While we’re busy here at the Big White getting ready for our big State Dinner (putting up the electric fences and the yard tents, taking about 1 trillion calories out of Chef Bayless’ authentic Mexican cuisine and making sure that our guest list doesn’t include Desi) just a quick reflection on last weekend’s commencement address at George Washington University:
“You guys, you should be so proud of yourselves and your incredible accomplishments…”
Actually, most of them haven’t really accomplished much yet, other than graduating from college. Which isn’t as hard as it used to be, it just costs more.
"You have fully joined a generation of activists and doers. And when you think about how your generation has come of age, that's pretty astounding. I mean, you all have seen so much. Just since you were in middle school, you've witnessed terrorism touch our soil, you've seen the cost of war reach into our communities. You've watched unimaginable devastation and suffering in the aftermath of a tsunami; a hurricane; an earthquake. You've felt the wrath of a recession that's changed your towns and even your families."
“Now, that's a whole lot to bear for any generation. So, no one would have blamed you had you chosen to hunker down and turn inward; if you had simply focused on making sure that your own lives were secure.”
War, hurricanes, earthquakes, recession. Yeah, no one’s ever had to live through any of that before. You’re really special!
See, we live in a culture, after all, that tells us that our lives should be easy; that we can have everything we want without a whole lot of effort.
At least that’s how it worked out for Barack and me.
And blah, blah, blah. If you’ve heard one commencement address by the first couple, you’ve pretty much heard them all.
In other morning news, everyone’s speculating on who Lady M will wear tonight for the State Dinner honoring Mexico’s president and first lady. The smart money seems to be on Mexican-American designer Louis Verdad, born in Chicago. This is based on the fact that MO chose Indian-American born designer Naeem Khan for the first state dinner in honor of the Indian Prime Minister.
It figures doesn’t it? A woman who can’t figure out how to match her shoes with her outfits, finds a way to match her clothes to her cuisine. *sigh* It’s going to be a long day.
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