I downloaded and listened to a speech by David O. Mckay. In it he read one of Edgar A. Guest's poems and a quote from John Altgeid.

John P. Altgeid

Young men, life is before you. Two voices are calling you—one coming out from the swamps of selfishness and force, where success means death; and the other from the hilltops of justice and progress, where even failure brings glory.

Two lights are seen in your horizon—one the fast fading marsh light of power, and the other the slowly rising sun of human brotherhood.

Two ways lie open for you—one leading to an even lower and lower plain, where are head the cries of despair and the curses of the poor, where manhood shrivels and possession rots down the possessor; and the other leading to the highlands of the morning, where are heard the glad shouts of humanity and where honest effort is rewarded with immortality.

Myself

by Edgar Guest

I have to live with myself, and so,
I want to be fit for myself to know;
I want to be able as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
And hate myself for the things I've done.
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself,
And fool myself as I come and go
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of man I really am;
I don't want to dress myself up in sham.
I want to deserve all men's respect;
But here in this struggle for fame and pelf,
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to think as I come and go
That I'm for bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me,
I see what others may never see,
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself -- and so,
Whatever happens, I want to be
Self-respecting and conscience free.

Star Wars explained!

Big Pig: Bonk



Somehow I remembered an album that an old high school girlfriend had and tried to track it down. It's not on iTunes and you can only find the lyrics for one or two songs online, but I was able to order it on Amazon.

Those alive in the 80s probably remember "I can't break away" from the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure soundtrack. The song was from Big Pig off their Bonk album.

I remember I liked it a lot back then, and now that I have it I remember why. They sound like Annie Lennox, Generic 80s male pop singers, that fat harmonica playing dude from Blues Traveler (I'm a fat dude too, so I mean that in the best possible way) and a trio of slightly peeved Tongan drummers thrown in a room with a case of Red Bull. Money God is my favorite song, but Hotel and Nation are great songs too.

ChinesePod & SpanishPod

I always feel bad that my Mandarin is slipping away and I don't do much about it. I don't really have any use for it now or for the foreseeable future, but it seems a shame to have put in so much effort to learn a language only to drop it later.

One resource I've been using that allows me to meaningfully review what I know and learn new things is ChinesePod. You can sign up and get great Chinese lessons online, or if you're like me and will absolutely never take the time to actually go through the lessons you can still (for free) download a daily mp3 file. I've got a bunch of them on my ipod now and when I'm driving sometimes I'll play a few (they're just a few minutes each) and brush up a bit on my Chinese.

I've also always wanted to learn Spanish, and it just so happens that SpanishPod does the same thing, so I've been listening to those as well. Adios and Dzai Jen.

A story from L. Tom Perry:

"Many years ago I found myself as part of occupation troops in a foreign land just at the end of a terrible war. It was not long after we arrived in this country before we developed a great love and concern for the people we were there to watch over. This was especially true of the young people, the children. Many times we would find them scavenging in our garbage cans looking for food to keep themselves alive. This deeply touched us, and we wanted to make a more substantial contribution to them. We raised what money we could and found a local religious group that was willing to open an orphanage for them. We donated as much time as possibleto improve the facilities and provided them with the operating funds they needed.
"As Christmas approached, we sent letters home to our families asking that, instead of sending gifts to us, they send toys for the children in the orphanage. The response of our families wasoverwhelming! Toys arrived daily from our homes.

"We found a tree suitable to use as a Christmas tree, but we had no traditional decorations for it. A lady taught us how to make little birds by folding square pieces of paper, and these became the major part of the decorations for the tree. The presents were wrapped mostly in discarded Stars and Stripes newspapers. I'll never forget Christmas Eve with those children. I am sure many of them had never seen a Christmas tree in their lives.

"We sang Christmas carols to them, but we weren't very good at this. They had been rehearsing for weeks so they could sing a song to us in English. It was not a Christmas carol, but it was beautiful. They sang, 'You Are My Sunshine.' We were deeply touched with the spirit of the children that Christmas Eve, especially as they opened the presents sent from our families. I suppose some of them had not had a toy in many, many years.
"This is a Christmas I'll never forget because we were learning the true meaning of this great holiday season. The greatest joy we can receive in life is giving--to bring into the life of someoneelse a little joy and happiness."

Photo of mountain goat taken a week ago on Ben Lomond Peak. The big, white-topped building above the Mountain Goat is the Harrisville Walmart.

My daughter wrote this in her journal this last spring:


Bud of wishing flower.
It has green curls on the bottom. Still curling.
Seeds with folded umbrellas. Tucked in green.
When it fully curls, umbrellas will open.
Creating a wishing flower.
I can't believe it.

© 2006 Cambridge Hinds (9 years old)

I saw this picture a number of years ago and was very moved/disturbed by it. It is circulating in email now, but with a fabricated suicide note. Here is the picture and the information on it http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/kevincarter.htm from truthorfiction.com.

Summary of the eRumor:
The eRumor includes a dramatic photograph of a starving child being watched by a vulture.The email says that the picture was taken in Sudan 1994 by Kevin Carter who won a Pulitzer prize for it.The eRumor says he committed suicide three months later and left a note about world hunger.

The Truth:
The picture is real as is the story of the photographer's suicide, but the alleged wording of his suicide note is fabricated.
Kevin Carter was a South African photojournalist.
The picture of the vulture stalking a starving girl is real and was taken in Sudan in 1993.
He was awarded Pulitzer prize in May of 1994 for the picture.
Two months later he connected a hose to the exhaust pipe of his pickup truck and committed suicide.
His long time friend Judith Matloff wrote in the Columbia Journalism review that Carter was the kind of person who seemed more affected by some of the violent events he photographed.
She says that he would often return from upsetting assignments with bouts crying, drinking, or using drugs.
She says that after he shot his Pulitzer prize winning picture, he "sat under a tree and cried and chain-smoked" and couldn't distance himself from the horror of what he saw.
He was criticized for not helping the girl in the picture and said he did not know what happened to her.
In his suicide note he said he was "depressed...without phone...money for tent...money for child support...money for debts...money!!!!!"
He also said he was haunted by vivid memories of killings, corpses, anger, pain, starving or wounded children, and trigger-happy madmen."

The eRumor includes a comment about world hunger that was created by someone along the way who decided to turn the picture into a lesson about not wasting food.
Such wording was not included in Carter's suicide note.

A goal is only a wish until it is written down!

From the the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

"For six days, investigators wondered exactly how someone as familiar as longtime New Orleans broadcaster Vincent Marinello could execute his estranged wife in broad daylight and get away undetected.

But he took great pains to disguise himself with a false beard and mustache, rode away from a brazen crime on a bicycle and fashioned an out-of-state alibi, police say.

They know because he wrote it all down on paper. And police found what they said is his checklist when they searched his home Wednesday night."

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry