Proud of my son

"Daddy, what's that?"
That's a map of the United States of America.
"and to the Republic for which it stands..."

with a good deal of garbling, he got through the entire pledge. Go, Hyrum! Go public school system that recites the pledge first thing every morning!

May Pictures 1

Far too many wonderfully fun, interesting, exciting, picture and note and blog-worthy things have happened in the last month so we've had no time to blog about ANY of them properly. Just a couple pictures of Hyrum to keep the grandparents mollified. ... And I still don't have time to do anything justice (I really wish more people had my problems) so here are some random pictures of our adventures this month. A faster way than trying to remember and comment on everything.

FINLAND - Derrill's work conference, May 14-16




An example of the architectural touches and colors that are everywhere (in the part of the city where I wandered anyway).






In the city hall (where we had dinner one night) is this fascinating interlocking finger statue.







The roof of the dining, exhibition, cultural hall of the city hall. It was actually my least favorite dinner there - too many very unusual spices: I couldn't have more than a bite of the tomato salad and I was with a Hindu friend who couldn't eat the meat (oversalted salmon and beef) so I pondered what a South Beacher does when the only thing he could really enjoy is the bread....

NEW YORK CITY - For our 5th anniversary, Joy and I left Hyrum with Pop and Boo (Thank you!) and joined Steve and Emilee (thank you!) for a day in the Big Apple.



Attraction #1: The Statue. We had a lot of fun in line listening to the steel drum players, the trumpeter with a stereo system for accompaniment, the contortionist, and the proselytizers. Tickets to the crown are sold out months in advance, so we missed out on that. But I got to touch the base of the statue! Look for pictures of everyone posing as The Lady a bit later.




Miss Liberty's Book: July 4, 1776. A pretty good book. Have I mentioned I like my camera's zoom?





We wandered randomly around Chinatown. Each of us took turns choosing which direction to go when we came to an intersection. We explored stores, bought local foods, gave some grapes to a guy who was hungry, and had fun soaking it in for a little bit.




We made our way to Central Park where a family who didn't speak any of the 5 languages we speak took our picture.






Times Square. A more wretched hive of scum and villainy I hope I never meet. But we did explore the M&M store!




To the Subway!

SIX FLAGS
And here's some more fun for Hyrum at Six Flags.

DC - A Policy Guy Wanders

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." -- POTUS

As interesting as the economic landmarks were, I was much more interested in making a tour of the Presidents. I have no idea if Pres. Obama was 'at home' when I came calling, but it was very interesting to imagine him or one of the kids pulling back the curtains to look out at the small crowd of photographers, families, and protesters (below) standing vigil. I wondered how long it takes before the novelty of omnipresent amateur paparazzi wears off. Imagine looking out your windows every day and seeing a throng of people. Then I wondered what it would be like if the White House lawn was armed as well as the X-Mansion and decided I wasn't dignified enough to be sticking my camera through the bars and moved on.

"Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential." -- POTUS

Washington and the Distinctive Unit Insignia of the The Big Red One from near the FDIC and Red Cross HQ. Being a Cornellian, I'm rather fascinated by that nickname for the First Infantry Division, the oldest division of our army.

I marched across the green between the White House up to the Washington Monument and was amazed at the number of baseball games going on. Game after game of coed softball all over the parks! I paused once in a while to cheer on a batter or applaud a good outfield catch.

From Washington, you can see the Capitol Building (Congress, pictured right), the Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln and the WWII Memorial, and the White House. It is a fitting layout in tribute to our first president. There are so few people who have been put into such high office with so much humility, so much willingness to put it all down to return to a simpler life, and so many excellent first examples. John Adams, our second president, had apparently wanted to make the President serve a life term. Yet as Washington peacefully laid down the mantle, so Adams also turned them over in one of the world's first peaceful exchanges of power between political parties.
I gazed up from the foot of the monument. Yes, he stands that tall today. This is what he said:

• Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
• Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
• Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
• Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
• Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
  
• Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
• If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
  

Of similar bold assertions was our third President, Thomas Jefferson:

• A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
• Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
• Every generation needs a new revolution.

• Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
• Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
• He who knows best knows how little he knows.
  

Sauntering around Jefferson, I visited a remarkably flat memorial, that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President during the only economic crisis of the last 100 years worse than this one. I walked it backwards and spent much of it wondering where a statue of the man himself was. The walk consists of his more famous sayings carved into stone, with occasional reflecting pools and waterfalls or statues of Depression-era bread lines.
His dear wife, Eleanor, gets a statue of her own as our first delegate to the UN. Since she is rather less often quoted, here are some of hers:

• Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway.
• Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.
• Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.
• In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

And so finally, after more than two hours of walking I came round to the lanky Illinoisan himself, whom I trust you will read with as deep a voice as you can manage:

• The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
• My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
• How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
• I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
• Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
• No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

What a debt of gratitude we owe to these men and their wives.

Freedom to Be...

Happy Fourth of July!




1) All people are created equal
2) They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights
3) Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What are some truths you hold to be self-evident?

Quotables

I've read some highly interesting passages this week that intrigued me for different reasons: an evaluation of Pres. Nixon by someone who listened to the entire White House tapes, an apostle's impression of the recent inauguration, a tongue-in-cheek assessment of Freddie and Fannie, and a call to something better.


Elder D. Todd Christofferson -- Confirm Thy Soul in Self-Control
(This one from the Friday Forum reading this week. To find out more, come join us.)
My first job out of law school was as law clerk [during the Watergate saga.] ... When President Nixon finally did produce the subpoenaed recordings of White House meetings and telephone calls, ... the judge and I listened to hour after hour of meetings between Nixon ... and others. In the course of listening in on these discussions, I became convinced that Richard Nixon had not had prior knowledge of Gordon Liddy's scheming nor John Mitchell's acquiescence in those schemes. Not long after the arrests ..., Nixon was informed of the relationship between the burglars and his reelection committee... . It was at this point, I think, feeling the expediency of helping a friend and of avoiding embarassment to his reelection campaign, if not to himself, that the president of the United States committed a criminal act... . And so, in succumbing to the pressures of the moment, he stepped off the rock of principle.


Elder M. Russel Ballard -- At the Obama Inauguration
http://www.mormontimes.com/around_church/general_authority/?id=5918
I left with a feeling that the people of America are going to unite behind this new president and his administration and that we need to pray for him. We need to exercise our prayers and help him accomplish the great objectives that he has set.


John Carney -- Fannie and Freddie: Mission Accomplished
http://clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/fannie-and-freddie-mission-accomplished
Affordable housing has allegedly been at the heart of the mission of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since the government set up the mortgage entities. In the decades since, Fannie and Freddie have been attempting to help Americans become homeowners by meddling in the credit markets to create cheaper home loans. And, as it turns out, that meddling may now be closer than ever to accomplishing it's goal. ... There are now so many unsold homes on the market that home prices will likely go below historically normal levels. In short, we're getting close to a historically unprecedented level of home affordability. Fannie and Freddie played an important role in achieving this. ... Mission Accomplished.


Socrates (with some substitutions by Adam Kissel)
My friend, you are an American. Your nation is the greatest and most famous for wisdom and for strength. Aren't you ashamed to worry about money, getting as much as you can, and about prestige and status, instead of intelligence and truth and the soul, getting it to be the best it can be? You don't worry about that; you don't even think about it.
(from Plato's Apology at about 29).

We Remember

We remember when Hyrum looked like this. It was six months ago today! Happy half-Birthday, Hyrum!











Only now, he looks like this!









When he's feeling especially well-fed, he looks like this: Jabba the Hyrum!









Just an adorable ball of fluff....







Who loves to laugh ...

(and make other, less desirable noises which he has been practicing a great deal this week)







"When I grow up, I wanna be a fireman, Daddy."








No parent may hear those words the same ever again....

How thankful we are for those who have sacrificed and are now sacrificing so much for those around them and the country they love.