Commencement Address 2008

Students, parents, friends, and distinguished members of the class of 2008, welcome to the annual commencement column.

You live in an amazing time of fantastic discoveries and advancements. When I was in high school, the best computers had about 128 kilobytes of memory, today you can get a memory card for your digital camera or a flash drive with as much as 4 gigabytes. Just imagine how much memory your cell phones will have by the time your 20th class reunion comes around in 2028!

Why, when we in the class of 1988 were Seniors in high school, we had to satisfy ourselves with egg McMuffins because they were just beginning to introduce the breakfast burrito, no one had even dreamed that someone wound conceive of something so fantastic as a breakfast pizza. Imagine what your children will be eating on their way to school in the morning.

When high school students came home from school in the eighties, we watched a phenomenal new development called Mtv. Yes, you’re familiar with it, but what you probably didn’t know was that the M stood for music. That’s right, instead of unrealistic “reality shows” that follow the sleazy lifestyles of melodramatic adolescents with borderline personality disorders and substance abuse problems, Mtv used to show a thing called “Music Videos,” sort of like you watch on the computer on YouTube, Yahoo music and MusicJesus. Just imagine what your kids will be watching on their phones during class, instead of listening to their teachers when you’re my age!

Speaking of cell phones, I bet you wish your parents would fork out the $399 to get you your very own iphone for graduation. 5 oz, 8 hours of talk time, hold songs and pictures, and can access the internet, even watch streaming video. I know I was disappointed when my folks failed to buy me a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, it was a 13 inch brick that you could talk on for almost a half an hour before needing to recharge. And the DynaTAC was a steal at just $3,995. Just imagine, someday your kids’ principle won’t be able to confiscate their cell phones because they’ll be implanted in side of their heads.

Twenty years ago we were trying to get everyone to quit smoking because it causes cancer. Just this last month teenage girls were clamoring to get as much time in the tanning bed as they could before prom, in spite of the fact that that it causes skin cancer. We were all drinking caffeine free diet cola because pop was bad for us, you’re all lugging three or four energy drinks with twice the sugar and caffeine of regular pop in your back packs to school everyday but you still sleep through class. Just imagine what it will take to make you look good and feel normal when you’re in your 30’s or 40’s. Sheesh!

The year that most of you were born, dictator Saddam Hussein accused Emir Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah the third of stealing Iraq’s oil by drilling sideways. So he invaded Kuwait, which was the fourth richest country in the world per capita. The U.S. President, a man named George Bush thought we should go to war to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Bush had become an oil millionaire through the Zapata and Dresser Corporations in Texas in the 1950’s and 60’s. By the time you were three or four years old, the Dresser Corporation was the third largest oil-services company in the world. When you were in second grade, a man named Dick Cheney negotiated a $7 billion merger between Dresser and a company called Halliburton. You may have heard of Mr. Cheney. When George Bush went to war against Saddam Hussein in 1991, he was our Secretary of Defense.

When you were in seventh grade, George Bush’s son, also named George Bush, decided that he wanted to go to war against Iraq too. We weren’t sure why because we were already in a war in Afghanistan, trying to catch the man who planned the attack on the World Trade Center, back when you were in fifth grade. Halliburton and its subsidiaries, including KBR and Blackwater received billions of dollars in no-bid government contracts to help build military bases in Iraq. Coincidently, Dick Cheney was the second President Bush’s Vice President. Weird huh?

When I was graduating from high school, the average price for a gallon of gas was ¢96. Makes you wish you were born in another time doesn’t it?

Just imagine what the world could be like twenty years from now. Now, imagine what you think it SHOULD be like twenty years from now. Now, enjoy the ceremonies and the cake and cards and parties this weekend, then please start doing your best to make this world the way you imagine it SHOULD be.