This is Not a Post About Politics

       I have a love/hate relationship with political parties. On the news (specifically CNN, which I watch far too frequently) I always hear about the importance of independent voters and swing voters and such. I consider myself to be an independent. The thing is, I haven't met too many other people from this supposedly all important bloc. I grew up in Texas, so I was surrounded by conservatives, but there are still quite a few democrats, even there. Utah is a little more lacking on the democrat side, at least in Provo anyway, but I haven't met more than a handful of people that are as willing to vote for either party as I am in either location. Maybe I have just lived in the wrong states. Frankly, I think it's kind of weird though. I feel like there should be a little more dissent than there seems to be currently. There is nothing wrong with conservatives voting Democrat or liberals voting Republican every once in a while, sometimes the other guy is better.

       For example, I supported Obama in the last election, I didn't get the chance to vote because I was in Ecuador and there was some confusion about how to to actually submit an absentee ballot. But the point is, I supported Obama and still don't regret that choice. No, he isn't the worlds greatest president but he's not the worst one either and I still firmly believe that he has done a better job than McCain ever would have. And you know what else? If Romney wins the nomination (and I'm pretty sure he will) then I will (probably) vote for him in the general election. But if Romney doesn't get the nomination then I will vote for Obama again because I still like him way better than Santorum, Gingrich or Paul hands down.

       Political parties are nice because it gives people a way of throwing support behind a candidate without having to pay attention to the news or the race at all. It's like a brand identity for politics. The parties need to maintain a certain level of trust so that they can maintain support and you end up with a sort of general McDonald's style list of candidates, nobody particularly new or innovative but nothing inedible either because the politicians are basically forced to hold certain party ideals in order to be successful in the party. That's what people are referring to when they talk about "playing the game" and "washington insiders". It's a system that has its pros and cons but the cons have really been rising to the surface. I don't claim to understand why the nation has become so polarized in recent years, I'm just not that smart.

       Don't mistake my previous rant for pessimism. I am a firm believer that things work out in the end. Often when I feel a little worried about the direction things are going (like when the Herman Cains of the world are topping the polls) I think about a scripture in the Book of Mormon that I really like in Mosiah 29:26-27 and I feel better. It basically says, as long as the majority of the people are trying to do what's right, things will work out.


       I've found that this idea holds true, countries that are less corrupt tend to do better economically and companies that commit fraud eventually tank, even though these results may not be immediate (see Bernie Madoff). I wont try to claim that we have the smartest country on the planet (see any video on youtube) but I do think our collective heart is in the right place. I think on the whole, we still root for the good guys and we still want what's best for everyone, some people just have a different idea about how to get there. Please note that I'm not trying to say that all ideas are good ideas as long as people are trying their best, because I'm not. But there is something to be said for people trying to do what's right even if they don't quite know how to go about doing so.

Adventure Time: Moab Edition

With the exception of the group shot all of these were taken on my
iPhone so they aren't the best but you get the idea.

This was a fun climb and it was conveniently
located right next to camp.

The view from inside

     I've been putting off posing anything the last few weeks because I keep thinking I'm going to get some sort of response from the Utah Food Bank. No such luck. I really don't know why they didn't respond, I was just curious and trying to get more information about how things work over there. I wasn't trying to change the world or tell them what's wrong with their operations but I figured if my ideas were correct I would be able to do something useful. I think they didn't respond because they either didn't take me seriously, didn't care, or didn't want to give me that much data. Or maybe they thought I was a hippy. I do hate hippies so I totally sympathize if that's the case. My problem with hippies is that they never get anything DONE. They have a lot of lovely ideas that on the surface seem nice and might help but in reality just make things worse or are impossible to implement realistically... Maybe I was acting like a hippy... that's a scary thought. Stupid hippies. 

Most of the crew at Delicate Arch in Arches
 National Park. Looks cold huh?

      This is a week late in coming but for the three day presidents day weekend I went down to Moab with some friends. Before we left I was having a conversation with Ammon about how it was likely going to snow and the trip might end up being very fun or very miserable. He said the two were not mutually exclusive which I thought was a valid point. He ended up being completely right.

       It was a great trip and it was cool to see the arches in the snow because snow and arches just don't seem like they belong together. But it was also cold. Dang cold. It snowed a lot on Sunday and I and several others in the crew got kind of wet because of it, that was one of the most miserable couple of hours I have ever spent camping that's for sure. 

      

       Monday was beautiful but I don't have any of the pictures right now. I'm sure they will show up on facebook soon enough though. I also managed to add another minor injury to the list as well. I'm still not sure how I did it but I bruised my foot. Apart from that I have also managed to hurt my tailbone doing dumb things on my snow board a few weeks ago, my feet always have a couple of blisters on them in various stages of healing from playing soccer (apparently I need new shoes) and I hurt my thumb playing dodge ball at an elders quorum activity Saturday. I can never decide if I get too into whatever sport/outdoor activity that I'm currently involved in or if I'm just a clumsy guy. It's probably a little of both but I personally think that it's the second thing. Oh well, such is life. The good news is all those injuries are pretty much healed at this point. Except the blisters. About the time they finish healing I add a new set because I play soccer every Thursday night at 10 in the Wells Fargo parking garage. But it's totally worth it. 

       I've noticed that all of my posts either have a political theme or random adventure theme. My next post is already in the works and it's a political one for sure. I'm just warning you now so that you don't have to read it if you don't want to. I love politics but even I start rolling my eyes when some of my friends start going off on some rant. Happy Leap Day everyone! Make it a good one and do something crazy! Because real life is for March.

Dumpster Diving, the Saga

       Ah, I missed this. Writing for fun is great, there is nobody to give me a grade and I don't have to worry about all my stupid grammar mistakes. I'm in this intense political writing course this semester and they are driving me nuts with all of these rules and things that I never understood in 4th grade and don't anticipate understanding now either. If you have ever wanted to feel self conscious about every word that you have ever committed to paper, I recommend political science 200 at BYU, it's the greatest.

       Recently I watched a documentary called "Dive! Living Off America's Waste" on Netflix, it's about this guy and his friends that basically get all of their groceries from the dumpsters behind grocery stores. I've seen lots of documentaries and it may be my favorite way to ingest facts and ideas but this was not by any measure the greatest one I have ever seen. Still, I guess it was effective because it really got me thinking. The main claim that they made was that  the government and businesses need to do more to get this perfectly good food that is going to be thrown away into the hands of people that need it. Hippy crap. Every word. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say that helping to feed the hungry isn't a worthy goal. The problem is that they were blaming grocery stores for not making more of an effort to get this food out to the food banks. I don't recall them ever stating it explicitly but they implied that these companies just didn't care about people and that it wasn't important to them. I don't believe this is the case, companies are run by people and at least some of those people must be capable of empathy.

       In 1996 Bill Clinton signed the Good Samaritan Act which greatly reduced potential liability for grocery stores that want to donate food that they are no longer able to sell. Even the hippies admitted that donations did increase after that but the truth is, not all food is obviously spoiled and a lot of things need to be looked at carefully by someone who knows what they are doing in order to insure that they don't accidentally give somebody food poisoning and do more harm than good. Asking the companies to take responsibility for sorting and delivering this food is unreasonable. After all, the end goal of these companies is to make a profit and as it stands the average grocery makes $0.03 on every dollar. Making sure the maximum amount of food reaches a food bank would mean more hours worked for employees and thus increased costs for the company.

       With the recent recession donations have been down at food banks across the nation so the idea of getting this food to the people that need it has been intriguing me. The responsibility should rest on the various charitable organizations that are in need of the food. They should go out to the grocery stores and find what they need themselves, but I'm not entirely convinced that this isn't already being done so before I rush to some hasty conclusions I decided it would be prudent to write an email to the Utah Food Bank and see what's up. I'm not really sure where I'm going with all of this, if I get an positive answer back then I guess that will be the end of it but if it turns out that there is as big a problem as the documentary claimed then I have no idea what I would do about it. I certainly don't have the time or resources to sort through tons of food from local grocery stores and then take it to the food bank if they are not doing so already and I don't know how I would convince them to do it themselves because this idea isn't exactly new.

       So until I hear back from the Utah Food Bank, what are your thoughts guys? Maybe you would like to watch the documentary too or do some digging of your own because I think the whole thing is fascinating and I'd be very interested to figure out how all this fits together. I haven't ruled out the possibility that I'm just being dumb and this is a non-issue of course but it's fun to think about non the less so if you have any ideas let me know on facebook or in the comments and I will let you know what happens with my email in the next post.