The Daily Honky Tonk 180th Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
180th Edition
Thursday, January 7, 2010
12:18 AM

*Note: My address book seems to pick up email addresses that I don’t ask it to. . .but I don’t know on what pretext it does so. If you feel you have erroneously received the DHT feel free to request your name removed. I will proceed to discover that you are on my list and then remove you as requested. :)

The nature of the DHT has change over the course of the years that I have been writing. From the early days as a ploy to see emails appear in my inbox, to an emotional and thinking outlet for my high school years, and now I think my vision has changed. I still see the DHT as an outlet, especially for what I am thinking. I have become aware, that the DHT when published on a frequent basis, allows me to better sort and organize thoughts logically. As well as improving my writing skills. While these are selfish motives, I recognize that writing can and has had a powerful influence in the course and direction of our world. Speeches, letters, news articles, and many other forms of writing have drastically shaped the course of human events. In desiring to be a teacher, I would hope to be able to express ideas to students that will change the course of their lives and educations for the better. I made a goal, no matter how short, that I would try and write more frequently. And so, today I want to share a number of quotes that I have come to appreciate from the Word a Day emails, classes, and other sources:

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

Naive you are / if you believe / life favours those / who aren't naive. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

“If we start right, it is very easy for us to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it is a hard matter to get right.”- Joseph Smith

“A true principle makes decisions clear even under the most confusing and compelling circumstances.”- Elder Richard G. Scott- Marriage and Family Life class

“How a principle would best apply to one partner might not be the best application of that principles for the other partner.”- Professor Ken Mattheson- from powerpoint in Marriage and Family Life Class

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”- Martin Luther King Jr.- I have a dream speech
(Editorial Comment: I have to wander whether we still value as a society the importance of judging one by their character. If we judged people by the content of their character would we have such corrupt politics? Why do we vote people into office without virtue? The founders believed the people would select those whom are most virtuous. One may ask whether there are virtuous leaders to vote for.)

“ . . .an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”- Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter from Brimingham Jail

Our government doesn’t work anymore, or perhaps more accurately, when it does, it works for special interests and not the American people. Washington consistently stoops to legislate 10,000-page perversions of healthcare, regulatory reform, defense, and budgetary mandates overflowing with earmarks that serve a monied minority as opposed to an all-too-silent majority. You don’t have to be Don Quixote to believe that legislators – and Presidents – often do not work for the benefit of their constituents: A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll reported that over 65% of Americans trust their government to do the right thing “only some of the time” and a stunning 19% said “never.” What most politicians apparently are working for is to perpetuate their power – first via district gerrymandering, and then second by around-the-clock campaigning financed by special interest groups. - Bill Gross “Let’s Get Fisical” fromt the PIMCO Website
http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Featured+Market+Commentary/IO/2010/Let%E2%80%99s+Get+Fisical+January+2010.htm

“It is impossible to overestimate the unimportance of most things”- source unknown, quoted to us by our home teacher Brother Steve Smith as a quote he keeps in his office as a professor at the U of I.

That’s all for now folks :)

The Editor,
MARK

The Daily Honk Tonk 179th Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
179th Edition
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
10:53PM

Last DHT: September 16, 2009 = 3 Months of Life
What’s Changed: A lot of everything :)
Things I’m going to write about in this Edition
Politics: Why Obama and I aren’t Friends
Some specially wrapped memories

Why Obama and I aren’t Friends (besides the fact that we have never met)

When Obama was put in office around a year ago I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to think. I didn’t vote for him (but I wasn’t all that impressed with the person I did vote for) . . . But seeing as he was in office I didn’t what to make too quick of a judgment. I wrote about my frustration with the political system and the difficulty in discerning what was real and fake. I decided to sit back and watch to decide what I thought of Obama. I decided to continually read the news and keep myself updated on what was going on in the world. After a year of President Obama I can definitely say I’m not a fan. Here are my reasons:
-The gargantuan increase of National Debt that causes me to wander when money will lose its value and when the economy will fall apart.
-The appearance of Obama in every part of the news. Obama has appeared in the news more than any President I can remember. I find myself weary to read an article unrelated to Obama that mentions that he is aware of what is going on. Hmmm . . .
-The previous comment tied with extra presence everywhere: Obama went to the World Climate Gathering, he went to make a bid for Chicago in front of the Olympic committee, and he won a Nobel Peace Prize without doing anything other than increasing that American Taxpayers will have to make up to be paid (partly) to those who don’t believe nor practice the principles of self-reliance.
-Finally, the thing that bugs me the most is the way that the laws are being passed. I commented on my discomfort with the Stimulus package flying through congress without people being able to read it. . .but it seems to be a pattern. The most recent Health Care Reform vote in the Senate was ridiculous. States were bribed with individual rewards to cast in their vote to finally get the required sixty votes. The Senate has a part to blame here, but Obama was pushing it and I read headlines announcing his disappointment that it wasn’t just flying through so the changes could start. I think its ridiculous that a bill can get passed on bribes, without the bill being available to be read and studied out. I wouldn’t feel so bad about it if people had seen it and been able to make a decision based on what was contained and how they thought it would effect American citizens. But a bill that is passed by making deals in front of everybody to give favor to a state whose vote they want it disgusting. I suspect the Founders of this nation are turning in their graves.

On a lighter note, a funny look at all the goings on this year was written by Dave Barry. Caleb and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it out loud and laughing at Barry’s quirky reminders of what all has happened. . .you can read the article here http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/story/1397654.html

To the Memory of Christmas

A Summary of The Semester, Break, and Life:

• As of today Amy Bucey is Mrs. Amy Knowlton. This past semester has certainly been one of tying the knot. I’ve never had so many engaged and recently married friends. Chelsea, Laura, and Amy are married now. Three young women who changed and influenced my life in so many ways. I was glad that I had the opportunity to know all of their spouses and I feel confident that they are in good hands. I’m not sure what I would have done if I didn’t like the boys they chose, but I am filled with joy knowing they are well married . . After all they deserve the best.
• Jonathan Brewster lived with me this semester .. .oh this semester will be memorable just through Jonathan- The Ever Running Skype relationship between him and his girlfriend, the all-nighters once or twice a week, and I am now a certified PHD on ADHD :)
• Catering Life has consumed me. I love my job. Wait .. .let me rephrase that .. I really love my job.
• In related news I am dating a girl who is amazing.
• And as for being home:
  
  • Wii Games (MarioKart, Super Smash Brothers, and Skiing)
  • Nerf Gun Battles
  • Dinner Conversations
  • Snow Ball Fights
  • Sledding
  • Early Morning Indoor Soccer
  • Finishing a Dental Implant . . Say goodbye to the flipper (which by the way made for exciting first dates before having a girlfriend :) )
  • Christmas Eve Soup Dinner
  • Watching my siblings on Christmas Morning (Most Original gift was definitely from Nathan (13) who gave me an old wallet prefilled with 3 dollar bills and a fourth in coins :) )
  • Recording music with my new nifty microphone
  • Reading books for fun! - Peter and the Starcatchers, Catching Fire (2nd Hunger Games book), and 3 Cups of Tea
  • Being productive by working to finish my independent study.
  • Watching my 3 year old sister enjoy and dance in her new ballet tutu’s.
  • Having time to write this DHT :)
  • Just wanting to eat my family up in case they decide to take off on a few month world tour :)
  • And enjoying listening to all they read about touring the world (this returns to dinner conversations)
    

Speaking of dinner conversations and closing so I can go to sleep tonight something funny happened at dinner. My mom was talking about a book she was reading written by a peace worker who went to Africa. In the book it talked about how the women would prepare and cook all the food and then the men would come and eat what they wanted. Whatever was left would then be divided between women and children, which apparently wasn’t usually very much. We were talking about how different that would be and how we were glad that wasn’t part of our society. Gideon declared that if he lived there he would divide the food among everyone fairly and he would eat last. Nathan, said that he wouldn’t allow his wife to eat first. He said if he let her eat first she would then get on a throne and start whipping telling him to get her food, to do this and to do that. Nathan is hilarious.

Goodnight friends,
The Editor,
MARK

The Daily Honky Tonk 178th Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
178th Edition
September 16, 2009
1:20 PM

Table of Contents
Intro
Different ways of ending notes
On the subject of rape
Ugly to Beauty Gap

Song Lyrics

I took a stress test for my independent study course on health recently and got a score of 624. The computer generated response underneath my score: “Almost 80 percent [of people] with this score get sick in the near future.” I’m lucky that I almost never get sick. I also have know for the last couple days that I just need to throw down my thoughts on paper and send it out into the vast enormity of that shared space we call the web. I’ve never figured out why telling people these things is more therapeutic than just writing in my journal. If someone knows a study about that I would be interested to read it. I would be interested if I could do whatever transfer of emotion through the DHT in a journal written to myself instead. Anyway, I just wrote about things I’ve been thinking about. Enjoy.

“Words form the thread on which we string our experience”- Alduous Huxley- Author

Different ways of ending notes,

“Love, so and so” “Your Friend” “Yours Truly” “Thanks”
Love is pretty clear . ..you use that for your parents, family, and usually for a person you are dating. But sometimes you also use it for a really close friend. When not used consistently, it becomes quite confusing as to how the person feels.
“Your Friend” seems like it should be really basic as well. But don’t we use “Your friend” to those we are interested in before we are ready to tell them directly that we are interested. . .and while it might not say more to them, as an individual we hope they will read between the letters of friend. And sometimes we use it as a polite gesture to people we don’t even know and who wouldn’t appear on our life list of friends.
“Yours Truly” is in my opinion the most ridiculous. What does that mean? I’m yours, for real, as well as everyone elses who I finish in the same way. I can’t be just yours, and not even truly yours. What kind of privileges does that entitle to the reader from the sender. Can they rely on you? Can they trust you? And how are is one “truly” somebody elses. Aren’t we just somebody’s and not even truly then because we are somebody to many other somebodies.

On the Subject of Rape

Recently I was reading from my Physical Health Independent Study Course and I read these statistics:
Victims would be 97 percent more willing to report the rape if there were laws protecting confidentiality and disclosure of the rape victim's name.
Source: National Victim Center
Sixty-six percent of rape victims are concerned about being blamed by others.
Source: National Woman's Study
Now, I am writing about this for the moment because I don’t know if these statistics are still true. The course was designed in the 90s and I assume they would update it. . .but it caught my attention. Why would they not have laws protecting confidentiality? That doesn’t make any sense to me. In fact, it really frustrates me. I’ve had people confide in me about being raped and to think that there isn’t a law protecting them makes me very frustrated. It’s something I think worth changing. But I would like to know where I could read the laws on the topic. I tried to find a place where I could read up on the laws and was having trouble. Maybe I should go to the law school and see if they can help me. Anyway, if it is true that they aren’t protected I want to do something about it.
As a funny note, the other day I was voicing my concerns with a girl about what I read and I accidentally started the conversation saying... “I’ve been thinking about rape recently”.

Ugly to Beauty Gap

I was with Amy the other day when she brought up an interesting concept- the Ugly to Beauty Gap. The Ugly to Beautiful Gap is the measurement of the difference between a person just getting out of bed or coming home from a run and getting ready for a date. Amy noted that some people have a really big gap and some don’t have much potential to change between the two.
We talked about how if you a big gap you have the advantage of being able to stun your date. While if your gap is really small it’s going to make little difference if you spend 20 minutes or an hour preparing for your date.
Amy posed the question to me and a friend “What would you prefer; to wake up next to a pretty girl, or to have a girl who turns heads like a movie star when you take her in public.” If I’m talking to Amy the right answer is the girl who turns your head when she get’s dressed up. If I’m not talking to Amy and I’m supposed to give the answer I actually think then I want a girl who I will always think is pretty. I think I lean towards my dad’s preference. I’m not big on makeup or extra fluff, I’d rather see someone as they really are and be attracted to that. Amy was mad because she is determined that her gap is big. I would give her the assessment that she gave me “You have a medium sized gap.” She disagreed and said I hadn’t seen her at the lowest. I reminded her of a couple instances where I saw her when she was sick or had just waken up.
I’ve been reflecting to see if their are any good examples of this in our popular media. Princess Diaries is a prime reflection of the Ugly Gap portrayed correctly. Cinderella Story is a failure. ( I apologize to Amy for including a movie with Hillary Duff). In the Princess Diaries the show a huge gap. Granted they had to do a bit to make Anne Hatheway not look pretty, but we definitely as a viewer are not attracted to her. But then there is a huge turn around and the Gap is closed. Although she doesn’t go through that gap day to day. A fallacy for sure. Cinderella Story fails because they never make Hillary look bad. In fact, her character would be a prime example of she’s not much prettier dressed up for the ball than when she is sitting in her room texting in her pjs. Hmmm. . .granted, it’s a film, and we never really see Hillary Duff not dressed up. But I think it illustrates it well. I need to think of a male example. .. Hmmm .. .having trouble. That’s okay. It would probably be worrisome if I could tell you about male attractiveness differences.
Anyway, it was a fun conversation to have and to think about. The Ugly to Pretty Gap is going into my conversational concepts file with “Wingmans and The D.U.F.F.”, “Awkward Dating Stories”, and “Things you probably shouldn’t tell a girl” :)

Song Lyrics

Title Unknown- Nick Day- “Just because I wanted to I tripped and fell in love with you” Love is a choice.
Hot Air Balloon- Owl City: “We wrote a prelude to our own fairytale”- I love the metaphor here.
For Liz(She)- Parachute “How can the only thing that’s killing me make me feel so alive.” The up’s and downs of dating life anyone? Ha ha. . .I love how the piano is the driving force in this song.
Let’s Go- Cartel “Let’s go; take the world with me”- I do love a good song that reminds people have the power to make change and we can in a sense “take the world”.
Life is a Highway- Rascall Flats: “Life is a Highway, I wanna ride it all night long”- this whole song is about enjoying life and just living it and loving it. I know it isn’t new. .. But I fell in love with it recently.
Both Sides Now- Mindy Gledhill- “Rose and flows of angel hair, and Ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way. But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone, so many things I would have done but clouds got in my way. I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down , and still somehow it’s cloud illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all.”
“I’ve looked at love from both sides now, from give and take, and still somehow it’s loves illusions I recall, I really don’t know love at all”- I include the lyrics because they take me to the edge of my imagination and because they speak towards the truth of being able to see opposition in all things, whether it be clouds or love and how in general I would still choose the illusions. . .and maybe not so much as illusions, but what I think of as realistic hope. I try and avoid the idealistic hope I used to preach. . .that only takes a person to extremes.

The Editor,
MARK

The Daily Honk Tonk 177th Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
177th Edition
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
9:05 PM

This edition I’m just going to title Mark’s Minutes- because they are all just short little random bits.

Written Tonight
Chelsea’s Wedding: There is a stigma as a member of the church that when people go to BYU they get married rather quickly. I remember being sure that I would return and several of my good friends would be married. However, they weren’t married when I got home. However, now having been home nearly a year that statistic is changing. Yesterday, I got to attend Chelsea’s wedding (going out to lunch with Laura, Katie, and Jon, I made the connection afterwards with the fact that she is the youngest). I’ve never had the opportunity to attend a Sealing (the ceremony of marriage in the Temple that allows couples to be together forever). The Spirit and joy in the Temple was overwhelming. I felt so incredibly happy. It made me want to get married!!! (In due time of course). A couple things stuck out that the Sealer said to Chelsea and Justin to me. He reminded them that they have very different talents and that they are to build on them and never compete through them. Then he talked about the Holy Spirit of Promise. His words struck me a lot. I remember while I was studying in the scriptures, I discovered not long before leaving for California about the Holy Spirit of Promise and the important role the Spirit plays in confirmation of individual events and things. The Holy Spirit of Promise comes up when we talk about marriages, baptisms, and other similar ordinances. The Holy Spirit of Promise is what confirms that those actions are recognized and effective in the eyes of God. The Sealer talked about the importance of looking for the Spirit of Promise confirming little things. It made me think about the little instances in which the Holy Spirit of Promise comes in and blesses our lives. As a missionary, there would be times when the Spirit would fall upon me and tell me that my offering was acceptable before the Lord and that I was doing what he wanted. In friendships and relationships with others, I’ve noticed that the Spirit will come into a conversation for several purposes. Sometimes I’ve noticed that the feeling is one that is an increased love and understanding that helps us build relationships. Sometimes, it confirms that the conversation is something you or the other person needed to hear. And sometimes the Spirit comes not in talking but in the way you treat each other (the Sealer mentioned that to Chelsea and Justin).

She Is Love- by Parachute
** This is a recently discovered song that I really like. It’s interesting because this song could be interpreted to be about a girl or it could be a general description of the power of love.

I've been beaten down, I've been kicked around,
But she takes it all for me.
And I lost my faith, in my darkest days,
But she makes me want to believe.

They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
She is love, and she is all I need.

She's all I need.

Well I had my ways, they were all in vain,
But she waited patiently.
It was all the same, all my pride and shame,
And she put me on my feet.

Chorus

And when that world slows down, dear.
And when those stars burn out, here.
Oh she'll be here, yes she'll be here,
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love. love.

Chorus

Written at the beginning of last week
My brother sent me an email to inform me about a change in his email address. He mentioned that he felt that his old address was juvenile. It kind of made me laugh because I really liked his email address. But then I started to think about moments with my email address. With people I don’t know, I usually don’t get much of a reaction. You know, when some business or school person asks for your email, they hear so many unique ones that they don’t really bother to ask, and they don’t usually show any emotion about it. But sometimes I’m nervous when I catch a look or I can tell they want to ask. Then when friends or new acquaintances ask about it there is always a chuckle when I say Honky Tonk and then an “oh, that’s actually really cool” when I explain what it is. Just a funny little thought pattern I wanted to record.

I saw a blog where a friend said in a list of things she can do that she can “Fall in love”. I haven’t thought about the agency involved in falling in love in quite a while. Can I fall in love? Or do I just have too much fear of letting someone that close?

I’ve always believed that I’m not very photogenic. Every once in a while I’ve seen pictures that I thought looked good. But if I’m going to look at myself, I usually feel better in a mirror than in a picture. I was looking through the pictures that are posted of me on Facebook and I was reminded of a comment a friend made after she met me. She said “The pictures I saw of you before I met you don’t really do you justice” or something to that effect. . .whatever she said it translated to “Wow, pictures of you don’t turn out well, I’m glad you look better than that.” It made me laugh because she’s a friend who is very honest and direct and doesn’t bury her comments in mush and it made me feel better that at least one other person recognizes that when I take pictures they don’t turn out very well.


The Editor,
MARK

The Daily Honky Tonk 176th Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
176th Edition
Monday, August 17, 2009
11:30 AM

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Table of Contents:
On Friendships
Mexico!

On Friendships

Going home after our trip to Mexico was one of the best things I have done this summer. On the drive back home from the Bloomington airport in the Honda Accord the I drove back in highschool, I felt more homesick than I ever have in my life. I don’t really get homesick, not for the two years on my mission and not really while I’m even out at school. But driving home, I became more sick for home than ever. I didn’t even desire as much to hook up with friends, as I just wanted to be at home and with my family. Okay, so this is kind of a weird way to start off an essay about friendships, but it will relate.
Over the past couple months, I’ve been pondering what it means to be a friend. While I still have a few friends who I consider my best friends, in reality, the relation we share is not the type we shared in high school. Several of us live hours away from each other, two are getting married, school and work keep us busy, for two of my friends I hope they wake up from their slumbers, and the lives we lead don’t just don’t intersect like that they did in high school. It’s not bad, it’s just different.
To add another factor to this equation, in coming to college I meet hundreds of new people, in classes, in my ward and apartment complex, and through meeting people here through friends from back home. One of the girls was teasing me and being serious when she said I would be a good person to know just to get to network people. And after dating a girl, I started to wonder if I still know how to build real solid friendships, or just unlimited amounts of relationships of trust. People trust me far quicker and to greater degrees than I trust them on a regular basis; or at least by my perceptions of things they do.
Finally, I’ve recognized that, in relationships other than dating relationships, most people aren’t strictly looking for best friends. Our lives, that of students, are rather transient; there is little that is constant and after leaving high school, I think people realize that everything they know will disappear in again in a few years. This cannot obviously be said for everyone- there are people who have friends from college that last for years. I don’t think right now that this is a bad thing- it is just different. And for me, after meeting many many new people, I’ve realized that I do want friendships that are more constant. Tying it back to home, I think being there helped me to see the constancy that I really enjoy in my relationships there.
Yesterday, I taught the Elder Quorum lesson out of the Joseph Smith manual during the third hour of church. In a very real way, I knew the Lord had allowed me to be in a position to study and teach that lesson for the benefit of myself. In learning about Joseph Smith, it’s obvious from the accounts of others that whether he spent lots of time with a person or little time they felt like he was really a true friend and that he care about the individual. It also became evident to me that we typically define people we know into a couple categories; family, best friends, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. I decided that the main difference between best friends, friends, and acquaintances is the amount of time that we devote to the individual and the amount of trust we build. Yet, one of the points of the lessons was that we needed to be true friends with everyone, especially in our Ward Family setting. If it was true that time was the major requirement for being a friend with someone in a ward with two hundred people, you couldn’t devote even an hour a week to all those individuals, there are only 168 hours in a week. Subtract sleeping, school and work, and you have much less time and more people that you interact with that should be your true friends. So, back to Joseph Smith. He clearly didn’t devote lots of time to everyone he met, but other felt that in the little contact they had that he was a friend. More importantly, I noticed in the comments from his journal how much he valued friends and how much a strength they were to him. In teaching the lesson, my thoughts were led to Christ. In the scriptures, Christ went amongst many people. And even if his ministry was somewhat limited, it was still a lot of people. In the instances where he allowed all the children to come to him, or where he administered to all the sick and afflicted, it’s obvious that he wouldn’t have had a lot of time to spend with each individual. Yet, they loved Him and they felt His love and testify to us from thousands of years before that He is the Savior and is our Redeemer and they must have felt that he was a true friend.
Bring this forward two thousand years to a college student who has been praying about friendships and how to properly build relationships with people. A couple of impressions have struck me. Although certainly there is value in the time spent with people and the trust we build in each other, it isn’t strictly a requirement for friendship. How you feel towards an individual, the love you have towards them is more important. In that sense, perhaps, acquaintances can be called friends. In some cases, I was devaluing my ability to make friends because I know so many people, but have built very few best friendships. My feeling is that while I want that, it isn’t strictly necessary and that I don’t have to devalue a friendship because there isn’t as much devoted to it. People that I feel are real friends are real friends despite the lack of time we share.
I began to think of more practical examples of people who are true friends to everyone they come in contact with. Youth leaders, my favorite teachers, and a few close friends came to mind. There are individuals I know that radiate friendship from somewhere deep within. It is deep, but it glows. Two friends who may have seen an overweight, awkward kid at the end of his freshman year, but saw a friend as well. Teachers that I knew cared about every student. Teaching wasn’t their job, it was the way they carried themselves and its what inspires me to want to be a teacher. Their students learned more because their teacher was a friend even if they weren’t going to be hanging out Friday night. And it’s the way I see my parents welcome people into our home. And it is the characteristic that led me most to my best friends in high school. In these individuals, friendship radiates to every person they meet whether they will spend ten minutes with the person or a life time. I’ve come to realize that this is one of the most attractive personality traits to me personally and the extreme opposite is one of my biggest pet peeves.
But what about the best friends issue? I still wanted to know what made a best friend. Joseph Smith said: “These I have met in prosperity, and they were my friends; and I now meet them in adversity, and they are still my warmer friends. These love the God that I serve; they love the truths that I promulgate; they love those virtuous, and those holy doctrines that I cherish in my bosom with the warmest feelings of my heart and with that zeal which cannot be denied. . . . To them I have proved faithful- to them I am determined to prove faithful, until God calls me to resign up my breath.” And that definition seems good enough for me. My best friends radiate faith and love. Most importantly that faith and faithfulness, not being to me, but to the God that I love and that I serve. In putting Him first, they become the best type of friend one can have and the love I feel from them perhaps is as one popular LDS songs goes a “window to His love”.

Mexico!

I’ve never had that bug, you know, the one where people are just itching to get out of the country and discover all the cool travel destinations everyone has seen in the media or read about in a book. I never had the traveling bug- and then I went to Mexico.
We spent ten days as a family as international travelers. The following is my list of what I considered my top items.

1) We stayed the first couple days in a Bed and Breakfast in Valladolid run by an American who lives down there. La Casa de Hamacas offers its visitors beds and also hammocks to sleep in as well as excellent food made by locals that the owner has hired. Dennis, the owner, is one of the nicest guys I’ve met and is knowledgeable about how to make the most of one’s experience in that area of the country.. Our family recommends this place to anyone and everyone. Dennis is very service oriented and was more than happy to provide us with opportunities to serve in the area. One of the highlights of the trip was visiting local Mayan villages with a translator who spoke Mayan (I translated back into English for my family) and delivering food and necessities to many families. We were humbled by the circumstances and appreciated the opportunity to see what we really take for granted.

2) We visited four different Mayan ruins. Chichen Itza, Ek Balam, Tulum, and Coba. I love the Mayan ruins. I am hoping in the next life that we will have a way in which we can visit/watch past civilizations and see what they were like. Our family favorite ruins were Ek Balam for a couple reasons. At Tulum and Chichen Itza you can’t walk around on the ruins. Coba, you can, but it is a little more spread about and very easily accessible to tourists for it’s proximity to Cancun. We really did like all of them, but Ek Balam was quite stunning and we loved one of the murals that was more intact than others. Another highlight of the ruins were that in Chichen Itza you can clap in front of the main pyramid and it will produce a sound that sounds like a bird call. This is due to the placement of the buildings that they built and how the sound waves bounce. It is way cool. And also there is shadow created once a year on the pyramid that looks like a snake crawling down the pyramid. They Mayans were genius. In Tulum, the buildings are placed so that the sun will shine through tiny windows depending on the months of the year, so that they could use their buildings as a calendar.

3)We enjoyed visiting Cenotes, underground water holes that are varied and beautiful. Are favorite was one where you could jump off a ledge from about twenty feet above the water.

4)In no particular order, we “love” how the road systems work and where often the lanes aren’t marked with lines, so a road might be two, four, or three and a half lanes. We really did love sampling various foods and fresh juices made by the locals. We discovered that in Mexico a waste basket is literally a waste basket, no toilet paper is flushed down their toilets. We discovered that Europeans believe in going topless on any beach they find. We were glad to know that we should always drink bottled water and even Addie, the three year old reminded us not to drink the water. We loved watching the storms come in over the ocean while we stayed at a beach house and I enjoyed speaking the language. We went snorkeling and few of us went on a turtle walk late at night and got to help baby sea turtles make their way to the ocean and watch a turtle land and build her nest and lay eggs and then leave (a two to three hour process!). We enjoyed going to a place called Hidden Worlds Cenote Park where you can ride ziplines (one that splashes into the water as well as ride a skycycle, which is a suspend bike which allows you to pedal on a wire to travel above the jungle and to enjoy the sights around you.

The best part by far was just being with the family. Spending time together and discovering a culture and a people that were new and different. I loved it. After the Mayan ruins, I definitely find myself wanting to explore all the ancient cultures and past cultures. That little traveling bug awoke inside me.

The Editor,
MARK

The Daily Honky Tonk 175th Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
175th Edition
May 29, 2009
4:42 PM
I’m taking a creative writing class in which I am supposed to write for 50 minutes a day 5 days a week. I’ve been enjoying that class a lot. One of the neat things is that for my homework, I can write a DHT. And so that is what I am trying to accomplish this morning. I was trying to write poetry, because that is the unit we are in, but I found myself too tired from going and watching the first showing of Pixar’s new movie “Up” last night.
The DHT doesn’t demand as much thinking time as does the poetry. Trying to think deep was making me sleepy! So here goes nothing.

On Right Wing Conservatives and Left Wing Liberals
Politics is one of those topics that I sometimes prefer to ignore, but don’t because I believe it is important to know what is going on. However, the contention and corruption that exists in the system, are factors that don’t please me. Granted, I’m not sure how much of that isn’t media hype and high emotions running outside of politicians. There has been for quite some time a mistrust of government. Corrupt government is a central part of many popular books, movies, and everyone enjoys talking about a scandal. I would be naïve to say there is no corruption, but I often wonder if it’s as much as everyone thinks or if because everyone thinks there is a lot, that politicians accept it as fact and go towards corruption.
When people ask me if I’m Democrat or Republican, I usually respond something similar to “Well, I guess I would generally lean more towards republican because of many conservative values, but I wouldn’t say I would never vote democrat. The morals of the candidate are very important.” One of the things that frustrates me in party politics is that it polarizes issues where I think we should be meeting somewhere in the middle. I would be most likely to vote for a candidate who tried to take what was good from both sides of the spectrum. However, we don’t really have that.
Candidates often seem to take the extremes of their parties platform- that is only generally speaking. On reflection, I’ve come to discover why that is. If we could lump everyone into three parties when it comes to politics, I would lump people into groups of Right Wing Conservative, Left Wing Liberals, and the Middle-grounders. The middle-grounders would actually be the largest group, they might hold some fairly strong opinions slanting in one direction or the other, but in general they don’t go for the extremes. The extreme end of Conservatives and Liberals would be groups that have large followings, but neither nearly as big as the middle-grounders. If this is in fact the case, why are things not more balanced? Well, it comes down to who actually cares. Middle-grounders accept things as they are, they try and look at things evenly. When it comes down to it they know there are fallacies in both major parties. They will vote for whichever fits more of their personal opinions, but they recognize there could be more agreement in the middle. Since there isn’t, and both sides contain some good things and some bad, they are content not to do anything. Extremists Left and Right polarize the issue in a very black and white way. They can rarely see the strengths of the other party’s argument. Suddenly, it is not an issue of merely voting, but rather a conquest not unlike the Holy Wars of the Middle Ages. Thank goodness they don’t try and resolve these issues by bloodshed. For liberal extremists, you have to make everyone be open minded . ..bending to the strengths of conservative values, would be putting ‘open mindedness” which would indeed be a crime, because that would be giving extreme conservatives some amount of rightness. As an extreme conservative, traditional values are threatened by the evil liberals. It doesn’t matter if a liberal has a good point because giving just a little would be giving liberals the open mindedness that they want and then they would think the conservatives agreed on that point. The emotions run so high and it becomes polarized. Their expressions become loud and very emotionally loaded, causing the opposing side to need to respond emotionally, causing both sides to polarize even more “We must be right because they are getting so upset about it, they wouldn’t get upset if they really believed they were right”. In the meantime, I just kind of think its all dumb.
Yet, as a Middle-grounder, how does one make a stand. If the middle-ground were to bring forth a significant voice, would something change? Or does one have to polarize something before anybody will notice it and talk about it? These are all questions that I haven’t come to an answer about. But, again, I’m a middle-grounder, its not so important. What can a President really do? They can’t write down laws and just make them happen, they have to go through a government. A Presidential campaign is not unlike a Student Council President, making promises that sound good, but aren’t feasible once you sit in office. No, students, your president will not be getting you another day off or new vending machines, its not in power. A U.S. President is not very different.

Movie Review- Pixar’s “Up”
I am constantly amazed that Pixar is able to steadily produce great film after great film. They not only amaze us showing off what their animation teams can do, but also by rich stories that are fun, entertaining, and meaningful. Pixar’s creative group is really just a group of excellent storytellers.
“Up” contains a very rich story. You kind of get the gist of the story from the previews. Old man, who wants to travel and adventure, causes his house to float by thousands of balloons and gets stuck with an annoying little kid. While the previews were hilarious and I did find much of the film to be quite funny, there are very serious overtones in this film. A couple times I found myself almost crying. Topics like death, the loneliness of old age, the profundity of loss, and the importance of faith to a promise were all serious themes that were explored in the rich story. One of my favorite parts about watching the movie was that it made me feel at different points that I was a kid again. As a little child one’s imagination soars free and the world is a place of adventure and excitement waiting to be discovered. “Up” successfully embodied that sense of wonder and amazement. All I’m really trying to say is that I highly recommend this movie.
The only thing I was disappointed about was that in the previews they announced Toy Story 3. . .I mean, really, that’s great news . . .but it’s not coming out till June 18, 2010.

Star Trek
Okay, so while I’m on movie reviews I should probably comment on Star Trek. That is another movie that is very much worth seeing. I think the thing that makes it such a good movie, is that it has such a talented cast, and a great script with great character development. Besides all that it is a good story and it’s settings and graphics are visually impressive and stimulating as well. The best description I could give of this movie is to compare it to the new Wolverine: X-Men Origins movie. Wolverine was entertaining, it had action, a decent story, and the graphics were pretty well done. However, after watching Star Trek, Wolverine seems like a half done project. I can’t pinpoint what makes the two movies different in their value, but I can describe what the difference feels like. Star Trek seems like it is a completed project, kind of like “Up”. It was a very well thought out production. Each scene has meaning and was a project that everyone gave their whole too. It is the difference between a C project and an A+ Project. Star Trek screams I’m A+ material, this film took some serious work.

Song Lyrics to close
“Under Control” by Parachute
“Because I’ve kept my heart under control,
But baby, all this time its taken its toll
Said I tried to but I can not back what’s deep in my soul”
*Everytime I include lyrics in the DHT, when I got to look at them, I am surprised how much meaning is lost without the music behind the words. It’s rather startling.

The Editor,
MARK

The Daily Honky Tonk 174th Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
174th Edition
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
4:12 PM
Somehow waking up from a dream where two people close to me died, and then finding out in reality that one of my friends is engaged screamed to me for a DHT. I’m almost amazed that I’m taking time to do this. For the spring term I’m taking a Creative Writing Class, Fundamentals of Literary Criticism, and a Spanish Writing Class. . . Which pretty much equates to a LOT of writing. I’m really enjoying it, but sometimes it seems like reading and writing are all I do.
Okay, I can’t really say that is all I do. It’s spring time and I play a lot- tubing down the river, shooting hoops, volleyball, hikes, running, walks, and late night movies. I like how people have play time now since most people are either just working or taking fewer credits. Anyway, let’s officially start this.

Art Therapy
So, I’ve avoided using the DHT as an emotional release since making it home from the mission. Since that was one of the main purposes in high school, I don’t have that need as much anymore. Granted, I still go through episodes, but I am not as quick to want to share them with everyone. I’ve become a big fan of cognitive therapy which focuses in on changing irrational thoughts and were the basis for the crazy papers that my mission president gave me. Still at times, I’ve just wanted to spill my feelings out in words. Playing piano and guitar can be very effective, but I still find writing to be even more effective in releasing emotion. Yesterday I completed my first draft of a very sad story . . . And as I was discovering what the one character’s past was really supposed to be, I almost couldn’t write it .. .but I knew what needed to happen to explain everything else. I was thinking about writers like Earnest Hemingway and wondered if they used writing as therapy; I think there is a good chance.

A Smidgen of Poetry
I am part way through the poetry unit in our class for Fundamentals of Literature and we are start poetry in our Creative Writing Class tomorrow. I have not been fond of poetry in general. If it is to hard to abstract an overly abstract meaning from a poem then I find it frustrating. And while I do get an urge to read a good book, I rarely have the urge to sit down and read a collection of poems. However, I’ve found some poems that I really like and I thought I would share some with you.

**This poem is by my friend Lamora. I know Lamora from the singles ward in Champaign-Urbana. When I learned that she was a writer we started sharing pieces of writing. She gave me permission to share some of her writings with you. For today, I chose this poem.

You Are What You Eat-Lamora Delp

I sit quietly,
my eyes devouring
the night outside
my window.

I am the ration of night herself.
Deep and forgiving
and fleeting.

I am the immortal chocolate oak,
reaching, stretching, clawing
upwards.

I am a sugar crystal of star,
bright, and alone.
Sometimes millions
and millions
of years
away.

I am the sliver of moon.
A white, chewed-off
bit
of fingernail, scratching
the dark.

Epitaph by Timothy Steele
Here lies Sir Tact, a diplomatic fellow
Whose silence was not golden, but just yellow.
**I love how Steele points out the dangers of being tactful to an extreme.

Anonymous Victorian poem without a name
Here’s a little ditty that you really ought to know,
Horses “sweat” and men “perspire,” but ladies only “glow.”

Recital by John Updike

ROGER BOBO GIVES
RECITAL ON TUBA
-Headline in the Times

Eskimos in Manitoba,
Barracuda off Aruba,
Cock an ear when Roger Bobo
Starts to solo on the tuba.
Men of every station – Pooh-Bah,
Nabob, bozo, toff, and habo -
Cry in unison, “Indubi-
Tably, there is simply nobo-

Dy who oompahs on the tubo,
Solo, quite like Roger Bobo.”

**I picked this one for its ability to emphasize meaning and the sound of a tuba through the sounds of each word choice rather than there specific meaning.

I think that is enough writing for today. I enjoyed it for the time being. However, I’ve been sitting in the same spot in the library for the last couple hours and it’s time to move.
The Editor,
Mark