The Elmo Theory of Contaiment

Unfortunately, the State Department won't return my calls on this theory that I developed, but I really think it would work.

Everyone knows how loveable and friendly Elmo is. There is no other politician in western society who could do what Elmo could do here in the field of foreign influence. No one is as sweet, kind and respected by so many people.

We should immediately send Elmo to countries where there is something bad going on as the official ambassador to the United States. Right now, in Iraq, we would send Elmo to strike up a conversation with Sadaam Hussein, and I guarantee the results would be an immediate ceasation of hostilities towards the United States. Within moments, Elmo's ability to move from arguments about "The Great Satan" to "rub my tummy" would immediately change the environment of the disagreements between our nations. Within a few days of tummy rubbing and strategic naivety on Elmo's part, the Iraqis would stop hating the US and immediately try to spread love and friendship throughout the world.

Elmo would have a harder time with North Korea, unfortunately, but I still think he could do it. You see, Elmo has the one skill that no other diplomat would ever dare use: when the going gets tough, Elmo can cry. And when Elmo starts to cry, there's not an evil dictator in the world that could possibly go against the furry red one. And with North Korea being so behind the times on everything else, Elmo could help in another way that North Korea never even realized: he could teach North Korea to count. We'd probably try to avoid having Elmo teach them letters because the Korean alphabet is more stick figures, so it would be kind of hard for him to say: "Today's lesson is the letter up and down line with a circle underneath it".

And then we can dump the guy that's representing us in the UN as well. The guy is obviously not representing US interests well enough. Who but Cookie Monster would better represent American interests? He's a born capitalist (give him a cookie, and he's happy), so he would always have the US's best interests at heart.

People, the problem isn't an evil Iraq or a misguided President Bush (yes, both arguments so not making a choice either way), but the people who are communicating between them. For too long we have ignored the abilities of great negotiators such as Elmo and Cookie Monster. It is about time that we put forth an agenda that truly represents America. After all, what American (today) couldn't benefit from the logical discourse that is Elmo? If not that, at least he could teach us the benefits of the Number 5.

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Just a short note as I have to get up early tomorrow to take the Forensics team on a speech tournament.

Talked to the editor today, and it appears my article on Racism is slated to be printed early next week. I guess they're just in the very unusual situation of having a lot of articles in at once when they used to rarely have any at all. Jason and I talked for a bit, and it sounds like we both agreed that there are just way too many articles on Iraq these days. Hopefully, there are going to be other articles of interest in the paper during the next week. That one subject, even though it is very important and time sensitive, can sometimes get way overwhelming when it is all you read each and every day in a university newspaper, not a national newspaper that should be covering international events.

Presented my project for my Congress class today concerning the research I am going to do for this conference paper. I think there is some merit to the paper idea, even though I'm not all that excited about doing anything Americanist related these days. I figure this will probably be one of the last works I do before moving onto other stuff that is probably more theory related. I do want to write my paper on the condolence letter phenomena that I observed through the New York Times, but aside from that, I have a feeling my ideas are going to be a lot more international related from this point on.

I will be writing a paper on coaching/teaching for the National Forensics Association Journal which I will also be using for my Teaching Excellence class. I really need to be a lot more productive with all of the stuff that I do.

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Did a little more research, and it appears that my trip to Prague might be kind of difficult, but it's not going to be impossible. I've been trying to find other spots where I could also go, but unfortunately, I'm kind of stuck in the problem of being a graduate student, so I have to choose only the programs that I can do as a PhD student. That's part of why I really wanted to go to Prague; Dr. Butterfield wrote back and stated that it is a class that can be offered at the 700 level, so I'm going to be able to take it. It looks like Arus, one of the other graduate students with me at Western is also interested in going. I figure Dr. Butterfield is probably going to assign a bunch of stuff to be read before appearing, and I think I kind of like that because it will at least give me something to do before heading for the summer part of my education.

Paying for it is going to kind of suck because it appears to be requiring me to pay for it out of Summer II budget rather than Summer I budget, and my assistantship ends during Summer I, so I might have to live off of ramen all next year as a result of this. I've already mentioned a number of times that my assistantship ends and isn't going to be renewed. I don't know what my chances are of picking up an associateship through my department, but I tried the year before and it didn't happen. Of course, who knows how things will be this year?

Finally finished the reading I had to do for my Congress class. The reading I did is part of the reason I'm no longer as interested in being an Americanist anymore. It's all about conclusions that appear to be conclusions that had already been made so many times before. Unfortunately, I don't see the usage of the information that I would be doing research on in this particular subfield. I might see some congressman taking advantage of the information, but I'm not exactly sure that it advances human knowledge any in being able to explain that congressmen have the sole desire to be re-elected. At least with comparative, I can see avenues to explore that might be of a much greater nature, and if I am successful in this transition, I think it might be the direction in which I really need to take.

I figured out my topic for my Teaching Excellence course, and I'm going to do a research subject involving the importance of coaching as a method of teaching in academic competition. My end goal is to try to get the paper published in the National Forensics Journal as well as turn it in for a grade. My paper I'm going to be writing in my congress class seems to be concerning the subject of how influential public opinion was on breaking the trend of loss of House seats for the presidential party during presidential midterm elections. I just hope that the NES studies will be available for 2002 in time for me to actually put this paper together.

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I got through Tuesday, the day from Hell. I always hate this day because it requires me to spend so much time at school. I start off with a class at 2pm, then a class at 4pm, and then I have a class at 6:30pm. It is a bit exhausting.

For some reason, my article still is not in the Herald. It's been over a week, and I read what was going to be in the paper tomorrow, and it sure wasn't my article. That's kind of depressing. Not much I can do about it, but I was pretty much looking forward to that article almost a week ago. I seem to be seeing a lot of pro-Bush, pro-war stuff that is being printed instead.

I really would like to find a venue where I don't have to hear about this upcoming war anymore. I'm tired of hearing about it. I don't want to know any more about it. I'm getting so sick and tired of seeing how international events are bothering our personal lives when in reality international events have ZERO impact on our personal lives. For some reason, we seem to be putting so much emphasis on making these events a part of our daily life, adding stresses that we wouldn't normally have, all for some purpose that I don't think anyone is actually benefiting.

Nobody seems to even care anymore. The hawks are leading us to war. They aren't listening to anyone that doesn't want to go to war. Yet, they expect everyone to rally around them regardless. I really hate hearing the statement: "You can disagree with us, but once the war starts, everyone must back our boys!" or something like that. I really hate hearing that. I don't want anything to do with this war. I want an opt-out clause, but there is none. I want the UN to make a vote and state "Well, we decided to wipe out Iraq, but this is against the personal wishes of Duane Gundrum who is at the corner 7-11 right now pouring himself an Icee, so we decided it would be wise not to disturb him." I'm kind of disgusted with 70 percent of the people who live in my country right now. I am surrounded by a country of stupid people who actually think they know what they're talking about, and that worries me.

It's really depressing, the more I think about it.

I'm hoping that somehow I can arrange to go to Prague this summer, and if all works out, who knows, maybe I'll never come back. It might be wise to be away from the USA before it collapses upon itself. It's not wise existing in a melting pot that never actually took the melting process all too seriously.

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I have a bad feeling Prague might not work out. I think it is too late during the summer so that I can't use my funding for this year to pay for it but have to use funding for next year. If that's the case, then I'm kind of screwed because I won't have an assistantship, and I won't have enough money to be able to do Study Abroad based on next year's projection without taking away nearly $5000 from my budget for next year, which would probably be the end of Duane as we know it.

But who knows? When I get some time, I'll run by financial aid and see what floats.

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My assistantship is about to end. I've had it for the last four years, and it appears that it is in its last year. Last summer, I was already convinced it was at an end because the program I was tied to (Forensics and Debate) was moving from Theater to Communications, and I knew that Communications wasn't too excited about paying for an assistantship, even though it originally had come from the Provost's Office. This year, I'm still not sure what happened, but the Graduate College picked up my assistantship for the year, and I was pretty much told that it would be ending at the end of this year. That's fine. I wasn't really expecting it to last this long anyway. I'm presently applying for an associateship through Political Science, and I hope I get one. If not, I'll live; not happily, but I'll live. I'm only a year away from writing my dissertation anyway, so it's not a big deal.

The problem I'm running into is Forensics and Debate itself. There are about ten students tied to this team, and I am really concerned that they continue to be able to do this activity. Unfortunately, it's not just my assistantship that's a problem, but the problem is money for the team itself AND the fact that they won't have a coach next year. Sure, they might be able to scrounge up someone to manage the team, but there's a big difference between someone with a lot of Forensics experience and someone who pretty much doesn't really know a lot.

So, at tonight's meeting, I tried to pass onto the team how important it is for them to start going back through the Provost's Office to continue funding (the funding came from there as well as the assistantship). For some reason, no matter how much I kept trying to tell these people, I don't think they were really listening. The "fantasy" of getting a doctorate professor to coach the team seemed to completely blanket the realities of the situation. After awhile, I gave up trying to suggest what they need to do in order to save this team. I feel horrible about it, but I'm so tired of trying to work in the background for this organization only to feel like I'm fighting the team as well as the administration. It's been very frustrating, and I think I'm going to slowly just pull out and take care of my own stuff from this period on.

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It's been a pretty busy weekend, so I didn't really get a chance to put forth an update over the last few days. So, I'm here at school, while studying, figuring I should just fire off a quick message to the blog to keep up with what's going on.

I'm actually pursuing an opportunity to pick up some credits and go overseas this summer to Prague. Originally, I had wanted to go there for other specific reasons, but it appears that I might get something out of going there for education purposes, as one of my political science instructors is teaching a series of courses there, and this would give me an excellent opportunity to pursue some comparative studies courses that I think might be quite beneficial to my education goals.

Been reading Rousseau's On the Social Contract lately, and I should have it finished by this evening so that I will be able to be able to speak on it for class tomorrow night. I have to admit that it's pretty interesting, even if I can also admit that I may not get every nuance each time I try reading it.

My article didn't get printed today, which kind of surprised me. I figured it would have hit Monday, but now I guess I'm expecting it tomorrow or Wednesday. It's a pretty serious article for me, on the topic of racism and those who do nothing about it. I imagine I'll get the usual flames from writing on such a subject from those that don't really read all the way through it, but I guess that's something to be expected sometimes. Oh well.

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Last night, I started playing around with Poser 5. It's a lot tougher to get that program going than I had hoped it would be. I figure I'm going to have to purchase a book to learn how to use it, but aside from that the program sure seems like it's going to be a lot of fun. I have intentions on using it to create artist works I've always wanted to do, but I always seemed to suffer from the fact that I just never learned how to draw. Okay, that I never learned how to draw a straight line.

Finally have a few days off. Granted, I still have to do a lot of work for all of my classes over the weekend. But at least I have some time to wind down a bit and work on the stuff that needs working on.

My car feels like it is getting close to its last days, so I can only hope that holds out for me. Really not looking forward to trying to make it through this place without my car.

I submitted my associateship/assistantship application today, and I'm suspecting that it's going to be a lot like last year. In a month or so, I'll get a form letter indicating that they just didn't have enough assistantships to give out, and I'm not getting one. I'm about to lose my assistantship with the Communications Department because they don't seem to be all that excited about supporting the Forensics Program (the reason I came here to this university in the first place), so I'm going to be left to my own devices next year. And that's getting me to seriously reconsider whether or not I want to stay here. If WMU doesn't feel that I'm worthy enough to fund, why am I wasting my time here? I'm certainly not part of any great social life here; I don't even have a single friend here. I had tons of friends back in San Francisco; I don't even have a close association with anyone here. And as of yesterday, I'm just getting older.

I'm starting to feel I'm probably going to end up dying here, and it's going to be alone.

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I'm not sure what it is, but I'm having one of those bad computer days. I finished the paper I had to write for my Congress class, and then I couldn't get a single email to send out with my laptop. It's like it just forgot how to send email. After a few hours of fighting with my laptop, I finally wandered home, set up my computer at home, and it suddenly remembered how again. That can be so frustrating some times, especially when I went to the Bernhard Center at school to work on stuff, and then I ended up having to come home, the place I was trying to avoid, just to get anything done.

Well, didn't find anything special to do today. My birthday is going to end uneventful. I don't even drink, so I can't even celebrate it that way.

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Well, today is my official birthday, which means the blogger entries kind of worked out the way they were meant to work out.

Haven't done anything birthday related today, which kind of sucks, as it appears most of what I have done today is just read the Congressional Reform book, and I will admit that it is not exactly a book that one would consider something fun. Someone told me online that I should find something fun today and just do it. I just don't have time. I've been reading this book all day, for which I have to write a quick memo on this evening about some question I have concerning the text, of which I really don't have any questions, even this far into the book, and when I get home tonight, Kevin and Anthony are probably going to be coming over for forensics work, so I will end up devoting the rest of my evening after 9pm to that, and while it's nice to see them getting better, it just sort of leaves me with an empty feeling, wondering if there might somehow be something better than this.

My sister called me this morning from California. We had an okay conversation, but nothing really different was said. She'd doing fine, and she's doing the family thing. Personally, I don't see myself getting involved with a family of my own for a long time, if ever. It's not because I don't want one, but I just haven't ever figured out the methodology of meeting someone. I meet women all the time who I am sure are great possible matches, but I constantly misjudge whether or not they'd ever be interested in me. Last year, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out if a young woman named Stephanie was interested in me. All the signs were there, but my god, sometimes I think it would be so nice to just run into someone that comes out in the beginning and indicates interest. The dance process beforehand is so frustrating because I don't think I've ever figured out the signals if they really do exist. The same thing is happening this year as well. The few women that I do have contact with me appear to be those who might be interested in something more than casual friendships, but it falls right back into that problematic situation I've always had. So I guess I tend to just ignore any signs that exist because I don't ever really seem to understand them anyway.

And as this is my birthday, I'm not exactly getting any younger either.

I'm starting to really think about my direction in school these days. I'd like to change my emphasis from Theory and American Government to Theory and Comparative Politics. The only reason I haven't done so is because of one professor I really did not get along with in Comparative who tends to always be on the committee that decides the Composition Exams. I really don't want to end up getting shut out of the final stage of the doctorate program because one particular individual just doesn't like me. I've seen his influence on another individual in the past as well, so I know it is a strong possibility. I'm just starting to worry because my dissertation work seems much more applicable to comparative politics than it does for American politics. I'm trying way too hard to stretch it to an American issue (the American Revolutionary War period) just to stay within the guidelines of what my field contains. I'm thinking that one day I need to sit down with one of my advisers and discuss this because I have a strong feeling it's going to be a decision I have to make soon, and I need to know that changing in this way will be a good thing and not end up destroying my potential career.

I really think I have a lot more to say about politics on the international stage with theory than I do on the American political stage. To be honest, I'm not that sure I really care all that much about American politics. I sure don't care about voting, and I think there are enough people out there who are doing that field so that my input on the matter is rarely going to be something that helps people move the discipline forward. But I can imagine working with comparative politics and international law in a way that I might make a contribution.

I guess it's just one of those subjects that I'll have to take up at another time.

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This is the eve of my birthday. I'm about to become another year older.

Yipes.

Yes, it's about to happen. On February 12th, which may end up being the date of this web log, I will be another year older. And honestly, I'm not exactly sure I'm too happy about that.

I finished off my article for the Western Herald, and it should be printed in the next few days. I ended up doing an article on racism, and I figure it should get a few comments from people. Or like usual, it will be completely ignored like my articles normally are. I'm probably going to start posting my articles in this space soon, as soon as I start to figure out that these web logs are actually being seen by anyone. As it is right now, I think NO ONE is reading these things. And that kind of worries me. Then again, it's probably not that great a deal.

Spent a great deal of this day at school. While in my 4:00pm class, it started to snow, and it looks like it's going to get really cold and snow a lot again for awhile. I'll be honest. I'm not a real fan of cold weather, nor am I that much of a fan of snow. I pretty much hate it. If I could somehow manage to get back to California and know that I wouldn't be eating out of trashcans and living in some alley, I'd probably do it immediately. I sometimes wonder why I came here.

I guess coming here had a lot to do with Marisha and all that. I really had to get away from San Francisco, and when I found out that I could go all the way across the country to Kalamazoo, Michigan, I realized that was what I needed to do. But there are times when I wonder if that was really a good idea. Sure, I picked up my graduate degree here in political science, and I'm even closer to finishing off my doctorate, but I ask myself almost daily if this was the right place for me to have gone. My life would have been so much different if I would have taken University of the Pacific or Northridge, or one of those universities in California. Oh well, pretty hard to dwell on the past and still be able to be positive about the present and future.

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For some reason, I can't seem to get this thing to update. I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong here, but I'm continuing to try to place new entries onto the page, and hopefully it will work. I figure I can eventually start just hosting my own site, but this is getting kind of frustrating, and I was hoping to actually get some success out of the largest blogger around.

Today, I've spent most of the day just hanging out in the student center (well, the Bernhard Center as our university doesn't actually have a student center, so this is about as close as we get) studying Rousseau. It takes quite awhile to read the text required for tomorrow's class, but I'm trying to get it out of the way before class tomorrow night. I tend to read a bit more than I am supposed to, but I think reading a few of the first sections of the book that weren't required have helped give me more of a Rousseau perspective than I would have achieved had I just read what was required. It's been pretty interesting either way.

I figure I need to start work on my next article for the Western Herald, which is something I do on a weekly basis. I figure my next article will have something to do with racism and toleration, or I will finally write the article I want to write about product placement. The former is a much more serious article while the latter is more on the lines of humor with somewhat of an importance angle.

Well, figure I'll try get this thing to work yet again. Here's hoping this entry actually shows up.

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I've recently started reading one of those books that I wouldn't normally read. It's The Disease To Please by Dr. Harriet B. Braiker. Recently, I discovered I was running into these modes of depression, and I couldn't really figure out why. I tried seeing a counselor who was not exactly the best counselor I've ever encountered, but then last week started seeing a new one, who really seems to know what he's doing. Anyway, I came across this book while at Waldenbooks, and for some reason it just sort of hit a chord with me. I really do think it is one of those problems I've had for a long time. I seem to try to find validation through other people, and by helpingout as many people as I can, almost to the point of where I think I do a little too much. Anyway, the book is interesting, and we'll see how it helps, if it does.

Been doing a lot of work to keep up with my regular school work. Finished reading the first part of Rousseau for Dr. Hauptmann's political philosophy class. I'm running into a bit of a problem with my Congress class with Dr. Shaffner, mainly because I am supposed to present an idea of what I want to write up as an official paper from the topics in this class, and I'm realizing that I haven't come across a single topic about congress that interests me in any way, shape or form. So this is going to be an interesting problem that I will have to deal with. I also need to start coming up with funding/grant sources for my dissertation project for Dr. Hauptmann's doctoral thesis class, and I'm not really much further on that one as well.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just wasting a lot of time here. I know I'm pretty intelligent, and I have many ideas that I think are going to be important one day, but I also wonder if perhaps I might be doing way too much in the wrong particular field. But I don't see a way out of it either. I'm this far into the program, and I don't really see a way of completing my work, or going onto something different without just finishing off what I've already started.

I don't know if I'll make a great political scientist. I don't even know if I'll make a decent political scientist. I can't seem to slow myself down long enough just to figure out what I should with what what I have to do right now. And that's probably the majority of my problem right now.

It probably also doesn't help that I haven't dated in so long now that I'm wondering if I ever will again. I had a bad track record before with some pretty screwed up women, and it would be really nice to finally meet someone intelligent, friendly and not crazy. Yep, a pipe dream. Better stick with the education and leave the romance stuff in the ether where it belongs.

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As I'm sure most people who start out a web log are apt to do, I'm going to make a statement indicating that this is my first post and I really have no idea where this thing is going to go from here.

Who am I? Well, I'm a political scientist attending in a PhD program at Western Michigan University. I'm essentially a theorist, but half the time I haven't a clue if that's all that I am, or if I'm even pursuing the correct direction of studies. I find myself with tons of ideas about what I believe is true about the world, and for some reason, I find that no one else seems to share these ideas. When I try to present them, I also find direct resistance, almost condescending in nature so that it becomes very frustrating to try to advance something new when one really doesn't know if it's new or if it's just stupid. Yeah, that last part kind of sums up most of my educational career.

I guess it is important to point out that I am a writer first before anything else. I have been writing my entire life, and it is the one passion that has remained with me since the very beginning. I've done all sorts of other things, including West Point, judo, choral performance, forensics, debate, police work and investigations, computer game creation, flipping burgers and whatnot. But in the end, it has always come back to my writing.

To this date, I have written eleven novels and about one hundred short stories. There is a huge selection of plays, poetry and that sort of stuff that I don't even count, but the main items, the books and short stories, seem to be what I am most about. I published one novel Innocent Until Proven Guilty through iUniverse Press, and I've had a couple of close calls with the others, but it just hasn't happened yet. My novels run the spectrum from mystery/suspense to science fiction/fantasy. The current novel I am working on is a lot different. It is called The Ameriad, and it is best described as a humorous Greek epic. Yes, a lot different for me, but I think it is probably going to be one of those novels that helps to establish who and what I really am.

I think part of the problem of me being a writer has been accepting that I am a writer. I recently came to a realization that I have had such lofty goals for my writing success that I have been kicking myself for not "being" the great writer that I want to be. I am a very good writer, and I love everything that I have written. For way too long, up until just about a day or so ago, I found myself feeling that my success would not come until I actually became famous or rich. Those are situations that one cannot control. That is an outside influence that I feel has totally subjected my writing to personal criticism when it has not been warranted. I have come to the conclusion that I am a professional writer, and I'm a pretty good one. One day, I hope to make money from it, but for now, I realize that I do this very well, and it has taken me a great deal of time to stop beating myself up over the years I have tried to become the next Stephen King or insert appropriate author here.

Anyway, this is my first entry. I have no idea if this even works, or if people ever even read these things. So here goes.

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