Posted on 06/14/2002 1:23:08 PM PDT by rface
http://www.cleveland.com/ohio/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1024142276118590.xml
Ohio News
Bush urges OSU grads to volunteer Bush calls on grads to serve others
06/15/02
Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus- Hoping for a "gathering momentum of millions of acts of kindness and decency," President Bush yesterday called on more than 6,200 Ohio State University graduates to become volunteers.
"Service is not a chain or a chore," Bush said during a commencement speech to about 60,000 graduates and guests at Ohio Stadium. "It gives direction to your gifts and purpose to your freedom."
Garbed in a black robe embellished in blue velvet, Bush told graduates it would be up to them to decide whether the spirit that has grown since Sept. 11 will be, as some suggest, "shallow and temporary."
"Your generation will respond to these skeptics - one way or another," he said. "You will determine whether our new ethic of responsibility is the break of a wave, or the rise of a tide."
Volunteerism among college students is increasingly popular, said Dan Stenta, associate director of the university's Ohio Union, and some colleges now send a "service transcript" in addition to an academic transcript along with graduates.
He said Ohio State is planning such a program.
Stenta said surveys have shown that 40 percent of Ohio State students volunteer at least one hour a week, and 85 percent of fraternity and sorority members at the university have participated in at least one community service event.
Graduate Alison Pokorny, 21, of Parma Heights, said she worked 900 hours while attending Ohio State for AmeriCorps - one of the volunteer opportunities cited by Bush in his speech. A medical dietetics major, Pokorny said she visited after-school programs and taught nutrition facts to 6- to 12-year-olds. Her work was supervised by the Children's Hunger Alliance.
"It's really special to see the impact that you can have on a little kid's life," she said. "I just did it because it's something I really, really wanted to do."
To help boost such volunteerism nationwide, Bush announced during his speech a new Internet listing of community volunteer opportunities around the nation.
The listing is on the USA Freedom Corps Web site: www.usafreedomcorps.gov.
Bush is the first sitting president to speak at an Ohio State commencement since Gerald Ford addressed graduates in 1974.
Bush's father spoke to graduating Buckeyes in 1983, when he was Ronald Reagan's vice president.
The younger Bush's appearance at Ohio State, the nation's second-largest university campus, was his sixth visit to Ohio since he was elected.
Security at the event was so tight that guests were asked to begin arriving at 6 a.m., 3½ hours before ceremonies began. Lines of expectant guests extended from the east side of the horseshoe stadium almost to the east bank of the Olentangy River.
Outside the stadium, protesters rallied over a variety of Bush's foreign and domestic policies.
"Aside from the fact that we think that George Bush wasn't legitimately elected," said Nick Solsman, one protest organizer, "we also believe that he's more beholden to the corporations that financed his campaign - with Enron as the largest contributor - than the American public." Bush was one of five people to receive honorary doctoral degrees at the event.
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner also appeared at the commencement ceremony, to receive an honorary doctorate of business administration. Steinbrenner, a Rocky River native, earned his fortune at the Cleveland-based American Shipbuilding Co. He and his wife, Ohio State alum Joan Zieg Steinbrenner, recently underwrote a new marching band practice center at Ohio Stadium.
Bush, one-time managing general partner of the Texas Rangers, quipped: "I guess we're both being honored as legends of baseball. Legends, at least, in our own minds."
No, because that didn't happen. Notice that the writer relayed that as second-hand information, and more importantly, she herself was merely removed from the room. Her diploma was not taken from her.
It's just another lie from just another liar.
Perhaps you missed the very front page of FreeRepublic.com where it says "Defending our Constitution", of which the First Amendment (which protects even the most unpopular of political speech) is a part.
I may not agree with everything BuzzFlash.com has to say, but we should be front and center in defending their rights to free speech. Just because they don't swallow everything that comes from Bush or Ashcroft hook line, and sinker doesn't make them any less American. I think the fact that they use their Constitutional rights to question our leadership proves they are far more American than those who want universal conformity to a particular political doctrine.
I urge you to reread (or read for the first time, whichever is the case) the First Amendment to our Constitution.
Even in wartime? In wartime, we are supposed to follow our President on everything (provided he is a Republican, of course). In fact, I wouldn't rule out treason charges for those who disagree with Bush. This is America, and we should all think alike! /sarcasm
Yes. Every allegation posted on DU that mentions any Republican in a negative light, no matter how meaningless the subject matter, invariably results in a huge thread of morons jumping up and down with glee, posting their sad little animated smily-face icons, all deluding each other that [insert name here]-Gate is the beginning of The Big Scandal that will inevitably explode to the point where it completely destroys the GOP, forces George W. Bush and every other elected Republican at the federal level to resign in disgrace, and ushers in a utopian thousand-year Democratic Party Reich. And of course, nothing ever happens and the entire world forgets about it the next day, thus "proving" that the national news media is controlled by the White House as part of Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
They truly are insane.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
How was the 1st trampled?
Someone should suppress Buzzflash.
Buzzflash can be suppressed many ways - boycotts suppress publications - contacting advertizers and putting the pressure on them could also suppress Buzzflash, yet both of these methods are well within anyones "rights"....the 1st amendment has to do with the power of Congress, not the power of Ohio State, or Buzzflash, or you or me.
Given Buzzflash.com is a niche news site just like Drudge, except that Buzzflash is largely reader-supported, it is unlikely that what conservatives think will matter to these folks. Buzzflash is not targeted at extreme conservatives, and will be around regardless of how badly conservatives want to suppress non-conservative thought in this country.
On the otherhand, I do see a PR issue for some to latch onto.
BTW - I didn't mean to sound too harsh
Ashland, Missouri
Bush & Co. are doing their best to trash the 4th and 6th Amendments. Bush is the one with the problem with the Bill of Rights. Last time I checked, he's illegally holding an American citizen and denying 6th Amendment rights (while DoJ says that the President can label anyone as "enemy combatant" and deny one's rights that way). Increased surveillance and snooping powers give way to further shredding of our 4th Amendment protections.
And President Bush is just fine with it.
So it would seem.
I recall the story of a post-Waterloo dinner party at which several French officers made a point of turning their backs on the Duke of Wellington. He nicely shrugged it off, saying, "I have seen their backs before."
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