Left is Right.

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I was talking with the woman who'd come to buy my piano this week, and she noticed I was left-handed. She spoke proudly of her daughter who also was a southpaw. Wow, I thought. Lefties have come a long way.
When I was growing up, teachers would roll their eyes as I moved my paper counter to their instructions when we were learning cursive. I knew it looked spazzy, and lots of times, I was the only one in the class whose approach to handwriting was called into question. In the generation before mine, most kids who demonstrated a lean towards the left were re-trained to be righthanders. How must that have messed them up, but well-meaning parents and clergy were only doing what they thought was best for their charges. After all, Jesus and his believers sat at the right hand of God. Those who were damned were writhing in pain over there on the left. The nuns teachning at Catholic schools never hesitated to remind students that the word "adroit" comes from the French for "right" and the word "sinister," comes from the Latin for "left." Oh, dear.
I've heard from many lefties - some friends, some just random run-ins - who've felt, for whatever reason, like their school days were exercises in despair at being "the weird one" - but who, as adults, are grateful for their different-ness. It's become their strength and their badge of honor. So what if studies conclude that left-handers die, on average, about seven years earlier than their right-handed counterparts? So what if the world isn't built for us (which probably contributes to the fact that we are more accident prone)? DaVinci was our compatriot. So was Beethoven. And the lion's share of our most brilliant scientists and mathemeticians.
Studies have also shown that lefties are really the only people who have equal access to both the right and the left side of the brain. Brutally analytical, highly competitive and winning athletes, and sensitive without equal, that's us. So we're wildly creative, and we're wildly creative problem solvers.
And now, it seems, the highest office in the land since WWII has been almost exclusively occupied by southpaws. Because of our anti-left society up til Harry Truman, there weren't a lot of lefties. But man, have you looked at what's happened since? Let's put it this way: the only right handers since 1973 have been Jimmy Carter and Dubya.
Besides all the other incredible things about 2008's elections was the fact that both candidates were left-handed. And president Obama made a show of his left-ness when he sat down at his desk in the oval office and adroitly signed into law one of the most important executive orders in years, that of closing Gitmo and reversing the previous administration's belief that torture is something the United States wanted to be known for.
He may be the father and husband in one of the most attractive first families since Kennedy, but the good of the country - and of the rule of law - is what he's most interested in. So he made his signature, left-handed geekiness and all - the first presidential photo op that was all over our news and periodicals. What a brilliant demonstration that being a lefty, whether of your politics or your handedness is actually the right way to go. Put THAT in your right-handed pipe and smoke it, Sister Mary Elizabeth Scholastica!