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.

Spring Break

For my Spring Break I traveled with the rest of the baseball team down into Texas and Oklahoma to play games. I had never been in either Texas or Oklahoma and was pretty anxious to see what they were like. I thought Oklahoma was pretty neat with them having alot of flat farmground. There were also stretches which were kind of like the Badlands in the Dakotas which were pretty cool to see. The amount the landscape changed in just a short amount of time was pretty impressive to me. On the other hand Texas was a little bit of a dissapointment for me. I have heard all these people from Texas say how great it is and how it's the best thing there is. I know I only saw the northern and central part of Texas but it still was not that great of a place to live. I did get to go on the Riverwalk in San Antonio which was pretty cool and also got to see the Alamo. The weather was also nice for a few days before becoming rainy and cooler for the rest of the week. It was nice to get to see somewhere different and play baseball but I still would rather be at home then at Texas.

African Aid

I think that it is good that we are trying to help the countries in Africa by giving them aid. However we obviously need to make some changes and try to have a little more success with how we do it. First off whenever we give aid we need to make sure that the aid is getting to the people and is not being taken by the government. One way to fix this might be by giving aid only to international organizations instead of the government. They are there and are able to see what needs to be done better. Another key for giving aid is that we need to make sure that we are not hurting the businesses that are in the country by giving away free food whenever there is some available. More of a focus should be on having African companies do the rebuilding instead of having international companies coming in and doing the work. If the aid that we are giving goes to different projects that will help the country provide services for its people there might be more success with helping Africa. I guess overall the main focus for people giving aid should be trying to build up the infrastructure in the country and having them be able to support themselves.

HDI Rankings

The HDI rankings look at several different factors when determining the rankings. It looks at Life expectancy, adult literacy, the enrollment rate of primary and secondary education and the GDP per capita. Looking at the rankings of HDI you are able to pick up on some trends geographically. The most developed countries are mainly in the Western Hemisphere with the continents of Europe and the Americas. There are some exceptions to this however. Some Asian countries such as Japan, Kuwait, Australia and Qatar are exceptions however and are ranked pretty high. The medium developed countries tend to be from all over the world. Many Northern African countries along with out some countries in the Middle East are part of this ranking. However there are also countries in Asia, Southern Africa and in the Americas that are part of this grouping. The lowest grouping is made up completely of South African countries. This region just has not been developed and has not had enough stability or resources to be developed. Because of disease and lack of farmable land people have not been able to worry about developing the country because they are more worried about trying to survive. If Sub-Saharan Africa can get its education better and have people become more knowledgable they might be able to start building up their countries.

Amazing Photos

This photo is of a waterfall in the Glacier National Park. I like it because it is so amazing how the landscape has changed over the years and how beautiful of places that we have in our country. The picture is just pretty amazing to me, since I am not used to being around mountains and large forests of pine trees. Having the picture being taken from above is just a beautiful shot.

Cuban question

I do not think that the embargo should be lifted on Cuba. With all the uncertainty in Cuba right now we do not need to give them any money by trading with them. Some might argue that if we allowed tourism people in Cuba would see how good a life Americans have, and would want that in their country. However they already do have a pretty good idea of what our life is like and know how bad they have it there. There is a reason that many people each day try fleeing Cuba to get to the United States. Also if we have tourist over in Cuba, we have to worry about making sure that they are protected from the Cuba government over there. Also if the government collapses there will be strife in the country for a while and we do not want to get our troops involved in there also. The way I see it there is no reason for us to lift the ban right now. There is a chance that the government might collapse soon anyway and there is no great benefit for us to lift the embargo now.

Latin America News Article

An article that I found with Latin America talks about the steps that one country is taking to try breaking down on the amount of drugs that is transported through the country. The newstory (http://xrl.us/beh7hh) talks about how Guatemala has had around 50 people trained by the U.S. to do drugs raids. According to the article Guatemala has struggled with controlling the drug trafficking that goes on in the country and has not been able to do much to stop what goes on. While I'm sure that it will take more then this to make much of an impact, it is good to know that they country is working on solving some of its problems and is looking for help on the outside also.

Cartogram

This map is one that looks at housing prices around the world. As you can tell by looking at this cartogram there are major differences throughout the world. People in more developed countries expect more out of their home then those who are from poor areas. Because of this the prices of homes are much higher then places in Africa or South America. The only country in Africa that has much cost for houses is South Africa. With the prices of homes being down in these places there is also less that comes with a home. Most of these houses in poor countries would have electricity or running water in them. Many of them might be made up of aluminum or sticks and pieces of wood. In places such as the United States, Europe and Japan however there is much more wealth and therefore more money is spent on the houses. Almost all of the houses in these countries will have electricity and running water. They are also much bigger then the homes that are in poorer countries.

I think that looking at this map helps remind us that we do take many things for granted and that even now people are living in places that we might consider huts. We should appreciate more what we have and should look to help those around us who might not be as fortunate.

Comparing Population Pyramids

This first population pyramid is one of the country of Germany. Germany is an LDC and is therefore not growing very much. One interesting point about this pyramid is the fact that there are alot less men then women in the 70-85 range. While this might seem strange at first, a little knowledge of history reminds us that many German men were killed in World War II. Also when looking at this pyramid you will notice that there is a large percentage of the population from 30 to 50. Some of the reason for this is because of immigrants from the Arab and African world that has come for economic oppurtunity. Because of all these factors the population pyramid of Germany is much different then the next one which is of Botswana.

This pyramid of Botswana shows that it has not developed much at all so far. Like traditional pyramids of LDC's it is in true pyramid form. The reason for this is because the family size is much bigger in a country like this then a developed one. Also since medical treatment is not as readily available the life expectancy is not as high as in more developed countries.

Probably the most interesting place that I have been to is going to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. Me and my family went out this area several years ago during the summer. Being able to see the mountains and all the natural wildlife was just amazing to see. Yellowstone had a large variety of natural landscape and has some amazing places to visit. Being able to see the hot springs in was pretty incredible. Another highlight was being able to see the different geysers that Yellowstone is known for. To be honest Old Faithful was a bit of a disappointment, however being able to see all the other geysers more then made up for it. On this trip I was able to see some animals that I had never seen before including; buffalo, elk, and moose. Seeing the Yellowstone canyon and its waterfalls was pretty amazing and scary to drive along also. Probably the most amazing part of the trip for me was being able to see the Grand Teton Mountains. It was just so amazing for me to be able to see what God had created and how beautiful it was. I have wanted to go back there sometime and enjoy the natural beauty that is out in that area.