Pomp and circumstance and the Associate's degree

Last Thursday evening was the 47th annual commencement of North Shore Community College. It's not a venerable old school, nor storied, nor bricked and ivied, but it is scrappy. North Shore is a school for underdogs, hard luck cases, and tenacious workers. I will not distort reality and ennoble all the students there, or view them through a soft focus le…