Reason for Optimism

I admire Al Franken for any number of things.  I’ve seen him speak four times, and I’m convinced that he is as close to a true renaissance man as one might hope to find in Congress.  It’s a credit to his mastery of communication to be able to speak intelligently and fairly on even the most complex of issues, while in the next breath letting fly some tidbit of side-splitting comedy.  There aren’t many people, after all, who in the course of one lifetime could go from being the head writer of SNL and writing columns for Playboy (a part of his resume that I don’t so much admire, but nonetheless…), to sitting in the United States Senate.

There is, however, one of his considerable array of talents that I can claim to share:

I learned how to do this while bored in English class back in high school.  Maybe there’s hope yet for me to make something of my life too.