His Speech to the Graduates

Come Sunday, I plan a few words for the high school graduates and their soon to be - if not already - impoverished parents. In the meantime, Dave Burge delivers for the latest crop of college diploma winners.

Welcome distinguished faculty, honored guests, and bankrupt parents. And above all, welcome to you - the eager and unemployable graduates of the Class of 2011.

Today represents the culmination of a long safari through the murky thickets of this impenetrable rain forest we call "higher education." Just a few years ago you arrived for your freshman orientation, full of wide-eyed anticipation and existential dread, wondering if this place would eat you alive. Soon though - through luck, pluck, and enormous amounts of mind altering substances - you adapted to your new surroundings. You learned to communicate in the natives' strange gibberish and follow their bizarre rituals. You learned which taboo words and thoughts to avoid, and how not provoke the cannibals. And finally, today, as you stumble out of that misty, bewildering glade and across this stage, you will receive the ultimate acknowledgement of your successful journey through the heart of darkness: a college diploma.

Read the rest and laugh all the way to bankruptcy court.