Turkish Election, Slaves Who Saved Georgetown, Overeating

Turkish Election, North Korea, Brexit Guest: Quinn Mecham, Professor of Political Science, BYU A major election outcome in Turkey is Top of Mind today as we welcome regular contributor Quinn Mecham back into the studio. He’s a professor of political science here at BYU and joins us monthly with a look at three international events worth closer consideration. The Slaves Who Saved Georgetown University Guest: Judy Riffel, Lead Genealogist, Georgetown Memory Project One of the nation’s top universities owes its existence to the traumatic sale of 272 slaves – men, women and children – in 1838. At the time, the Jesuit priests who ran what would become Georgetown University were deeply in debt. Selling off all of their slaves raised the equivalent of $3.3 million today and saved the university.  But the debt Georgetown University owes to these 272 African American slaves had been largely forgotten until a few years ago when a campaign to recognize them was started by students, faculty and alumni.  In an effort to make amends, university officials recently decided to give preference to descendants of those slaves who apply to attend to Georgetown. On April 18, the university will hold a ceremony to memorialize the 272 slaves and rename a building in honor of Isaac Hawkins, the first slave listed on the sale documents. To learn more about the project click here. Men’s Marriage Views Guest: Nicholas H. Wolfinger, PhD, Professor of Family and Consumer Studies, Adjunct Professor of Sociology, University of Utah Marriage has a bad rap in the minds of some young men. Researchers at the Institute for Family Studies cite one 29-year-old man who said he’d “much rather buy a condo by the beach in Florida, work 10–20 hours a week with plenty of time and money to relax and . . . hang out with friends than marry a 30-year-old woman and take care of her into old age by working 50 hours a week at a job I don’t like.”  Declining rates of marriage among US men in their 20s and 30s would suggest the old ball-and-chain notion of getting hitched needs a makeover. Check out the study here. Sound Blasters Guest: Brian Anderson, PhD, Professor of Physics, BYU In action movies like Dr. Strange or X-Men, the battle weapons of choice are typically lasers, force fields or mind control. BYU physics professor Brian Anderson and his team have demonstrated the power of sound waves to knock things over or fling them into the air. It’s a process called time reversal and, in a demonstration designed to wow young students of science, it allows researchers to pinpoint one Lego figure and send it tumbling without disrupting the rest of the Lego army close by and all around. Fate of the Furious Guest: Rod Gustafson, ParentPreviews.com Fast cars and tough guys crushed the box office over the weekend. “The Fate of the Furious” had the biggest global opening in history, earning half a billion dollars. Helping a Child with Overeating Guest: Michelle Maidenberg, PhD, President and Clinical Director of Westchester Group Works, author of “Free Your Child from Overeating” More than one-third of children and teens in the United States are overweight or obese, which means there are millions of parents across the country grappling with how to help their children reach a healthier weight, without making the problem worse. It can be agonizing. What if a parent’s well-meaning efforts backfire and the child develops an eating disorder? What if encouraging your child to make better food choices just leads them to indulge further? There’s so much emotion – and so much at stake – for parents in this situation, many are simply paralyzed, unsure what to do. Check out Maidenberg's website here.