Fantasy Advice

My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth's resources of the weird. Weird clothes -- we wore them. Weird beards -- we grew them. Weird words and phrases -- we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize. - P.J. O'Rourke

It's graduation season, which means it's time for newspaper columnists to do their annual "Imaginary Commencement Address" columns--many of which are worth reading a good fifth of. One or two a year, however, are actually worth the money spent on the ink--or, increasingly the bits of server space they take.

I haven't been subjected to many of these yet this year, but I'm willing to bet that P.J. O'Rourke's is about as good as you're going to get this year, very likely the best of the batch.

Which means, naturally, that no educational institution in this nation would let him give it. In brief, if you want to have a good life and make a postive difference in the world: get a job, make money, stay out of politics, be thankful life isn't fair, and read your Bible (not for the reason normally given). But he puts it so much better.