'Dr. Dolly' Wows, Advises Tenn. Graduates

Backwoods Barbie hits No. 2, gives an iconic career new life

(NEWSER) - More than a decade after Nashville spurned her for a crop of up-and-comers, Dolly Parton is releasing a new album on her own label--and having the last laugh, as Backwoods Barbie hit Billboard's No. 2 on Billboard in its second week. That's thanks to new technologies that are creating end-run opportunities around major labels. “Now the majors are what they used to think I was: history,” the 62-year-old singer told the AP. More»

Alexandra Petri weighs in on sometimes hard-to-hear truths

(NEWSER) - Wish you could ditch the inspirational commencement speech for something a bit more realistic? So does Alexandra Petri. But she wasn’t satisfied with Charles Wheelan’s recent list in the Wall Street Journal , “10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won’t Tell You,” because she kinda remembered hearing all of the observations it contained ... in commencement speeches. So, in the Washington Post , she offers up “the 10 things they really don’t tell you at graduation.”

• Get ready to be unemployed and living with mom and dad. She’s not trying to be cruel, just stating facts, she explains, and she has the statistics to prove it. Here's one: "29% of 25-to-34 year-olds live in what the poll-taker was kind enough to refer to as "multi-generational living arrangements" rather than "your old room with all the anime posters and Admiral Ackbar figures carelessly splayed on every surface."

He backed pro-legalization Gary Johnson but now likes Kucinich

(NEWSER) - After voicing support for pro-pot Gary Johnson as a presidential candidate , Willie Nelson has apparently changed his tune, notes the Daily Caller . It's "too early for me to endorse anyone,” the singer said in an email to a member of his marijuana-legalization activist group, the Teapot Party. (The exchange is recounted here .) Though he acknowledged backing New Mexico's former GOP governor, who no longer indulges himself but backs legalization, Nelson wrote: “I think I will wait and see where he stands on other things. My bad. Sorry." More»

Wheaton College in Massachusetts—not Illinois— takes mistake in stride

(NEWSER) - Ann Curry is impressed with Wheaton College grads Billy Graham and Wes Craven, she said during her commencement address at Wheaton College. Trouble is, she was at the Wheaton College in Massachusetts, and Graham and Craven went to the school of the same name in Illinois. "I am mortified by my mistake," the Today show anchor says in an open letter to the Massachusetts college's community. More»

Speaking at Hampton U., president says education helps break down barriers

(NEWSER) - President Obama delivered the commencement address at a historically black college today for the first time since taking office. He called on the graduates of Hampton University in Virginia to "be role models for your brothers and sisters, to be mentors in your communities and, when the time comes, to pass that sense of an education’s value down to your children." More»