Word: speech
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That isn't true, of course. Funny or Die is a comedy website, and Franco's video is just a spoof. But this speech is so funny that he should have kept his promise and delivered it instead of flitting off to work on Spiderman 7, or one of his short stories, or whatever it was that he considered more important...
...pulled out a few days before the event, reportedly to work on a movie. Or at least that's what his publicist said. The real story, according to this Funny or Die video, is that UCLA found out what the 2008 alumnus planned to say in his speech and rescinded the invitation...
James Franco's Rejected UCLA Commencement Speech from James Franco...
...That last comment might help explain why Obama has opted to deliver his key Africa speech to Ghana's Parliament rather than to a public crowd, which would probably have drawn huge numbers. The news site Politico last weekend speculated that Obama - or his security detail - may also want to avoid the kind of bedlam that greeted Bill Clinton's visit to Accra in 1998, when he was nearly crushed by a crowd that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. On that day, as people surged toward the stage, the visibly terrified Clinton shouted, "Get back! Get back!" (Read "Into...
...frenzy over Obama is a lot more intense than the enthusiasm for Clinton during the 1990s, infused as it is with the moving symbolism of a prodigal African son returning as the world's most powerful man. Obama's speech will almost certainly be watched and listened to by millions of Africans, many of whom are struck by the fact that in contrast to that of several of their leaders, Obama's path to power was not paved by family connections or inherited wealth and regard Obama as one of their own. "I have lost count of the number...