obama's speech at notre dame was excellent: directly at abortion, for one thing. he told a nice story of an email he got while he was running for senate, from a pro-life doctor who voted for him in the primary, which objected to a bit of bo's website that talked about "right-wing ideologues who would take away a woman's right to choose." and the doc said: it's not that i want you to change your position; it's that i want you to speak of your opponents with respect.

meanwhile, at dickinson, christiane amanpour was also excellent: avoided most (well, some) of the cliches and was inspiring about journalism, though most of our grads are probably looking for jds or mbas.