The Political Nature of our Time.

Surely, everyone has a to-do-list: .  Ask anyone and they will give you a different answer.  Is that list local or national?  Does it include anything related to current political issues, and does your financial status reflect the downfall or a rise in the given economy?  Are you worried about your job, home, education, family, kids, retirement, social security benefits? Or are you a single person and not finding enough venues in today's social climate?  Are you old or still young and don't worry about getting old.

What does this neighborhood mean to you, and which part of your life are you in right now?  Everyone has a different to-do list, priorities and agenda's.  Some are celebrating, and some are mourning over loss.  Many continue with their lives here, and I've seen many familiar friendly faces move to other communities to find a better way of life.

When we walk down the sidewalk, we see the end result of mixed agenda's and to-do list's of many individuals trying to make their way.  Sometimes quiet but busy, or loud and not as busy part of town, depending on where exactly you are.  There are many tourists squeezed in the neighborhoods looking for the most popular parts of the city. 

Just yesterday, these friendly tourists asked me where Louisburg Square is, and I wanted to impress them and show them a map with a highlighted area of where we are right now. I tried to find exactly on the map where we were but the streets on the map were to small to identify.  I was slightly embarrassed, but then I just pointed them in the right direction and told them to look for the tree on the corner that grows on the side of the building.

We walk these streets everyday and the politics of today and yesterday determine certain outcomes not visible to the eye.  Homelessness is something we read about all the time, and some of us want to help but it can be a challenge for some for a different set of reasons.  Helping tourists does give us a certain sense of accomplishment and to help someone in need.  However, I'm sure tourists find their own way around the city without residents guiding them, since tourism is such a huge market many resources are available.

I often wonder if tourist's concern themselves with news, politics, or local events and crimes in the area?  They obviously have come from another place, country or state to satisfy their sense of adventure and learning history of given locations, and to shop for new products versus the  ones they regularly see at home.  The familiar does get boring and we often take things we see for granted, and travel is the perfect remedy for that need to escape.   There are some though that travel for a different set of reasons other than to find pleasure in a new location.  The homeless travel, but yet if they ask for directions they might not meet an eager resident willing to share directions so easily. 

A to-do list from a tourist  differs than a to-do list of a resident, and a to-do-list of someone struggling to find work or a home is certainly a more difficult list with a number of possible negative or positive of outcomes.  The face of politics plays a big role in these to-do-list's and lately there have been many  news stories of politics not serving every population that exists here. 

No matter what,  politics is everything!  Politics of yesterday to the politics of today, politics of residents versus politics of a tourist, and the politics for the rich and the politics of the poor.  Although, walking down the street we see many faces of society, and we see things we like and don't like.  There are things we can do to help others and things we can't talk about so openly for fear of opposition.

So, it is delicate to discuss politics and where we stand, but my point is politics is what we see:  from the tourist group to the aging senior citizen.  The young resident walking quickly to their new job and then to the the man fixing the siding of a property.   The business executive who needs a late night snack and goes to the market where the worker is  mopping the floor. The great number of residents in the medical field to the ones who need a team of medical care to improve the quality of their life.  The coffee counter at Starbucks to the home brewed coffee in your own home, everything from what we see, hear, read about, to what we wear and eat everyday.  It is the politics that overshadow our everyday and whether we like it or not it's all right here in different forms...