As it is commencement day at SLU, it is an appropriate time to say congratulations to all of my former students at Millsaps, Duke, and SLU who have received their degrees this month. I hope that none of my former Ole Miss students were still working on their degrees—but if so, congratulations to them too!

One unanticipated side-effect of wearing academic regalia in public (and having a relatively youthful appearance, to boot) is being congratulated for having graduated—three times, in total.

Perhaps I should have just basked in the glory rather than insisting on correcting everyone, particularly since to the layperson the distinction between a doctoral gown and the vestments of new graduates is mostly invisible (and in the case of new PhDs, nonexistent save for the hood coloring and designs, which represent SLU for the graduates but the degree-granting institutions for faculty).

Those big brawls in the Taiwanese parliament? As fake as Jan Levinson’s new breasts.

þ: Battlepanda, who suspected it all along.