I got pulled over for going 50 in a 35-zone just outside the office on Thursday.  I was racing back from a meeting with Tom Bell, CEO of Cousins Properties, to discuss the Task Force and homelessness.  I was very pumped up and encouraged by the meeting and was paying absolutely no attention on a stretch of road that I know is a speed trap.

For the past month or so, I have been speeding through life, working my tail off to get ThePort properly positioned and funded and to keep the lights on literally at the Task Force.  Progress is being made on all fronts, but the perhaps the ticket is a good metaphor for slowing down a bit.  

I am having a hard time as I watch the Democratic convention wrestling rhetoric from reality.  As speaker after speaker talks about fairness, inclusiveness and opportunities for all, my thoughts go to the 500 or so men who each night sleep at the Task Force Peachtree Pine Center. 

We supposedly have a progressive Democratic Mayor here in Atlanta who has gone out of her way to cut off state funding to help these people and to interfere in additional local and federal funding.  It turns my stomach to hear the talk when I see the reality.  Who is looking out for these people and thousands like them? Is it just concerned citizens like me?  Where is John Lewis whose history should make him a champion for Peachtree-Pine's residents?  How are we to care, aid and empower thousands of people who sit homeless on our streets or in our shelters to be contributing members of an inclusive society if nobody acts or cares?