Plessy v. Ferguson - Justified Segregation

In Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, a man who was 1/8 black sat in the white section of a train. He refused to move, and he was arrested. He appealed and got the court to the US Supreme Court, which ruled that "equal but separate accommodations" were allowed. The judge said the law that Plessy was challenging was valid and did not imply that either race was inferior to the other.

The one dissenting judge brought up the ignored intent of the law to keep colored people out of white people's space, which is not equality at all. I believe this was a horrible court decision because they were just justifying their own racism while brushing aside the huge issue of their own racist tradition. The judge rejected that "social prejudices may be overcome by legislation," and that "if one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane." This was just an excuse for being racist. The Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery, which made many people upset, but definitely was a win for colored people, who were no longer inferior as slaves. They weren't socially accepted as whites, of course, because people are stubborn and believe what they want, but this would be fixed in time. In this case, the justices did not live up to their titles in the least.

Luckily, this decision was later overturned in Brown v. Board of Education.

U.S. v. Nixon - Was it okay to demand the tapes?

In this case, Nixon was involved in a scandal because his Committee to Reelect the President broke into the Democratic National Committee's headquarters and stole some documents. This committee was believed to have orders from Nixon to do so, so an investigation was launched. During the investigation, it was found that Nixon had recorded a lot of the conversations he had in the Oval Office, which could turn up some evidence for the case. When asked for the tapes, Nixon refused to give them, claiming executive privilege, which basically means that since he was the president, he could do what he wants. The Supreme Court ordered them, and when Nixon finally gave them over, a lot of tape was missing, and some was erased. In this case, executive privilege was not respected, and it turned out to be for a good reason.The court said that executive privilege would have made sense if it was a claim to protect "military, diplomatic or sensitive national security secrets..."

The tapes indicated some secrets that Nixon did not want leaked, and that the public certainly did not like. I think this was the right choice because while some White House documents and policies should be kept secret, if there is enough reason to believe something is being violated, there should be an investigation, and if something turns up, it should be made public.

Roe v. Wade - The Right to Live

This is one my favorite cases, because I believe in equality and support equal rights strongly. It is clearly unjust for the government to impose rules on a woman's body, as she is the one having a child, and should have the final say in whether she should go through with the pregnancy or not. Scientifically, a fetus is not a citizen, as it has not been born yet, and since a fetus does not fit the description of an American citizen, they do not deserve citizens' rights. I believe this to a certain point. The heart starts beating and the part of the brain that operates consciousness form after four weeks. I believe these are essential parts of being indicated a human. After that time period, I think there will be conditions and that each case should be considered individually given the circumstances.

I believe that the Constitution was upheld in that a non-human was not treated as a human.

Community Service – Easing the Triple-Faced Disaster in Japan

Part I

On March 11, 2011, the most expensive natural disaster in history occurred. A 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake, just 45 miles east of the Tohoku of the region of Japan (NewScientist), shook residents of Japan for a full 6 minutes (Asahi). It also largely affected Sendai, a large city of over 1 million residents, as popularly mentioned in the news. There were 7 foreshocks and 974 aftershocks, of which a combined total of 67 were significant, above 6.0 magnitude (US Geological Survey). This is one of the biggest disasters of my generation. The earthquake additionally triggered tsunamis, and damaged 3 nuclear reactors, making this a triple-threat disaster. The official destruction tolls so far are 13,232 deaths, 14,554 people missing, and 4,756 injured, 217,000 buildings damaged or destroyed, 4 dikes broken, 2,137 damaged road segments, 69 damaged bridges, and 148 landslides (Japan National Police Agency). To add to this chaos, 3 nuclear reactors exploded, but the cores remained intact, so the explosions were comparatively small to what they could have been.

The public is shocked. Everyone sees the destruction and hears the numbers on the news, and they are in awe.  However I feel that the mainstream news can only do so much informing. I have a habit of taking popular situations and making them relevant to myself by putting them in context with my own life, and I find this an effective way to realize the true magnitude (no pun intended) and force of the situation at hand. For instance, let’s take one statistic from this information – there have been 69 bridges damaged in Japan by the earthquake and flooding. Next let’s take 3 local bridges – the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the San Mateo Bridge. The Bay Bridge’s daily traffic is about 252,000 vehicles, the Golden Gate Bridge has 118,000 vehicles, and the San Mateo Bridge has 96,000 vehicles (Department of Transportation). The combined total of vehicles on these bridges in an average day is 466,000. Assuming these bridges were damaged to the point that they were too unsafe to travel on, this would be 466,000 people (assuming one person per vehicle) who couldn’t get to work each day until the bridges were fixed. This alone is hard to imagine; even though it’s put into a local context, it is still such a huge number that it is difficult to fathom the damage it would do. It only gets worse when we take into account that 3 bridges is only 1/23 the amount of bridges damaged in Japan.

This is a very important issue because it involves human suffering, and especially because it is human suffering on a large scale. It is also a chance for the United States to prove that we are not as bad as the world thinks we are. If we could be the major country contributing to aid in Japan, it could change foreigners’ opinions of us, which would be good for public relations on a national level, and it could also open up some economic doors. It would also maintain the image that we like to have that we are defenders of the world to some extent, and that we help the downtrodden out of the kindness of our hearts. 

Part II

 So far, the United States Agency of International Development (USAID) and the United States Department of Defense (DOD) have provided almost $78 million in support in various direct aid methods, namely Urban Search and Rescue deployment, and a Disaster Assistance Response Team, with official nuclear experts to help with the fallout aspect (USAID):

                The U.S. Ambassador declared an emergency which opened up an immediate funding of $100K from USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. They set up a Response Management Team in DC and sent a Disaster Assistance Response Team to Tokyo, which includes people with nuclear expertise from the Departments of Energy and Health and Human Services as well the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC members are experts in boiling water nuclear reactors and are available to assist their Japanese counterparts. Two Urban Search and Rescue Teams (LA County and Fairfax County teams) which total 144 members plus 12 search and rescue canines and up to 45 metric tons of rescue equipment are also on the ground in Misawa, Japan and will begin searching at first light March 14. The Department of Defense has the USS Reagan on station off the coast of Japan and the USS Essex en route, and is currently using an air facility in Misawa as a forward operating base. The American Red Cross (ARC) International Services team is supporting the Japanese Red Cross Society (JRCS) to assess the impact, determine response efforts, and assist the people of Japan. (Examiner)

Additional financial aid has come from non-government sources and corporations. Japan has received about $161 million in aid from the United States, about ¾ being collected by the American Red Cross (USA Today). While this combined amount of $239 million sounds like a lot, I am ashamed that this is all the United States has collected over the entire month since the disaster. For the earthquake in Haiti, we raised $528 million, and for Hurricane Katrina, we raised $1 billion. But to be fair, I am sure we will collect much more money as time progresses. Also we have donated many non-monetary goods such as military personnel, food, recon aircraft, anti-radiation suits, and additional nuclear accident specialists; these things are definitely a step in the right direction. 

My community service project was directly aimed at helping out Japan with these hard times.  I did two projects this year – one was my Eagle Scout project, which was not relevant to much, so I decided not to write about it. The second project I did was that I helped Kyung with her art show. I helped her with planning, setting up meetings with the artists, and other logistics. The art show was all her idea and initial planning, I just helped with some of the later planning and execution. I had 3 pieces of my photography in the show, so I helped organize how the other photographers and I would present our work. I helped to find a place that would print for relatively cheap, and we got several prints of each piece, and then mounted everyone’s work on poster boards, with all of one person’s work on one poster board. We made art prints $5 each and photo prints $10, because photo prints were more expensive for us to print. It ended up being more money towards the cause. I spent $120 on prints, but only asked for $50 back for reimbursements, because I was getting a paycheck soon. We also made a lot of money from the bake sale, and our donation jars tactically placed around the show. We weren’t really planning on selling the original art pieces, just prints – but someone offered to buy one of Kyung’s pieces for $100, and another girl’s piece sold for $50, so those made up a considerable chunk of our proceeds. In total we made about $1200. About $100-150 went to reimburse people for baking supplies or printing costs, but the rest we sent to the Red Cross. It was not much compared to how much was donated to the Red Cross in total, but we did what we could, and I think we did pretty well for a two-day student art show. 

In terms of how my community service related to things we’ve learned this year, a lot of the cost planning was very economic. We had to plan and balance our budget, and get some additional funds approved by her parents. Some of the social dynamics were interesting as well – Kyung had the final word on things, which we all accepted, but some people got upset at the way some things were going, and I had to calm Kyung down at some points to make sure nothing bad happened, and I worked to keep people happy and involved with the show. I would say that towards the end of the show I was some sort of vice president, if we were to put it into a hierarchy metaphor in government terms. Kyung checked over a lot of choices with me, and we changed some of her plans to streamline the event and make everything go more smoothly than originally planned.

Part III

There is not an easy answer for what needs to be done to make this situation better. The United States is doing what we can with our bad economy, but it is not enough. I would have rather that we not send thousands of military troops to Japan, because I think it’s a pointless expense. Japan has a strong military, and an active police force, so I feel that we could use the money to pay for the troops elsewhere, like for food, water, more excavation vehicles, or anything else that could provide aid for Japan. Other countries are providing a lot of aid collectively, but individually, most of them are providing one or two things, like money and food, or just money. I think if all the first-world countries gave as much as we did, and promoted aid as much as we do, Japan would have much more of a smooth recovery. 

Though I had already designed and managed my Eagle project, I learned new things from this project as well. These two projects were different in that with my Eagle one, I called all the shots and designed the entire thing myself, which was a lot more work. I was also barely motivated to do it at all. With this art show, I wasn’t nearly as stressed as I was for my Eagle project because I wasn’t in charge, but I still had a role in planning and execution. It was hard to make decisions while making sure everyone was okay with them and that we were all on the same page about everything. The dynamics of the projects were different in that in the art show, our goal was to make money, not to build something. We had to come up with prices for everything. We didn’t really have a budget cap on the art show, as our parents were usually helpful in providing financial support, at least until we could pay them back. For both projects, we had to cut costs as much as we could to keep the price affordable. I was much more satisfied with the art show than I was with my eagle project. It was a lot more satisfying for me to see everything work out, and let some people take over other jobs, like making the baked goods, and getting their work to us. We also had to get hundreds of people to come to the event, so we printed and put up posters for hours, as well as put the show in a couple local news publications. For my project, all I had to do was announce it at a meeting, because I only needed a few people there. At the art show, we also had to deal mainly with adults, which wasn’t really a big difference. One thing I enjoyed the most about the art show was that when it was finally happening, we could all sit back and watch people come through, and could look at our project in action without doing physical labor. I had a great time doing the art show, and it was for a great cause; I was very happy with it. We even got a request to have a booth at some event in the future, so that will be enjoyable too. I’m not sure quite what it is because I haven’t talked to the person who proposed it, but for the next one, it will be fewer artists, but more art pieces per artist, so there may be an opportunity for each of us to get our names out as artists.

Project Expenses

Below is all the materials needed, and their expenses.

Type of Material	Cost of Material
35 feet of wire fencing, 2”x4” mesh size, 4 feet tall, galvanized, 14 gauge. One 100-foot roll.	$72.00
10 wooden 4”x4” beams, 8 feet long (will be cut to 7 feet)	$72.70
1 sign	$28.00
8 bags of Quikrete (80 lbs) (1 has been donated already)	$35.00
1 package of U-shaped nails (>60 nails)	$3.00
2 yardsticks	(already have)
2 tape measures	(already have)
3 hammers	(already have)
1 roll of fluorescent cord	(already have)
Poison oak blocker	(already have)
1 pair of wire cutters	(already have)
2 pairs of pliers	(already have)
Garden hoe	(already have)
1 rake	(already have)
Water	(already have)
1-2 levels	(will borrow)
2 wheelbarrows	(will borrow)
2-3 manual posthole diggers	(will borrow)
2-3 shovels	(will borrow)
1 pair of work gloves per scout	(will borrow)
Total:	$210.70

All items marked with "(will borrow)" are items that had been offered by other scouts or parents for my project free of charge. My friend Ian's dad donated 2 shovels, 2 posthole diggers, a rake, garden hoe, and yardsticks. He was very generous, and I would have definitely had a hard time finding these items without his help, so I was grateful for his help.

Official Description of Project

This was the original official description of my project that was sent to the Lafayette Parks, Trails, and Recreation department:

I propose to install a protective fence along a dangerous stretch of the creek within the Lafayette Community Park, behind the Community Center. Currently, a hazard exists in two ways: there is a hidden cliff with a dropoff of approx. 70 feet, and also the cliff is eroding, making the bank of the creek unstable. The fence will be slightly curved with the shape of the cliff’s edge. It’ll be made with wooden 4x4 posts and mesh fencing. The end posts will be reinforced to strengthen the fence. We will clear any obstructing brush that may inhibit construction or hide any part of the fence. There will be a warning sign on the fence to warn people of the danger, and let them realize that the fence is there for a reason.

I found this dropoff when I was helping Andrew Kephart, a fellow scout, with his Eagle project. I noticed it was a hazard so I decided to fix it for my project. I introduced the idea to Jennifer Russell, director of the City of Lafayette Parks, Trails and Recreation Department, and she knew the exact spot I was talking about, and was very enthusiastic about my plan to fix it. I’ve been working with her since, on park standards, logistics, financing, etc. I’m extremely pleased that the Department has enough of a budget and is gracious enough to fund my project.

They were nice enough to fund all the products for my project, so for my next post, I will post the expenses.

Who will Work on my Project

I had to make a list of who would be contributing to my project:

The work will be done by myself and other scouts from my troop who would like to help out. I’m going to need at least 5 other people for the project to be done in time. No special skills will be required, just basic construction skills and the ability to complete tasks. At least two adult Scout leaders will need to be present, so I’ll ask the leaders who would like to help when I ask my fellow troop members for assistance. Mr. Rothfuss, a professional engineer, has volunteered to oversee the design and make sure that construction standards are met.

 There was a pretty impressive turnout, with around 12-14 people coming throughout the day.  We got the project finished faster than I had originally thought. Mr. Rothfuss, the engineer, stayed for the entire day, and helped to oversee the project. He also helped keep kids at work, which was helpful for me, since they were all my friends and I didn't want to be rude. He was there when I was earning my actual Eagle award; he presented me to the Eagle board and was my sponsor. He helped me a lot through this process, and I am grateful for his assistance.