TA - Early Affirmative Action

My last paper in this class is on the topic of the Indian Placement Program, in the broader context of Affirmative Action. I had the idea before I began this paper that this topic would be (BY FAR) the easiest to write about, since - after all - I'm a Native American! Wouldn't this naturally be easy? Unfortunately I have discovered that the matter of my race/blood/genes/heritage/whatever has no influence whatsoever on the ease or depth of my research.

That's a bummer.

But hey, life goes on! I'm discovering more and more about this topic as the time goes by, such as many of the benefits the Navajos especially received at the hands of this program in the Church. My mother is one of those beneficiaries, along with many of her siblings.

I've also learned some of the darker sides to this topic: broken families, abuse, cultural dilution, and psychological problems for the students. Mind you, I do not believe some of these claims nor many of the others that I didn't list here (such as stealing children - come on, let's be honest). But for the Native American/Navajo people this issue was a controversial one. I mentioned that in the past tense since the Indian Placement Program ended in the 90s - and I'll have to do more research on that to figure out exactly why. :-D

I think that the point I want to get out of this paper is that Affirmative Action will always be a two-sided debate, no matter which end you approach it from. I think that this instance of A.A., which I like to call Early-Onset Affirmative Action, is the best way to go about raising the level of Native American society: it gives the child opportunities! It opens his/her eyes to the world that they have all around them! It also gives these children an understanding (if they're willing to accept it) of the value of hard work.

There is a lot more involved in this whole debate, as well in my own position here in this post, but I believe that the idea of Affirmative Action now (i.e., hire/enroll the minority over the majority regardless) is inherently flawed. How can you expect to fight inequality with inequality? Give the minorities opportunities from their childhoods and make them aware that to achieve success in this world they must work for it.

FW - Independent Intelligence

In the oncoming turbulence of the movie The Golden Compass, I have repeatedly heard the vilifications of the book (by Philip Pullman) by BYU students that have not even opened it. I must admit that these situations have begun to try my patience, and I now find it difficult in the extreme not to become angry in my defense of the book. What makes me the most angry in these discussions is the fact that these "defenders of the faith" have not even read the books in question, but have heard that they were written by an atheist.

Since when do we as a church tell our members to believe what they are told, or what they read, by the virtue of man's authority alone? We are at Brigham Young University; the very namesake of this institution is quite likely hopping up and down (as much as a spirit can) in frustration over the gullibility/naïvety of this generation of Saints. Brother Brigham's sermon on Feb 20, 1853 described how we as church members should not take the words of the leaders of the church as truth solely on the merit of the leaders of the church being men of God, but that we should still find our own answers from the ultimate source of truth: the Living God. God alone can tell us the truth of all things, and we should build our testimonies on that fact, ability, and privilege.

This principle can be applied to literary matters as well. These books by Philip Pullman have become a hiss and a byword among many a Christian sect, much more so in the past few months than ever before. It is now fashionable for a Christian to hop onto the "Protest Pullman" bandwagon - but when has jumping on a bandwagon ever been a good idea?

Students of BYU, Latter-day Saints, people in general: learn to make decisions for yourself, based on your own observation and personal revelation (the two work together, remember). Be independent in your thoughts, relying on our God for your guidance, and not the snivellings of so-called "Christians" who have the gall to defame children's literature while defying the very precepts of the Bible they claim to follow.

"O be wise; what can I say more?"
-Jacob 6:12

TA - Race(ist) Organizations

One of my favorite classes in my entire BYU career is American Heritage. I was one of those lucky students that had the serendipitous opportunity to take that class twice, and therefore I was able to participate in twice the amount of lab discussions. One of these was on the subject of Race Relations, and the question was posed:

"Are race organizations, such as the NAACP, inherently racist?"

Another tender mercy in this class was the presence of one of the few African American students enrolled at BYU, a lovely girl that we'll call Jane. Jane was very vocal in her stance that the NAACP is NOT racist; it's just an organization that promotes the association of people of color.

She was the only one that felt that way in our class.

The opinion of everyone else in the class (the white people) was that YES, indeed, the NAACP and other such organizations are racist by definition, since they are only concerned with (and usually only admit) people of a certain race or ethnicity, and work towards their advancement beyond that of other races/ethnicities. When created by and for minorities, these organizations are not viewed as anything more than what Jane had mentioned - but if these organizations were created by and promoted white welfare, then they would immediately be decried as most obviously racist. The opinions of the students began to fly, and the discussion became gloriously heated.

Being the only other non-white student in the class, I felt that my opinion on the matter was somewhat weightier than everyone else's.

I agreed with the whites.

FW - Home?

Provo has become my home. Who would have ever thought that such an occurrence would come to pass? Despite my best attempts to remain a (poor) wayfaring stranger in Utah Valley, I have succumbed to the weakness of all human beings and labeled the locale of my apartment and University as home. There was a time when I would have been ashamed to admit such a thing...but I have since matured. :-P

I never noticed my subconscious home assignment until I traveled Portland to visit my sister and her husband, and realized how strange everyone was. The Portlandians were so weird! A lot of my time was spent gawking at the different styles of people (not just fashion), all the while constantly reminding myself that these people were a much more accurate representation of the real world than Provo people are. The fact that I was accustomed to a Mormon-style life was also accentuated by a joke my brother-in-law said; while referring to the incredibly straight pine trees in the Portland area, he remarked: "These are the only straight things in Portland!"

He wasn't kidding.

When I pulled in to Provo this evening I purposely made the comment to my fellow travelers of how wonderful it was to be back in Provo, around Provoish people. Even though I have no plans of making this mountain place my permanent home (no freakin' way), I must concede to the naked truth that I belong in Provo. Even if only temporarily. And that is a scary thought.

TA - What is Revision?

Revision:
1. the act or work of revising.
2. a process of revising.
3. a revised form or version, as of a book.

I seriously thought of being cheeky and using a similar answer in class (thanks Dictionary.com) when we saw this question on the board (and thus be rebellious, as only real BYU rebels can do it). Granted, the real question was implied, and I assumed it was along the lines of "What is your idea of revision in relation to you becoming a better writer?" That question is a bit different than the first.

This is what I came up with in the first 5 minutes of class: "Revision, as the word means, is the 'looking again' at something, in this case a paper. You first do the paper so that you can see it as a whole, then you go through the paper making corrections and edits. The purpose of it is to make your paper function better as a whole. When you first write a paper you tend to write in blocks of ideas; revising the paper allows you to make the flow more organic. Revision is a terrific tool/tactic, since you will almost always make 'dumb' mistakes the first time through a paper."

Nicole then let us know what we'll be doing for our next "paper," only a few class days away: We're revising our first papers to make a spanking good one. Apparently, a part of Revision is not only to clean up and edit - but to cut from your paper. At this point I had to ask myself: "How can you cut out a part of your paper without feeling some semblance of shame?"

Logical Ben: Well, you cut things out if (A) the audience doesn't care, (B) you are overly redundant, or (C) you have parts that are extremely weak. Sounds great, right?
Emotional Ben: But wait! This is still your paper! Didn't you spend a lot of time on this?
Logical Ben: No, no, don't think of it that way. You are making your creation something even better than it was in the past. This is for the best; your paper won't feel a thing.

Once again, the question must be posed: "How can you cut out a part of your paper - your beautiful, altruistic, helpless paper - without feeling some semblance of shame?"

Emotional Ben: Face it. You can't.

FW - I love my truck

The title of this post says it all. I think my truck pretty much rocks everyone's world, even if they don't know it yet. There are many advantages to having a big truck, all of which are viable and worth considering. Here are ten of them:

1. Everyone thinks you're hotter for driving a big truck.
2. You tower over every other driver on the road.
3. You can hit things and not even care.
4. You can carry big, manly things in the bed.
5. Everyone thinks you're hotter for driving a big truck.
6. You can change lanes without looking, since everyone will move out of your way.
7. You can haul a trailer with big, manly things in it.
8. You can drive over a cinder block without it even touching the vehicle.
9. Your truck looks even better when covered in mud.
10. Everyone thinks you're hotter for driving a big truck.

As you can see, this list more than outweighs dinky little concerns like bad gas mileage, terrible parking potential, and severely limited passenger capacity. Such disadvantages pale in comparison to the glory of owning and driving a large, powerful, roaring machine that moves according to your every whim. Driving a truck is more than just directing an automobile; it's piloting power, and looking good while doing it.

The American symbol of the horse in the Old West eventually evolved - willingly, I'm sure - into the pickup truck in our modern age. References to pickup trucks can be seen in our politics (Pres. Bush occasionally drives other foreign dignitaries in his white F-250), music (American Pie), and movies (Urban Cowboy), not to mention television and books. A pickup truck, as you can see, is really the only way to go to be truly American. Anything else and you're practically European.

This is she. ------------------>

Did I mention that everyone thinks you're hotter for driving a big truck?

TA - My problem with this topic

I cannot form an argument from our general topic of technology.

There. I said it. I suck as a member of this class and as a human being. I have found a lot of information (a TON of it), all of which is very informative and makes me feel a lot smarter. However, none of my data leads towards a single enthymeme. I can develop WATCOs until the cows come home, but nothing that I come up with leads toward a viable argument.

What can I propose that would change how our children approach cell phone usage? I have a lot of data that shows that texting and other such new age communication media make our children less able to function in a real time interacting environment - but do we get rid of cell phones all together? Or should we treat text message as we did the Dodo and end its existence on this earth entirely? Even limiting the amount of text messaging in our nation and culture seems to be something that is beyond the ability of our population.

I was so interested in this topic when I first began researching it that I began attacking it with a religious zeal. But - I have since come to the depressing realization that my research has so far been in vain. Unless I can come up with a good WATCO and develop that into an airtight enthymeme, I might as well be doing research on balloon animals and their effect on the ozone layer.


I have a lot of work to do before this paper is due in six days. Pray for me.