The Coolest University of Pennsylvania Graduate

One Saturday morning, in the library that I know so well, Pambie handed me a copy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and pointed out Winnie Monsod's column. It referred to Bono's commencement address last May 17,2004 at the University of Pennsylvania. I was touched by the article that I Googled the whole speech. It is truly inspiring and brought tears to my eyes. U-Penn gave Bono an honorary doctorate. Doctor of Laws-- he worked hard for it, harder than some who actually studied to achieve it.

My name is Bono and I am a rock star. Don't get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited. I'd just like to say to the parents, your children are safe, your country is safe, the FCC has taught me a lesson and the only four letter word I'm going to use today is P-E-N-N. Come to think of it 'Bono' is a four-letter word. The whole business of obscenity--I don't think there's anything certainly more unseemly than the sight of a rock star in academic robes. It's a bit like when people put their King Charles spaniels in little tartan sweats and hats. It's not natural, and it doesn't make the dog any smarter.

It's true we were here before with U2 and I would like to thank them for giving me a great life, as well as you. I've got a great rock and roll band that normally stand in the back when I'm talking to thousands of people in a football stadium and they were here with me, I think it was seven years ago. Actually then I was with some other sartorial problems. I was wearing a mirror-ball suit at the time and I emerged from a forty-foot high revolving lemon. It was sort of a cross between a space ship, a disco and a plastic fruit.

I guess it was at that point when your Trustees decided to give me their highest honor. Doctor of Laws, wow! I know it's an honor, and it really is an honor, but are you sure? Doctor of Law, all I can think about is the laws I've broken. Laws of nature, laws of physics, laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and on a memorable night in the late seventies, I think it was Newton's law of motion...sickness. No, it's true, my resume reads like a rap sheet. I have to come clean; I've broken a lot of laws, and the ones I haven't I've certainly thought about. I have sinned in thought, word, and deed. God forgive me. Actually God forgave me, but why would you? I'm here getting a doctorate, getting respectable, getting in the good graces of the powers that be, I hope it sends you students a powerful message: Crime does pay.

So I humbly accept the honor, keeping in mind the words of a British playwright, John Mortimer it was, "No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense and relatively clean fingernails." Well at best I've got one of the two of those.

But no, I never went to college, I've slept in some strange places, but the library wasn't one of them. I studied rock and roll and I grew up in Dublin in the '70s, music was an alarm bell for me, it woke me up to the world. I was 17 when I first saw The Clash, and it just sounded like revolution. The Clash were like, "This is a public service announcement--with guitars." I was the kid in the crowd who took it at face value. Later I learned that a lot of the rebels were in it for the T-shirt. They'd wear the boots but they wouldn't march. They'd smash bottles on their heads but they wouldn't go to something more painful like a town hall meeting. By the way I felt like that myself until recently.

I didn't expect change to come so slow, so agonizingly slow. I didn't realize that the biggest obstacle to political and social progress wasn't the Free Masons, or the Establishment, or the boot heel of whatever you consider 'the Man' to be, it was something much more subtle. As the Provost just referred to, a combination of our own indifference and the Kafkaesque labyrinth of 'no's you encounter as people vanish down the corridors of bureaucracy.

So for better or worse that was my education. I came away with a clear sense of the difference music could make in my own life, in other peoples' lives if I did my job right. Which if you're a singer in a rock band means avoiding the obvious pitfalls like, say, a mullet hairdo. If anyone here doesn't know what a mullet is by the way your education's certainly not complete, I'd ask for your money back. For a lead singer like me, a mullet is, I would suggest, arguably more dangerous than a drug problem. Yes, I had a mullet in the '80s.

Now this is the point where the members of the faculty start smiling uncomfortably and thinking maybe they should have offered me the honorary bachelors degree instead of the full blown doctorate, (he should have been the bachelor's one, he's talking about mullets and stuff). If they're asking what on earth I'm doing here, I think it's a fair question. What am I doing here? More to the point: what are you doing here? Because if you don't mind me saying so this is a strange ending to an Ivy League education. Four years in these historic halls thinking great thoughts and now you're sitting in a stadium better suited for football listening to an Irish rock star give a speech that is so far mostly about himself. What are you doing here?

Actually I saw something in the paper last week about Kermit the Frog giving a commencement address somewhere. One of the students was complaining, "I worked my ass off for four years to be addressed by a sock?" You have worked your ass off for this. For four years you've been buying, trading, and selling, everything you've got in this marketplace of ideas. The intellectual hustle. Your pockets are full, even if your parents' are empty, and now you've got to figure out what to spend it on.

Well, the going rate for change is not cheap. Big ideas are expensive. The University has had its share of big ideas. Benjamin Franklin had a few, so did Justice Brennen and in my opinion so does Judith Rodin. What a gorgeous girl. They all knew that if you're gonna be good at your word if you're gonna live up to your ideals and your education, its' gonna cost you.

So my question I suppose is: What's the big idea? What's your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing outside of the walls of the University of Pennsylvania?

There's a truly great Irish poet his name is Brendan Kennelly, and he has this epic poem called the Book of Judas, and there's a line in that poem that never leaves my mind, it says: "If you want to serve the age, betray it." What does that mean to betray the age?

Well to me betraying the age means exposing its conceits, it's foibles; it's phony moral certitudes. It means telling the secrets of the age and facing harsher truths.

Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were the ones who called it as it was--which was ungodly and inhuman. Ben Franklin called it what it was when he became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

Segregation. There was another one. America sees this now but it took a civil rights movement to betray their age. And 50 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court betrayed the age May 17, 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education came down and put the lie to the idea that separate can ever really be equal. Amen to that.

Fast forward 50 years. May 17, 2004. What are the ideas right now worth betraying? What are the lies we tell ourselves now? What are the blind spots of our age? What's worth spending your post-Penn lives trying to do or undo? It might be something simple.

It might be something as simple as our deep down refusal to believe that every human life has equal worth. Could that be it? Could that be it? Each of you will probably have your own answer, but for me that is it. And for me the proving ground has been Africa.

Africa makes a mockery of what we say, at least what I say, about equality and questions our pieties and our commitments because there's no way to look at what's happening over there and it's effect on all of us and conclude that we actually consider Africans as our equals before God. There is no chance.

An amazing event happened here in Philadelphia in 1985--Live Aid--that whole We Are The World phenomenon the concert that happened here. Well after that concert I went to Ethiopia with my wife, Ali. We were there for a month and an extraordinary thing happened to me. We used to wake up in the morning and the mist would be lifting we'd see thousands and thousands of people who'd been walking all night to our food station were we were working. One man--I was standing outside talking to the translator--had this beautiful boy and he was saying to me in Amharic, I think it was, I said I can't understand what he's saying, and this nurse who spoke English and Amharic said to me, he's saying will you take his son. He's saying please take his son, he would be a great son for you. I was looking puzzled and he said, "You must take my son because if you don't take my son, my son will surely die. If you take him he will go back to Ireland and get an education." Probably like the ones we're talking about today. I had to say no, that was the rules there and I walked away from that man, I've never really walked away from it. But I think about that boy and that man and that's when I started this journey that's brought me here into this stadium.

Because at that moment I became the worst scourge on God's green earth, a rock star with a cause. Christ! Except it isn't the cause. Seven thousand Africans dying every day of preventable, treatable disease like AIDS? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. And when the disease gets out of control because most of the population live on less than one dollar a day? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. And when resentment builds because of unfair trade rules and the burden of unfair debt, that are debts by the way that keep Africans poor? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. So--We Are The World, Live Aid, start me off it was an extraordinary thing and really that event was about charity. But 20 years on I'm not that interested in charity. I'm interested in justice. There's a difference. Africa needs justice as much as it needs charity.

Equality for Africa is a big idea. It's a big expensive idea. I see the Wharton graduates now getting out the math on the back of their programs, numbers are intimidating aren't they, but not to you! But the scale of the suffering and the scope of the commitment they often numb us into a kind of indifference. Wishing for the end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa is like wishing that gravity didn't make things so damn heavy. We can wish it, but what the hell can we do about it?

Well, more than we think. We can't fix every problem--corruption, natural calamities are part of the picture here--but the ones we can we must. The debt burden, as I say, unfair trade, as I say, sharing our knowledge, the intellectual copyright for lifesaving drugs in a crisis, we can do that. And because we can, we must. Because we can, we must. Amen.

This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It's not a theory, it's a fact. The fact is that this generation--yours, my generation--that can look at the poverty, we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this sort of stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly. We can be the first generation. It might take a while, but we can be that generation that says no to stupid poverty. It's a fact, the economists confirm it. It's an expensive fact but, cheaper than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from communism and fascism. And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave after wave of terrorism's new recruits. That's the economics department over there, very good.

It's a fact. So why aren't we pumping our fists in the air and cheering about it? Well probably because when we admit we can do something about it, we've got to do something about it. For the first time in history we have the know how, we have the cash, we have the lifesaving drugs, but do we have the will?

Yesterday, here in Philadelphia, at the Liberty Bell, I met a lot of Americans who do have the will. From arch-religious conservatives to young secular radicals, I just felt an incredible overpowering sense that this was possible. We're calling it the ONE campaign, to put an end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa. They believe we can do it, so do I.

I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't.

I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now, you don't see it on TV, irony is on heavy rotation, the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. I've tried them all out but I'll tell you this, outside this campus--and even inside it--idealism is under siege beset by materialism, narcissism and all the other isms of indifference. Baggism, Shaggism. Raggism. Notism, graduationism, chismism, I don't know. Where's John Lennon when you need him.

But I don't want to make you cop to idealism, not in front of your parents, or your younger siblings. But what about Americanism? Will you cop to that at least? It's not everywhere in fashion these days, Americanism. Not very big in Europe, truth be told. No less on Ivy League college campuses. But it all depends on your definition of Americanism.

Me, I'm in love with this country called America. I'm a huge fan of America, I'm one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn't live up to thatŠ.

I'm that kind of fan. I read the Declaration of Independence and I've read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes, dude. As I said yesterday I made my pilgrimage to Independence Hall, and I love America because America is not just a country, it's an idea. You see my country, Ireland, is a great country, but it's not an idea. America is an idea, but it's an idea that brings with it some baggage, like power brings responsibility. It's an idea that brings with it equality, but equality even though it's the highest calling, is the hardest to reach. The idea that anything is possible, that's one of the reasons why I'm a fan of America. It's like hey, look there's the moon up there, lets take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That's the kind of America that I'm a fan of.

In 1771 your founder Mr. Franklin spent three months in Ireland and Scotland to look at the relationship they had with England to see if this could be a model for America, whether America should follow their example and remain a part of the British Empire.

Franklin was deeply, deeply distressed by what he saw. In Ireland he saw how England had put a stranglehold on Irish trade, how absentee English landlords exploited Irish tenant farmers and how those farmers in Franklin's words "lived in retched hovels of mud and straw, were clothed in rags and subsisted chiefly on potatoes." Not exactly the American dream...

So instead of Ireland becoming a model for America, America became a model for Ireland in our own struggle for independence.

When the potatoes ran out, millions of Irish men, women and children packed their bags got on a boat and showed up right here. And we're still doing it. We're not even starving anymore, loads of potatoes. In fact if there's any Irish out there, I've breaking news from Dublin, the potato famine is over you can come home now. But why are we still showing up? Because we love the idea of America.

We love the crackle and the hustle, we love the spirit that gives the finger to fate, the spirit that says there's no hurdle we can't clear and no problem we can't fix. (sound of helicopter) Oh, here comes the Brits, only joking. No problem we can't fix. So what's the problem that we want to apply all this energy and intellect to?

Every era has its defining struggle and the fate of Africa is one of ours. It's not the only one, but in the history books it's easily going to make the top five, what we did or what we did not do. It's a proving ground, as I said earlier, for the idea of equality. But whether it's this or something else, I hope you'll pick a fight and get in it. Get your boots dirty, get rough, steel your courage with a final drink there at Smoky Joe's, one last primal scream and go.

Sing the melody line you hear in your own head, remember, you don't owe anybody any explanations, you don't owe your parents any explanations, you don't owe your professors any explanations. You know I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out.

But it's not. The future is not fixed, it's fluid. You can build your own building, or hut or condo, whatever; this is the metaphor part of the speech by the way.

But my point is that the world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape. Now if I were a folksinger I'd immediately launch into "If I Had a Hammer" right now get you all singing and swaying. But as I say I come from punk rock, so I'd rather have the bloody hammer right here in my fist.

That's what this degree of yours is, a blunt instrument. So go forth and build something with it. Remember what John Adams said about Ben Franklin, "He does not hesitate at our boldest Measures but rather seems to think us too irresolute."

Well this is the time for bold measures. This is the country, and you are the generation. Thank you.

the importance of accessorizing

Things happen for a reason... even movie schedules. I found the perfect movie to watch the night before the grades in rem rev become final. Real life is indeed stranger than fiction:

I read this, in this fantastically depressing book, that when you jump from a building, it's rarely the impact that actually kills you.

x x x x x x x x

Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true.

-Emma Thompson as Karen Eiffel (Stranger Than Fiction)

Almost made it...

Too bad, Ate Paulynne's essay didn't make the folio deadline. But I now understand the stress my mom goes through everyday.


Luci once said, "Parenting is not for the weak hearted."

I did not give the statement much thought at the time. I always figured that having a child is a choice and, similar to most decisions, couples think long and hard before choosing to saddle themselves with the responsibility of raising a kid. Despite the commitment though seeing another human being through childhood, adolescence and adulthood is no easy task. Providing for them (i.e., food, clothing, shelter, medical attention and education) is one thing but keeping them safe from the world and from themselves is another.

A child, I realize, is inherently self-destructive. They fall down stairs, eat poisonous stuff, burn themselves, etc. If a parent is lucky, the child learns quickly to be careful when going up or down a flight of stairs, not put unfamailiar things inside his/her mouth and leave fire alone. But most children will commit the same mistakes over and over again. I guess they are experimenting - maybe the outcome will be different the third, the fourth time around. Who knows? Maybe they are scientists by nature. I am sure, however, that a parent who is intent on keeping his/her child out of harm's way will have to be ever vigilant.

I can only imagine the constant fear that resides within each parent's heart. Maybe it accounts for why some are perceived to be unnecessarily strict or harsh. They want their children safe. Why they opt to make decisions for their children. Mistakes are painful. What parent would stand idly by while their kid gets hurt?

In the meantime, a parent has to satisfy the demands of the world as well. Clothes have to be washed. Work, sometimes, taken home to meet deadlines. And, yes, some entertainment is needed to keep one sane.

Why choose to go through all of this? The literature on the subject proposes that children are assets, security for the future and a way by which one can achieve immortality. Maybe so. For me? Children are the ultimate manifestation of one's faith and hope. God will provide. God will look after these precious ones when parents are limited by their own mortality. The world, despite political, economic and social concerns, would continue to provide for its population's needs.

Thus, allow me to augment Auntie Luci's observation, "Parenting is for the optimistic."

something to look forward to

the torres family, according to tv patrol, suffered a tragedy last month. a fire raged their house and took the lives of their two children. i watched the news this evening, thinking that there can't be that much bad news on new year's day. there were the usual political pr stunts (i.e. officials celebrating the coming of 2008 in baguio, saying that they will go back to work tomorrow--whatever that means), reports on which movie's leading in the film fest, fire in explosives central (bocaue-- eh di natuto din kayo!), etc. but then, something made up for all of it.

this year, as a christmas present to the torres family, an anonymous donor actually gave them a house and lot (and it was a really nice home) plus educational plans for the children. it warms my heart on this cold new year's day to know that someone out there still cares for others and isn't doing it just for the publicity. whoever you may be, wherever you may be, God bless you.

sana marami pang kagaya mo.

Sabi ni Mommy...

I believe that Mother knows best... most of the time. This is one of those times.

I grew up hearing my mom talk about my grandmother's brothers and sisters. These people are not human. They don't study, rarely come to class and yet, they take home first prize, the gold medal or whatever the highest honors are. They bring a whole new meaning to the word "overachiever."

A classic story is that of Uncle Fidel, Ate Pau's dad (back when he was in third grade). He was called by his teacher to recite on something about the assignment and so he got out his notebook and read from it. When the teacher looked at the notebook, there was nothing written on it and Uncle Fidel was answering the homework questions on his own, no notes. Nothing.

Mom, according to my grandmother, always went home with honors. She would work hard and actually cry over homework. My uncle was another story. He wouldn't study, play basketball, pull pranks, not go to class and yet he would finish the term with honors. My mom said that Tito Arnold was the real genius and she, my mother, was just hardworking. It was a Castillo trait, according to her. Somehow, all our happy-go-lucky relatives-- the first-class pranksters-- were the geniuses. This is how I came to believe the truth in Aristotle's words... "No great genius ever existed without some touch of madness."

My high school English teacher once told my mom that I was smart, just too lazy. It was why I failed her class and had to take remedial Grammar (which I have to say was an experience I'll never forget). I never believed that... I always thought Miss Asa said that to comfort my mom, that she did not have a dunce for a daughter. My mom, on the other hand, thought I was too much like my uncles... all that mad brilliance bottled up inside.

I am ashamed to say I was the only one who failed the Civil Law Review prelims. I never thought that it would happen since I had a strong foundation in Persons and Family Relations (mag-RPL ka ba naman dun). Plus we got hold of a samplex. How could anybody fail? But I did. I studied for three days, looked at the samplex at the last minute and I failed miserably. I couldn't even muster the courage to tell my mom. I always picture how she looked like the time I told her I failed Crim 1. What more if I tell her that I might not graduate? I resolved to do everything I can so that moment won't come. But apparently, the universe was against me. I got swamped with a lot more homework, extra-curricular activities and what-have-yous that I didn't even have time to study until the night before the exam.

Come midterms, I was terrified that I would be the senior who would not graduate not because of Justice Fernandez or Dean Sundiang but because of CivRev 1, the easiest course during the first semester. But I didn't even finish reading the codal provisions on property. I went in blind, so to speak. All I knew was the law on builders on good faith and their rights. I didn't even remember the movable and immovable properties and I was relying on what I had learned back in second year (which wasn't much).

I got the results yesterday. I passed... with flying colors. I don't know how it happened but I did. I remembered what our driver/confidante said the day of the exam. He said I would pass because I didn't study. Even he noticed that pattern.

So I remembered my mom's stories about my uncles... how they wouldn't study and pass. No, I'm not going to stop studying. I still will but I've got to learn to take it easy, not let the pressure get to me. She always said to relax a little, find the balance between taking it easy and working when I need to. And for that, I thank her.

In Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, there was a line... "If you really want something, the universe will conspire in helping you achieve that dream." The universe did. It gave me my mom.

The Rene Effect

"This country started out as an experiment in freedom..."

-Sam Waterson as A.D.A. Jack McCoy in Law and Order