Finis

All six hundred and fifty-someodd of them walked up, gathered their wits, shook hands with dignitaries and took their dipolomas to their seats. Tonight's two-hour ceremony was long, boring and ultimately rewarding to watch some of my favorite students make the transition from adolescence to adulthood with the moving of a tassel. How difficult to have one's worst year of his career and some of the most rewarding students...and yet I walked away with a sense of relief that the summer awaits. Class of 2007, many of you had better wake up, grow up and understand just what is required of you if you want to succeed as adults; those of you off to university or work who have their heads on straight, you are destined for a journey of ups and downs but one of challenge and success.

I continue to be amazed at the sheer power and intensity of the Live In Dublin set from Bruce and his seventeen-piece band. Timeless music delivered with the energy of a man who should be thirty years younger. A die-hard fan knows when the music is good when the seemingly old-fashioned folk songs rival the depth and emotional intensity as the Bruce-penned classics.

What's in store for the next several weeks? Hopefully an establishment of routine for the adults; I'd like to read a little bit in my back yard with my son playing and my babies sleeping. I'm looking forward to my brother and his family visiting in just a couple weeks. Camping.

The wheels continue to come off for the Bush Administration as a series of further setbacks show just how defunct and rudderless the current president is. Monday's no-confidence on the attorney general, the "war czar's" casting doubt on presidential decisions regarding the troop surge, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs resigning, the reports from Iraq, Russia and Europe that U.S. image and foreign policy is being dictated by hard-line warmongers from the Vice President's office. Scooter Libby's sentencing. Listening to David Broder today sickened me. This columnist, spouting that Libby was too harshly sentenced, believes that the root of the conviction is apparently an over-zealous special prosecutor. And yet, what ultimately this case focusses on is the Bush Administration's straw-man argument for war and the length to which it will punish those who disagree, albeit from a position of moral and factual strength. This political party that seized control of the government six and a half years ago on the premise of ethical superiority, is simply just another putsch with propaganda as weapon. What will the legacy of the GOP/Bush domination of the federal government in the first decade of the twenty-first century? Let's assess: health care? Immigration? Productive foreign policy? Productive domestic policy? Lessening of middle- and working class stress?