In response to the hundreds of--O.K., O.K., one or two--questions I've received about my increasing crankiness toward Liberals, allow me to offer this anecdote.
On Saturday I attended the high school graduation of my younger daughter. There were a half dozen student speakers, all of whom were mercifully brief, and most of whom were entertaining, even. But the featured speaker, the commencement speaker if high school graduations have such, was a former teacher at the school, now pursuing a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies.
He declared, "It's almost a cliche, but each generation is supposed to leave the world better." He then paused dramatically, grinned, and remarked that his generation had failed to do this because "the wheels came off around 1980". He then almost yelled, "But you can fix this. Heck, as long as you don't take pictures of yourselves next to naked prisoners, you'll do much better."
This was a high school graduation ceremony. But apparently our Renaissance scholar found it just another opportunity to demonstrate the Liberal tendency to be smug, arrogant, and rude.
I wish the noted philosopher Eric J. Cartman had been there. He would have known what to say.
Gretchen Morgenson, a columnist for the NYT, spoke at the St. Olaf College commencement Sunday. Amazingly, she said it was the arrogance of the NYT management and editors that got the paper in so much trouble in the past year.
She said the two most arrogant people in the company, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, lost their jobs because most people at the paper hated them.
We went to two different commencements and both got the same message on arrogance: Arrogance will lead to your downfall.
Posted by: Jake | May 31, 2005 at 09:25 AM
Actually, what he would have said was:
Hippies.They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.
Posted by: Ted Craig | May 31, 2005 at 09:49 AM
And conservatives are not smug and arrogant?
Funny
Posted by: C | May 31, 2005 at 03:43 PM
Uh... I thought the generation currently graduating from high school WAS the generation taking pictures of themselves next to naked prisoners?
Posted by: Jacqueline | June 03, 2005 at 08:16 PM