Elliot graduated from UTD Saturday. I’ve never been to a US university graduation ceremony before, and I thought it was very well done. I still don’t understand why it’s called “commencement”.
The one sour note for me was the commencement speaker. It just seems like it’s become obligatory to describe the world in terms of terrorism. My own opinion: that means the terrorists have won. They, not we, define our world now.
Well, UTD would never be likely to be considered a center of opposition to the establishment. Even so, to hear a student claim that terrorism is the result of the modern-day loss of compassion brought on by the information age and high-speed computing, and that video games desensitize us to violence is sadenning. If a young person is out of touch with reality, I’d prefer it to be in a creative, challenging way, not in media-fed adherence to fear.
Where was the computerized information age when Hitler exterminated six million individuals? Where was the compassion in the crusades, or the Inquisition, or in the buying and selling of human lives in the slave trade? People have always been capable of great evil, and blaming technology or lack of the One True Faith doesn’t help recognize and deal with the nature of that evil.
Meh. I need to stop whining about politics. But before I drop the subject completely, I came across a World of Warcraft image that I took as part of a humorous story a while back. I didn’t see the resemblance when I took the screenshot – someone pointed it out later in an IRC channel.
George and Laura, or “Chimp Gone Wild”
(“Laura” is my old character Erice, a warlock. “George” came in a gift-wrapped box from the WoW equivalent of Santa.)