The degrees will go to Commencement speaker and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel; John H. Biggs, former vice chancellor for administration and finance at the University; Shirley Ann Jackson, the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic University; Griffin P. Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health; and George W. von Mallinckrodt, president of Schroders plc. Commencement will take place on May 20 in Brookings Quadrangle.

Wiesel will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University. His speech, titled “Knowledge and Ethics,” will be delivered to the graduates from the University’s four undergraduate colleges and all graduate and professional programs.

“I am deeply honored that Elie Wiesel has agreed to deliver the Commencement address to this year’s graduates,” Wrighton said in a news release. “Professor Wiesel is a remarkable scholar who has dedicated his life to promoting peace. I am confident that his message will serve as an inspiration to our outstanding graduates.”

Wiesel has given three Assembly Series lectures at the University since 1970.

Wrighton made the announcement at the Senior Class Toast in the Brookings Quadrangle. The Class of 2011 responded with loud applause.

“It’s exciting to have a name that everybody on campus recognizes, at least it seemed like the majority of the senior class recognized,” senior Nate Maslak said. “I don’t know too much about him, but I read his book in high school, and I know a lot of people did, so it’s exciting. It’s exciting to have a Nobel laureate.”

The selection of a well-known speaker was important to the senior class after the past two Commencement speakers, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, were not immediately recognizable to many members of the University community.

“I started to kind of get a guess when he [the chancellor] was mentioning all of the awards….I think it was the George Bush one where I was thinking ‘Wow, it would be so cool if Elie Wiesel came here,’” Senior Class President Alex Kiles said. “I was actually talking to one of my friends about reading ‘Night’ before he gets here….I had never heard of the speaker last year because he came from the science realm, so I’m really excited that it’s someone I heard of and revere.”

Students were enthusiastic to be so familiar with the speaker.

“I was really afraid that it would be a speaker that I really didn’t know anything about or had [never] even heard of,” senior Katie Gavinski said. “Not only is it someone that I’ve heard and read the books from, I’m just really excited to have someone who has been through so much coming to talk to us [to] share our experience with us.”

The Nobel laureate was born in 1928 in Transylvania (present-day Romania). Nazis deported him and his family to Auschwitz when he was just 15 years old. Both of his parents and his youngest sister died in concentration camps. His two older sisters survived.

Wiesel is a survivor of the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. His memoir “Night,” published in 1958, is an internationally acclaimed account of his experiences during the Holocaust. The book has been translated into more than 30 languages.

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. After winning the Prize, he and his wife created The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, an organization dedicated to combating indifference, intolerance and injustice.

He has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University since 1976 and is a member of the religion and philosophy departments. He has been awarded more than 100 honorary degrees.

Commencement will begin at 8:30 a.m. on May 20 in the Brookings Quadrangle.

The process by which the University chooses a speaker is relatively secretive. A committee that includes some students follows it own selection criteria over the course of the year and then announces its decision late in the spring semester.

Every spring, seniors express strong opinions about the chosen speaker. In 2008, some seniors saw Chris Matthews as overly politicized; the audience found Wendy Kopp’s speech un-engaging in 2009. Many students said that last year’s speaker, Steven Chu, made a relevant and interesting speech to the graduating class, though we wonder whether Chu’s proximity to hot-button green issues on campus was more a matter of coincidence than choice.

Although their Commencement is three semesters away, the members of the Class of 2012 need to make their voices heard, start a dialogue and ensure that they have a Commencement speaker that adequately represents their interests.

We think that the primary defining feature of our generation has been a shift in the way we communicate. We live in a 140-character, media-dominated world that has changed our perception of just about everything, from our high school classmates to secret state diplomacy. We would like a speaker who can talk about issues such as government policy or 21st century social life while conveying a broader, more universal message about what it means to enter adult life in 2012.

The following is the Student Life Editorial Board’s short list of Commencement speakers:

Rahm Emanuel: A pithy rhetorician, Emanuel isn’t afraid to say what he thinks, which is what we like in a speaker. Though last year’s speaker, Stephen Chu, was also from the Obama administration, Emanuel would bring a sharp political mind and plenty of insight.

Jonathan Franzen: Franzen’s colleague David Foster Wallace is famous for his commencement speech at Kenyon College; we’re curious to see how Franzen would frame the ethical struggles of our generation. Franzen’s new book “Freedom” is being touted as the next big thing in fiction. As an added bonus, he’s from St. Louis.

Mark Zuckerberg: Most of us got Facebook as high school sophomores or juniors, so we’ve come of age with social media as a key component of how we interact with the world and those around us. Though Zuckerberg doesn’t do speaking engagements, we’d like him to start—and we’re interested in the social commentary that he could provide.

J.K. Rowling: We thought we were over “Harry Potter” until we walked into the celebrations in College Hall this year and remembered that our 11-year-old selves were legitimately disappointed when we didn’t get letters from Hogwarts. There is something broadly compelling about the boy who lived—beneath Rowling’s fantasy tale is a basic narrative of how the choices we make drive who we ultimately become. We’d welcome her commentary on what to do with the world we’re about to face.

Hillary Clinton: She’s a powerhouse—a leading female politician and the primary driver of contemporary foreign policy. Clinton would provide us with a well-regarded perspective on both America and the world around it.

Tina Fey: We grew up watching Fey on Weekend Update, and we love her on “30 Rock.” More importantly, Fey is a smart female leader whose recent winning of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize shows that she knows more than just what makes Americans laugh—she knows what makes us tick. Bonus: Tina Fey as Sarah Palin.

Paul Krugman: Our college experiences have been shaped by the 2009 recession, which has inspired a host of vocal suggestions from Keynesians and monetarists alike on how to fix America. The study of economics is ultimately the study of everything human—want, need, provision and path. Krugman’s powerful voice in economic discourse means he’d offer a helpful perspective to graduating seniors looking for jobs.

Greg Mortenson: In a commencement speaker, we’re looking for someone who is inspiring. Mortenson’s experience educating girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan certainly fits the bill, and Mortenson would be able to reflect on the importance of education, something we’ve been invested in for the majority of our lives.

How about this? The thing I’ve learned in college is how the best option is to be relentlessly positive about everything. To recognize the joy in simply doing things, things happening, things simply even existing.

I’ve written a few columns in the last four years that have tried to incite or enter into heated debates—things on subjects like sexual assault, avant-garde art and the current controversy with the neighbors. For these columns, I usually get slammed, at least by somebody. Disputes like these are usually stocked with angry people looking for a fight, and in most cases, groups on both sides have reasons to be upset, because there’s rarely a black and white answer.

But what is black and white, in my opinion, is that the world is a whole lot brighter when one has the humility to leave those kinds of heated conversations behind. The word that might best describe this approach is a simple, often overused one: appreciation.

Dennis can be reached via e-mail at dennisjsweeney@gmail.com.

If I may, I think it is the willingness to appreciate things that are good that has been behind my most meaningful work with the paper, from encouraging a Thanksgiving staff editorial that was actually thankful, to pointing out, perhaps naïvely, some of the interesting peculiarities of college life, to capturing exciting events like flash mob dances on camera. While entering into the fray has its time and place in the development of a fair, progressive world, I find that life is much more worth living when, instead of criticizing the world, one focuses on loving it.

That’s been my primary revelation at Washington University, as I think might be true, actually, for most students. I (and perhaps you) did a lot of things from ages 0 to 18 for the wrong reasons: getting excellent grades because I wouldn’t let myself not, playing a sport each season because that’s what one did, hanging out with people who I may not actually have had very good relationships with because they were perceived to be somewhat cool, and so on.

Life in college, for many of us, represents the point at which we were finally given the opportunity to do, instead, just what we thought was the best thing to do. It became an opportunity to embrace life, to experience variety, now not because of external (or awry internal) motivations but rather because of a zeal for the things of the world. For this reason, I think, so many of us are fumbling around with plans after graduation. We have learned to embrace life for what it is, for the underlying enjoyment we get out of the thing, while many traditional jobs require us to embrace a single activity or cause, which often becomes disassociated over time from that underlying good.

But, fortunately, with such a point of view at the front of our minds, we can maintain an approach to the universe that holds onto that fragile energy and zeal. Such a task will become quite difficult, I am sure, in an environment without the vibrancy that we’ve all experienced here. But with the knowledge that many of us have gained on our best days, that simply doing, simply moving oneself from the bed in the morning can be done with an enthusiasm for the project of life at large, we might hope to avoid the dullness of routine, in favor of going with a sense of engaged appreciation through life. Many days, we will wake up tired. But that’s only because yesterday was so big!

Nancy Stone | Chicago Tribune | MCT

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu speaks during a news conference after President-elect Barack Obama nominated Chu as energy secretary on Monday, Dec. 15, 2008, in Chicago, Ill. Chu will address the Washington University graduating class at Commencement on May 21.

Washington University announced Wednesday afternoon that it will award five honorary degrees during the school’s 149th Commencement on May 21.

In addition to Commencement speaker Steven Chu, the U.S. secretary of energy and a Nobel laureate, degrees will be awarded to research physician Brian J. Druker, Joanne Knight, Richard A. Roloff and Nelson S. “Strobe” Talbott III.

Chu has long been an advocate for alternative energy sources. As a member of the Obama administration, he helps carry out the president’s visions for investing in alternative and renewable energy, creating “green” jobs, reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil and combating global warming.

Chu won a Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work in physics with Claude Cohen Tannoudji and William Phillips. The trio figured out how to use laser beams and extreme cold to stop single atoms from moving, allowing for easier examination of them.

Druker, director of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Knight Cancer Center and the JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research, will receive an honorary doctorate in science. After attending college and medical school at the University of California, San Diego, Druker completed an internship and his residency at Washington University from 1981 to 1984. Before joining the OHSU community in 1993, he taught at the Harvard Medical School.

Nuccio Dinuzzo | Chicago Tribune | MCT

Russell Peterson, 65, and his wife, Sharon, consult with Dr. Brian Druker, chief researcher on an experimental drug called STI 571. In initial tests, the drug has put chronic myelogenous leukemia patients into complete remission. Druker, once a resident at Washington University School of Medicine, will receive an honorary doctorate in science at Commencement on May 21.

A pioneer in cancer treatment, Druker led the team that invented Imantib (Gleevec), a drug that targets a specific protein to stop the overproduction of white blood cells in individuals with chronic myeloid leukemia. After receiving FDA approval in May 2001, Gleevec has been used to treat seven different cancers.

Knight will receive a doctorate in the humanities and is being recognized as a St. Louis community leader, volunteer and philanthropist. She has dedicated the bulk of her time to support of the St. Louis chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, the Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) and the University. She has served as president of the board for the first two organizations.

Knight began her work with the Alzheimer’s Association after her mother took ill to the disease in the late 1980s. She has also served on the board of the CID for 26 years, and in recognition of her efforts, the CID created the Joanne Parrish Knight Family Center.

Knight and husband Charles F. Knight, former CEO of Emerson, have established a philanthropic legacy at Washington University. The couple helped open The Joanne Knight Breast Health Center and Breast Cancer Program at the School of Medicine and established a distinguished professorship at the School Medicine and the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Directorship in Executive Education at the Olin Business School.

Roloff, a St. Louis native and a member of the engineering class of 1951, will be named an honorary doctor of laws. A veteran of the Coast Guard, Roloff operated a residential construction company in Texas before becoming president of St. Louis-based Capital Land Co. in 1973.

After sitting on the University’s board of trustees from 1985 to 1991, Roloff served as executive vice chancellor from 1991 to 2006 and has overseen the transformation and modernization of the Danforth and Medical campuses. Among other work, he spearheaded the efforts to build McDonnell, Goldfarb, Anheuser-Busch and Whitaker halls in addition to the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center, the Psychology Building, Laboratory Sciences Building, Earth and Planetary Sciences Building and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art. He also oversaw the planning, fundraising and construction of the Danforth University Center and Seigle Hall as vice chancellor for capital projects from 2006 to 2008

In 2008, Roloff was appointed special assistant to Chancellor Mark Wrighton, a post he still holds at the University.

Talbott is currently the president of the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank that specializes in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and development. He will also be named a doctor of laws.

Talbott graduated from Yale University in 1968 and then was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University at the same time as President Bill Clinton. At Oxford, Talbott translated the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev into English. The former chairman of the Yale Daily News then became the principal correspondent on Soviet-American relations for Time magazine.

In 1993, Talbott was invited to join the Clinton administration, where he worked on the management of the consequences surrounding the break-up of the Soviet Union. In 1994, he was named deputy secretary of state, a position he held until 2001.

Commencement will take place at the Brookings Quadrangle on Friday, May 21. The ceremony will begin at 8:30 a.m.

We at Washington University in St. Louis are excited that you will be visiting our University to deliver the 2010 Commencement address. The graduating class you will address is, like the larger student body, deeply concerned by the challenge climate change poses to this, and future generations. We sincerely admire your leadership and commitment to addressing this threat, and it is our hope that you will inspire us in our search for solutions to the gravest problem of our time.

As you prepare for your visit to Washington University, we wish to make you aware of recent developments in campus culture regarding energy and environmental issues. As you know, Washington University hosts a research program entitled the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization. While many students support the scientific research being conducted by the Consortium, the student body has taken serious issue with the title under which the research is conducted. Last November, the Washington University Student Union unanimously passed a resolution condemning the phrase “clean coal” as “an industry marketing term intended to obscure negative effects of coal extraction, combustion, and disposal.” The Washington University student body has clearly and consistently articulated its view that “clean coal” is an advertising slogan inappropriate for use in a scientific context.

In light of formally expressed student opposition to its use, we respectfully request that you refrain from employing the term “clean coal” during your speech at our Commencement ceremony. If your speech requires reference to specific energy technologies, we respectfully request that you use their scientific names (e.g., “carbon capture and sequestration”). We believe that, in doing so, you will better educate your listeners.

As secretary of energy, you set the standard for dialogue on energy issues. We encourage you to carry forward an attention to rhetoric in your future speaking engagements, focusing on clear and ingenuous language in reference to energy technology.

We look forward to your visit.

Todd Zimmer, Class of 2010, Washington University Climate Justice Alliance
Jenny Marienau, Class of 2010, Washington University Climate Justice Alliance
Kady McFadden, Class of 2010, Washington University Climate Justice Alliance
Melissa Legge, Class of 2010, Washington University Climate Justice Alliance
William Fischer, Class of 2010, Washington University Climate Justice Alliance
Fernando Cutz, Class of 2010 President
Chase Sackett, Class of 2010, Former Speaker of the Senate
Jeff Nelson, Class of 2010, Former Student Union President

Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy, will deliver the 2010 Commencement address. Chancellor Wrighton announced that he would be the speaker during a senior toast on Wednesday. (Department of Energy)

Steven Chu will deliver the Commencement address in Brookings Quad to the graduating class of 2010, Chancellor Mark Wrighton announced on Wednesday evening.

Chu is the secretary of energy for the United States and has long been an advocate for alternative energy sources. He was appointed by President Barack Obama and helps carry out the president’s visions for investing in alternative and renewable energy, creating “green” jobs, reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil and combating global warming.

Chu won a Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work in physics with Claude Cohen Tannoudji and William Phillips. The trio figured out how to use laser beams and extreme cold to stop single atoms from moving, allowing for easier examination of them.

“I am delighted that Steven Chu has agreed to serve as Washington University’s 2010 Commencement speaker,” Chancellor Mark Wrighton said in a press statement. “One of the greatest challenges facing us is to develop energy resources that are affordable, abundant and environmentally sustainable. The opportunity for our graduates to hear from our nation’s leader on energy is a tremendous honor. The fact that Dr. Chu has a special connection to Washington University—his father served on the faculty in our School of Engineering & Applied Science—makes his participation even more meaningful.”

Senior Kady McFadden, a member of the Climate Justice Alliance, shared Wrighton’s enthusiasm.

“I think it’s a really great choice,” she said. “I’m very excited about it.”

Junior and fellow Climate Justice Alliance member Peter Murrey agreed.

“I think it’s very appropriate,” he said. “He’s [Chu is] an outspoken advocate for renewable technology and choosing him as a speaker shows that our University is committed to it.”

Having Chu as the Commencement speaker comes at a particularly salient time: Several hours before the University’s announcement on Wednesday, Obama delivered a speech proposing opening up the southeast coastline of the Atlantic, the eastern coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. The coastline north of New Jersey will continue to be closed to drilling, as will Alaska’s Bristol Bay, which environmentalists consider especially sensitive.

This is the first time these areas have been opened to drilling, and the news is contrary to the wishes of many of Obama’s environmentally conscious supporters.

This year in particular was filled with environmental student activism. Student Union passed a resolution condemning the term “clean coal” and urging the administration to look into alternative energy sources. In light of the resolution, students are writing Chu a letter requesting that he not use the term “clean coal” in his speech.

“Energy policy is going to be such an important issue in the next sphere of Obama’s presidency, and educating the Washington University community on this is very important,” Murrey said. “Hopefully, we will bring scientific terminology to the table.”

McFadden also thinks that the University is sending mixed messages to the students by choosing Chu.

“It’s like the University is valuing him and energy choices yet at the same time making major cuts to the environmental studies program,” McFadden said. “I think we should be a little more cohesive in this statement to allow education and exploration in the areas of environmental studies so that’s something that they value when they’re also cutting major resources to students who want to learn about the subject.”

Chu was appointed as the 12th secretary of energy and was sworn into office on Jan. 21, 2009. He is originally from St. Louis, as his father was a chemical engineering professor at the University.

Prior to Chu’s appointment, he was the director of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, where he successfully led its pursuit of new alternative and renewable energies. He also was a professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

During the Commencement exercises on Friday, May 21, Chu will receive an honorary degree. The University has not yet released the names of the other honorary degree recipients.

The seniors have helped to imbue the campus with an unprecedented level of excitement on issues ranging from race to environmental sustainability. As they diverge on their own separate paths, we can only hope that the seniors carry this passion and commitment into their future communities. The University should rightfully send the seniors off in proper fashion with a Commencement speaker who will inspire students to incorporate the voice they were easily able to express in a university setting in the “real world.”

This year’s Commencement speaker, Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy for the Obama administration, is a choice that reflects the character of the class of 2010. He was definitely not on any students’ shortlists for Commencement speaker yet is an expert on an issue that will challenge and define the generation of graduates. During a time when energy-related issues are paramount, his message has the potential to be especially relevant.

He may not be the household name we hope for each year, but at this point it’s really hard to complain about the choice. In 2008, Commencement speaker Chris Matthews delivered a political message that didn’t resonate with the student body. Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teacher for America and the 2009 Commencement speaker, represented a more promising choice since the core mission of her program embodies the ability of young people to impel change in this world. However, she delivered a lackluster speech that failed to engage a significant portion of the graduating class that either disagreed with the purpose of her program or whose interests lay elsewhere.

Chu is a Nobel Prize winner and throughout his career, he has worked to find alternative energy choices. He has the power and influence to change the direction of energy use in our country. He is also a St. Louis native whose father taught at Washington University. We hope that his speech reflects the knowledge of the community that he clearly has.

Chu is not without his controversy, however. On Wednesday, hours before the University’s announcement, President Obama delivered a speech proposing oil and natural gas drilling in the southeast coastline of the Atlantic, eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska. Though the sensitive coastline north of New Jersey as well as Alaska’ Bristol Bay will continue to be closed to drilling, this is the first time the other areas have been opened, and the news goes against the wishes of Obama’s environmentally conscious supporters and likely much of the student body.

We hope Chu avoids delivering a speech that turns his back on his academic roots in favor of the rhetoric of the Obama administration’s new plan. If Chu focuses his speech on energy issues facing this generation and does not make it just a political stump speech, it could leave a resounding sound in Brookings Quad. The open-minded approach he has taken on energy issues throughout his career has the potential to reach all students, no matter their interests.

So, Class of 2010, go into this Commencement with an open mind, because Chu just may be able to deliver that message that will stay with us long after graduation, just as a Commencement speech should. And while he is no Jon Stewart, we at least get a Nobel Laureate who is respectable enough to have been a guest on the Daily Show.

Though the process by which a Commencement speaker is chosen appears to be relatively secretive, we believe that student input about the kind of Commencement speaker we want is worthwhile.

Every year, seniors express strong opinions about the chosen speaker. Some seniors saw Chris Matthews as overtly politicized in 2008; last year’s audience found Wendy Kopp’s speech un-engaging.

In this particular year, hot-button issues on our campus and in our nation have included tolerance, pluralism and the environment. We would like to see a speaker who can allude to issues such as gay rights and coal utilization while also conveying a broader, more universal message. A good speech, we feel, is one that goes beyond talking points to deliver a message that is both interesting and profound.

Although it’s three semesters away, the Class of 2011 needs to make their voices heard, start a dialogue and ensure that they have a Commencement speaker that represents their class.

Though the University has its own criteria for choosing a Commencement speaker, throwing around these criteria have led us to a few recommendations for the committee that chooses the speakers, including the students who serve on the committee:

The following is the Student Life Editorial Board’s short list of Commencement speakers.

Al Gore: We had to do it. He may be a far reach, but we should keep pushing for him every year until he says yes. Activism on green issues has been a prevailing theme during our college years and one that we have proven we are passionate about. Having Gore speak at Commencement would be a great way to send us off into our green futures. Whether people agree with his agenda, his appearance will generate interest and impel us to engage in conversation about a sustainable future. Not to mention the fact that he was our vice president.

J.J. Abrams: The creator of “Lost” and “Alias,” Abrams is a pioneering entertainer in touch with the college demographic. He can speak about the influence of popular culture on a generation that has been—and will continue to be—defined by the media. On top of that, the crazy storylines of his shows are proof that he will deliver an engaging and entertaining speech.

Dave Eggers: We could go so far as to say that Eggers is the literary voice of a generation. He’s engaging, brilliant and successful—Eggers has topped the New York Times Best-Sellers List, is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and founded the prestigious McSweeney’s literary journal. Eggers also offers insight for those students outside the literary circle, having received a 2008 TED prize for his work to improve education by setting up innovative tutoring centers and personally calling on community members to engage with local public schools. For us political junkies and media devotees, Eggers won a “Courage in Media” Award by the Council on American-Islamic Relations for his book, “Zeitoun.” His writing has even seeped into Hollywood: Eggers wrote “Away We Go” and co-wrote the “Where the Wild Things Are” screenplay with Spike Jonze.

Paul Farmer: Having founded Doctors Without Borders, Farmer presents a similar appeal to 2009 Commencement speaker Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach For America. Farmer’s organization provides free health care to Haiti and eight other countries in the developing world. On top of his inspiring humanitarian mission, Farmer is known to be a dynamic and effective speaker. Student groups have already demonstrated interested in his projects, and Farmer’s speech has the power to motivate students on his quest to cure the world.

Tom Wolfe: A prolific observer of American culture, Wolfe wrote “I Am Charlotte Simmons”—a reeling chronicle of the culture at elite universities in the 21st century. This perspective, along with Wolfe’s thorough examination of other cultural trends over a long career, ensures that he can speak to the struggles our generation will face as we move into a new decade. Besides, Wolfe is known for wearing only white suits, and we’d like to see him in a green commencement gown.

Michael Pollan: The author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food,” Pollan is an inexhaustible cultural critic who has reconfigured the way we think about food. Pollan’s work forms links between agriculture, economics, nutrition, sociology and culture, and we think that his big-picture philosophies are well applied to a generation that will continue to interpret these links as we age.

Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert: No explanation needed.