Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Sunday, May 25. 2014

Assorted graduation items

Carter:  Dear Class of 2014: Thanks for Not Disinviting Me


A commencement speaker with a difference: Robert Frost, 1956


He would get the brownshirt treatment today


Dear graduates: Don’t follow your dreams (A commencement speech for the mediocre) - The brutal truth is that most people can't pay the bills by "living their passion." So what can we do instead?


We are all mediocre, but in different ways.


Harvard joins list of schools giving its commencement speaker the “brownshirt” treatment


Admiral McRaven says - First thing to do: make your bed! Good, useful lessons from the boss of the USN Seals. "You will fail often." That is true:




Posted by The Barrister in Education, Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 12:10 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

re: Dear graduates: Don’t follow your dreams (A commencement speech for the mediocre) -

More asshattery. I'd go up on stage and kick that loser's ass back to wherever he came from if, as a parent, I heard that BS delivered to a graduating class. Of course you should follow your dreams. Follow them until you make it or until you realize you'll never play shortstop for the Dodgers, then get on with life and tell boring stories of your glory days with the Las Vegas 51s. Just don't conflate the two.

The guy found his level as a bartender/waiter after graduating with a degree in writing (wtf? a degree in writing????). So not only did he incur a ton of debt, he wasted years of productivity while doing so. he should have been a waiter from the beginning ("in the beginning, there was a waiter, and the waiter was good, and didn't need a degree from Emerson to pour coffee").

He's k00kgasming because Salon paid him for an article? ("pays me to write for a massive audience about the issues and ideas that I care about") Salon paid him, according to an online freelance source, $150 for a 750 word essay, which means he's giving away his writing because he wants to brand of himself as a "writer". He's a writer because he writes for free and blogs about millennials for free?. really?
#1 Frigate on 2014-05-25 13:51 (Reply)
Gorgeous Colorized Photos Of America From The Late 19th To Early 20th Century

http://designtaxi.com/news/365683/Gorgeous-Color-Photos-Of-America-Taken-In-The-Late-19th-To-Early-20th-Century/?t=1401041007625
#2 feeblemind on 2014-05-25 14:08 (Reply)
P. J. O'Rourke gave (or at least wrote) a great commencement speech for Rutgers. I'd stack it up against most (but not the UT commencement address - I'm still amazed that they invited a Seal to give a commencement address in Austin Texas!).

You can read it here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/18/my-commencement-speech-to-rutgers-geniuses-go-forth-and-fail.html
#3 mudbug on 2014-05-25 14:39 (Reply)
Low standards are the key to success.
#4 rhhardin (Link) on 2014-05-25 20:15 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.