I know, a weird title. But they do go together.
I was talking with my mom recently about our youngest, who had H1N1 last week (he’s much better now, thanks!).
My parents live in California, where the H1N1 stories in the news are fairly common and tend to highlight cases that seem to be people who are not in the “high-risk” groups, providing details about this pandemic. While, here in Utah, I really don’t hear very much on the news, and the stories tend to be about ways to stay healthy and about how this is just another flu and the death rate is as expected.
So, while we weren’t too worried, I’m sure my mom was kind of freaking out.
It got me thinking about why a Democratic state would focus on the negatives and a Republican state would be more optimistic. (This is where the “party” lines comes in). After all, I am a fairly optimistic person.
I’m not so sure this has to do with pessimism versus optimism as a nature of certain parties, though. While some may argue this, I think it goes deeper, into the world view of those in each party.
Democrats tend to be more focused on the poor, the downtrodden, the under-represented. Republicans tend to be more focused on free markets and improving from the top, keeping government out of our lives. These are simplistic definitions, obviously, but I feel they are useful here, if not completely black-and-white.
In California, the focus seems to be on these suffering people and how bad this is, how we need help to fix the problem. In Utah, the focus seems to be on how we can handle this problem ourselves and reassuring us that we can do it.
In some ways I think these world views tie in with how people take on the “global warming” issue, even. From the, in my opinion, exaggerated sky-is-falling outcries on the left, to the nothing-to-fear-but-fear-itself, we-are-not-the-cause anti-response of the far right. The answer here, and for H1N1, is somewhere in the middle – a complex, problematic issue that is not easily solvable, nor should it be ignored.
Monday, October 26th, 2009,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Health, Politics| |
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At a writing conference I attended Thursday, Stephen Covey was speaking about changing universities to be more involved in communities as a way to lower crime.
Interestingly, one of the audience members asked him how to change universities to be less liberal. The idea being that liberals would need to change so they could help people.
And yet, isn’t the definition of “conservative” that of someone who does not want change? Therefore, in order to get universities to change, by definition, we would need them to be less conservative.
Sometimes people are so blinded by their world view (on both sides) that they don’t see the illogic in their stances.
Saturday, September 26th, 2009,
by Garrett,
Filed under: humor| |
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Iiiiiiii’mmmmmm Baaaa-aaaccccckkkkk.
I’m still really tired, but I got back Saturday night from Akela’s Council (Cub Scout Leader Training). I was on staff and felt like I was still a participant in many ways – I have a lot to learn still about the scouting program.
But, I had a great time and really enjoyed being there, despite the lack of sleep.
Hope I get asked again some time – it was way awesome!
Uugaa chucka, Cherokee!
Monday, August 17th, 2009,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Scouting| |
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6 months out from corrective eye surgery and I am stabilized at 20/15. Woo hoo!
Now to remember all the things my mother told me – don’t read in bad light, don’t sit so close to the tv, don’t stare at the sun, and so forth.
Thursday, July 30th, 2009,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Health| |
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One of my writing group friends pointed us to this website, and I thought the comics are all pretty funny (but mostly just if you understand Mormon culture.
But, these comics about Twilight take the cake:
http://www.9thwardcartoons.com/2009/01/did-you-get-your-visiting-teaching-done.html
http://www.9thwardcartoons.com/2009/03/on-which-side-do-you-stand.html
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Church, Uncategorized, humor| humor, mormon, Twilight|
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I attended this Cub Scout Leader training (called Akela’s Council) last year, and thought it was GREAT! It helped me learn so much (even after being a Cubmaster for 2 years) and helped me really get that scouting spirit.
I HEARTILY recommend it to anyone and everyone!
In fact, I am going to be on staff this year, and I am really looking forward to experiencing it again, from a different perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BErS6_6Ak7k
So, register today and come along! Just go to www.utahscouts.org
Thursday, March 19th, 2009,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Scouting| akela's council, scouts, training|
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This is my first post using Wordbook. Should be nice to only have to post one place and have it go to Facebook (I already have a plugin for sending stuff to my LiveJournal account).
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Uncategorized| |
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Current Mood:
Cool
Today is the semi-annual conference for the LDS church. My family and I are watching it on tv. It is nice to live in Utah and to be able to stay in my pajamas all day while listening to our wonderful and inspiring leaders.
It is not easy to keep four kids quiet for 2 hours, though. To be fair, it is mostly the youngest two. Especially Bubba (he’s 4).
Sunday, October 5th, 2008,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Family| Family, LDS, mormon|
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I’ll integrate these in with the rest of the blog later, but I don’t want to lose them, so here they are:
Friday, July 25th, 2008,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Information| |
1 Comment
I haven’t updated my site in quite awhile. Previously, I just had a basic, plain HTML page that had some links on it. But, after a friend went to this site to see it, I felt awfully embarrassed and decided a blog would be the easiest way to get content up and presentable.
I want this to be a place to link off to my other sites, so I won’t necessarily be posting here as much as other places (but that may change).
This should at least keep me a bit more organized.
Cheers!
Friday, July 25th, 2008,
by Garrett,
Filed under: Information| |
No Comments
