Please dispense with the commencement silliness

As high school seniors gear up for graduation, it's time to remember that a commencement ceremony is NOT the place for cat-calls, air horns, and shrieks of "YOU GO, GIRL!" George Weigel, in The New Republic, makes this comment:

As I sit through my third commencement in two weeks, I note, somewhat dyspeptically, that these affairs now combine the sartorial splendor of the medieval university with behavior adopted from the rowdiest of high-school basketball games. When did it become socially acceptable for adults to shriek like banshees when their graduate’s name is announced? There seem to be no ethnic, racial, or class identifiers of this obnoxious and idiotic behavior: with rare exceptions, just about everyone does it.

The award of a degree ought to mark a point of passage into adulthood. Parents, siblings, and friends who understand that might want to stop acting like berserk adolescents on these occasions.

Congrats, Rode!

Lowell's varsity softball coach, Bob Rodenhouse, reached a milestone Tuesday, picking up his 500th and 501st career wins. The team loves Rode, and he loves coaching them. Those of us who teach with him at LHS will miss his priceless stories in the staff lounge next year; he's hanging up the PE clipboard, but we hope to see him around as Coach Rode for many years to come!

Heckuva theory, Brownie

You remember Michael "Brownie" Brown, one-time head of FEMA who did such a bang-up job in Nawlins' post-Katrina? He claims the current mess in the Gulf was sprung by President Obama to advance his environmental agenda. Classy guy.

RIP Ernie Harwell

Simply the best to ever call a game. Ernie Harwell is calling the ultimate All-Star Game in that ballpark in the sky.

AP Exam Study Break

The Muppets take on Queen - take a break and enjoy.

Levin v. Goldman Sachs

Checking out NYTimes.com this morning, I grinned at photos of the Ukrainian Parliament as they threw down, threw eggs, and threw smoke bombs during a debate over extending a lease on a Russian naval base (the smoke cleared, and the deal passed). I thought, Wouldn't that be something to see in our government?

Enter today's senate hearings on the financial crisis, featuring Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and a bunch of suits from Goldman Sachs. Levin called out Goldman over a "s*****" deal. I don't know what was more fun: the smoke bomb, Levin's s-bombs, or watching the media try to deal with Levin's "salty" or "colorful" language.

Nevertheless, I hope Biggby doesn't add a Dung Bear to the menu anytime soon

The world's most expensive coffee beans can be found in the Philippines, once they've been through a unique process:

Costing hundreds of dollars a pound, these beans are found in the droppings of the civet, a nocturnal, furry, long-tailed catlike animal that prowls Southeast Asia’s coffee-growing lands for the tastiest, ripest coffee cherries. The civet eventually excretes the hard, indigestible innards of the fruit — essentially, incipient coffee beans — though only after they have been fermented in the animal’s stomach acids and enzymes to produce a brew described as smooth, chocolaty and devoid of any bitter aftertaste.

Princeton Professor/Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet analyzes Ke$ha

Paul Muldoon examines the relationship between Ke$ha's "Tic-Toc" and King Lear, among other things, in this academic study of the pop diva.

RIP Marion Ladewig

Last week, I took the family to Northfield Lanes for an afternoon of bowling. We soon discovered how much easier it is to bowl on the Wii.

Years ago, my Grandpa Evans would take me and my brothers to The Fanatorium, a bowling institution on Jefferson SE. He'd chat up the owner, Mr. Morrissey, and remind us to swing our arms "like a pendulum." If memory serves, he introduced us to the great Marion Ladewig (or at least pointed to her and told us about her greatness). The "greatest female bowler" died this morning at age 95.

Beatrice and Virgil: Yann Martel's new novel

One of the highlights of my career happened two years ago, when my AP Lit classes had the opportunity to chat with Booker Prize-winning author Yann Martel (thanks, AV!). Eight years after Life of Pi was published, Martel has returned with Beatrice and Virgil, another animal-filled novel. Martel explains the premise here.