Swine Flu Mapping

Whenever you see the news recently you are pretty much guarenteed to see something about the Swine flu that is especially prevalent in Mexico and the United States. I thought that it would be interesting to look at a map and see if there is a pattern of where the flu is located. Since the flu started in Mexico there is a large amount of cases that are in Mexico and the United States. Also Canada and Costa Rica have both had several cases of the flu. This all seems to make sense although why does Costa Rica have a several cases while other Central American countries do not have any reported cases. You have to wonder how long it will take before some South American countries start reporting cases because of their proximity to Mexico. Going back to the map you take a look at the rest of the countries that have reported cases of the flu. Most of these countries are wealthy countries in Europe, although New Zealand and Israel also have reported cases of the flu. When you look at it in comparison to where they are located to Mexico it makes no sense that there would be reported cases. If you think about these countries one major similarity comes out, they are all pretty wealthy. This means that people are more likely to go abroad on vacation. Evidently people from these countries went to Mexico and brought back the flu from there. This kind of travel with globalization is what makes so many people scared whenever it comes to viruses and diseases. Because of the travel of people disease is able to spread very fast throughout the world. This is one of the problems that comes along with globalization and which people will have to deal with in the future.

Names around the World

I searched my name Gramenz, and found what I expected I would in general. Most of the people who have the name Gramenz are in Germany, especially eastern Germany. Since that is where my family is from I expected that to be the case. There used to be a town in modern-day Poland which was actually called Gramenz or something close to it. There was one area in Poland which had people named Gramenz in it, although I would have thought that it would have been in Western Poland rather then in the middle. The only other country that has the name Gramenz living in it is the United States. The map showed that in the U.S. most of the people with the name Gramenz were living in the Midwest, especially the northern part. Minnesota had the largest amount of people followed by Iowa and Indiana with Illinois being the state with the fourth most people. I was suprised that Minnesota had that many people and thought that Wisconsin had more people named Gramenz. I am not really suprised by what I found, but I thought that this was pretty interesting to look at. I wish that I had been able to voom in more to look at the counties where the name was found.

YouTube clip

The video that I picked was a video of a pitch that a player threw during an at-bat on a foreign team. I picked this video mainly because I like baseball and I think that the video is pretty cool. However this video also does show how big baseball is over in the East Asia countries. Out of the sports such as baseball, basketball, and football which are very popular over here, baseball is by far the most important in those countries. The video also shows the different style that the players have in playing baseball, then what is in this country. While the pitch does not happen very much at all it does show what types of skills they value in these countries. In the United States teams are more concerned about who can throw the hardest and who can hit the hardest. However in East Asian baseball there is more of an emphasis on being able to fool others with pitching rather then being able to blow it past them. In the same way with hitting you have very big strong players over here in the U.S. playing baseball. However whenever you look at Japanese and Korean players they tend to be smaller and thinner and yet are able to hit the ball a long way. This is because they work on getting their whole body stronger and hit with a different style then in the U.S. I think that looking at how baseball is played here and there is a reflection of the types of cultures that are present.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdYBEJzy-F0

Foods Throughout the World

I think that it is pretty interesting when you look at the different diets that there are throughout the world. It is amazing what people will find to eat whenever they are faced with not having enough food and have to look around their environment. Peoples diets differ so much throughout the world because of people's heritage and their surroundings. We here in the United States do not eat as much rice because it is not grown here that much. Instead alot of wheat and corn is grown which makes it the basis for our diets. However in Southeast Asia rice is the main food because that is what is easiest to grow there. Places that do not have very good land end up depending on foraging and hunting more and that makes up their diet.
I do think that people throughout the world will continue to have diets that are more similar to others throughout the world. As the world continues with globalization people will be able to get foods from others places, and if it is cheap enough they will eat more of this kind of food. Resturants such as McDonalds and Starbucks will help this process to continue and for the world's diet to become less and less diverse over time.

G-20 Summit

The G-2o is made up of countries from all throughout the world. The United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico are the countries from the Americas. Africa only has South Africa involved in the Summit. Europe has many different countries involved in the conference because the European Union is the 20th member of the Summit. France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, and Germany are also in the Summit. Several Middle East countries are there with Saudi Arabia and Turkey being represented. The rest of the conference is made up of Asian countries and Australia. China, India, South Korea, Japan and Indonesia are represented.

World Upside Down

I choose to have this view because it reminds me of a t-shirt that my Aunt and Uncle brought back for me whenever they were missionaries and went to Australia from PNG for a little bit. The map on that t-shirt was a flat one and had the whole world upside down from how we usually look at it. Underneath the map it said: Australia, No Longer Down Under. I think that it is interesting for us to think about how we look at maps from the point of view of were we are from. I think that we can gain more understanding of the world if we learn to look at maps from another person's point of view. How people have looked at the world has been mainly controlled by Europeans, through history. Now I think we are starting to be able to look at things through many peoples eyes.

Slumdog and Geography in India

I thought that the movie Slumdog millionare is a good movie, however if did not make me want to move to India or even visit there. The way that the film portrays India is that it is a filthy overcrowded place with very little structure in almost everyway. The movie shows how poor many people in the country are and how there is practically no help for those who have lost a parents or who need assistance. Because of this there is a large amount of kids who are trying to survive on their own and how have virtually no hope of ever being able to do something with their lives. One thing that I thought was interesting was how the movie showed the fighting that there is between the Muslims and Hindus in the country. I think for the most part that whenever we think about India we just think that there is Hinduism and Buddhism and that they are all the same to us and that there is not that much division in the country. However the movie showed that there are deep divisions in the country not only in religious areas but also in economic ways also. The movie showed some rich people who were pretty much crime lords. The way that the movie showed it the only way for somebody to get rich and move up in their community was to work for these individual crime lords and they would be able to move up over time. I really liked Slumdog Millionare, however if it was a film trying to support tourism it would fail badly.