follow-up

I just thought I'd add this cartoon I found as a follow-up on my earlier post about Zimbabwe.

Harvest of Shame

We watched the 1960 documentary "Harvest of Shame" by Edward R. Murrow in my broadcast writing class. If you haven't ever watched it, I suggest it to you. I couldn't find it on youtube, but you might be able to find it at your local library. It was made in 1960 and aired the day after Thanksgiving. It was an eye-opening awakening as to how farmlaborers lived in those days. The number one question that kept popping through my mind was if any of the same conditions exist today, or if the government had had the gumptions to change some of the regulations that were leaving farm laborers so exposed to exploitation. I was shocked to discover that though some things have changed there are still some laws that were so very obviously brought about by the well-paid lobbyists of the agricultural industry. For example: child labor laws don't apply to the agricultural industry, minimum wage or at least a modified minimum wage does not apply to the agricultural industry, requirements for kids to go to school does not apply,though they are trying to start a program where laptops are supplied to the kids so they can do online school and still work; which to me is even more disgusting. Kids shouldn't be working 12 hours a day! Farms don't have to supply health care or housing or amenities or anything for these people. It is sad to me the power lobbyists hold in Washington.

Alright I've got to do a Poli Post

So I really do want this blog to be about diapers and politics. Mostly politics because I love to invoke discussion. I enjoying learning from other people who often help me to see sides of things I couldn't before. Something that a lot of people are talking about right now is Zimbabwe. If you think our inflation is bad, don't even think about their currency. There is a student at my school named Totenda and he is from Zimbabwe. He is our student body president, and one of the nicest people I have met at that school.
My polisci classes have been talking about Zimbabwe non-stop. They have been under Mugabe for over 3 decades, he is of course as bad as any ruthless dictator. But Zimbabwe was doing alright as a middle-income country for awhile. But the past several years the economy has gone to the dump and the currency has been inflated to over 100,000 percent. I don't know how or why they even measure inflation at that point. The people have almost no way to function. Totenda says that they pay by the hour because the wages will go up by the hour and you buy your drink before you sit down because the price will have gone up by the time you would have been ready to pay. At this point it is mostly a barter economy. People have given up on money, and the economy is about to stop because there is no way to pay wages or buy goods.
They actually had elections and Mugabe didn't win the majority even with all of the bruttal force he uses. The people are taking a stand. All I have to say is that the guy who ran against him has got a lot of courage because there have already been several attempts on his life. If someone else can take over I think they will have to completely scrap the old currency and start to re-circulate a brand new currency to try to ge the economy to move again. Anyways, it'll be interesting if Mugabe will step down at all, even though he lost the election. Here is a link or two about the conflict:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23929752/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/world/africa/04zimbabwe.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Some memories to write before I forget...

(At the request of Val), I wanted to write down a funny story about the girls. I took the girls to their first time to the dentist a while back and true to my lineage they both had cavitities. I was nervous about bringing them back to get that work done. Mckayla went first and they put a gas mask on her and told her to breathe through her nose. When the dentist asked is she was feeling tingly in her legs yet she said, "I'm flying" she said it in a very dazey, doped up manner, then she added, "I'm flying in the sky like wonder woman with my cape." They decided she was ready. When Lyla got up in the chair she was really scared because she had just watched them drill into Mckayla's teeth. Mckayla went up and stroked Lyla's hand and reassured her, "Lyla it's fun, you're going to fly, it's fun!" Lyla didn't calm down until they got some gas into, and she never could relax like Mckayla. When I was going to a dentist appointment later Mckayla was really upset that she couldn't go too.

More from our March Trip

This is a picture of me and the kids at the temple. Doesn't Jaxon look adorable in his tux? We also had little pink hats for the girls, and good thing I got them at the dollar spot at Target because they were used to collect rocks and flowers. Needless to say they were hashed before we left and we throw in the trash.
This is at the reception and this guy was walking around singing to people with his ukelele. He also happens to have played the father of Mahana in the old LDS movie Johnny Lingo. I thought that was cool so I took a picture with him.
On the way home we drove through Zion's national park. It is beautiful, it's been a long time since I had been there. But just so y'all know, don't take the highway through Zion's!! I thought that the highway would just go through cuz the main scenic roads to get to all the camping and hiking and stuff go off of the highway. Anyways we had to pay $25 to drive 10 miles through the park!!!! And we didn't even get off onto the scenic roads or anything! By the time we got up there it would have taken us hours to back track and go another way to get out of paying the money, so we paid it. The drive was exceptionally beautiful though.

Our Easter/Wedding Trip

Our first stop on the trip, after a very very long 18 hour drive, was Peoria, AZ. We drove it pretty much sraight through. We went there so Becca and her boyfriend Mike could visit with his family. Admittedly a little awkward for us, but we had a good time. We attended the easter pageant the church puts on at the Mesa, AZ temple. The girls were very excited to meet all of the people in costume, and especially when they got to meet Jesus. We had to take some time to explain that it wasn't the real Jesus, but just a nice guy that is dressed like Jesus. They still kept telling everyone they met that they got to meet Jesus and take a picture with him.
A scary thing that happened at the pageant was that we were going down the row to our seats that some friends of Becca's had saved for us, and Lyla made friends with one of the girls and sat on her lap. I assumed that she was still there and took my seat. After a few minutes I looked down to check on her and she wasn't there. I of course started frantically searching and the girls thought she came back down to sit with us, but she hadn't. There were thousands and thousands of people at the pageant. Mike and I split up going up the aisle, and I remembered hearing an announcement that the "missing children table" was by the firepole. So I went over there and there she was. Sitting at the table chatting up the security personnel. They said she had gone up to one of the characters and they realized she didn't have a parent nearby so they immediately took her to the table. When I asked her what had happened she said "I ran away." When I asked why she said, "to go get a costume."
This is me with my sisters Barbara (middle one about to be married) and Hannah. This is at the St. George, UT temple for my sister's first endowment.
This is the day of the wedding with all of the cousins except my brother's kids.
This is my sister Barbara and her husband Matt. It was a beautiful wedding. I had never been to St. George before and I was stuck by what a beautiful city it was. We had a lot of fun playing at the homes my mom had gotten for us. I got completely sun burnt because we were outside pretty much all day that day. But it was a lot of fun.

knock on wood...

So, I am not a very habitual blogger, or journaler, or scrapbooker, or anything like that. I wish I was though. But I should have knocked on wood when I wrote that last post. GO FIGURE. Yeah. We are moving and I am going to have to switch schools again, and it's like starting over...again. I don't feel like I will ever finish school. But other than that I am excited to move. I will miss my friends in Texas, but we will be much closer to family and especially to each other. That is because with Jake's new job NO MORE DEPLOYMENTS!!!!!! YAY! So anything is worth that to me. No matter what else it means we will have to do. This July we will be moving to Sierra Vista, AZ.