Initial Observations of Prague
This may sound strange, as I tend to look at most things in a pretty strange way, but I find myself wondering where are the signs that this city used to be an oppressive communist regime. As I find myself wandering the streets of Prague, I look around to see the instruments of infrastructure that would have existed back then, that had to exist back then, and I find myself seeing none of them. We're only talking a decade here, and very little of the main section of the city appears to be all that new, but I've seen nothing of what would have had to have been in place to keep everything working in that sort of order.

The only thing I've noticed so far is that a few of the roofs appear to have serious wiring around it to keep people off the roofs, at least that's what it appears is the purpose.

On the streets, I can't tell the difference between Prague and practically any other European city. Even though it's a democracy now, one wonders what happened to the state-run institutions that had to be in place in order to keep control of such a large metropolitan area.

I know. It's a weird observation.

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The Trip to Prague
It took a long time. Yep, no way around that one. Let's just say that I'm glad I don't do much international traveling these days.

I don't know what it is but in every country, the people who are designated to assist the travel process are nothing but crooks and opportunists. I was quoted $5 as the price to get to the amtrak station in Kalamazoo. Of course, the guy has no meter in his cab, and when I get to the amtrak station, he says "$8". I give him a ten and he automatically keeps the change. So I ended up paying twice what the cab company said it would cost.

In Chicago, I'm accosted by every cab driver in the city that is trying to take me to the Chicago Ohare Airport for a gazillion dollars. I finally find a person who worked for Amtrak who gave me directions on public transportation, so instead of paying "$48...really, I give you best price", I get to the airport for $1.50.

Okay, the plane on Air France rocked. That was pretty cool. They have movie screens on each seat, and you actually get to watch decent movies. I watched Chicago (free) for the first time, and I thought that was pretty cool. I also watched an episode of MacGuyver with the woman sitting next to me, and we were both cracking jokes throughout that show. I never realized what a dumb show that was.

In France, well, let's just say that Paris International Airport gets my vote as the crappiest airport in the world (in my little knowledge of the world there is). The terminal where I was at was crappy. They were doing construction work on it which meant you got to listen to the pleasing sounds of drills and saws. To make it worse, they have some kind of bizarre security feature of this airport that indicates that once you get within the security gate, you cannot leave under ANY circumstance. I needed some water to take my medication, and I had no French currency to buy from the one food dealer in that section. The money exchange was just on the outside of the security check place. I was told no everytime I mentioned I needed to get some French money to get water as I was stuck in this terminal for 3 hours, and I needed to take my medication. They could care less. No questions, no attempt to get more info, just no. Finally, I said screw this, contacted the US embassy and told them what was going on. The staff there called to the Paris airport to inquire how they could help me and then out of nowhere a staff member showed up and personally escorted me to get some money changed. I wouldn't be surprised if I had help from the guy running the airport.

Let's just say that I don't really like the Paris airport. It was extremely hot, uncomfortable, and it didn't really look like most of the staff knew what it was doing for the most part. It was quite a departure from a really cool plane trip.

The trip to Prague took a few hours beyond that. The plane was running really late, but I didn't really care as I wasn't on any real schedule on the last part of the trip. At the Prague airport, I found a shuttle service that took me to my hostel for 360 Cz. It was a bit expensive, but it was worth the price. I shared the shuttle with a bunch of travel industry people who really seemed to know the ins and outs of traveling overseas. They were from the states, and I had a pretty cool conversation with them. I get the idea they spend their whole lives traveling wherever they want to go. Sounds pretty cool as an occupation, if you like that kind of traveling.

I stayed in the Arpacay hostel. Nothing special about it, but it was clean and the staff was very friendly and helpful. I'll be trying to find the final part of the trip today as my instructions were kind of vague, but we'll see what happens. At least I don't run the risk of accidentally crossing into a communist country this time around (yep, real situation some decade or so ago for me).

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The Trip Begins
Today, I begin my trip to the Czech Republic. I tried to get everything done yesterday that needs to be done for this trip, but now I'm finally on my way. A cab to the train station, an Amtrak train to Chicago, a cab to the airport, a plane to Paris, another plane to Prague, and then a cab to a hostel and another cab to the dorms. Yep, lots of traveling in the next few days.

Not sure if I'll be able to continue to update this while there, but I sure hope I can. Talk to you all later.

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The Low and High Ends of Corporations and Customer Service
In today's New York Times, there is a report of a successful lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch by former employees who felt they were required to buy Abercrombie clothing while working there. Abercrombie claimed that they were not required, yet employee practices said otherwise. As the suit's resolution pointed out, employees were discouraged from wearing non-Abercrombie clothing so that they were pretty much forced to buy company clothing as an unwritten dress code. Look for similar lawsuits in the works right now against stores like The Gap, which also claims to not be doing what Abercrombie claimed it was not doing--before losing their lawsuit.

Customer service can sometimes suck these days. I was in the Bernhard Center's McDonald's earlier today when I ordered an egg mcmuffin. No big deal; I order these practically every day. His response was: "do you want eggs on it?" I was dumbfounded but smiled and said, "Yes, it's an egg mcmuffin." So I got back to my chair to start eating my egg mcmuffing when I noticed there was a huge piece of sausage on it. I brought it back and stated that I had ordered an egg mcmuffin. Samaaa (or some name like that...I only caught it in glancing) said I did not order an egg mcmuffin, and that he had done my order correctly. I stated I had. He adamantally claimed I had not. I said, "look, I know what I ordered." And then he started getting snippy with me. I said, "look, I eat here every day, and I eat the same thing every day." He continued to get snippy and adamant about the whole thing. Meanwhile, the manager, who has taken my order practically every day was just kind of watching out of the corner of his eye and obviously just didn't want to get involved. Finally, I said, "fine. Just give me my money back." So, he gets up on some kind of high horse and says he can't give me a refund cause I had already started drinking my orange juice (which was at my table with a straw in it). I said just give me my money back. He then goes through, creates a refund, and then refuses to give it to me unless I personally go back to my table, grab my orange juice and then bring it back to him. So I do. And I get a refund.

I then turn to the manager and say I want to speak to him. He said okay, but he was waiting on a customer. So, instead of actually finishing with that customer, he takes four more customers until the line is completely gone and THEN comes over to talk to me. His whole thing after hearing what happened, is "sorry that happened."

Needless to say, I will never eat in that place again. I am so sick and tired of being treated like crap in environments because someone actually thinks they are doing you a favor by serving on you. I have NEVER in my life as a customer ran into a situation where a clerk argues with a customer.

That's the start of my day.

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Political Pundits and Columnists
Even though I probably side with Molly Ivans on many of her issues recently, she is one of those pundits that I hate reading as much as Bill O'Reilly. Both of them are so full of themselves that when something comes up that completely negates what they say, they fall back into cliches of "things were great when Clinton was around, but GW Bush sucks" (a Molly Ivans opinion) or the complete opposite for Bill O'Reilly.

It would be so nice to actually read columnists these days that are objective. They don't exist anymore. Instead, they are so rightist or leftist that if someone is on the right of the political center, that person hates Molly Ivans. If someone is slightly to the left of the political center, that person hates Bill O'Reilly (or whatever pundits or television networks you want to fill in here).

What bothers me the most is that NEITHER of the two are willing to stop shouting for JUST AN INSTANT to listen to the other side with an open mind. No, instead, they spend all of their time preaching to people about how right they are, and when something happens that should prove to them that, hey, things can be a bit different than those extremes, they ignore it or, in O'Reilly's case, bully the bearers of information until the issue goes back to something easy to play around with again.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I hate, really HATE, partisan attacks these days. I really don't think it used to be this bad. And no, I'm not blaming one side or the other. They're both equally just as bad. They're unthinking, uncaring, and rude.

And the sad thing is: they always get defended by: "well, the other side has this guy or girl and that person's even worse."

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Research Stuff and Future Travels
Well, I finally finished all the reading I had to do for my Czech trip coming up in a few days, and I sent off the paper to Dr. Butterfield. I can't believe how much I had to read for that, but it's interesting because my opinions on post-communist and authoritative systems are no longer what they were a few weeks ago because of all the reading, although I think I was most influenced by Huntington and Elster.

I leave for the Czech Republic in two days (Thursday), and for some reason I really don't want to leave home now that I've gone through all the work to move to this new place. I guess part of the problem is that I never really had a chance to live in my new place without having to do serious research while here. A few days of just sitting back and watching TV hasn't been an option yet.

I am, however, looking forward to seeing Prague. I've never been there before, and this may be the last chance I ever have to visit the place.

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Yeah, I know. Guys aren't supposed to write poetry. But here's a few of mine for the hell of it:

Sleeping America
In my travels,
I walk a dark, twisting road
That leads from one morning to the next
From one on-ramp to one off-ramp
From one life to one death

And each time I complete a journey
I find myself facing the same road again,
The same on-ramps
The same off-ramps
The same lives…the same deaths.
Yet the journey never ends.

Twisted knots that can’t be broken
Spirits speaking in tongues that can’t be deciphered.
Trees swaying the wrong way in the wind.
A faint breeze rising above the surface.
A light peeking through the dawn of red darkness.

Oh, how I hate the mornings.
Those…hybrid horizons that break up the freedom of my
Nocturnal yearnings
Reminding me that everything started must
Eventually end
Everything that ends must eventually start up again.
Oh, how I hate the mornings.

I hate the realization and realities of what I have done
The certain knowledge of last night’s history combined
With the belief of history to come
Never ceases to bring solitude to my early mornings.
There’s always anger
Regret
Hatred
Confusion
And then remembrance.
Remembrance that it was all done for a purpose.
A purpose much greater than myself.

I remember the man
I remember the world
I remember the words we spoke together
And I remember how we laughed together
Yet we could remember little else.

I am the reality of today’s society.
I am the alarm clock that was made to wake up
Sleeping America like a slumbering giant that
Hasn’t remembered it went to sleep long ago
I am the wake-up call that knows only too well
What would happen without me, so I do my job,
Dispatching my anger so that America may one day
Wake up again.
I am the light at the end of the tunnel
That sees the hidden darkness that swarms throughout it
Offering entrance
Yet hindering progress
I am the memory that haunts you
That keeps you up night after night
Reminding you that a step forward
Comes with a resounding retreat.
And I am the lone lover at the side of a hospital bed
Touching a hand for the last time
Waking and dreaming
Waking and dreaming.

Sleeping America.
Your morning is only your beginning.
Wake up Sleeping America.
Your slumber is no more.

I told him of the slumbering giant, and he wrote it down.
I told him how I was waking the slumbering giant to show
that all is not right in the world.
He just wrote it down.
I told him that I am working to make sure that those like
him do not just write things down but take action.
Take action to wake up Sleeping America from its slumber.
I told him.
But I don't think he was really listening.

I am America. And I am its reality.
Wake up Sleeping America.

I wrote the following some years ago, and it won a national award at the time and was published a few times as a result:

Same Old Song
Every morning the same bird sings its waking song
Bringing the world to life.
Cheerful.
Without a care in the world
Does he lift his wing to soar
Or does he just fly?
Does he wonder what it’s all about?
Or does he just sing?

The roads keep turning
And the turns keep twisting
And the twists keep changing
Till the road is all there is.
The distance between us is no longer a straight line
But an endless cavern of words and silence.

Do you still think about me when the birds sing?

Do you still listen to the same old songs?
Do you say the same old words?
Do you still think of the world in the way you do?
Every morning the same bird sings its waking song.
And I wonder if the meaning ever changes.

End of poetry

Like I said, I know guys aren't supposed to write poetry, but oh well, that was some of mine.

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Writing Styles of the Scientists
I am presently reading Institutional Design in Post-communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea by John Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss. Having just finished Huntington's The Third Wave, all I can say is that I am not at all impressed with my current reading. And it's not because it's not saying a lot. It's because it's written in a way that makes me start to wonder why the authors chose to write it this way. Let me explain.

Huntington writes in a way that makes it very easy for a reader to understand what he's trying to say. Elster, et al, have written this book to prove how smart they are. They use huge words that could easily have been replaced with simpler words, they make theoretical statements that seem so abstract that it takes four or five readings of the same sentence to understand what it means, and then four or five readings of a paragragh to understand what kind of point they might try to be making. In essence, they write to make themselves sound really smart.

This has gotten me to wonder if this isn't a problem with scientific disciplines normally. Who are we writing for? People who are interested in the information, the mass public, or ourselves? Or are we sometimes just writing to have people think we're smart, and if they learn something along the way, then that's a bonus?

This has started to bother me because I see it a lot, and I wonder why it even exists. I have yet to read a dissertation-like work that makes zero sense to me where I have come away from it thinking: "wow, that's impressive." No, I usually come away from it thinking, "what's this guy's problem? Does he have no ability to communicate?"

That's where I am with 63 pages into this book. It's a classic of comparative politics, but at the same time, I wonder if a lot of political scientists automatically buy into this perpetuating crap writing because the names on the book are from prestigious universities, so they continue to do the same thing in their own writings, further and further alienating political science from the mass public that might benefit from it.

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Is the US moving further to the right?
Gary Jacobson is a renowned political scientist who points out a very interesting argument in Politics of Congressional Elections in which he states from his first edition to the fifth edition of the book (in a kind of evolution of the idea...kind of interesting to read all five editions to see how this idea originates and forms) that Republican Parties are moving away from state control to federal control due to the incentives offered to Republican strong candidates in a field that tended to attract mostly Democratic candidates (the point being: democrats had something to gain financially from national government while republican candidates did not as it was actually a financial loss to pursue national government rather than local government...this has all changed over the last few decades).

A further point he makes concerns the usability of PACs. And this is a lot more important than people ever suspected. Ten, twenty years ago, PACs were mainly Democratic strongholds, with labor being one of the main types of PACs. An important caveat was that these types of PACs favored the incumbent, but rarely backed the challenger as it was not financially feasible to do so. About fifteen years ago, corporate PACs came on the scene and started backing Republicans because of similar views on national issues. It was a slow, growing process, but in those fifteen years, these PACs have become huge, and they have been backing Republican candidates for quite some time. And the one important caveat is: they are just as willing to back challengers as they are incumbents. This is something the Democratic PACs are still unwilling to do.

As such, the simple theory is: the more Republicans that make it to office, the more money and incentive for them to continue running and receiving money. The PACs that don't give to challengers still give to Republicans that are incumbents, while the Republican PACs that only give to Republicans continue to support both Republican incumbents AND Republican challengers.

In essence, we have set up a situation where Republicans have much greater chances of being elected to higher office, while Democrats are forced to scramble for money, or dig into their own fortunes to seek political office.

So, using this one theory alone, I tend to believe we are going to see more and more Republicans, and thus a further move to the right as this base is solidified.

This theory has nothing to do with what anyone wants, how America feels, or any other such nonsense. Elections are always about two things: money and incumbency. Armed with both, you are pretty much guaranteed success. Very rarely does the public go against incumbencey, and rarely does it go against money. Put together, America rarely, if ever, moves against incumbency and money advantages of one side.

That's why I see the right becoming even stronger over the next few elections.

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New Look
Well, I decided I wanted a new look for my blogger. It also gave me a moment to take a look at the code so I could sneak in a links page, as I found it the right thing to do as others have linked to me so far.

Anyway, I tend to like this layout a lot better. Hope you all do as well.

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Partisan Hatred
What I find amazing is how people have to find ONLY fault with someone they disliked. But their idol can do no wrong.

An excellent example of this is Jimmy Carter. Yes, he was not the greatest president of our time; he was pretty ineffective as has been pointed out. But because of this, people are convinced that ONLY bad things can be said about him.

I'm in the middle of reading "The Third Wave" by Samuel Huntington, which is a major requirement of reading of political scientists of whatever persuasion they may be. In this book, he points out something that doesn't seem to translate to the general populous because we're so set up to disregard any accomplishments of Carter. However, it is pointed out in straight-forward, NONPARTISAN scholarly work that Carter's Administration was responsible for the move to democracy of so many countries around the world during this period of time. Carter initiated the Third Wave (the third movement of countries towards democratic institutions). When Reagan came to office, he immediately went against Carter's policies and then turned around and then just adopted them, and then after a short hiatus (the part where he fought them), the Third Wave continued.

I found this fascinating because Huntington, one of the HUGE names in political science, is not a fan of Carter. It is quite obvious he could care less about what anyone thinks about Carter. But coming away from this book, one realizes that there wouldn't be so many countries in the world waving the flag of freedom if it had not been for his administration and the direction he moved our country at one particular time in history.

I don't think people are capable of looking at the big picture often. They are too consumed in their own hatred that it just never happens.

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The War in Africa
There is a huge war raging in Congo and all through Africa right now. Up until yesterday, most of America never even knew this conflict existed. However, yesterday, CNN, obviously lacking for stories, decided to cover this conflict and the west's lack of attention concerning it. Wolf Blitzer did a report and poll on this conflict. Now, this may sound like a good thing, that America is now waking up to this conflict. But as you can see from the poll, more Americans think we should be involved than not involved (although only based on about 3400 votes so far).

Here's my conflict here. Yes, I agree the war is horrible. And so far France is the only western country actually dealing with this war on its radar screen. But until yesterday, most Americans didn't even know a world war was being fought (CNN has coined the term for the war there by using this designation). So, right now, we have stupid Americans who know nothing but what they're told on television, suddenly aflamed about a war in Congo. Do they even know what side we should choose? Is there even enough information available to people about WHAT the conflict is about and WHY it has been going on for four years now with 3.5 million casualties (CNN says 3.1, but insiders have been reporting 3.5 million, including one of the experts on Wolf's show last night)? Yet, when the war speak starts up, you can be assured that someone in our government is going to pick a side, and we're suddenly going to be thrust into a media hype attack on how we must do something about this.

I say this now because none of this has started yet. I'd like to see how people deal with this situation now that I see it as suddenly showing up out of nowhere on the radar screen. I fear for our country because we are a people of little information being fed minimal information that will soon become dogma if the powers that be get the response that they are certainly trying to get.

Yes, I think something should be done. But I already disagree that we are going to be led into a response rather than be able to lead our leaders into a response that's appropriate and justified.

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Current Reading
I just started reading Huntington's The Third Wave. I wandered to the pond near where I live and sat there on a bench overlooking the water, and found myself actually facing two very young women who were sunbathing right in front of me. It took me only a few minutes to realize that I was never going to read a single word in that situation, so I wandered off to a spot near the water that didn't have the same "view" that I had a few moments before. Interesting book so far, although I'm only about 50 pages into it.

Heroes
The point of this came from a letter to an editor in the New York Times today, but I'm starting to notice it as well. We have this really bad habit of making "heroes" out of people who really aren't heroes. Right now, there's an interview going on on CNN about the Van Dam kid that was murdered, and the female reporter (with a really bad blond hair day) started by calling the two parents of the dead child "heroes." Now, I know that the death of a kid is tragic, and I really feel for the parents on this, but honestly, they aren't heroes. They haven't done anything to cause others to want to emulate them. All they did was suffer through a tragedy.

This complex of hero worship seems to have gotten kind of strange lately. National news agencies automatically made the comment that the people who died in the World Trade Center were "heroes." I didn't make that connection. The firefighters, the police, the fated passengers of the airliner that crashed due to their actions, and people who went above and beyond the call of their own safety were heroes. Jessica Lynch was not a hero. She was a soldier who got captured when her unit wandered to the wrong place. If the stories have any validity to them (which I questioned even as I first heard them), the troops that went to rescue her would be considered heroes, but possibly the one hero during this time was the Iraqi lawyer who went out of his way to help US troops find her while his own life was threatened by US troops who were trigger-happy when he tried to help them out.

There's a Greek tragedy (wish I could remember the title and author, but I just remember the line) that has the following dialogue (very close to its actual words, although it's been a very long time since I read it).

First soldier: Pity the nation that has no heroes.
Second soldier: No, pity the nation that needs heroes.

I think we try too hard to make heroes out of common people who are not really heroes. I don't think that many young people have role models anymore. I could be wrong on this, but I don't see much incentive for the youth of today to want to grow up to be the next Clinton, Bush, Sammy Sosa or Jessica Lynch. Even our great heroes of a few decades ago, the Luke Skywalkers and such, are tainted when we look at them in the media of today. The hero of the new Star Wars movies is Anakin Skywalker, and if someone glorifies that character as a hero, that young person is glorifying the eventual Darth Vader. Not exactly a lot to aspire to, almost as if Hollywood (or Lucas) is telling us that we should strive to be the hero we can, but we need to understand eventually we're going to turn against our own people and enslave everyone around us because even the good people are all bad, or something like that.

Where's Bill the Cat when we need a true hero?

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Blog readership
I'm starting to think there's just one person reading my blog, if that. I wonder if it would be a lot more beneficial to just email her information instead of fill in this blog of which no one actually reads.

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The Culmination of the Move
I was in the middle of the move today, figuring I had about 7 or 8 more trips to go before I would be done, and my friend John was driving by Spindler. He stopped and asked me if I needed help. In a few hours, everything was out of the old place (minus the fridge which needs to still go to someone), and in my new place. The move is essentially done.

Now, I just need to set up the new apartment properly, and I'll be okay. No more moving.

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Moving still
Moving is taking forever. I've got most of my stuff moved, although there is still a ton of stuff in the old apartment. My new apartment is filled with stuff, and I'm walking around junk trying to get from one spot to another. I really want to be moved and settled in, and then I'll feel like I'm really in my new place.

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Dead End Date
Well, I came "THIS" close to getting a date today. It was with one of the girls where I used to live (I believe she just moved in). It was one of those situations that seemed to be going that direction and then just sort of stalled and died.

Kind of depressing, actually.

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Moving In

I'm almost completely moved in. Isaac helped me move some of my big furniture stuff a few days ago, and now it's just a matter of me going back and forth getting the rest of my stuff. I really can't believe I was able to fit so much junk into such a small space before. It just doesn't seem to make any sense as I'm starting to fill a much larger apartment with stuff that filled a tiny room. Oh well.

Extended Warranties
Okay, this is something that has been bugging me for awhile, and only now am I actually starting to understand why. First of all, I think there's something seriously wrong with products today where they can't protect them with extended warranties anyway. Paying additional money to protect something you've bought that falls apart because the company made a lousy product really seems like I'm paying the same crook twice.

Today, as I was moving my stuff, I never realized how many boxes of "extended warranty" stuff I still had. One of the little requirements of these extended warranties (and I'll use my Xbox as an example) is you have to keep the freakin' box. I have zero need for an old Xbox container, yet in order to honor my extended warranty, I have to keep this box and the packaging within it. What a stupid policy? No wonder people collect so much crap in their lives. They're collecting trash from warranty boxes that they don't need, but they're not allowed to throw them out.

I'm making a new policy. No extended warranties on anything. If something breaks, I buy a new item, preferably from another company than the one that made the product that broke.

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Well, for reasons that really don't make any logical sense, I decided to move into my new apartment early: today. I've moved the first load of stuff over there, and of course, right after I got there, it started to rain. I think it is a no-brainer that no matter what day I decide to make a move, it rains. It's happened way too many times in the past. Oh well.

Either way, I love my new apartment. It's so much larger than what I'm living in right now, and that became so obvious when I brought the first 4 boxes over, and they barely filled a tiny little corner of the living room (but they had taken so much room in my old room). I'm probably going to take a few more loads tonight, regardless of the crappy weather.

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Stephanie gave me the idea to add a comments section to my site. So I did. Let's see if anyone comments.

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I received a royalty check from my first book today. Kind of took me by surprise. Wasn't a lot of money, but at the same time it was a lot more than I expected. For some reason, a whole ton of books sold last month. Not exactly sure as there's not much advertisement for it out there.

Anyway, if interested, it can be seen through Amazon Books. Just look for Innocent Until Proven Guilty or search under Duane Gundrum.

Sometimes we get good news without even realizing it's on the horizon.

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I found my new apartment today. First off, I went to the Herald's office to pick up my check, and then I went to the WMU Apartments desk to look into getting a one bedroom apartment. I wasn't sure I could afford to move in, but I knew that I wanted to move in at least on August 1st. I was thinking of the Stadium Drive apartments, but I wasn't exactly sure yet, and then I was told about the storage option, where I could store my stuff in that apartment while I'll be in Prague. When I heard this, I was sold on it, and I looked at one of the Goldsworth Apartments (the secluded ones), and I ran into the apartment complex's manager who showed me one of the better of the apartments while I was walking around. I decided right then and there that in two weeks (June 13th; okay, 10 days), I'm moving into my new apartment.

This is going to be so cool. Right now, I live in a one room, well, room. I've been required to share a community bathroom and a community kitchen (where I can't keep anything of my own, so I have to keep all food in my one room, well, room). Now, I get my own kitchen, my own bathroom. a living room, and a nice view of a grassy playing field. Pretty nice. This is going to be so cool.

I checked in with the political science office, and it is still unknown what I'm going to be teaching next semester, so this should be interesting. It looks like I'm going to be dropping the one community development class and just focusing on Dr. Corder's seminar class and the first semester of German. That should be good enough for me for the next semester as I imagine the teaching course is going to be taking up a lot of my time.

At least I don't have to deal with Forensics this year. I feel sorry for the team because they're not going to have an official coach anymore, and they're kind of out of funding because the university doesn't feel wealthy enough to take care of the team anymore. It's really sad because there are some really talented people, and this is essentially the university's academic football team, and they don't even care about it enough to support it. They took the National Award last year at our national tournament, and no one even knows. That's pretty sad.

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I finished reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown last night. I came away from it thinking that it was a very interesting read, and I suggest it to those out there looking for a book to read, but I also started to wonder how much of it is based on fact, and where fiction ended, because the whole book is so factual that I wonder if it's kind of dangerous to have such a book with that much fact if it happens to be laced with tons of speculative fiction. I don't know the answer to this question because I don't know where the author's creativity came in and where the facts ended, so the issues brought forth appear to be a bit dubious to me because they appear to be worthy of further investigation but it's hard to imagine where to begin or end because his factual information runs ramshod right over the fictional information. An example of something I found fascinating was something I double-checked. In Da Vinci's The Last Supper, there's a claim that one of the 13 characters is actually a woman. Well, I'd never heard of this before, so I downloaded a copy of The Last Supper myself, and sure enough, seated right next to Christ is someone that is obviously a woman, not a man. Every claim the author's protagonist made was backed up by this claim, so that it was very hard to wonder what was true, and what was not. There were further claims about the Merovigians (might be doctoring the spelling horribly on that one) with a linkage directly to Jesus, and I found this fascinating, mainly because the history of my name stems directly from that source as well. But how much of it is really true, or how much is just made up by the author.

It makes it really hard to read a book like this when such questions are not able to be answered without being as knowledgeable about the subject at the author himself, and my knowledge of Italian and French art is extremely limited to be up to the challenge.

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I was watching a CSpan live broadcast of the booksellers' convention, and there was a very interesting debate between Bill O'Reilly, Molly Ivans and Al Frankin. Granted, none of them are what I'd consider the greatest political pundits of our day, but it was very interesting to see how it was played out.

It was nothing less than an overposturing example of hatred between both spectrums of the political debates. What obviously made it worse was Al Frankin had a pre-copy of his cover of his new book, that was titled something like "Lies They Want Us To Know And the Liars That Tell Them." Or something very similar to that. The picture on the cover shows Al Frankin posturing like he usually does, and he's in front of a bunch of news screens, in which Bill O'Reilly is one of the "liars" of the four screens that are shown behind Frankin. So, this set the tone for a very abusive debate between Bill O'Reilly and Al Frankin. After the debate, there was nothing but talk about "bullying tactics" of Bill O'Reilly, and it was pretty embarassing to have watched, even if one wasn't a fan of Bill O'Reilly. But this isn't actually about O'Reilly, or even about Frankin himself. Both men were way out of line during this debate, and surprisingly, Ivans was the only one that seemed polite during this whole discussion.

But here's the issue: the very last question asked by a caller was something along the lines of: "Don't the three of you have a responsibility to at least try to communicate to the rest of the world rather than try to keep these discussions polar and never try to seek a common ground? Why can't all of you at least try talking to the American people instead of preaching at us. Why can't there be a middle opinion to communicate with the rest of America?"

The responses to this were: (yes, I'm sure you suspect it) ignore the question and talk about their personal bias towards the "wrong" side of what's being discussed. They all had an opportunity to discuss the middle ground, the area where everyone could agree, and essentially it came down to both sides indicating that this was impossible because THE OTHER SIDE is incapable of doing this. This wasn't the tactic of just the right. This wasn't the tactic of just the left. It was the tactic of both sides, and no matter what the issue, it was not possible to discuss the issue in fairness because the other side was never going to give in a single bit.

It was a very sad realization that came out of this debate. The only way to discuss any of the issues that they had was to be abusive towards the other side. Al Frankin, from his book cover alone, was abuse towards Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly, by being Bill O'Reilly, was extremely abusive to any opinion brought out by the left. There was zero communication during the debate. It was nothing but posturing and hatred towards each other. I found it extremely sad to listen to.

And then the follow up questions AFTER the debate were essentially people on both sides of the spectrum repeating allegations against the other side as well. Even the questions were designed around hatred towards one or the other side. They either loved the right, or they hated the right. They either loved the left, or they hated the left. Even the ones who claimed to be open to both opinions would finish off their question (or statement) with a hatred-bearing opinion against the other side, but I guess because they said they were neutral, it was okay to then go on the warpath.

I'm curious. Are we so far down the road towards alienation that we can't communicate anymore? I saw a lot of that attitude on many of the boards where I participate. But rather than try to communicate when it was brought out as a problem, one side would respond that it was impossible because someone on the other side was always going to be abusive towards them, so there was no choice.

Have we come that far that we can't communicate with each other anymore? Is posturing and insults all we have left?

Stumble It!