Word: speaker
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Third, it is quite ironic that the article urges the "moderate" Speaker Hastert to try his "darndest" to pass the legislation. The implication, of course, is that he himself is a proponent of the legislation up against a recalcitrant opposition. In fact, he is one of the most stubborn opponents, and if anyone does manage to kill the legislation, it will probably be Hastert...
Three years ago, Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health, was announced as the principal speaker at Harvard's 345th Commencement. After asking "Harold who?," spoiled Harvard students, accustomed to being addressed by heads of state and Nobel laureates, questioned the selection of a bio medical researcher as the featured guest at their graduation. Poor Dr. Varmus was ridiculed in campus publications; his likeness even made a regular appearance in a student comic strip in this newspaper...
Simply put, as an interesting and inspirational speaker, Greenspan just doesn't match up to the world leaders and Cold War heroes who have paraded through the Yard in recent years. The conventional wisdom is that Greenspan will not--in fact, cannot--say anything of import, because if he did, it would cause significant shocks to the world economy. In a now-famous incident in 1996, Greenspan commented that gains in the stock market at the time might have been caused by "irrational exuberance." In response to his skeptical comments, markets around the world tumbled...
...popularity is fickle and whose accomplishments, like those of most politicians, are not likely to stand the test of time. Would an economist have been selected 10 years ago, shortly after Black Monday and on the eve of a major recession? I doubt it. By contrast, Ralph Ellison (Commencement speaker in 1974) will always be a great novelist, Oscar Arias (speaker in 1988) will always be a crusader for peace and Colin Powell (speaker in 1993) will always be a military hero...
...suppose after Nelson Mandela's visit and speech last September, any other speaker was bound to be a disappointment. For many of us in the class of '99, sitting in the front section in Tercentenary Theater at that historic event, it was better than any Commencement. Maybe it was the start of school or the warm fall air, but there was a palpable electricity in the air that day. And none of us will ever forget Mandela's wit, remarkable for a man of his age and with his extraordinary life behind him, or the scene of him hoisting...