In The 'Cac Opinion

‘Cac Commencement Speaker Bracket

About a month ago, when I set out to write a ‘Cac Commencement Speaker Bracket,  I encountered certain obstacles. It immediately became apparent that I don’t actually understand brackets. A friend pointed out that maybe I should let people vote on the results. “Oh. Is that how it is usually done?”

In any case, there won’t be a vote–this is a ‘Cactatorship. And, now that Trinity has officially announced their speaker, I present the results.

I’d like to say that I modeled this after a template on the NCAA website, but I found that specific PDF confusing and unrelated to my NARPdom–so I sorta patterned it after the Democrats vs. Dictators bracket by Foreign Policy:

Wait…who?

1. Bonnie Bassler (Bates)
Molecular biologist and Princeton professor
2. Robert De Niro (Bates)
Academy Award winner for his role in The Godfather II, Ben Stiller’s worst nightmare
3. Christiane Amanpour (Amherst)
ABC, CNN, CBS–raised in Iran, reported from Bosnia
4. Tony Blair (Colby)
Oxford grad, Prime Minister, followed Bush into war–still believes in God
5. Gwen Ifill (Bates)
Newshour, Vice Presidential debate moderator, pants suit fan
6. Humaira Awais Shahid (Bowdoin)
Human rights advocate, former Pakistani legislator
7. Senator Michael Bennet (Wesleyan)
Senator from ‘The Centennial State,’ grad returning to his stomping grounds
8. Atul Gawande (Williams)
Boston surgeon, Harvard prof, New Yorker contributor
9. A.G. Lafley (Hamilton)
Onetime CEO of Proctor and Gamble–forever Continental
10. William E. Strickland Jr. (Middlebury)
MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient, works with at-risk youth in Pitt
11. Anne Fadiman (Trinity)
Yale writer in residence, Seasoned editor, Phi Beta Kappa maybe
12. Eric Greitens (Tufts)
Navy SEAL, Rhodes and Truman Scholar (pick one?), non-profit celebrity
13. Louis B. Susman (Conn)
Controversial commencement speaker ‘12
14. Silence
___

Quick recap: Silence trumps Change.org unpopularity, Cambridge trumps Colorado, SEAL trumps academic Greek organizations–The Godfather always wins.

Enough already. Go study for finals! As for you ’12-ers, see you bitches under the mortarboards.