Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

Posts for September 15, 2009

Back to top
QDear 100 Hour Board,

Back in the days of segregation-- when restrooms, restaurants, schools, etc, were divided for black people and white people--where did other ethnicites fit? What section would a Hispanic or Pacific Islander or Asian person go to?

-Integrated

Direct Link to Question

ADear Integrated,

You raise an interesting question, and one that was more complex than I thought it would be. It was actually kind of tricky to find information about segregation as regards people of different ethnicities, since most things we hear about segregation refers to African-Americans. My first inclination would be to say that probably any ethnicity other than Caucasian would be lumped together into a “colored” category, and be segregated that way. In trying to find a more validated answer, I read quite a few articles, so I'll try to piece together an answer based on those.

First of all, in terms of segregation, I think it would really depend on which geographic region you’re talking about. Most of us probably think of segregation happening mainly in the South, although it was also common practice in the northern states where “free” blacks migrated. I’ll admit that I didn’t do a ton of research as to this aspect of the question, but I think there are overwhelmingly larger numbers of blacks than there are other ethnic groups in the South. My point is, in that particular region, the question of how to segregate the other ethnicities may not have ever come up.

Now, if we look at a region where there are lots of members of other ethnicities, it’s a bit easier to find an answer. I looked at the Southwest, where there is a large population of Hispanics. As it happens, Hispanics, which constitute the next largest ethnic group after Blacks, were sometimes considered “white”. When the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed in 1848, part of the deal was that the people living in the areas which were now part of the United States got to keep their land and property. So, although Mexican Americans were legally able to keep their possessions, they were still discriminated against and subject to discrimination laws.

One of the articles I read* discussed the segregation of Hispanics in Arizona, and mentioned that what separated the Mexican Americans from Asian immigrants was the fact that they could legally hold land—so as to your question about Asians and other groups, they seem to have been discriminated against also, probably even more so. All the same, public schools were routinely segregated, with Mexican Americans being placed in their own substandard schools. A lot of course cases occurred which debated whether persons of Mexican blood were white or not, so the segregation was supposedly based on language deficiencies, not skin color. Mexican children were placed in schools with only Mexican children so that they could learn English and thus not hinder the learning of their English-speaking counterparts. The problem was that they were never placed back in integrated schools, even when they proved to have sufficient language abilities, and the schools which they were sent to were far inferior to those of the white children. The article I mentioned is quite a fascinating read, and references a number of others on this same topic--I highly recommend it, to get an even more detailed view of the matter.

Anyway, the reason I mention all that is just to show that segregation in different forms took place across the country, and across different ethnic groups. I think it’s safe to say that in the majority of cases, white supremacy has unfortunately placed all other races in a lower class. From the examples I’ve given, though Mexican Americans had legal rights as U.S. citizens, they still were not treated equally in practice. Other, smaller groups (like the Asians and Pacific Islanders you mentioned) would have fared much worse, I’m afraid. I think we’ve come a long way as a country in some ways, but when you consider the fact that by 2050, it is predicted that the U.S. will no longer have a majority race, we’ve got a long way to go before we can be “color-blind” as a nation.

-Miss Scarlett, in the Conservatory

*“Forgotten History: Mexican American School Segregation in Arizona From 1900-1951,” Equity & Excellence in Education 41:4 467-481.

Back to top
QDear 100 Hour Board,

With regards to happiness in dating relationships, do you feel that it is something that must be cultivated through some sort of effort? Or is it more of something that just naturally occurs, something caused by the mere presence of the other person...like two people who just fit together well and really enjoy each other's personalities?

I guess the reason I ask is because it seems that the scriptures suggest that if you have enough charity, you will love the people around you, including the ones you date. And a lot of people say that you will most appreciate the things you work hardest for. So can a person find happiness (or perhaps contentment) in a relationship by simply putting forth more effort? Or should you just break off the unsatisfying relationships, in pursuit of more satisfying options?

I guess the other reason I ask is because I found a guy who makes me kind-of happy, but not knock-my-socks-off happy. On paper, he is everything I want in a guy...which is pretty hard to find. But I'm just wondering if my lack of total satisfaction might be improved with more effort. Or if maybe I should just find someone else who can make me knock-my-socks-off happy. What do you think? I'm sure you guys have more dating experience than me.

-Somewhat happy

Direct Link to Question

ADear Somewhat happy,

Disclaimer: we are traversing the ephemeral line between idealistic and low expectations; they are only separated by a hair's breadth. If the following feels wrong to you, I'd trust that gut check and write me off. It won't hurt my feelings, trust how you feel. And don't worry about how much dating experience you've got. Each relationship is so different that there's only so much benefit you can get from dating a lot anyways.

There are a lot of talks about making it work, that there is no once-in-a-lifetime soul mate, and that any marriage can succeed with enough effort from both husband and wife. This counsel is for married members, and I feel that it is a mistake to copy/paste this advice in regard to your dating relationships no matter how serious. They just aren't the same. There's commitment in dating and a lot more in engagement, but it doesn't have eternal significance yet. I watched a dear friend struggle for months over marrying her fiancé because he was great for her on paper. It thickly shadowed everything in her life and although she's a naturally cheerful girl, she became subdued and depressed. She was overwhelmed trying to manufacture the level of excitement that she thought she should be feeling. She realized that although he was a good man, she just wasn't happy enough with him to feel right about marrying him. You do appreciate the things that you work hardest for, but there's enough work in a relationship without trying to create feelings to appreciate it. The happiness is the reason you work so hard in the first place. You don't have a duty to find someone who you're just contented with; you get to pick who makes heaven heaven. (Think of one of those church commercials.) Agency- isn't it about...choice.

Love isn't always butterflies and daydreams, but yes I do believe its everything it's cracked up to be. You shouldn't expect a vampire stalker where you need your boyfriend to be happy and you're non-functionally miserable when he's gone. However, I've honestly found myself happier since dating Mr. Wonderful than I've ever been before- by at least fifteen arbitrary happiness units. It's not some cruel work of fiction dreamed up by writers, lyricists, and movie producers. People really are "incandescently happy."

-Ineffable

Back to top
QDear 100 Hour Board,

Pretty much always on the inner fold or somewhere on my cereal boxes and on the boxes of other things like Pop Tarts, etc., I see the marks which seem to be those of printer initialization (little colored circles, sometimes colored bars). I can see them doing that on the first box or batch of boxes at the bringing up of the machine, but doesn't printing that on every box for hundreds of thousands of boxes waste a lot of ink over the years?

- person

Direct Link to Question

ADear Person,

As mentioned in Board Question #25335, those marks are to verify that the different colors used in printing are properly aligned. Why not just print them on the first batch, as you suggested? Surely they can't get out of alignment all that quickly.

I'm no expert on commercial food packaging, but here are two reasons that seem plausible to me. First, possibly it's not that easy to change what's printed. If it's a long or involved process to switch from a pattern that includes the dots to one that doesn't, then it could easily cost them more money to switch than it would to just leave the extra dots.

Second, perhaps they double-check the alignment on every product (somewhat unlikely) or on a random selection of products (more likely), so the test patterns need to appear on each one since it would be impractical to only print them on the specific ones to be tested.

Whether or not you believe my explanations, I'm sure that the companies doing the printing carefully examine their procedures and look for ways to save money. If this weren't saving food companies money, they'd have eliminated the dots.

—Laser Jock

Back to top
QDear 100 Hour Board,

What is the most failed class at BYU? What are other classes that are often failed the first time they are taken?

-David O.

Direct Link to Question

ADear David O.,

A more important question would be: why are students at BYU interested in the most failed class?

Maybe it has to do with choosing easier classes for ourselves, or is it because we want to know other people struggle also? I know, this is deep stuff.

The Board archives tell us that Chem 105 is the most failed class, and American Heritage comes next. After that, it is hard to find statistics that are legitimate. From what my classmates, roommates, and friends have said, some of the other commonly failed classes include Econ 110, beginning Computer Science and IT classes, beginning Calculus, PD Bio 220, and any PE class that you do not attend (because that is a huge portion of the grade).

Don't fail, friend.

-Mico

Back to top
QDear 100 Hour Board,

I have heard rumors that BYU students in the past have eloped for a weekend in Las Vegas, had sex all weekend, and then promptly had the marriage annulled. The students were then kicked out of BYU. Are these rumors accurate?

- 3L

Direct Link to Question

ADear 3L,

This one looks like it's just a rumor—see Board Question #27420. Were such a thing to take place, it couldn't be annulled anyway: there would have to be a divorce. Check out Board Question #18727 for the difference between annulment and divorce.

—Laser Jock

Back to top
QDear 100 Hour Board,

I am confused.

Namely about the national debt.

Seeing as how no one can actually make us ever pay it back without getting into a war in which they would more than likely get their trash kicked, why does it matter? I'm not debating the immorality of having our children pay for everything we want, I'm just confuzzled about why it actually matters, as our children may never have to pay it.

- The Prince

Direct Link to Question

ADear The Prince,

Reason #1: Who are you going to war with? Only 25% of the national debt is owned by foreign governments. The rest is owned by private pension funds, mutual funds, and private bond holders- or in other words, retirement money. The same people that need those interest payments to live also vote the most. What politician in his right mind is going to tell them that they're not going to be paid back? Plus, you can't roll out tanks against retirement homes, it just doesn't go over well.

Reason #2: Imagine the world is a large neighborhood of kids on Saturday having a water war. Team USA's got Uncle Sam's SuperSoaker 3000- the kind of gun that empties its two gallon tank in six seconds and has been indicted in many an eye injury. It's a pretty intimidating piece of water arsenal. However it has to be filled up all the time, and the spigot is in Team China's corner of the yard. Right now Team USA and Team China have an agreement that the Americans won't use their weapon of wet supremacy on Team China and China'll let them fill it up. Mostly because Team China's and Team USA's businessmen help each other in math at school, and there's no need to break up a perfectly good weekday study arrangement just because of Saturday shenanigans. They're also pretty smart, and they work out some pretty good tag-team strategy (it's all about cornering the opponent in the bottleneck between houses, ya' see). This works pretty well until some little girl moves in and Team USA and Team China decide that they'll have to fight each other for her. OR Team Iran's parents buy them SuperSoaker 4000s and Team China decides that it wants to be buddies with Team Iran instead. OR Team China starts beating up someone's little brother and Team USA can't help the kid without Team China getting mad and taking away the Americans' water. Team USA also has a bunch of people on it that don't feel so good with using our SuperSoaker so much, and they think the game's more fun if we just stick to little water pistols. This means that Team USA can't just go use the SuperSoaker whenever some of the kids on the team want to.

Not only do we need to worry about paying the debt back- we need to worry that we won't get loans anymore. The U.S. will only be able to trash anyone as long as it has the funds to pay for weapons technology, which is expensive stuff. Taxes can't pay for everything we do each year. The governments that buy large chunks of bonds don't care what's good for the U.S.- they care about what's good for their economies. Right now it's not good for their wallets to upset the U.S. But what if there was someone who it would hurt their wallets more to upset? That's scary. (Here is the run-down of who owns our water spigot if you're curious.)

-Ineffable

Back to top
CDear 100 Hour Board,

RE: Board Question #53461, Cuddlefish said, "Caffeine... [has not] been condemned by any of the general authorities." While not statement of Church doctrine, I know that in one instance Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, then a member of the Seventy, explicitly condemned "cola" drinks (caffeine being the primary indicator of a "cola" drink). (see http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/in...) While I don't think this is THE standard for the Word of Wisdom, nor do I think that caffeine is "against the Word of Wisdom" in the traditional sense, it is an instance of a general authority "condemning" caffeine.

-wired

Direct Link to Question

ADear Wired,

That's true. I think we're on the same page. It might also be prudent to mention another General Authority's condemnation of the sort of thing Elder Featherstone was doing:

Quote:

Certain members have wanted to add substantially to various doctrines. An example might be when one advocates additions to the Word of Wisdom that are not authorized by the Brethren and proselytes others to adopt these interpretations. (Quentin L. Cook, source)

Love,
Waldorf and Sauron