MOUTH CONTROL
Another commencement speech uproar:
Curt Brown, Star Tribune
Last update: May 24, 2006 – 10:19 AM
A University of St. Thomas honors graduate who scolded his fellow seniors at Saturday's commencement ceremony for being "selfish" apologized Monday for offending people during his politically charged speech.
Ben Kessler, an academic All-America football player who plans to become a priest, chastised students for using birth control, criticized them for a recent food fight and upheld the St. Paul university's controversial policy against allowing unmarried faculty and staff members in romantic relationships to room together on school trips that involve students.
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Great. Another lecture - this time from a atudent (although note that as unctuous as the student was, he still was not as repulsive as John McCain thinks people my age are). Mr. Kessler, by the way, looks like he's had sex with half of the student body and forcibly raped the other. Maybe if he refrained from untrammeled copulation, he wouldn't have had to howl against birth control.
My test of a great graduation speech is this: well, actually, I'm not sure what it is, but here's one element that the speech definitely should not have: some reference to some recent or current event, made in isolation, without tying the comment to any theme, any larger point, or to reality, that instantly dates a substantive portion of the speech. You know, a comment that causes someone, when viewing the speech 5 years later, to say, "This person had the opportunity to speak in front of thousands of people, to deliver words whose meaning would last for eternity, and THIS is what he chose to talk about? A food fight?"
Curt Brown, Star Tribune
Last update: May 24, 2006 – 10:19 AM
A University of St. Thomas honors graduate who scolded his fellow seniors at Saturday's commencement ceremony for being "selfish" apologized Monday for offending people during his politically charged speech.
Ben Kessler, an academic All-America football player who plans to become a priest, chastised students for using birth control, criticized them for a recent food fight and upheld the St. Paul university's controversial policy against allowing unmarried faculty and staff members in romantic relationships to room together on school trips that involve students.
*********************************************************************************
Great. Another lecture - this time from a atudent (although note that as unctuous as the student was, he still was not as repulsive as John McCain thinks people my age are). Mr. Kessler, by the way, looks like he's had sex with half of the student body and forcibly raped the other. Maybe if he refrained from untrammeled copulation, he wouldn't have had to howl against birth control.
My test of a great graduation speech is this: well, actually, I'm not sure what it is, but here's one element that the speech definitely should not have: some reference to some recent or current event, made in isolation, without tying the comment to any theme, any larger point, or to reality, that instantly dates a substantive portion of the speech. You know, a comment that causes someone, when viewing the speech 5 years later, to say, "This person had the opportunity to speak in front of thousands of people, to deliver words whose meaning would last for eternity, and THIS is what he chose to talk about? A food fight?"
posted by EnterCenter at 4:54 PM
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