When the Boston Globe ran a photograph last month of Boston
College graduates snoozing through their commencement speech,
university outcry compelled the paper to apologize. It did, saying
the decision was “inappropriate” and misrepresented the
reality of the ceremony.

Like many of the students who join the paper to fill these
pages, I once had a fascination with celebrities of a different
sort.
My own variety, distinct from the species spotted at Westwood
movie premieres, were a bit grayer on top, usually white and
inevitably more square.

Walking across a temporary stage in Pauley Pavilion as the names
of 2,000 classmates scroll across the Jumbotron isn’t exactly
a picture of pomp and circumstance for every UCLA grad.

If you ask Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone, he’ll tell you
there was an “incident” at UC Irvine last Thursday
night.
If you ask anyone else, it was a hate crime ““ no
qualifications.

You’ve heard it before: The buzz says fans of classical
music are snobs, posers or geriatric.
The stereotypes are everywhere ““ and self-perpetuating.
During the station’s pledge drive for donations last week, a
DJ for KUSC, local classical station 91.5 FM, made a remark about
how the rabble is tense because it listens to high-strung noise
across the dial, but that KUSC listeners are characteristically
calm during their daily commutes.

Some fraction of 20,000 students woke up to Josh Lawson’s
grinning mug this morning, and that’s not something that
happens every day ““ just ask him.

Alexandra Silina, a third-year economics student, died Friday
morning in Studio City when the car she was riding in was struck by
another vehicle.
Silina, 20, was a transfer student from Glendale Community
College.

There’s this class. Statistics. A midterm on Tuesday. Not
terribly surprising, as it’s fourth week, and he, the
professor who clearly cares for his students, warned us a month
ago.

Atlas Shrugged,” one of the best-known college cult books
there ever was, is a bit lonely these days. I saw a copy outside of
the bookstore last week for the first time since fall quarter and
got to wondering if the cult book phenomenon on college campuses is
now limited to “The Da Vinci Code.”
The energy that “Atlas” generated in the early 1960s
had an intellectual romance about it that the Harry Potter series
can’t compete with.

If you’ve ever taken an organized tour in a foreign
country, you will remember the ubiquitous bubbly flag-waving guides
who unfailingly skip the bad restaurants, ignore the shady
neighborhoods, and use an English name to put their followers at
ease.