Observation Blogpost #2

On Thursday of last week my husband and I flew into JFK international airport in New York City for the purpose of attending the BYU football game at the University of Connecticut in East Hartford, CT.

On Friday, we rented a car and made the drive to Connecticut. When I travel I like to be prepared. I usually study maps so that I can “see” the routes and try to visualize them so that I have a better idea of where I’ll be. I use map quest or similar programs to view alternate routes, mileage, and the estimated time each route will take. I thought I was prepared. One thing that I failed to take into consideration though was Labor Day weekend. It seemed like everyone in the city was trying to get out, and they were all going to Connecticut. The traffic was very frustrating and a drive that was supposed to take a little over 2 hour, according to map quest, took 5. But this slow pace on I-95 allowed my husband and I to make a very interesting observation.

Shortly after we crossed the state line we noticed that there were no cars on the other side of the freeway. One or two emergency vehicles were on top of each overpass and an occasional police car would pass by. This was the case for many miles and seemed so out of the ordinary, especially for a busy holiday weekend. Because of this, we were paying extra close attention. Eventually we were passed by the Presidential motorcade; a long line of emergency vehicles, armored trucks, limousines, and cargo vans. There seemed to have been at least 20 cars in the group and that didn’t count the local agencies that were also escorting. The manpower was enormous. The traffic behind the motorcade was completely stopped and was backed up for miles. I was feeling lucky to be in the northbound lane that was actually moving even if it was at a snail’s pace.

This whole scene made me curious. Had the president actually been in one of those vehicles? Is so, what was he doing? And why make traffic so much worse on a day that is historically one of the busiest traffic days of the year?

With today’s technology it is so easy to get information so early Saturday morning I used Google to try to answer some of my questions.

The President had been in the area to attend two different fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee. One of the fundraisers was in New Rochelle, NY where about 25 supporters paid about $30,000 each to attend. The second was a backyard barbeque in Purchase, NY where about 250 attendees paid $15,000 per couple to eat hot dogs with the President. If you do the math, over 2 million dollars was raise but at what cost? This information left me with even more questions. How much of this money actually goes to the DNC and how much was used to put on the event? How many local businesses were affected because of traffic problems or having to shut down completely? The DNC was raising money while others were losing revenue. How many flights were diverted or cancelled to facilitate Air Force One? Are our taxpayer dollars being used wisely? Would it be more prudent for people to simply donate to their chosen party rather that have to rub shoulders with the elite? Is the timing right when the Middle East is so volatile? Should the President be using his time on more pressing issues like ISIS and Syria? These are some of the many questions that this observation raised for me.

Observation Blogpost #1

For years I have been focused on my family. I have attended countless sporting events and parent teacher conferences. I have packed too many lunches to count and participated in my fair share of soccer carpools. I have corrected my children’s grammar, made sure they were fulfilling their commitments, recorded service hours all while lovingly guiding them on their path to becoming respectable adults who contribute to society in a positive way. I don’t often consider myself a deep thinker or find myself pondering the future of humanity but a recent observation caused me to look beyond my comfortable little bubble and contemplate what lies ahead.

On the first day of one of my classes we took turns introducing ourselves. I realize this is done on the first day of every class but I felt like the instructor put far too much emphasis on this. Of course everyone likes to talk about him or herself, and I like learning about them but we spent and entire hour and fifteen minutes on introductions. The instructor asked that we give our name and then share completely irrelevant information; the worst injury we ever had, our worst date, or an awkward story about a roommate.

As the class shared, I tried to seem engaged and interested and sometimes I really was. But some of the stories became so shallow that I found myself baffled, my mouth hanging involuntarily open is disbelief. One student in particular told us that she was going to share a “bad date story”. I mentally prepared myself to hear a story of a truly bad date, as she was the first in the class who had chosen this topic.  She went on to tell of an experience where a guy had sent her a text message asking if she wanted to make out. I expected her to be appalled by his proposal but she was not. She agreed to go on the “date” and she fully expected to be picked up and then just spend the time with him making out. Instead, he picked her up, they met up with another couple, and they all went bowling. She couldn’t believe it. She was appalled. Instead of making out they went bowling. How dare he!

I couldn’t fully contain my disgust and sat in my seat shaking my head. While there were several other shallow stories being told in the class this was definitely the worst and I noticed at least a few others around me having a similar reaction to mine. I guess all is not lost.

While I know the majority of people do not share my religious beliefs or moral opinions I would hope that young girls especially would have enough self respect that they would avoid meaningless behavior, or at least not publicly advertise their promiscuity as something they value. So, I was left asking myself, “What is this world coming to?”