It's clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds great pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get home by six o'clock. Woody Allen
Good morning.
To our honorary readers and to their family members and friends, we bring greetings. This is a season of personal reckoning, as commencements are under way at colleges and universities throughout Maryland. In great halls and on great lawns, graduates are implored to hitch their wagons to the stars, shoot for the moon and, by all means, with Godspeed.
This has also been a week of reckoning for the schools, which have hitched their stars to a diverse lineup of commencement speakers. Will they captivate and inspire -- or leave outgoing seniors "properly sedated?" as cartoonist Garry Trudeau once told graduates.
Who are the notable guests lending their big names to the commencements across the state this month? Most are familiar faces in politics, journalism and television. If they were in a commencement class themselves, here's how their yearbook entries might read:
Carl Bernstein Accomplishment: Author, journalist. Broke Watergate story with Bob Woodward Commencement: University of Maryland, College Park (tomorrow) Voted: Most Likely to Brighten Your Day Clubs: Debate; Journalism (Stories brought down high school administration.) Sports: Fencing Ambition: To have his own blog
Doreen Bolger Accomplishment: Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art Commencement: College of Notre Dame of Maryland (Saturday) Voted: Most Likely to Know the Difference Between Monet and Manet Club: Art Appreciation Ambition: To crack the Da Vinci Code
Francis Collins Accomplishment: Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute Commencement: University of Maryland, Baltimore (last Friday) Voted: Most Likely to Direct International Effort to Map and Sequence All Human DNA Club: The Blueprinters Glee Club Ambition: To discover why male DNA causes men to leap across public toilets at major horse-racing events
Elijah E. Cummings Accomplishment: Maryland congressman Commencement: Coppin State University (last Sunday) Voted: Most Likely to Be a Politician Distinctions: Junior class president; senior class speaker pro tempore Sports: Football; basketball; varsity football head coach; varsity basketball head coach; football and baseball commissioner Ambition: To grill Mark McGwire about steroid use
