A Person in the Proverbial Pizza Box

Today we have a new mayor in the City of Chicago. I thought I'd sound off on this briefly. I'm excited to see a new era in this city. Despite the good things Mayor Daley did for Chicago, I'm sure as this would be with anyone, after 22 years in one position you start go past the border of expertise and into the land of complacency. Rahm Emanuel has a lot of spunk which is utilized beneficially in the right direction. I'm no expert in municipal politics, but change can never be fully put in the basket of one individual. As we've seen with the narrow sighted expectation of all who voted for Barack Obama that suddenly the USA would be fixed in all its economic, health, and energy issues. A politician is not a messiah. A politician is merely one leader is an intricate network of agendas, and checks and balances. I suppose change begins by taking matters into one's own hands, starting at the level of city block. As JFK said "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Solutions are not of the magic wand origin. Solutions come from public sweat.

Something Rahm said in his inauguration speech struck me as something I liked. He will not accept "we've never done that before" as an excuse not to make a change. Politics has stagnated greatly by cookie cutter party approaches. We have municipal, state and national problems that will never budge towards solution if applied with only "tried and true" ideas. Time to think outside the rotting pizza box. Of course, things need to fought out, that's democracy, questioning propositions is a good thing. But I think it's time that new questions and new intellectual fights are instigated.

I like Rahm's spunk. He might be known to a degree as an outspoken, vulgar loud mouth, but I'd also rather not see a soft spoken, doughy fella in the role of mayor of the 3rd largest city in America. For better or worse, now we get to see his true character on a local level. We'll see how this city may or may not shake a tad differently. I make no predictions. To rehash my pizza box metaphor, it's nice switch up where you get your pizza from every now and then and see how it digests. The risk of living.