Subj: Speeches (Gz)
(Includes 9 jokes and articles)
Rose with Butterfly from
Sevenoaks Art 3D Animations & Grap
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Subj: Speeches (Gz) (Includes 9 jokes and articles) |
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Rose with Butterfly from Sevenoaks Art 3D Animations & Grap |
Also see JOBS3 file - 'Bill
Gates' Message on Life'
SCHOOL_SUPP - 'The
Sneeze'
============================================================Top
Subj: Steve
Jobs' Commencement Address At Stanford (S449b)
From: auntiegah on 8/20/2005
Source: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
'You've got to find what you
love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement
address by Steve Jobs,
CEO of Apple Computer and of
Pixar Animation Studios, delivered
on June 12, 2005 at Stanford.
I am honored to be with you today
at your commencement from
one of the finest universities
in the world. I never graduated
from college. Truth be
told, this is the closest I've ever
gotten to a college graduation.
Today I want to tell you three
stories from my life. That's
it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College
after the first 6 months, but then
stayed around as a drop-in for
another 18 months or so before I
really quit. So why did
I drop out?
It started before I was born.
My biological mother was a young,
unwed college graduate student,
and she decided to put me up for
adoption. She felt very
strongly that I should be adopted by
college graduates, so everything
was all set for me to be adopted
at birth by a lawyer and his
wife. Except that when I popped out
they decided at the last minute
that they really wanted a girl.
So my parents, who were on a
waiting list, got a call in the
middle of the night asking:
"We have an unexpected baby boy; do
you want him?" They said:
"Of course." My biological mother
later found out that my mother
had never graduated from college
and that my father had never
graduated from high school. She
refused to sign the final adoption
papers. She only relented a
few months later when my parents
promised that I would someday
go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to
college. But I naively chose a
college that was almost as expensive
as Stanford, and all of my
working-class parents' savings
were being spent on my college
tuition. After six months,
I couldn't see the value in it. I
had no idea what I wanted to
do with my life and no idea how
college was going to help me
figure it out. And here I was
spending all of the money my
parents had saved their entire
life. So I decided to
drop out and trust that it would all
work out OK. It was pretty
scary at the time, but looking back
it was one of the best decisions
I ever made. The minute I
dropped out I could stop taking
the required classes that
didn't interest me, and begin
dropping in on the ones that
looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic.
I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept
on the floor in friends' rooms,
I returned coke bottles for
the 5¢ deposits to buy
food with, and I would walk the 7 miles
across town every Sunday night
to get one good meal a week at
the Hare Krishna temple.
I loved it. And much of what I
stumbled into by following my
curiosity and intuition turned
out to be priceless later on.
Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered
perhaps the best calligraphy
instruction in the country.
Throughout the campus every poster,
every label on every drawer,
was beautifully hand calligraphed.
Because I had dropped out and
didn't have to take the normal
classes, I decided to take a
calligraphy class to learn how to
do this. I learned about
serif and san serif typefaces, about
varying the amount of space
between different letter combin-
ations, about what makes great
typography great. It was
beautiful, historical, artistically
subtle in a way that
science can't capture, and I
found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope
of any practical application in
my life. But ten years later,
when we were designing the first
Macintosh computer, it all came
back to me. And we designed
it all into the Mac. It
was the first computer with beautiful
typography. If I had never
dropped in on that single course
in college, the Mac would have
never had multiple typefaces or
proportionally spaced fonts.
And since Windows just copied the
Mac, its likely that no personal
computer would have them. If
I had never dropped out, I would
have never dropped in on this
calligraphy class, and personal
computers might not have the
wonderful typography that they
do. Of course it was impossible
to connect the dots looking
forward when I was in college. But
it was very, very clear looking
backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the
dots looking forward; you can
only connect them looking backwards.
So you have to trust
that the dots will somehow connect
in your future. You have
to trust in something — your
gut, destiny, life, karma, what-
ever. This approach has
never let me down, and it has made
all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I
loved to do early in life. Woz
and I started Apple in my parents
garage when I was 20. We
worked hard, and in 10 years
Apple had grown from just the
two of us in a garage into a
$2 billion company with over
4000 employees. We had
just released our finest creation —
the Macintosh — a year earlier,
and I had just turned 30.
And then I got fired.
How can you get fired from a company
you started? Well, as
Apple grew we hired someone who I
thought was very talented to
run the company with me, and
for the first year or so things
went well. But then our
visions of the future began
to diverge and eventually we had
a falling out. When we
did, our Board of Directors sided
with him. So at 30 I was
out. And very publicly out. What
had been the focus of my entire
adult life was gone, and it
was devastating.
I really didn't know what to
do for a few months. I felt
that I had let the previous
generation of entrepreneurs down
- that I had dropped the baton
as it was being passed to me.
I met with David Packard and
Bob Noyce and tried to apologize
for screwing up so badly.
I was a very public failure, and
I even thought about running
away from the valley. But some-
thing slowly began to dawn on
me — I still loved what I did.
The turn of events at Apple
had not changed that one bit. I
had been rejected, but I was
still in love. And so I decided
to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it
turned out that getting fired
from Apple was the best thing
that could have ever happened
to me. The heaviness of
being successful was replaced by
the lightness of being a beginner
again, less sure about
everything. It freed me
to enter one of the most creative
periods of my life.
During the next five years, I
started a company named NeXT,
another company named Pixar,
and fell in love with an amazing
woman who would become my wife.
Pixar went on to create the
worlds first computer animated
feature film, Toy Story, and
is now the most successful animation
studio in the world. In
a remarkable turn of events,
Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to
Apple, and the technology we
developed at NeXT is at the
heart of Apple's current renaissance.
And Laurene and I have
a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this
would have happened if I hadn't
been fired from Apple. It was
awful tasting medicine, but I
guess the patient needed it.
Sometimes life hits you in the
head with a brick. Don't lose
faith. I'm convinced that the
only thing that kept me going
was that I loved what I did.
You've got to find what you
love. And that is as true for
your work as it is for your
lovers. Your work is going to
fill a large part of your life,
and the only way to be
truly satisfied is to do what
you believe is great work.
And the only way to do great
work is to love what you do.
If you haven't found it yet,
keep looking. Don't settle.
As with all matters of the heart,
you'll know when you find
it. And, like any great
relationship, it just gets better
and better as the years roll
on. So keep looking until you
find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote
that went something like:
"If you live each day as if
it was your last, someday
you'll most certainly be right."
It made an impression on
me, and since then, for the
past 33 years, I have looked
in the mirror every morning
and asked myself: "If today
were the last day of my life,
would I want to do what I
am about to do today?"
And whenever the answer has been
"No" for too many days in a
row, I know I need to change
something.
Remembering that I'll be dead
soon is the most important
tool I've ever encountered to
help me make the big choices
in life. Because almost
everything — all external expect-
ations, all pride, all fear
of embarrassment or failure -
these things just fall away
in the face of death, leaving
only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are
going to die is the best way
I know to avoid the trap of
thinking you have something
to lose. You are already
naked. There is no reason
not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed
with cancer. I had a
scan at 7:30 in the morning,
and it clearly showed a
tumor on my pancreas. I didn't
even know what a pancreas
was. The doctors told
me this was almost certainly a
type of cancer that is incurable,
and that I should
expect to live no longer than
three to six months. My
doctor advised me to go home
and get my affairs in order,
which is doctor's code for prepare
to die. It means to
try to tell your kids everything
you thought you'd have
the next 10 years to tell them
in just a few months. It
means to make sure everything
is buttoned up so that it
will be as easy as possible
for your family. It means
to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all
day. Later that evening
I had a biopsy, where they stuck
an endoscope down my
throat, through my stomach and
into my intestines, put
a needle into my pancreas and
got a few cells from the
tumor. I was sedated, but my
wife, who was there, told
me that when they viewed the
cells under a microscope
the doctors started crying because
it turned out to be
a very rare form of pancreatic
cancer that is curable
with surgery. I had the surgery
and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been
to facing death, and I
hope its the closest I get for
a few more decades.
Having lived through it, I can
now say this to you
with a bit more certainty than
when death was a useful
but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even
people who want to go to
heaven don't want to die to
get there. And yet death
is the destination we all share.
No one has ever
escaped it. And that is
as it should be, because
Death is very likely the single
best invention of
Life. It is Life's change
agent. It clears out the
old to make way for the new.
Right now the new is
you, but someday not too long
from now, you will
gradually become the old and
be cleared away. Sorry
to be so dramatic, but it is
quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't
waste it living
someone else's life. Don't
be trapped by dogma —
which is living with the results
of other people's
thinking. Don't let the
noise of others' opinions
drown out your own inner voice.
And most important,
have the courage to follow your
heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what
you truly want to
become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an
amazing publication
called The Whole Earth Catalog,
which was one of
the bibles of my generation.
It was created by a
fellow named Stewart Brand not
far from here in
Menlo Park, and he brought it
to life with his
poetic touch. This was in the
late 1960's, before
personal computers and desktop
publishing, so it
was all made with typewriters,
scissors, and
polaroid cameras. It was
sort of like Google in
paperback form, 35 years before
Google came along:
it was idealistic, and overflowing
with neat tools
and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out
several issues of The
Whole Earth Catalog, and then
when it had run its
course, they put out a final
issue. It was the mid-
1970s, and I was your age.
On the back cover of
their final issue was a photograph
of an early
morning country road, the kind
you might find your-
self hitchhiking on if you were
so adventurous.
Beneath it were the words: "Stay
Hungry. Stay
Foolish." It was their
farewell message as they
signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay
Foolish. And I have
always wished that for myself.
And now, as you
graduate to begin anew, I wish
that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
\\\//
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Subj: MacArthur's
Farewell Speech To West Point (S382)
From: tadams96 on 5/27/2004
At: http://www.nationalcenter.org/MacArthurFarewell.html
Given to the Corps of Cadets at West Point May 12, 1962
General Westmoreland, General
Groves, distinguished guests,
and gentlemen of the Corps.
As I was leaving the hotel this
morning, a doorman asked me,
"Where are you bound for, General?"
and when I replied, "West Point,"
he remarked, "Beautiful place,
have you ever been there before?"
No human being could fail to
be deeply moved by such a tribute
as this, coming from a profession
I have served so long and a
people I have loved so well.
It fills me with an emotion I
cannot express. But this
award is not intended primarily for
a personality, but to symbolize
a great moral code - the code
of conduct and chivalry of those
who guard this beloved land
of culture and ancient descent.
That is the meaning of this
medallion. For all eyes
and for all time, it is an expression
of the ethics of the American
soldier. That I should be
integrated in this way with
so noble an ideal arouses a sense
of pride and yet of humility
which will be with me always.
"Duty," "Honor," "Country" -
those three hallowed words
reverently dictate what you
want to be, what you can be, what
you will be. They are
your rallying point to build courage
when courage seems to fail,
to regain faith when there seems
to be little cause for faith,
to create hope when hope becomes
forlorn. Unhappily, I
possess neither that eloquence of
diction, that poetry of imagination,
nor that brilliance of
metaphor to tell you all that
they mean.
The unbelievers will say they
are but words, but a slogan,
but a flamboyant phrase.
Every pedant, every demagogue,
every cynic, every hypocrite,
every troublemaker, and, I am
sorry to say, some others of
an entirely different character,
will try to downgrade them even
to the extent of mockery and
ridicule.
But these are some of the things
they do. They build your
basic character. They
mold you for your future roles as the
custodians of the nation's defense.
They make you strong
enough to know when you are
weak, and brave enough to face
yourself when you are afraid.
They teach you to be proud and
unbending in honest failure,
but humble and gentle in success;
not to substitute words
for action; not to seek the
path of comfort, but to face
the stress and spur of difficulty
and challenge; to learn
to stand up in the storm, but
to have compassion on those
who fall; to master yourself
before you seek to master
others; to have a heart that
is clean, a goal that is high;
to learn to laugh, yet never
forget how to weep; to reach
into the future, yet never neglect
the past; to be serious,
yet never take yourself too
seriously; to be modest so that
you will remember the simplicity
of true greatness; the
open mind of true wisdom, the
meekness of true strength.
They give you a temperate will,
a quality of imagination,
a vigor of the emotions, a freshness
of the deep springs
of life, a temperamental predominance
of courage over
timidity, an appetite for adventure
over love of ease.
They create in your heart the
sense of wonder, the
unfailing hope of what next,
and the joy and inspiration
of life. They teach you
in this way to be an officer and
a gentleman.
And what sort of soldiers are
those you are to lead? Are
they reliable? Are they
brave? Are they capable of
victory?
Their story is known to all of
you. It is the story of
the American man at arms.
My estimate of him was formed
on the battlefields many, many
years ago, and has never
changed. I regarded him
then, as I regard him now, as
one of the world's noblest figures;
not only as one of
the finest military characters,
but also as one of the
most stainless.
His name and fame are the birthright
of every American
citizen. In his youth
and strength, his love and loyalty,
he gave all that mortality can
give. He needs no eulogy
from me, or from any other man.
He has written his own
history and written it in red
on his enemy's breast.
But when I think of his patience
under adversity, of his
courage under fire, and of his
modesty in victory, I am
filled with an emotion of admiration
I cannot put into
words. He belongs to history
as furnishing one of the
greatest examples of successful
patriotism. He belongs
to posterity as the instructor
of future generations in
the principles of liberty and
freedom. He belongs to the
present, to us, by his virtues
and by his achievements.
In twenty campaigns, on a hundred
battlefields, around a
thousand campfires, I have witnessed
that enduring
fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation,
and that
invincible determination which
have carved his statue
in the hearts of his people.
From one end of the world to
the other, he has drained
deep the chalice of courage.
As I listened to those
songs of the glee club, in memory's
eye I could see
those staggering columns of
the First World War, bending
under soggy packs on many a
weary march, from dripping
dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging
ankle deep through mire
of shell-pocked roads; to form
grimly for the attack,
blue-lipped, covered with sludge
and mud, chilled by the
wind and rain, driving home
to their objective, and for
many, to the judgment seat of
God.
I do not know the dignity of
their birth, but I do know
the glory of their death.
They died unquestioning,
uncomplaining, with faith in
their hearts, and on their
lips the hope that we would
go on to victory. Always
for them: Duty, Honor, Country.
Always their blood, and
sweat, and tears, as they saw
the way and the light.
And twenty years after, on the
other side of the globe,
against the filth of dirty foxholes,
the stench of
ghostly trenches, the slime
of dripping dugouts, those
boiling suns of the relentless
heat, those torrential
rains of devastating storms,
the loneliness and utter
desolation of jungle trails,
the bitterness of long
separation of those they loved
and cherished, the
deadly pestilence of tropic
disease, the horror of
stricken areas of war.
Their resolute and determined
defense, their swift and
sure attack, their indomitable
purpose, their complete
and decisive victory - always
victory, always through
the bloody haze of their last
reverberating shot, the
vision of gaunt, ghastly men,
reverently following your
password of Duty, Honor, Country.
The code which those words perpetuate
embraces the
highest moral laws and will
stand the test of any ethics
or philosophies ever promulgated
for the uplift of
mankind. Its requirements
are for the things that are
right, and its restraints are
from the things that are
wrong. The soldier, above all
other men, is required to
practice the greatest act of
religious training -
sacrifice. In battle and
in the face of danger and
death, he discloses those divine
attributes which his
Maker gave when he created man
in his own image. No
physical courage and no brute
instinct can take the
place of the Divine help which
alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents
of war may be, the
soldier who is called upon to
offer and to give his
life for his country, is the
noblest development of
mankind.
You now face a new world, a world
of change. The thrust
into outer space of the satellite,
spheres and missiles
marked the beginning of another
epoch in the long story
of mankind - the chapter of
the space age. In the five
or more billions of years the
scientists tell us it has
taken to form the earth, in
the three or more billion
years of development of the
human race, there has never
been a greater, a more abrupt
or staggering evolution.
We deal now not with things
of this world alone, but
with the illimitable distances
and as yet unfathomed
mysteries of the universe.
We are reaching out for a
new and boundless frontier.
We speak in strange terms:
of harnessing the cosmic energy;
of making winds and
tides work for us; of creating
unheard synthetic
materials to supplement or even
replace our old standard
basics; of purifying sea water
for our drink; of mining
ocean floors for new fields
of wealth and food; of
disease preventatives to expand
life into the hundred
of years; of controlling the
weather for a more equitable
distribution of heat and cold,
of rain and shine; of
space ships to the moon; of
the primary target in war,
no longer limited to the armed
forces of an enemy, but
instead to include his civil
populations; of ultimate
conflict between a united human
race and the sinister
forces of some other planetary
galaxy; of such dreams
and fantasies as to make life
the most exciting of all
time.
And through all this welter of
change and development
your mission remains fixed,
determined, inviolable.
It is to win our wars. Everything
else in your
professional career is but corollary
to this vital
dedication. All other
public purpose, all other
public projects, all other public
needs, great or
small, will find others for
their accomplishments;
but you are the ones who are
trained to fight.
Yours is the profession of arms,
the will to win, the
sure knowledge that in war there
is no substitute for
victory, that if you lose, the
Nation will be destroyed,
that the very obsession of your
public service must be
Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial
issues, national
and international, which divide
men's minds. But
serene, calm, aloof, you stand
as the Nation's war
guardians, as its lifeguards
from the raging tides
of international conflict, as
its gladiators in the
arena of battle. For a
century and a half you have
defended, guarded and protected
its hallowed traditions
of liberty and freedom, of right
and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the
merits or demerits of
our processes of government.
Whether our strength
is being sapped by deficit financing
indulged in too
long, by federal paternalism
grown too mighty, by power
groups grown too arrogant, by
politics grown too
corrupt, by crime grown too
rampant, by morals grown
too low, by taxes grown too
high, by extremists grown
too violent; whether our personal
liberties are as
firm and complete as they should
be.
These great national problems
are not for your
professional participation or
military solution.
Your guidepost stands out like
a tenfold beacon
in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds
together the entire
fabric of our national system
of defense. From
your ranks come the great captains
who hold the
Nation's destiny in their hands
the moment the war
tocsin sounds.
The long gray line has never
failed us. Were you
to do so, a million ghosts in
olive drab, in brown
khaki, in blue and gray, would
rise from their white
crosses, thundering those magic
words: Duty, Honor,
Country.
This does not mean that you are
warmongers. On the
contrary, the soldier above
all other people prays
for peace, for he must suffer
and bear the deepest
wounds and scars of war. But
always in our ears ring
the ominous words of Plato,
that wisest of all
philosophers: "Only the dead
have seen the end of war."
The shadows are lengthening for
me. The twilight is
here. My days of old have
vanished - tone and tints.
They have gone glimmering through
the dreams of things
that were. Their memory
is one of wondrous beauty,
watered by tears and coaxed
and caressed by the smiles
of yesterday. I listen
then, but with thirsty ear,
for the witching melody of faint
bugles blowing reveille,
of far drums beating the long
roll.
In my dreams I hear again the
crash of guns, the rattle
of musketry, the strange, mournful
mutter of the battle-
field. But in the evening
of my memory I come back to
West Point. Always there
echoes and re-echoes: Duty,
Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call
with you. But I want
you to know that when I cross
the river, my last
conscious thoughts will be of
the Corps, and the
Corps, and the Corps.
I bid you farewell.
\\\//
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Subj: Anna
Quindlen's Commencement Address at Villanova (S170)
From: mbucher on 4/16/00
It's a great honor for me to
be the third member of my family
to receive an honorary doctorate
from this great university.
It's an honor to follow my great-Uncle
Jim, who was a gifted
physician, and my Uncle Jack,
who is a remarkable businessman.
Both of them could have told
you something important about their
professions, about medicine
or commerce. I have no specialized
field of interest or expertise,
which puts me at a disadvantage,
talking to you today.
I'm a novelist. My work is human nature.
Real life is all I know.
Don't ever confuse the two, your
life and your work. The second
is only part of the first.
Don't ever forget the words my
father sent me on a postcard last
year: "If You win the rat race,
you're still a rat." Or what
John Lennon wrote before he
was gunned down in the driveway of
the Dakota: "Life is what happens
while you are busy making
other plans."
You walk out of here this afternoon
with only one thing that no
one else has. There will
be hundreds of people out there with
your same degree; there will
be thousands of people doing what
you want to do for a living.
But you will be the only person
alive who has sole custody of
your life. Your particular life.
Your entire life. Not
just your life at a desk, or your life
on a bus, or in a car, or at
the computer. Not just the life
of your mind, but the life of
your heart. Not just your bank
account, but your soul.
People don't talk about the soul
very much anymore. It's so
much easier to write a resume
than to craft a spirit. But a
resume is a cold comfort on
a winter night, or when you're sad,
or broke, or lonely, or when
you've gotten back the test
results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume.
I am a good mother to three children.
I have tried never to
let my Profession stand in the
way of being a good parent. I
no longer consider myself the
center of the universe.
I show up. I listen. I try to
laugh.
I am a good friend to my husband.
I have tried to make marriage
vows mean what they say.
I show up. I listen. I try to
laugh.
I am a good friend to my friends,
and they to me. Without them,
there would be nothing to say
to you today, because I would be
a cardboard cutout. But I call
them on the phone, and I meet
them for lunch.
I show up. I listen. I try to
laugh.
I would be rotten, or at best
mediocre at my job, if those
other things were not true.
You cannot be really first rate at
your work if your work is all
you are.
So here's what I wanted to tell you today: get a life.
A real life, not a manic pursuit
of the next promotion, the
bigger paycheck, the larger
house. Do you think you'd care so
very much about those things
if you blew an aneurysm one after-
noon, or found a lump in your
breast?
Get a life in which you notice
the smell of salt water pushing
itself on a breeze over Seaside
Heights, a life in which you
stop and watch how a red-tailed
hawk circles over the water gap
or the way a baby scowls with
concentration when she tries to
pick up a Cheerio with her thumb
and first finger.
Get a life in which you are not
alone. Find people you love,
and who love you. And
remember that love is not leisure; it is
work. Each time you look
at your diploma, remember that you
are still a student, still learning
how to best treasure your
connection to others.
Pick up the phone. Send
an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your
Mom. Hug Your Dad.
Get a life in which you are generous.
Look around at the
azaleas in the suburban neighborhood
where you grew up; look at
a full moon hanging silver in
a black, black sky on a cold
night. And realize that life
is the best thing ever, and that
you have no business taking
it for granted.
Care so deeply about its goodness
that you want to spread it
around. Take money you
would have spent on beers and give it
to charity. Work in a
soup kitchen. Be a big brother or
sister. All of you want
to do well. But if you do not do
good, too, then doing well will
never be enough.
It is so easy to waste our lives:
our days, our hours, our
minutes. It is so easy
to take for granted the color of the
azaleas, the sheen of the limestone
on Fifth Avenue, the color
of our kids' eyes, the way the
melody in a symphony rises and
falls and disappears and rises
again. It is so easy to exist
instead of live.
I learned to live many years
ago. Something really, really
bad happened to me, something
that changed my life in ways
that, if I had my druthers,
it would never have been changed
at all. And what I learned
from it is what, today, seems to
be the hardest lesson of all.
I learned to love the journey,
not the destination. I learned
that it is not a dress rehearsal,
and that today is the only guarantee
you get. I learned to
look at all the good in the
world and to try to give some of it
back because I believed
in it completely and utterly.
And I tried to do that, in part,
by telling others what I had
learned. By telling them this:
Consider the lilies of the field.
Look at the fuzz on a baby's
ear.
Read in the backyard with the
sun on your face.
Learn to be happy.
And think of life as a terminal
illness because if you do, you
will live it with joy and passion
as it ought to be lived.
Well, you can learn all those
things, out there, if you get a
real life, a full life, a professional
life, yes, but another
life, too, a life of love and
laughs and a connection to other
human beings.
Just keep your eyes and ears
open. Here you could learn in
the classroom. There the
classroom is everywhere. The exam
comes at the very end.
No man ever said on his deathbed I
wish I had spent more time at
the office.
I found one of my best teachers
on the boardwalk at Coney
Island maybe 15 Years ago.
It was December, and I was doing
a story about how the homeless
survive in the winter months.
He and I sat on the edge of
the wooden supports, dangling our
feet over the side, and he told
me about his schedule, pan-
handling the boulevard when
the summer crowds were gone,
sleeping in a church when the
temperature went below freezing,
hiding from the police amidst
the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Cyclone
and some of the other seasonal
rides.
But he told me that most of the
time he stayed on the board-
walk, facing the water, just
the way we were sitting now, even
when it got cold and he had
to wear his newspapers after he
read them.
And I asked him why. Why
didn't he go to one of the shelters?
Why didn't he check himself
into the hospital for detox? And
he just stared out at the Ocean
and said, "Look at the view,
young lady. Look at the view."
And every day, in some little
way, I try to do what he said.
I try to look at the view.
And that's the last thing I have
to tell you today, words of
wisdom from a man with not a dime
in his pocket, no place to go,
nowhere to be.
Look at the view. You'll never be disappointed.
\\\//
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Subj: The
Pampered Generation (S154)
From: collins2 on 01/14/2000
Subject: The Pampered > Date:
Monday, December 13, 1999 9:51 AM
Our beloved President shares
our pain. I was embarrassed to
read that President Clinton
and his advisors have said, "The
older generation must learn
to sacrifice as other generations
have done."
That's my generation. I knew
eventually someone would ferret
out the dirty secret: we've
lived the "lifestyle of the rich
and famous" all our lives. Now,
I know I must bare the truth
about my generation and let
the country condemn us for our
selfishness.
During the Depression we had
an hilarious time dancing to the
tune of "Brother Can You Spare
A Dime?" We could choose to dine
at any of the country's fabulous
soup kitchens, often joined by
our parents and siblings...those
were the heady days of carefree
self-indulgence.
Then, with World War II, the
cup filled to overflowing. We had
the chance to bask on the exotic
beaches of Guadalcanal, Iwo
Jima and Okinawa to see the
capitols of Europe and travel to
such scenic spots as Bastogne,
Malmedy and Monte Cassino. Of
course, one of the most exhilarating
adventures was the stroll
from Bataan to the local Japanese
hotels, laughingly known as
death camps. But the good
times really rolled for those lucky
enough to be on the beaches
of Normandy for the swimming and
boating that pleasant June day
in '44. Unforgettable.
Even luckier were those that
drew the prized holiday tickets
for cruises on sleek, gray ships
to fun filled spots like
Midway, The Solomons and Murmansk.
Instead of asking, "what
can we do for our country, "an
indulgent government let us
fritter away our youth wandering
idly through the lush and
lovely jungles of Burma and
New Guinea. Yes, it's all true:
we were pampered, we were spoiled
rotten, we never did realize
what sacrifice meant.
We envy you, Mr. Clinton, the
harsh lessons you learned in
London, Moscow and Little Rock.
My generation is old, Mr.
President...and guilty; but
we are repentant. Punish us for
our failings, sir, that we may
learn the true meaning of Duty,
Honor, and Country.
Robert J. Grady, Lt. Col., USAF
(Ret), Colorado Springs.
IF YOU FEEL AS I DO, YOU WILL
PASS THIS ON TO EVERY ONE ON
YOUR LIST REGARDLESS OF THEIR
POLITICAL PREFERENCE..
\\\//
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Subj: Columbine
Father's Testimony (S125b)
From: TA989287 on 6/14/99
TESTIMONY OF DARRELL SCOTT FATHER
OF TWO VICTIMS OF COLUMBINE
HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING LITTLETON,
COLORADO BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME HOUSE
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, THURSDAY,
MAY 27,1999 2:00P.M.
2141 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
Since the dawn of creation, there
has been both good and
evil in the heart of men and
of women. We all contain the
seeds of kindness or the seeds
of violence.
The death of my wonderful daughter
Rachel Joy Scott and the
deaths of that heroic teacher
and the other children who
died must not be in vain.
Their blood cries out for answers.
The first recorded act of violence
was when Cain slew his
brother Able in the field.
The villain was not the club he
used. Neither was it the
NCA, the National Club Association.
The true killer was Cain and
the reason for the murder could
only be found in Cain's heart.
In the days that followed the
Columbine tragedy, I was amazed
at how quickly fingers began
to be pointed at groups such as
the NRA. I am not a member
of the NRA. I am not a hunter.
I do not even own a gun.
I am not here to represent or defend
the NRA because I don't believe
that they are responsible for
my daughter's death. Therefore,
do not believe they need to
be defended.
If I believed they had anything
to do with Rachel's murder, I
would be their strongest opponent.
I am here today to declare that
Columbine was not just a
tragedy. It was a spiritual
event that should be forcing us
to look at where the real blame
lies!
Much of that blame lies here
in this room. Much of that
blame lies behind the pointing
fingers of the accusers
themselves..
I wrote a poem just four nights
ago that express my feelings
best. This was written
way before I knew l would be
speaking here today.
Your laws ignore our deepest
needs
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage.
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms.
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere.
And ask the question "WHY"?
You regulate restrictive laws.
Through legislative creed.
Add yet you fail to understand.
That God is what we need!
Men and women are three part
beings. We all consist of body,
soul, and spirit. When
we refuse to acknowledge a third
part of our makeup, we create
a void that allows evil,
prejudice, and hatred to rush
in and wreck havoc.
Spiritual influences were present
within our educational
systems for most of our nation's
history. Many of our major
colleges began as theological
seminaries. This is a
historic fact.
What has happened to us as a
nation? We have refused to
honor God, and in doing so,
we open the doors to hatred and
violence.
And when something as terrible
as Columbine's tragedy occurs,
politicians immediately look
for a scapegoat such as the NRA.
They immediately seek to pass
more restrictive laws that
continue to erode away our personal
and private liberties.
We do not need more restrictive
laws. Eric and Dylan would
not have been stopped by metal
detectors. No amount of gun
laws can stop someone who spends
months planning this type
of massacre.
The real villain lies within
our OWN hearts. Political
posturing and restrictive legislation
are not the answers.
The young people of our nation
hold the key. There is a
spiritual awakening taking place
that will not be squelched.
We do not need more religion.
We do not need more gaudy
television evangelists spewing
out verbal religious garbage.
We do not need more million
dollar church buildings built
while people with basic needs
are being ignored.
We do need a change of heart
and a humble acknowledgment
that this nation was founded
on the principle of simple
trust in God.
As my son Craig lay under that
table in the school library
and saw his two friends murdered
before his very eyes, he
did not hesitate to pray in
school.
I defy any law or politician to deny him that right!
I challenge every young person
in America and around the
world to realize that on April
20, 1999 at Columbine High
School, prayer was brought back
to our schools.
Do not let the many prayers offered
by those students be in
vain.
Dare to move into the new millennium
with a sacred disregard
for legislation that violates
your conscience and denies
your God-given right to communicate
with Him.
To those of you who would point
your finger at the NRA, I
give to you a sincere challenge.
Dare to examine your own
heart before you cast the first
stone!
My daughter's death will not
be in vain. The young people
of this country will not allow
that to happen.
\\\//
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Subj: Five
Lessons Life Has Taught Oprah Winfrey (S121)
From: smiles on 5/23/99
Oprah Winfrey's Commencement
Address
Wellesley College, in Wellesley,MA
May 30, 1997
Here are some excerpts of (some
of which were in HAND-0577)
full text:
http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/PAhomepage/winfrey.html
You all know this, that life
is a journey and I want to share
with you just for a few moments
about five things, (aren't you
glad they aren't ten) five things
that have made this journey
for me exciting. Five
lessons .... I've learned that have
helped me to make my life better.
First of all, life
is a journey. ....
It took me a while
to get that lesson, that it really is
just about everyday
experiences, teaching you, moment in,
moment out, who
you really are. That every experience is
here to teach you
more fully how to be who you really are.
Because, for a long time I wanted
to be somebody else....
[snip]... but it was a lesson
long in coming, recognizing that
I had the instinct, that inner
voice that told me that you
need to try to find a way to
answer to your own truth was the
voice I needed to be still and
listen to.
One of the other
great lessons I learned taught to me by
my friend and mentor,
Maya Angelou and if you can get
this, you can save
yourself a lot of time.... When
people show you
who they are, believe them, the first
time.
Not the 29th time! That
is particularly good when it comes
to men situations because when
he doesn't call back the first
time, when you are mistreated
the first time, when you see
someone who shows you a lack
of integrity or dishonesty the
first time, know that that will
be followed by many, many,
many other times that will at
some point in life come back
to haunt or hurt you.
Turn your wounds
into wisdom. You will be wounded many
times in your life.
You'll make mistakes. Some people
will call them
failures but I have learned that failure
is really God's
way of saying, "Excuse me, you're moving
in the wrong direction."
I remember being taken off the
air in Baltimore, being told
that I was no longer being fit
for television and that I
could not anchor the news...
[snip] ..because... I would
cry for the people in the stories,
which really wasn't very
effective as a news reporter
... [snip] ... it wasn't until
I was demoted as an on-air anchor
woman and thrown into the
talk show arena to get rid of
me, that I allowed my own
truth to come through.
Be grateful.
I have kept a journal since I
was l5 years old and if you
look back on my journal when
I was l5, l6, it's all filled
with boy trouble, men trouble,
my daddy wouldn't let me go
to Shoney's with Anthony Otie,
things like that. As I've
grown older, I have learned
to appreciate living in the
moment and I ask that you do,
too.....
Every night
list five things that happened this day,
in days to
come that you are grateful for. What it
will begin
to do is to change your perspective of
your day
and your life. I believe that if you can
learn to
focus on what you have, you will always
see that
the universe is abundant and you will have
more.
If you concentrate and focus in your life on
what you
don't have, you will never have enough. Be
grateful.
Keep a journal.
You all are all over my journal tonight.
Create the
highest, grandest vision possible for
your life
because you become what you believe.
When I was little girl, Mississippi,
growing up on the
farm, only Buckwheat as a role
model, watching my grand-
mother boil clothes in a big,
iron pot through the screen
door, because we didn't have
a washing machine and made
everything we had. I watched
her and realized somehow
inside myself, in the spirit
of myself, that although this
was segregated Mississippi and
I was "colored" and female,
that my life could be bigger,
greater than what I saw. I
remember being four or five
years old, I certainly couldn't
articulate it, but it was a
feeling and a feeling that I
allowed myself to follow.
I allowed myself to follow it
because if you were to ask me
what is the secret to my
success, it is because I understand
that there is a power
greater than myself, that rules
my life and in life if you
can be still long enough in
all of your endeavors, the good
times, the hard times, to connect
yourself to the source, I
call it God, you can call it
whatever you want to, the
force, nature, Allah, the power.
If you can
connect yourself to the source and allow
the energy
that is your personality, your life force
to be connected
to the greater force, anything is
possible
for you. I am proof of that.
I think that my life, the fact
that I was born where I was
born, and the time that I was
and have been able to do what
I have done speaks to the possibility.
Not that I am
special, but that it could be
done.
Hold the highest, grandest vision for yourself.
Just recently [1997] we followed
Tina Turner around the
country [snip]... because ....
Tina Turner is one of those
women who have overcome great
obstacles, was battered in
her life, and like a phoenix
rose out of that to have great
legs and a great sense of herself.
Tina's life is a mirror
of your life because it proves
that you can overcome.
Every life speaks to the power of what can be done.
So I wanted to honor women all
over the country and celebrate
their dreams... and Tina's tour
was called the Wildest Dreams
Tour. I asked women to
write me their wildest dreams and
tell me what their wildest dreams
were. Our intention was to
fulfill their wildest dreams.
We got 77,000 letters, 77,000.
To our disappointment we found
that the deeper the wound the
smaller the dreams. So
many women had such small visions,
such small dreams for their
lives that we had a difficult
time coming up with dreams to
fulfill. So we did fulfill
some. We paid off all
the college debt, hmmm, for a young
woman whose mother had died
and she put her sisters and
brothers through school.
We paid off all the bills for a
woman who had been battered
and managed to put herself
through college and her daughter
through college. We sent
a woman to Egypt who was dying
of cancer and her lifetime
dream was to sit on a camel
and use a cell phone. We
bought a house for another woman
whose dream had always
been to have her own home but
because she was battered
and had to flee with her children
one night, had to leave
the home seventeen years ago.
And then we brought the
other women who said we just
wanted to see you, Oprah,
and meet Tina. That was
their dream! Imagine when we
paid off the debt, gave the
house, gave the trip to Egypt,
the attitudes we got from the
women who said, "I just want
to see you." And some of them
afterwards were crying to me
saying that "we didn't know,
we didn't know, and this is
unfair," and I said, that is
the lesson: you needed to
dream a bigger dream for yourself.
That is the lesson.
Hold the highest vision possible for your life
and it can come true.
\\\//
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Subj: Kurt
Vonnegut's Commencement Address At MIT (S28)
From: ArmaDillow on 97-08-06
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one
tip for the future, sunscreen
would be it. The long-term
benefits of sunscreen have been
proved by scientists, whereas
the rest of my advice has no
basis more reliable than my
own meandering experience. I
will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of
your youth. Oh, never mind.
You will not understand the
power and beauty of your youth
until they've faded. But
trust me, in 20 years, you'll
look back at photos of yourself
and recall in a way you
can't grasp now how much possibility
lay before you and how
fabulous you really looked.
You are not as fat as you
imagine.
Don't worry about the future.
Or worry, but know that
worrying is as effective as
trying to solve an algebra
equation by chewing bubble gum.
The real troubles in your
life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried
mind, the kind that blindside
you at 4 pm on some idle
Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other
people's hearts. Don't put
up with people who are reckless
with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy.
Sometimes you're ahead,
sometimes you're behind.
The race is long and, in the end,
it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive.
Forget the insults. If
you succeed in doing this, tell
me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't
know what you want to do with
your life. The most interesting
people I know didn't know
at 22 what they wanted to do
with their lives. Some of the
most interesting 40-year-olds
I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees. You'll miss
them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you
won't. Maybe you'll have
children, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll divorce at 40,
maybe you'll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding
anniversary. Whatever
you do, don't congratulate yourself
too much, or berate yourself
either. Your choices are half
chance.
So
are
everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it
every way you can. Don't be afraid
of it or of what other people
think of it. It's the greatest
instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines.
They will only make you feel
ugly.
Get to know your parents.
You never know when they'll be
gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings.
They're your best link to your
past and the people most likely
to stick with you in the
future.
Understand that friends come
and go, but with a precious
few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps
in geography and lifestyle,
because the older you get, the
more you need the people
who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but
leave before it makes you
hard. Live in Northern
California once, but leave before
it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths:
Prices will rise.
Politicians will philander.
You, too, will get old. And
when you do, you'll fantasize
that when you were young,
prices were reasonable, politicians
were noble, and
children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support
you. Maybe you have
a trust fund. Maybe you'll
have a wealthy spouse. But
you never know when either one
might run out.
Don't mess too much with your
hair or by the time you're
40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy,
but be patient with those
who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia.
Dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal,
wiping it off, painting
over the ugly parts and recycling
it for more than it's
worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
\\\//
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Subj: MIT
Address Wasn't Vonnegut (DU)
From: ArmaDillow on 97-08-06
VONNEGUT? SCHMICH? WHO CAN TELL IN CYBERSPACE?
08/03/1997
Mary Schmich
I am Kurt Vonnegut.
Oh, Kurt Vonnegut may appear
to be a brilliant, revered male
novelist. I may appear
to be a mediocre and virtually unknown
female newspaper columnist.
We may appear to have nothing in
common but unruly hair.
But out in the lawless swamp
of cyberspace, Mr. Vonnegut and
I are one.
Out there, where any snake can
masquerade as king, both of us
are the author of a graduation
speech that began with the
immortal words, "Wear sunscreen."
I was alerted to my bond with
Mr. Vonnegut Friday morning by
several callers and e-mail correspondents
who reported that
the sunscreen speech was rocketing
through the cyberswamp,
from L.A. to New York to Scotland,
in a vast e-mail chain letter.
Friends had e-mailed it to friends,
who e-mailed it to more
friends, all of whom were told
it was the commencement address
given to the graduating class
at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. The speaker
was allegedly Kurt Vonnegut.
Imagine Mr. Vonnegut's surprise.
He was not, and never has
been, MIT's commencement speaker.
Imagine my surprise. I
recall composing that little speech
one Friday afternoon while high
on coffee and M&M's. It
appeared in this space on June
1. It included such deep
thoughts as "Sing," "Floss,"
and "Don't mess too much with
your hair." It was not
art.
But out in the cyberswamp, truth
is whatever you say it is,
and my simple thoughts on floss
and sunscreen were being
passed around as Kurt Vonnegut's
eternal wisdom.
Poor man. He didn't deserve
to have his reputation sullied
in this way.
So I called a Los Angeles book
reviewer, with whom I'd
never spoken, hoping he could
help me find Mr. Vonnegut.
"You mean that thing about sunscreen?"
he said when I
explained the situation. "I
got that. It was brilliant. He
didn't write that?"
He didn't know how to find Mr. Vonnegut. I tried MIT.
"You wrote that?" said Lisa Damtoft
in the news office.
She said MIT had received many
calls and e-mails on this
year's "sunscreen" commencement
speech. But not everyone
was sure: Who had been the speaker?
The speaker on June 6 was Kofi
Annan, secretary general of
the United Nations, who did
not, as Mr. Vonnegut and I did
in our speech, urge his graduates
to "dance, even if you
have nowhere to do it but your
living room." He didn't
mention sunscreen.
As I continued my quest for Mr.
Vonnegut--his publisher had
taken the afternoon off, his
agent didn't answer--reports
of his "sunscreen" speech kept
pouring in.
A friend called from Michigan.
He'd read my column several
weeks ago. Friday morning
he received it again--in an e-mail
from his boss. This time
it was not an ordinary column by an
ordinary columnist. Now
it was literature by Kurt Vonnegut.
Fortunately, not everyone who
read the speech believed it
was Mr. Vonnegut's.
"The voice wasn't quite his,"
sniffed one doubting
contributor to a Vonnegut chat
group on the Internet. "It
was slightly off--a little too
jokey, a little too cute ...
a little too `Seinfeld.' "
Hoping to find the source of
this prank, I traced one
e-mail backward from its last
recipient, Hank De Zutter,
a professor at Malcolm X College
in Chicago. He received
it from a relative in New York,
who received it from a
film producer in New York, who
received it from a TV
producer in Denver, who received
it from his sister, who
received it. . . .
I realized the pursuit of culprit
zero would be endless.
I gave up.
I did, however, finally track
down Mr. Vonnegut. He
picked up his own phone.
He'd heard about the sunscreen
speech from his lawyer, from
friends, from a women's
magazine that wanted to reprint
it until he denied he
wrote it.
"It was very witty, but it wasn't
my wittiness," he
generously said.
Reams could be written on the
lessons in this episode.
Space confines me to two.
One: I should put Kurt Vonnegut's
name on my column. It
would be like sticking a Calvin
Klein label on a pair of
Kmart jeans.
Two: Cyberspace, in Mr. Vonnegut's word, is "spooky."
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Subj: Who
Said The Vonnegut Speech (DU)
From: http://coverage.cnet.com/Content/Features
................/Dlife/Truth/ss02.html
on 02/01/01
It says it's Vonnegut, and it
sounds like Vonnegut...It must
be Vonnegut, right?
Wrong. The text of a commencement
address supposedly delivered
at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology by novelist Kurt
Vonnegut spread throughout the
Internet earlier this summer,
but the actual source was a
column written by the Chicago
Tribune's Mary Schmich.
Nowhere did she mention Kurt Vonnegut,
much less attempt to pass her
work off as his. And yet some
unknown person, for reasons
also unknown, took her words,
edited them a bit, and sent
them out onto the Net as the work
of Kurt Vonnegut.
The alleged speech, which began
by advising graduates to wear
sunscreen, charmed the Net.
It spread via email from friend
to friend, coworker to coworker,
around the globe. Even
Vonnegut's wife got it--and
believed it to be her husband's
work.
The Vonnegut hoax surfaced as
such pretty quickly, and in
the aftermath both Schmich and
Vonnegut displayed grace
and good humor.
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