Award-winning illusions

By Jennifer J. Foster

This isn’t political, but it is really, really cool.

I’m sure there’s a funny line in there about politics and illusory effects. Insert your own here.

Obama at ASU

By Jennifer J. Foster

President Obama gave a terrific commencement address at Arizona State University last night.

You can read the story about it here, but it’s worth your time to watch the speech in its entirety when it pops up on YouTube or C-SPAN or whatever.

I was annoyed by all the controversy surrounding the honorary degree (they’re not giving him one! What an insult! They might give him one! They’re giving him something else instead!) a couple of weeks ago. But Obama has taken it and made something useful out of it.

And wouldn’t you rather have a scholarship program named after you than to have yet another worthless “honorary” degree on your résumé?

The president’s speech typified so much about what made his campaign successful—acknowledging problems, yes, but empowering people to believe not only that those problems aren’t insurmoutable, but that they can do something about them.

I especially dug the section of the speech where he called out graduates by field and pointed out options they could pursue that could constitute reinvestment in and contribute to the renewal of the American spirit.

I’m sorry to say that I have no idea who delivered the commencement address at my college graduation, much less what he or she said.

And now I feel somewhat cheated about that, having heard that speech last night.

Ashton v. CNN

By Jennifer J. Foster

You might have heard about Ashton Kutcher’s recent Twitter challenge to CNN: First one to 1 million followers wins.

According to CNN, Kutcher agreed to donate 10,000 mosquito bed nets to charity for World Malaria Day in late April if he won and 1,000 if he lost. CNN agreed.

Oh, and there was one more thing: Kutcher pledged to “ding dong ditch” Ted Turner if he topped the cable news network Turner founded.

What is ding-dong-ditch, you ask?

Kutcher is happy to demonstrate. Read the story of how he followed through with his pledge here.

This is all in good fun, and I think it’s great that CNN took Kutcher up on his challenge. But I have just one complaint. CNN should go ahead and donate the other 9,000 mosquito bed nets to charity, too.

It’s great to do good. It’s better to do more.