Topography

 

  topography: the detailed mapping or charting of the features of a relatively small area, district, or locality  

     

 Some of you may not know this, but I have a little obsession with maps.  Google earth, mapquest, ariel view, or street grid, I have been known to spend hours just reading maps.  

I’m not quite sure where this interest in maps came from, but recently I called my Dad and I asked him what he was doing.  He replied, oh I’m just on google earth looking at the old farm house.  I immediately remember my grandmother, (his mother)  and how she once pulled the atlas down off the shelf and wanted me to show her where I lived in New York.  Her pinpoint was off just a little. The bottom line is that maps have always intrigued me because as a little kid I can remember staring at the map that is in every classroom that showed all the states and capitols.  That map was  proof off all the other places that you could go.  Places with different cultures, and ethnicities, viewpoints.  Ms Wyatt, my 5th grade social studies teacher proved it by explaining how the summer before the school year started she took a job as a truck driver because she had always wanted to go to every state in the country, and that if we wanted, we could do the same when we got older. 

I bring this up because as we know, the country is in the heat of an election season.  Every-time I watch the coverage on television, I get a little excited.  They bring up the map with all the fun colors, and features.  CNN has the cool map that they zoom in and out on, and write on, and scribble what votes are needed where.  MSNBC has been showing separate maps for each individual candidate.  I don’t enjoy this as much.  I prefer it when they show both candidates victories on one map, with the states won designated by the assigned color.  The fact is county by county, state by state, color by color, slowly the country is picking a president that is being represented in a map.  Whether it is red or blue,  it is my hope that he or she will bring all the colors together and form the ONE map that has united some of us since the 5th grade.  Teaching us to accept, and appreciate all the differences this country has to offer.  

 

This I Found Interesting.

 While writing the previous entry I saw a quote on CNN that I decided to further investigate and came across the whole article written in The New York Times by Caroline Kennedy and thought I would post and give a plug that it is definitely worth reading.  I personally don’t know who I am voting for yet, but I do have to say that the entire time I have been leaning towards Obama.  I find it interesting though that a lot of people who have been silent before in the political endorsements are coming out for this man.  And as a sidebar I am sure it is no coincidence that this opinion article came out the day after Obama’s win in South Carolina.  But I think the article proves that people who have been silent before, understand that there is a serious need for some change in our country and are willing to step out on a limb and publicly support that change and everything that comes with it.