A couple of interesting news items from Chi-town:

The R. Kelly trial continues. There’s talk of a surprise witness who will rebut the 10 previous witnesses’ identification of Kelly and the girl in the video. But this alleged witness has also given a false Social Security number to authorities conducting a background check, presumably because s/he’s trying to avoid getting caught up in some other issues.

Now, I’m no fan of R. Kelly’s. There’s only 2 songs of his that I like; the rest I consider garbage. Do I think he’s guilty? Probably. But if the woman says she’s not the one on the tape and the defense says that the mole-less man is not Kelly, do I think he’s going to jail? Probably not. I believe he slept with underage girls. My question is why they aren’t going after him for statutory rape rather than child porn.

Northwestern graduates are up in arms over the choices of commencement speaker. First, the law school grads had a hissy when Jerry Springer was chosen as their speaker. (Truthfully, I probably would have laughed.) Now the undergrads are up in arms because Mayor Richard Daley has been chosen. Apparently, he’s not prestigious enough for them.

I’m no fan of either man. But I read the text of Springer’s speech. It was thoughtful and encouraging. I’ve always thought he was a smarter man before he started pandering to the lowest forms of society. As for Daley, he’s one step short of being indicted for corruption. He’s a terrible public speaker. But he probably has a good speechwriter. It’ll be fine.

Here’s the thing NU grads: who really cares? When all is said and done, the only thing that will matter is the diploma in your hand. No one is going to say, “Hey, that’s right, your school sucks because you had Jerry Springer/Richard Daley as your speaker.” I know it’s been a while, but I can’t remember any of my commencement speakers. I can’t even remember what they said. What I do remember from graduation is wearing my cap and gown, standing with my classmates, getting that amazing feeling when I saw my diploma. At my college graduation, I remember the collective tears of our graduating class as we awarded posthumous degrees to two of our fellow classmates, one who was killed only a week before graduation. I still get misty-eyed remembering the courage of David Koole’s father – having just buried David, knowing that he should have been among us — standing on the stage with David’s degree and encouraging us to move forward.

As for the speaker – who remembers?

NU grads – who cares? Let it go.