by Mark Silva
In a week of controversy over commencement addresses - the ones that President Barack Obama delivered a few days ago at Arizona State and will deliver today at Notre Dame - a couple of others this week issued a traditional and indisputable call to service.
First Ladies Michelle Obama and Laura Bush.
The first lady delivered the commencement address Saturday at the University of California at Merced, the newest campus of the California system.
The former first lady returned to her own alma mater more than 40 years after earning a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Southern Methodist University, where the George W. Bush presidential library is being built.
Laura Bush admitted that she had been unable once to remember the keynote speaker at her master's degree ceremony at the University of Texas at Austin in 1977 and had to look it up. "You can imagine my surprise when I discovered it was George Bush," she said, referring to the father.
Michelle Obama delivered her first commencement address as first lady at a campus whose students had literally petitioned her to come speak - she said her office had received thousands of letters and Valentine cards from students.
"They were all terrific,'' she said. "Like the one from Christopher Casuga that read, 'Dear Mrs. Obama -- Please come to UC Merced's commencement. We could really use the publicity.'
"That really touched me,'' she said to laughter.
Service, Bush said in Texas, is a key to success -- much the same message that Obama was delivering in California.
(Photo of Michelle Obama at University of California at Merced commencement by Fresno Bee / MCT. Photo of Laura Bush at Southern Methodist University commencement by Nan Coulter, special to Dallas Morning News.)
"You won't waste your talent and education if you use them in service to others," said Bush, who had earned her bachelor's degree in Dallas in 1968, told the graduates there Saturday. And in today's world, she said, it is impossible to avert the need for it.
"Between cell phones and the Internet, you have a world of information literally at your fingertips,'' Bush told the graduates. "And because our world is so small, you can't ignore the genocide in Darfur or the recent brutal treatment of democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. You know the plight of children orphaned by AIDS in Africa. Today begins a period of incredible liberty and adventure, a time to find your calling and to demand the most of life before life makes specific demands on you," she said during a speech that lasted about 14 minutes.''
"I would encourage you to call upon the same hope and hard work that brought you to this day,'' Obama told the graduates at Merced.
"Call upon that optimism and tenacity that built the University of California at Merced to invest in the future of Merced in your own home towns all across this country. By using what you have learned here, you can shorten the path perhaps for kids who may not see a path at all....
"Let me tell you, careers focused on lifting up our communities -- whether it's helping transform troubled schools or creating after-school programs or training workers for green jobs -- these careers are not always obvious, but today they are necessary,'' she said. "Solutions to our nation's most challenging social problems are not going to come from Washington alone. Real innovation often starts with individuals who apply themselves to solve a problem right in their own community. That's where the best ideas come from....
"As advocate and activist Marian Wright Edelman says, "Service is the rent we pay for living... it is the true measure, the only measure of our success."
Comments
Solutions...NEVER come from Washington...solutions come from people.
Too bad this current government has hog-tied the American people for the next half century.
Keep government out of your business...health, financial, schooling and religion. Right now, they have their finger in your pie and they are eating your share.
NO to the Progressive Marxist Obama.
While Michelle helps in the low income neighborhoods she wears $500 sneakers.
How about re-distributing your shoes Michelle?
Posted by: Gloria | May 17, 2009 10:09 AM
Not saying the tribune is Bias.. Neither Michelle nor Barry has done ANYTHING to qualify to speak at any ceremonies.. Fact is this is an unfortunate tradition schools of whom they have speak at their kids graduation.. There are SO many out there that could and should be speaking to our kids that actually DID something in life not just being the token leaders to quiet down the GLOBAL communities.
Posted by: Helen Pratt=Sauloinskas | May 17, 2009 10:13 AM
The rabid at their finest.
Posted by: bill r. | May 17, 2009 5:11 PM
As opposed to the loons at their worst.
Posted by: Terry | May 17, 2009 10:30 PM
It was a beautiful and uplifting message from our First Lady. I also have admiration for Laura Bush, who has been a gracious First Lady, especially standing up for Michelle Obama during the campaign.
It's really too bad that there are still some ill mannered and irrational people out there who are filled with such hatred and bitterness over the election.
Their bile and anger is ungovernable, and ultimately will lead to the downfall of this nation. Too bad that they can't gain some sanity, reason, and educate themselves. Instead they prefer to be told what to think by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.
Posted by: Susan | May 17, 2009 10:56 PM