here and one day, boom, there's Chlamydia! Won't you be surprised. That is, expect the usual meaningless drivel you've always expected from this web log. To kick things off, here are a few random links.
First the Cardinals, now the Reds are added to the list of teams that need to forfeit the season because they lost to a 97 year old man.
Regarding the same article as above, I was going to have a pool here asking people to bet when and how the following players were going to get injured this year: Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Junior, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, and Nomar Garciaparra. Unfortunately, the season is only in its second week and only one of the above is still healthy and playing. Yeah, sure, Griffey only left today's game with an injured something or another but it's only a matter of time before the poor man breaks every bone in his body.
Lookie what I found in my latest box of Trader Joe's strawberries.
Now, I am not a biologist or a nutritional anthropologist or those other weird people that Alton Brown has on Good Eats but this ain't right. It looks kind of like a two-headed ogre. Or for those of you who haven't been playing nonstop Oblivion a strawberry island. Or a strawberry that's been subjected to a laser-ray of melting +100.
So what should I do with said strawberry?
Eat it.
Light it on fire with my crème brûlée torch.
Run over it many times with my car.
Leave it on my officemate's chair for him to find.
Let it form some mold, photograph it, and submit it to a modern art contest.
Vote by leaving a comment and I shall enact the winner.
Never install a SharePoint server just for grins and giggles. It will take over your entire domain and you'll get to spend 24 hours troubleshooting DNS pointers and people will be confused that they now need a username/password combo to read your stupid blog.
While I'm wearing my admin skirt (Thanks, Tobias), I'd like to announce that for some unknown reason the folks over at Echopraxia have decided against hosting their website with a real provider and instead have joined the Phooeyhoo family. I'd like to welcome them and reassure all those folks who rely on us as a webhost that we only install programs that might corrupt the entire domainspace two or three times a week (tops!).
