a History of Stanford Commencement Speakers, 1892-

I hate it when information literally gets discarded or lost… I remember speaking to Prof. Hector Garcia- Molina a few years ago, when he mentioned his passion for photography and how even his digital photos that had been sitting on his hard disk had become corrupted. NASA I believe even makes you submit an age distribution of your group for any research/project proposal, as they want to make sure 20 years from now, someone will still be around who understands what was done. I even recall hearing that some of the records in the Library of Congress are simply useless because the machines needed to read them are no longer in existence nor properly understood by anyone.

The only list Stanford has of all its commencement speakers at graduation ceremonies from over the years is a sparsely-maintained list sitting in the Special Collections of Green Library, without any of their actual speeches. What a shame… if you have excerpts from any of these addresses or information on where to find them, please email me… the following is a transcription of the list; you’ll recognize a few names: Millikan (the oil-drop experiment), Trudeau (creator of Doonesbury), a smattering of Supreme Court justices, and two UN Secretary Generals.

A Fascinating Tidbit from History

I remember being intrigued when my tenth-grade World History teacher, Phil Neeno, mentioned how the UN Security Council in 1950 had managed to pass a resolution that authorized the formation of a military coalition against the North Korean attack, considering that it would have faced a certain Soviet veto. Here’s how it came to pass, from this BBC article.
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“…President Truman was the first to put together two facts, only one of which was public knowledge.

In the spring of 1950 the Soviet Union had decided to boycott the Security Council because the General Assembly refused to have the Communist regime of mainland China replace Formosa – Taiwan – in the Security Council.

So at dawn of the North Korean invasion of the South, if the Russians wanted to have a say in the Security Council’s response, in other words if it was going to use its veto as it surely would have done, it would have to get a representative Russian delegate to New York as soon as possible.

What Harry Truman instantly remembered was that the Russians, at that time, had not developed a big commercial jet. They boasted about the superiority of a giant turbo-prop, but it was slower than a jet. Hence Harry Truman’s snappy order to Secretary Acheson: ‘Get to New York now – take a vote – go.’”

”
As an “empty seat” abstention is treated as non-blocking, the resolution went through.

America’s Gift that Kept Giving

I’ve heard several accounts of how the CIA made the unprecedented move of presenting the Shah of Iran with a few U.S. dollar printing plates so he could churn out as much counterfeit currency as he desired. Except that when he high-tailed it out of his country when the revolution came, the printing presses fell into the hands of a now-hostile regime. Intent on undermining America’s economic dominance in the Middle East, they flooded the market with impeccable greenback forgeries known as ‘superdollars’ – forcing Uncle Sam to redesign their currency; and if you believe the story, you no longer have to wonder where Hezbollah got those crisp $100 bills they were handing out to Lebanese war victims over the summer.

For more, I would recommend “The Laundrymen,” a fascinating book on drug trafficking, tax evasion, and money laundering – the world’s third largest business, it claims. An excerpt:
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A more brazen approach was used by a South African businessman who faked a badly-sprained ankle and convinced his doctor to put a cast on his leg. He was booked on a flight from Johannesburg to London and asked the airline to supply a wheelchair to help him get from check in to the gate. But, on the day of his flight, an anonymous call came into customs that a businessman with a cast on his leg was smuggling a large sum of money out of the country. When he wheeled up to the immigration desk on his way to the gate, he was stopped. Officers said they wanted to search him. He refused. They insisted. He demanded that he be permitted to ring his solicitor. Senior officials were called in and the argument continued long past the point where the plane was scheduled to leave. He categorically refused a body search and, by the time his solicitor arrived, the flight had left without him. Now he threatened to sue everyone in sight. His solicitor somehow managed to call him down and explain that the officers were well within their right. Protesting to the very end, he had no choice but to sit there while his cast was sawn off. And once it came off the officers found – absolutely nothing. Now the man raised hell. He started ringing everyone he knew in government. Red-faced apologies, though plentiful, were no good. The businessman ordered his solicitor to get everyone’s name and file lawsuits. He intended to sue the government and sue the airlines for allowing this to happen he not only wanted retribution, he wanted blood. He caused such a huge rumpus that the following day, with a new cast plastered over his ankle – and cash stuffed inside – customs & immigration officials personally helped him on to the plane.

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Sweet.

the Last Great Interview of the Century

Brother Number One = Saloth Sar = Pol Pot. a while back I wrote a paper on the Cambodian genocide and got a chance to interview Noam Chomsky about why the western world didn’t know about what was going on at the time. At the time I came accross an interview by Nate Thayer, a reporter from the Far Eastern Economic Review, of Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge’s “killing fields” responsible for the deaths of millions of Cambodians, but only recently got a chance to get my hands on the article.
Turns out not only was this the last interview ever given by Pol Pot, it was the first – no westerner had seen him since he took power decades ago. Nate doggedly pursued what he called “the last great interview of the century” and finally got his story right before Pol Pot’s death.

the trial: page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4 page 5
the interview: page 2-1 page 2-2 page 2-3 page 2-4 page 2-5 page 2-6

a History Lesson on Oliver Cromwell

After i heard his name mentioned for the second time the other day, i decided to look him up. Apparently he’s one of the few people despised enough by some of his successors to have warranted the dubious honor of a posthumous execution. That’s right; not content with his convenient death from a bout of malaria, as soon as the Royalists regained power in Britain they decided that he had to be made an example of; they dug up his grave, beheaded him and mounted his head on a pole outside Westminster Abbey, after which it “changed hands” numerous times and eventually ended up on the grounds of Cambridge University.

Reminds me of the funeral traditions of the Zoroastrians that a friend mentioned the other day: their dead are placed on top of ‘Towers of Silence’ and left there for the vultures to feast on, and its still practiced to this day in some parts.