Norman Borlaug Lecture--"Life's a marathon not a sprint"--Jo luck

On Monday, David Beckmann and Jo Luck came to Iowa State University and spoke to make people more aware on the fight against Global Hunger. I thought this presentation was very interesting and I actually enjoyed watching it. David Beckmann is the president for Bread for the World which is an organization that influences political leaders to end hunger here and also other countries. Beckmann said that it's VERY possible to achieve large impacts on global hunger if we just got the funds from the government and people to help.  They have already convinced the government to increase funding for global hunger and develop more policies and long-term solutions. Since they've started, the membership has almost doubled and the government has almost tripled their assistance. Now 30 million more African children are in schools. I think that this is insane all that one man has accomplished. Some of the things he said were really sad, it made you realize how much people really are in need of food. He said a statistic that really surprised me, "1 in 4 children live in households that run out of food." I think this is really sad and I never realized it before he said it.

Jo Luck was another very inspiring person to listen to. Luck is the president for Heifer International. This organization helps people who are struggling to become self sufficient. They provide families with food and animals to develop their income. Jo Luck said "Passing on a gift to another in need." I think this idea is very cool because there entire organization is based off helping people and doing things for others. Luck told us a lot of her different adventures and crazy things she has had to deal with during her years working for Heifer International and it shows you that she really must have a heart for what she does because most people would just end it after so much. One of the things she shared with us that was interesting was when she asked the people she's helping their top 10 most important things people living like us would probably say material things but the people she was with said things like family, love, peace, spirituality and heath, etc. This shows you how much they are in need because we already are fortunate to have a lot of those things. One of the questions asked in the lecture was what do they do about all the different cultures and environments with the animals because certain animals cannot survive in certain environments. How do they decide who gets what kind of animal. Luck's response was that they have 30 different kind of species so they will put whatever kind works best for that society. 

Overall, I am really glad that I went to this because I learned a lot. 

Blog Critiques

http://blog.ifoodufood.com/

This is the blog that I critiqued. I thought that over all it was very good. I thought that the blog was very organized and her descriptions of the food made it seem like it was in your mouth. One thing I really liked about it was that she took pictures and had them all up on each blog of the food she was critiquing. I thought this just made it very visual and more interesting to read. Another thing I liked was that she had a rating system key on the side. So you knew exactly what she meant by 8-9 or so on because it said exactly what that meant later. The one thing i would have liked to see change is that almost all the reviews were in one city and it might have been kind of cool if she branched out a little.

Waging a Living

Last week we watched the movie, waging a living. I thought this movie was really interesting and I learned a lot about people that are not as lucky as we are with our living situation. It was sad watching the families with kids that had to deal with the poverty because no child should have to live like that. It made me feel really bad for the families and it wasn't always their fault for getting into poverty. I thought the situation of Barbara Brooks was really sad because she was trying so hard to do everything she could for her kids but she couldn't find a better paying job without more education. She gave up all the time she had to go to school and work so that she could give more to her kids. I think that is very inspiring because you don't always see the parent working that hard for their kids in that kind of situation. 

It was really hard to watch the movie because it's hard to believe people actually live like that. I actually thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie because it fascinated me and I never got bored of it.