Word: speaker
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Meanwhile, council Treasurer Beth A. Stewart'00, who also is in her second year on the council, has plastered the campus with posters promising "Action, for a Change." Stewart, who interned this summer in the office of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and is a member of the conservative Salient, has vowed to move the council toward an agenda focused primarily on quality-of-life issues...
...Does the speaker then have to come from popular television or radio, as he (and "he" is appropriate here) has during the past two years? Is the qualification in part the ability to look good on blue screens or sound good over the airwaves? Are we holding a pseudo-intellectual beauty contest? Maybe...
Given the admittedly bland tastes of the committee, why do the names of the candidates have to be secret, anyway. Last year, the names of various potential speakers--including the comedian Jerry Seinfeld, the actor Tom Hanks and the eventual Class Day speaker, record-producer Quincy Jones--did not become public until spring. (Attention candidates for the council presidency: ever consider sunshine laws at Harvard?) Of course, the intricacies of procedure are in place for good reason, i.e. to "protect the candidates," in the words of one committee member. This translates to "We want control." Would not a ballot with...
...committee ought to consider whether the speaker is challenging. If a sense of challenge were considered to be as good a criteria as the others, we could get earnest political activists instead of politicians. What about wisdom? Why not try to hear from someone who is wiser than us--and not wise in the sense of erudite, but someone who is knowing in the ways of the world, like a distinguished author? Or someone who is able to speak to transcendent values? A religious figure who might be able to give us some perspective on our temporal successes...
...George Clooney really who we want for a Class Day speaker? Is Clooney really someone we wish to honor? Is Clooney someone we even wish to hear? Hopefully, the answer to that question is no; what the hell would he have to say? Maybe, "You all need brain surgery...