Sulzberger, Jr.'s Commencement Speech: He's No Conan, That's For Sure

New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. gave his first-ever commencement speech over the weekend at SUNY New Paltz. And, despite preparing by “(reporting) out the story,” reading “what generations of other commencement speakers had said and what themes they hit,” including Jon Stewart, Sulz’s remarks did not appear to quite as light:

You weren’t supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land.

In between, he told the graduates to read a newspaper, to take time to clear their heads like he does while rock-climbing (“I come to New Paltz to clear my head and batter my body against those beautiful cliffs up there”) and — what must’ve gotten the crowd really fired up — to look to the butterfly for post-grad inspiration:

The butterfly effect holds that the smallest of actions — say, the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in the mountains...

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