Had a terrific time at the convocation and, especially, the reception after. Good ol' Rider U. seems to be thriving, although endowments and so on are rather alarmingly down. I think this is true of most private universities. The convocation, as these things usually are, was partly mildly interesting, but mostly boring; bearably so, however.
The reception was held in the backyard of the president's residence and was superb. It actually had a theme: "eat local" and "sustainability" (well, I guess that's two themes) and the food was great. It included steamed clams, corn relish, crab cakes, fruit with balsamic vinegar, and a multitude of other goodies, so different from the horrible crackers and cheese cubes you get at most of these affairs. Servers with crisp, black and white uniforms moved around offering things and there was wine, beer, soda, and watermelon juice--yum!
I didn't go into HR this time, but saw a lot of old colleagues and had a good time talking to them. Stayed until about 4:00 and counted what I ate as dinner, so I think I did fairly okay overall in the calorie department.
Ellen V. called me last night and we talked over Blithe Spirit. She has cast the "Ruth" part which had be vacated by Lucille B. and is in contact with a possible "Elvira," which Tara K. had to decline.
Still don't have my cell phone, as I missed the cutoff to Rt. 539 yesterday and went home via 206 instead. May drive up there today to get it.
WIDER: "The More Things Change..." department:
"It is now stated on all sides that the casualties in the most recent raids, e.g. at Ramsgate, have been officially minimised, which greatly incenses the locals, who do not like to read about “negligible damage” when 100 people have been killed, etc., etc. Shall be interested to see the figures for casualties for this month, i.e. August. I should say that up to about 2000 a month they would tell the truth, but would cover it up for figures over that."
That's from Orwell's diary entry of September 3, 1940. Sound like a familiar ploy of the war machine/mass media complex? Maybe this will, too:
"This is the sort of thing that does not get into the papers...."--or, seventy years later, on television or on mainstream Internet "news."