Indeed it does, Gordon, and he hits an existential target with great precision. If I had to suggest an amendment, it would not be in his depicting technology as an escape mechanism from coming to terms with the reality of death. That’s good. But there’s another issue with technology: our failure to push our imaginations to invent the genuinely new that’s now possible. For example, now that we’re all connected, how can we get genuine participation into the governing of our corporate life? Since we’re in a time of technology, there are positive and negative ways to deal with it. It’s the positive that I missed in his talk – but I agree that you can’t do it all in 15 minutes! It took RS-1 44 hours! It's a great talk, and thanks for sending it.

John

At 02:04 AM 8/24/2013, Gordon Harper wrote:

Well --

In this case, the poor soul here in Seattle who tried it (no, twas not I) got roundly booed and some people in his sizable audience tried hard to shut him down before he was through it.

I'd heard about David Guterson's experience delivering the commencement address this year at his former Seattle high school. Only recently, however, did a friend send me a copy of it to read myself. (You may recognize Guterson's name as the author of the novel, Snow Falling on Cedars.) I found his talk so deliciously outrageous as a graduation speech that I have to share it.

Those who were most outraged and expressed it so vocally were in the parents and family members section; it seems the graduates were at least polite and attentive during it. Its ending is weak (IMHO), and of course there was no following Christ lecture the next morning. Still, if one ever wanted a current rendering of our Friday night event, this might come close --

Gordon

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