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May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review June 14, 2007 / 28 Sivan, 5767

Graduation day vacuity

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I think we can all agree that the most inane speeches delivered nowadays in America are delivered at college commencement ceremonies. Oh, to be sure, speeches intoned at high-level meetings of the Loyal Order of Moose, the Rotarians and the National Organization for Women, are also vacant, pompous, and often delusory.


Yet all such orations come off as Lincoln's Second Inaugural when compared to the bloviations exhaled on almost any American campus when it comes time for the students to don their mortarboards and parade past their adoring parents and snooty profs. Often the students wear funny shoes or carry things subversive and possibly risque beneath their graduation gowns.


Helium balloons are attached to their caps, and occasionally noisemakers — borne surreptitiously on their persons — make rude sounds of bodily functions. Such are the antics of graduating seniors at our great institutions of higher learning this season, and frankly I support them in their obstreperousness.


The speechifying that they have to endure is usually excruciating. A few weeks back I was forced to sit through graduation ceremonies by a member of my family who insists on the solemnity of tradition, and in his eyes graduation ceremonies are a tradition. I wish I had brought an air horn. On the first day of the ceremonies I was forced to listen to a supremely self-satisfied "electric violinist" from some rock band exhort all within earshot "to dream" and to make way for "change."


Starting with President Ronald Reagan my fellow libertarian conservatives have made enormous "change," change unforeseen by two prior generations of progressives. Apparently this is not the change that the oaf at the podium was prescribing. Precisely what he did mean by change remained vague but sounded frankly old-fashioned.


The following day I endured a popular novelist, employing the same thoughtless platitudes. In addition, he condemned war conducted by politicians. Possibly he favored military dictatorship. His was not a very precise mind. From his remarks on the Vietnam War one might conclude that it was raging in 1977, the year of his own graduation. He insisted the war's casualties were all around him.


My low opinion of commencement speeches was confirmed recently when I read a summary of them in the New York Times. Yes, of course, most of the speakers' truths were hackneyed and dubious. America was widely compared to Imperial Rome in its last days. It is a tired thought that has been reverberating through the Republic for decades. Exhortations to do good were monotonous. Gandhi, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa are frequently held up to the graduates as role models, albeit without menacing the division between church and state. Yet what struck me was how passe and anti-intellectual the speakers were.


There was the aforementioned electric violinist and the popular novelist. Both were sufficiently trite to make it into the Times's summary. Angela Davis and Gloria Steinem also made the cut. Davis, renowned for being the third women ever to appear on the FBI's Most Wanted List, was once a communist and perhaps still is. Could the faculty at Grinnell College where she spoke not also find a flat-earther to complement her antique views?


She droned on with the utmost smugness, saying things that were at once incomprehensible and clearly stupid. Quoth Comrade Davis, "For you will never discover a scarcity of facts, and these facts will be presented in such a way as to veil the ways of thinking embedded in them." It got worse, but my space is limited. Steinem complained about typing requirements imposed on her when she was a student at Smith College back in the 1400s or whenever she matriculated there.


Such requirements were not imposed on her contemporaries at all-male Harvard. Steinem is the same feminist famed such lines as "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle," and "In my own mind, I am still a fat brunette from Toledo, and I always will be."


Over the past three decades the politics of our democratic republic have changed. So far have the values of libertarian conservatives permeated the land and replaced the ideas of the welfare state and of the social engineers that we can say America's right has won the political battle.


But the old liberal left won the battle for the culture. The social and intellectual culture of the country is polluted by ideas that are antagonistic to market economics, deferred gratification, and civic responsibility — all being the values necessary for a prospering middle class.


This Kultursmog broods over commencement speeches as it broods over the campus itself. It is very old-fashioned, but I think we can all agree it is enormously amusing. An "electric violinist" sending graduates off to the adult world of a global economy — ha ha ha.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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