Commencement

St. Paul's School for Girls held its 2012 commencement on Saturday, June 9, at the Brooklandville campus. The following are members of the Class of 2012: Madison Martin Aldave, Antonia Fotios Araviakis Melanie Elizabeth Blank, Emma Virginia Morse Bolton, Sarah Elizabeth Bowman, Brooke Hamilton Boyd, Kelly Weeks Boyd, Alison Lotti Braig, Jada Denise Brewer, Charlotte Harvey Brooks, Kendra Ashley Brown, Alexis Kendall Brunson, Katherine Quinn...

As one who knew him at the University of Maryland, it was inspiring to read David Simon's Georgetown University commencement address ("'We still have to fight. So for God's sake, fight,'" May 25). It is no surprise that Mr. Simon has not wavered and continues to confront ambivalence and challenge hypocrisy when he sees it. His passionate message that "there cannot be two American experiments, one for the fortunate and another for the rest" was an inspiring call to action for more than just the Georgetown graduating class to continue the fight for what is fair and just.

Commencement season is the college equivalent of the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Institutions from the Ivy League to the local community college scramble to lure the shiniest star they can to their podiums on graduation day. And the match-ups often make about as much sense as inviting Lindsay Lohan to be your date for an event that celebrates heavyweights in the news media. It helps if one of your alumni has actually made it big and is willing to come back to campus and tell graduates that it is up to them to make the world a better place.

Cristal Fortino, of Manchester, earned her degree in sociology from McDaniel College, and took part in commencement ceremonies on May 19. Fortino, who was a stay-at-home mom to her two children for 15 years, enrolled at McDaniel College after her husband lost his job due to downsizing. It was around her family's dinner table that the decision was made for her to return to school, and a scholarship from McDaniel allowed her to achieve that goal. Fortino technically graduated in December, but took part in the May commencement.

The greatest commencement address ever is now more than three decades old. And it's safe to say it will never be surpassed or even equaled. It belongs to the ages. In 1979, its author summed up the condition of modern man by noting that, quote, more than at any other time in history, humanity is at the crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness; the other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. Unquote. Bang. That's all she wrote.

Members of the Class of 2012, As a former secretary of labor and current professor, I feel I owe it to you to tell you the truth about the pieces of parchment you're picking up today. You're screwed. Well, not exactly. But you won't have it easy. First, you're going to have a hell of a hard time finding a job. The job market you're heading into is still bad. Fewer than half of the graduates from last year's class have as yet found full-time jobs. Most are still looking. That's been the pattern over the last three graduating classes: It's been taking graduates more than a year to land the first job. And those who still haven't found a job will be competing with you, making your job search even harder.

This is the season of generational twaddle. At graduation ceremonies across the country, politicians, authors, actors and businessmen take to the stage to tell young people they are fantastic simply because they are young. This year, the ritual is more pathetic than usual because there's a presidential election in the offing. And because the current occupant of the White House won in 2008 in no small part due to his success with the "youth vote," he is desperate for them to repeat their blunder.

When they graduated from River Hill High School in 2008, Jonathan Hill , Rajiv Stone and Daniel Thyberg had a grueling summer of physical training awaiting them as they prepared to attend the U.S. Naval Academy together. Four years later, the three friends, all Clarksville natives, are looking forward to graduation and impending commissions as officers. Hill, a history major, will board the USS Ramage, a destroyer based in Norfolk, Va., in June as the ship's auxiliary officer.

"Don't assume this is a two-hankie book. It is not. You will cry, but you will also laugh. You will experience not only anger, but also gratification. And in the end, you will be uplifted. " - Eileen Rudnick, from her book, "The Glass Between Us" Eldersburg resident Eileen Rudnick is living proof that sometimes out of the worst, the best can come. The evening of Oct. 3, 2000 was just another mild Tuesday, another relatively uneventful day ... until the moment that everything changed for Rudnick, a wife, mother of two, grandmother of two and an accountant.

Somewhere the wild things are roaring their terrible roars and gnashing their terrible teeth and rolling their terrible eyes and showing their terrible claws. They're mourning their creator, children's book author Maurice Sendak, who stepped into his private boat on Tuesday and waved goodbye. The 83-year-old Sendak died Tuesday morning at a hospital in Connecticut, four days after suffering a stroke. "When I heard the news on the radio, it was just a punch in the gut," said Selma Levi, who supervises the children's department of the Central Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library . "I know he was older.