Commencement Address Quote of the Year

We can talk all we want about conflicts of interest problems in municipal government, but it really comes down to what Tom Brokaw, the former NBC anchor, said in his Skidmore College commencement address:

You've been told during your high school years and your college years that you are now about to enter the real world, and you've been wondering what it's like. Let me tell you that the real world is not college. The real world is not high school. The real world, it turns out, is much more like junior high. You are going to encounter, the rest of your life, the same petty jealousies, the same irrational juvenile behavior, the same uncertainty that you encountered during your adolescent years. That is your burden.