The Hanti station's card machine

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It's the little things that sometimes matter most

Since being in Korea, I've discovered that I end up taking great pleasure in findng little things that bring me a sense of finding a sense of home.

For example, I went to a blackmarket shop (not really as evil as it sounds) and found Diet Dr Pepper. I used to drink Diet Dr Pepper by the caseload with more per day than anyone ever should. I bought probably 18 cans of it (at an insane profit to the seller), and this was weeks ago. About 3 or so. I still have 4 left. I find myself happy that I have them, and that I found them. I drink one every now and then. Okay, doing the math, that's almost one a day, but it sure doesn't feel that way. I guess a few days in the beginning I had an absurd amount of them, having missed them, but it's been few really since then.

The same goes for computer games. Fallout 3 is out, and I really, really, really want to play it cause I love the Fallout franchise. But I have my laptop here instead of my desktop (who knows if I'll ever see that computer again...), so I can't really play Fallout 3 without problems. Therefore, I have to find my pleasure in other things. So, I've managed to search the web to find copies of some of the older games that used to be the greatest games ever created. Last week, I was spending my idle time playing Millennium: Return to Earth, which was one of the first great space strategy games back in the 1980s. Still a great game today. Sure, it doesn't have the graphics of today, but the game was well designed and there's a reason it took the game world by storm. Right now, I'm playing a game I remember from 20 years ago called Phantasie 3, a typical "find the evil wizard and kill him before he kills you" kind of game. I loved it way back then. I'm now loving it way back now. It's campy, mainly because it set the stage for so many other roleplaying games to come, so you can see the genius in this game because you realize so many others copied what they tried to do in this little, simple game. Peole tend to forget that some of the greatest innovations are much as Newton claimed in his accomplishments: "On the backs of giants".

My medical status has been a trial of trials. I don't even want to get into how much this has been costing me because my boss can't figure out I'm trying to tell him he needs to supply me with national insurance (which is the law). It's costing me a fortune every time I have to go see a doctor, and I'm getting so frustrated with the whole process. The woman he hired to be the office manager (and translator) speaks about as much English as he does, and neither one of them understands my attempts at Korean (because they really don't listen anyway), so I keep getting into crappy situations with this here. I had a recent scare (which isn't really completely over) with my blood sugar going through the roof because I was lacking a medication. I have it now, but the doctor didn't understand and prescribed only half the dosage necessary, which means I need this fixed soon or things are just going to be really bad. Essentially, for the last three weeks I've been living with the immediate threat of a heart attack because of my situation. I don't know if it's solved because I have no way of gauging it, although I'm doing everything I can to fix it. My vision has been really screwed up lately as a result, meaning I can barely read anything (although I can see normally elsewise. The vision appears to be coming back slowly (since I received the half dosage of the medication I was lacking), but I'm not completely confident all is well yet.

If it's any consolation, I've lost a ton of weight since I've been here. I was weighing about 170 lbs (which was way too much). I'm coming in around 154-7 these days. It probably has something to do with the fact that I walk everywhere here in Korea. Some of the walks really suck, because there are hills here that hill giants would frown upon having to walk, and they're everywhere. Also, there are no elevators that people take in the subways, so you go way down into the ground and then you walk up TONS of stairs to get back to the surface again. There are a few times where I'm completely winded and feel embarrassed because I just don't have enough energy to get out to the top of the stairs of the subway after I reach my destination. One habit I got rid of immediately after arriving here was eating at McDonalds and Burger King. Yeah, they have those places here, but you can't survive on that stuff as food. I find myself a lot happier with frozen chicken meals or Healthy Choice soups that I have discovered at Costco (which I recently discovered are sold at a local market for about the same price).

As for work, well, it's better than when I started, but it's usually chaos most days of the week. Classes start up brand new and then get cancelled later that week. And no one tells you the class was cancelled until you've finished preparing that day's lesson and are about to walk upstairs to the classroom where everyone has already been informed a day ago that the class was cancelled. That gets old really fast, and no matter how many times you complain, they stare at you as if it's not a problem (BECAUSE THEY KNEW).

As for relationships, not even thinking about that because I'm trying to fix my life first. Too many Maslow needs are necessary to accomplish before I can even think about taking care of any social aspects of my life. But I'm working on it. We'll see how things work out.

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Been told the thesis is now back on track

I really hate bureaucracies sometimes. The thesis has been turned in finally. Obviously, the secretary there at the grad school office was the one rejecting it and requiring changes (which she should NEVER have been doing as she didn't even know enough to enter the thesis into the "turn in" category when it first arrived). I talked to the grad school office today, and when I was told all was good, I mentioned that the secretary shouldn't have been turning it down, I was told that didn't happen. I said, actually, that is exactly what happened. My friend had to revise it based on THAT person. So, the response was: "Well, we're all beyond that now." In other words, bureaucracies continue to defend their entrenched membership, no matter how incompetent they are, no matter how many people are injured or killed in the process. This is why we have 10 year wars that can't be stopped. This is why we have entitlement programs that no longer serve the people but serve corrupt politicians and people who have figured out how to gauge the system rather than need the system.

I almost didn't go to UOP two years back because somebody in the graduate office totally screwed up the paperwork. The next year, some mysterious person in the graduate office seriously screwed up the paperwork for three incoming graduate students to our department. 10 years before that, some mysterious person in the graduate office screwed up my paperwork to the graudate office when I was first accepted at UOP before I gave up on the process and went to Western Michigan University instead where at least they didn't totally screw up the paperwork when trying to get through their stupid paperwork system.

So, the response to these types of situations is to sweep it up under the rug and hope no one notices. The person is NEVER disciplined, which means she'll continue doing the same thing over and over again, which keeps leading to horrific results for the client, the students.

I'm most likely graduating now. Until this entity fucks that up again somehow. I don't know how she will, but I have a lot of faith in her and the system's ability to look the other way when it ends up happening regardless of common sense or those pesky standard operating procedures and regulations they fool themselves into believing might actually cause someone to do their job correctly. Yeah, I'm really steamed right now.

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Stuck in Korea while my life is falling apart back in the states

I called the Graduate School today, trying to figure out how to pay my $100 for my graduation, and it turns out they've never received my thesis. At all. Never seen it. Don't know a thing about it. Never came in through their door. No record on file. Duane's not graduating. At all.

I don't know what happened. I was told that it was going through the usual process, that it was being formatted to fit the parameters of what the grad school needed, but the Grad School says they've never even seen it. If they would have seen it, it would have met the Nov. 15 cut off for graduation. But they have no record of it. I can't get a hold of the person who knows what's going on, so I'm pretty much screwed. I went through hell trying to finish that thesis with the final revision, and it was for no reason. I'm not going to graduate.

And I was done. Everyone approved it. And I got killed by red tape that shouldn't have ever happened.

If I could find a subway station that actually stopped at a bridge, I'd finally jump off one. I've really had enough of this ride. I want to get off.

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Link for Ameriad on Kindle

The Ameriad is now up on Amazon. You can see it here.

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The Ameriad available on Amazon's Kindle

This was something different for me, but I wanted to try it out. My latest novel, The Ameriad, is now available on Kindle from Amazon. In case you don't know, Kindle is their new hand held device that you can download books onto and read on the go. I think it's a great device, and I thought I would just try this out to see if there's any viability in using this platform for publishing.

The Ameriad, for those of you who don't know, is a humorous Greek epic that tells the story of Amereaus, one of the survivors of the Trojan War, who goes on a journey to find a new land, which will one day be called America. It took me five years to write, and there is a lot of great stuff in this book, especially if you like humor, archaeology, Greek guys who tear off their tunics to beat their chests, and gods that take themselves way too seriously.

It should be up within 24-72 hours. That's all. I'm thinking of putting the already published novels up on Kindle as well, as I do own the digital recording rights for those books, even though they were published by specific publishers for first rights. I'll see how The Ameriad does first.

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Democratic Politicians Are All Vying for High Profile Jobs With Obama Administration

President-elect Obama has a chance to be truly visionary here, or to continue to be just another politician who said what was necessary to become president. It appears, at least according to the media here, that powerful politicians in the Democratic Party are all vying for top positions in the Obama Administration. Senators like John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, plus Governor Bill Richardson are all trying to become the next Secretary of State. But honestly, why them? Why do these politicians really feel that they would make the right choice as Secretary of State?

This country is in dire need of a Colin Powell-like leader, not another freaking politician, but if things go the way that quid pro quo seems to let it, we're going to end up with a politician who paid his dues to the Democrats rather than a statesman who really paid his dues to foreign policy for this country. I'm sorry, but just because someone is a popular senator does not make that person the right person to represent our country to the rest of the world. Just because someone is good at getting legislation passed in an old boy's school network of government does not mean that person is the right individual to be negotiating with the future of America with some of the most nefarious characters in the world. We need someone with stature like Powell, not some politico that is really looking for the next rung to keep climbing up that political ladder.

So, Obama really has a choice here. He can go for the political solution, which makes him just like any other politician, or he can continue his promise of change and show us that the future is going to really be one of positive change where he puts the interests of the country in front of him, instead of behind him as an afterthought.

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The Many Fascinating Sights of Korea

One of the nice things about living in South Korea is that you get to explore new culinary delights that you cannot find in any other land. Take the photo on the left here as an example. I found this very interesting, nostalgic Korean cuisine establishment called Sbarro, which I believe translates to "the place called Sbarro". They have very authentic Korean food here like this one dish they call "pee-zah". They also have a noodle meal here they named "spa-keh-ti", which, according to a wandering minstrel I came across, told me this name was from the ancient Korean god "Spackiata" who used to keep the roads safe from falling asphalt. Supposedly, there was a rash of falling asphalt tragedies in the 2nd century B.C.

This second "only in Korea" restaurant I found is one of those that can only be found after a ten mile trek through the jungle, past the Idol of Death(TM), after sneaking past the Primitives Who Worship the Idol of Death(TM), and then over a bridge made of straw that was described in the tourist manual as "The Bridge of Faith". The Koreans call this restaurant "KFC", but I inquired inside and no one could tell me what the letters stood for. Obviously, the "K" must stand for Korea, but I'm not sure what the F and C might stand for. I tried to engage the restaurant personnel in conversation, but they kept pointing to pictures of food and then asking me if I wanted "Number One-see, Two-see," and a couple of other things I could not make out. The food I ate there tasted amazingly like what we have back in the states and call chicken. I found this amazing because in all of my travels, I have never discovered another food anywhere that has had a taste similar to chicken. Crepes d' Suzette, yes, as everyone knows almost everything tastes like Crepes d' Suzette, but nothing I've come across can even come close to capturing that unique, distinctive chicken taste. But this place did it, and I can only imagine that this recipe they used must have been passed down the ages amongst elders. This got me to thinking that perhaps this may have been the true rosetta stone to describe the migration patterns of human kind. I mean, perhaps humans did not migrate because they were seeking new lands, but because they had a special chicken recipe and they needed to spread it to other lands. Definitely something to think about. I must write a paper on this one day.

I managed to find another phenomenon in Korea that I know people back in the west will definitely find a bit curious. In November, these people here worship this strange guy who dresses in red, stands in large shopping malls and then poses for pictures with people. He has this really long beard, although no Koreans have beards of their own, and I'm not sure what he says to these people, but I get the impression he's some kind of politician because he keeps promising to give them things, and I'm sorry, but no matter how rich this guy is, no one can afford to give the amount of stuff to people that this guy is promising. These people are going to be so pissed after the election.

I did find one really curious thing about this guy. He seems to have convinced people that everywhere he stands there is snow, or some kind of white powder that appears around him. This got me thinking that perhaps he's some kind of glorified cocaine dealer, and that's how he pays for all of the presents that he promises people. It's kind of like Pablo Escobar in Colombia when he would build sports stadiums for the citizens to show them that they, too, benefited from his illegal drug deals. This guy is not only nefarious, but he sounds like he's pretty dangerous and cares little for the law and the welfare of others. When Obama takes over, I hope he realizes that we might have to go in and eradicate this guy before he hurts more of these innocent Korean people.

One thing I did discover is that his "smoke" is not real. You see these two culprits here he has working for him? They have large bottles of smoke spray, and they spray it whenever this coke dealer starts talking to the civilians. This gives the impression that there is a wave of smoke, or snow as the druggies like to call it. They've really thought this whole thing through.

Well, I thought you might all like a little trip through one of my wanderings in Korea. As you can see, I am learning a great deal of information about this very foreign land. I hope to continue to enlighten the rest of you about how foreign it really is.

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Why California's Proposition 8 (ban on gay marriage) Passed

Some time ago, I made a blog post about what the anti-Prop 8 people needed to do in order to stop Proposition 8 from passing. At the time, I was explaining that the rhetoric being used by the grass roots organizations that were coming out against the amendment was so vitriolic that it was going to cause people to create a major backlash against them, and the measure would pass. Well, the measure did pass.

But there was a secondary demographic impetus that caused the measure to pass, and it's going to be very interesting to see how people deal with this piece of the puzzle, because I can't really see a politically correct way to handle the issue without causing an eruption in the usual suspects that make up this grass roots membership. Here, I'll post some interesting information from the election, and tell me if you see a concern.

Maybe it's just me, but I see an anomaly in the data that is a glaring problem. It seems that if the proponents of a change to this constitutional amendment want to attack the issue again, that grass roots momentum is going to have to address a specific demographic that they have always kind of thought was in their pocket all along.

You see, there's an interesting dilemma here because these wannabe social activists sort of assume that African-Americans will automatically support social issues because they have been treated as marginalized, disenfranchised people for so long. But when this issue of gay marriage, or gay rights, came up, the African-American community has come out as a direct barrier to the social agenda.

Why this group is the most active supporter of anti-gay rights, or anti-gay marriage, is really for others to discuss. What is important is that the people who keep trying to force tolerance down the throats of those who don't see eye to eye with them on such issues are going to have to realize that they have a much different fight on their hands that can't be won by shaming the other side or hoping that things will just work out for their cadre, because things won't.

You see, a whole new approach is needed, or the issue will never turn in their favor. Think about this, which is what educated activists should have been thinking in the first place: The general demographic of a social activist in this country, and especially in California, tends to be a young, white college-educated female. The last characteristic is less prominent in the statistics, meaning we can level it out to approximating a young, white college-educated person. The issue is being argued as "civil rights" or "human rights". The usual rhetoric has been to condemn anyone that is against gay rights as someone who is out of touch and intolerant. Now, notice who makes up the greatest constituency of the demographic they are targeting. In other words, let me explain it: YOUNG, WHITE COLLEGE-EDUCATED PEOPLE ARE TELLING AFRICAN-AMERICAN CITIZENS THAT THEY NEED TO BE MORE TOLERANT TOWARDS OTHER PEOPLE. Now, honestly, try to sell that one. Privileged young folk are making the argument that a long-time, disenfranchised, marginalized group of people who have fought over the span of generations to achieve their civil rights THAT they need to be more tolerant of other people. Good luck with that project.

So, having said that, for reasons I don't understand because the people who should be listening never do (they always know better than anyone else because THEY "understand things better than the rest of us"). If they want to win this next time, they need to approach the African-American community with a respectful attitude and explain why gay marriage should be allowed. Attempt to shame them, you lose. Attempt to reason with them using third graders' analysis, you lose. There can be such a commonality between both sides, but as long as they keep "assuming" it's just going to fall in place, then they'll continue to lose and never understand why they lost.

I've been reading some analysis on why Prop 8 passed, and again, it seems to be a choir singing to another choir without even knowing the song.

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The Election of Obama, the Healing of America, and the Future of Cooperation and Friendship with the Rest of the World

The election was a very long one, and a lot of people are exhausted, finally getting through this process that has managed to prove how divided a nation the United States really is. We knew we were divided some time ago, when each subsequent election showed that half of America wanted one party while the other half wanted the other. In a winner take all system like we have here, that meant a lot of people being completely misrepresented by a party not their choosing. This allowed the Republicans to run the White House, and so many others to continue to control the halls of government of this once great, shining country.

But when it came to the election, people became so divided that they stopped seeing clearly. Instead of seeing people who disagreed with them as the other side of the family that loves you but holds you in check, people saw anyone who disagreed with them as enemies, as people who not only had to be defeated, but had to be disgraced, dishonored and, if possible, destroyed. This has been politics in this country for some time now, and right now, things can get better, or we'll be turning over a cesspool of political disfunctionality to those who come behind us. It's our choice, even though we sometimes make it without thinking about exactly what we are doing when we finally do it.

The United States has suffered greatly because of the misguided intentions of a few who believed they had the best intentions at heart. And they probably did. But their thinking was archaic and outdated. Their thinking was confrontation leads to solution, but that's 19th century thinking that led to 20th century destruction. The future needs to be something different, and unfortunately, people have been swimming in the same muck for so long now that they are no longer capable of thinking about alternatives other than what someone may have tried before. Unfortunately, hitting the same nail into a board only goes so far before you're just breaking wood. The future needs something different than what we are capable of achieving with our think tanks of old ways and diplomats of ancient ideas. The world has been crying out for a future direction, and all we keep hearing is old ways that rarely worked in the past as if they will somehow work some day in the future.

What the world needs is directed cooperation, not mandated imperialism or negotiated compromise. In interpersonal communication literature, one of the final achievements of success in successful communication with another person is not the predicted compromise, but an understanding with the other person that together both of you can achieve a combined learning process that leads you both to a successful outcome that is not a compromise for either but achievement for both. People still don't think that way. Even counselors rarely think this way, telling people that one person must compromise so that two people can reach a commonality (although it is usually directed at both partners, so that both compromise).

The future can be one of successful cooperation, but only if the most powerful nation on the planet realizes such a future can be achieved. Right now, we live in an era where our diplomats play catch up games with international affairs. If someone treats us unfairly, we treat them unfairly in return. If someone does something nice for us, we produce easier trade routes into our borders. That may seem, on the surface, to be the answer to achieving successful economic stimulation, but it is really only temporary, and in most cases does not produce friendships that are long-lasting but develops trade relationships that last only as long as it is economically viable for both sides. In a game theoretic framework, this means that we continue to prosper as long as our "friends" prosper, but once one of us drops out of the game, the only path usually ends up being one that utilizes either the proverbial carrot or the stick. Our paradigm does not know any other functionality.

I suggest the future needs to look at this game theoretic and introduce the idea of cooperation and generational footprinting. What this means is that our targeted friends should not just be those who do right by us, but that when we do right by those who are in our economic and political spheres of influence, we must also do right by those who are overlapping our partners' economic and political spheres of influence as well. This isn't the old "my friends of my friends are my friends" but more a directed desire to work towards friendly relationships with those who border us, and recognize changes in our relationships to where we share certain, fundamental characteristics, such as the desire to wear plaid pants (dumb example, I know). The more functions we share with this neighbor where we wear plaid pants, the more likely we are to also begin sharing other characteristics, like wearing the same kind of hat. This expands out into the cultural realm as well, so that over time we become more like our neighbors, and our neighbors become more like us.

Then we focus on their neighbors, and we look for when those neighbors (who may have very few dealings with us as well), and if we see them wearing plaid pants, we reward them by opening up functionality spheres with them so that we share more venues where we can both show off our plaid pants, so that we, too, might begin to share other attributes and then become more and more like our friends.

This is a simplistic example of the model I'm proposing, but at the same time it also leads to the ability to create long-lasting friendships with potential friends and enemies. This isn't a new process by any stretch of the imagination, but a recognition of certain mathematical principles that do exist in raw social interactions. I use a matrix application to run the interation mathematics that drives the process, but what is important is that nations that are actively involved in attempting to build stronger friendships must be as willing to recognize the change in others as well as accept changes within themselves because self-reflective entity nations have a tendency to attempt to self-correct themselves when they see change as an error rather than a natural progression of cooperative behavior.

This is kind of an offshoot of the FOT (Friendship Over Time) Theory that I created with K. Bruce, and it is going to be presented at the NCA National Conference. We sent a shortened version of the process to the Obama campaign during the last month of the election, as I felt it was important to at least make an attempt at trying to find a better alternative to the rotten ways the US attempts to conduct international relations. My guess is that our letter was either ignored, passed on to some flunky who ignored it, or treated as fan mail. Unfortunately, there are really few avenues for an academic theorist to try to make one's ideas known, especially ideas of such magnitude that would require enlightened leaders to take notice. So I just thought I would say that I at least gave it a try before realizing that in most cases, no leader ever really vies for changing the way things are, even if one's campaign is run on the idea of change.

There is a better way. Making it known is a deeper struggle than finding the solution.

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