I assert that a zombie scenario is far more frightening than robots taking over the world for three reasons. One is my belief that the forces unseen in this universe are far more powerful than the scientific ones. Second, my belief in the effects of entropy on machines and lastly the power of the allegory between the living and living dead.

Admittedly, a robot take-over is right around the corner at the rate we are headed. Robots are faster and stronger and more easily repaired than human beings. All it takes is A.I. Soon the average cell phone will be smarter than the average astrophysicist. Believe me when I say they passed the point of being smarter than the rest of us years ago. Robots would master our tools and then master us. Sure it is a totally scary scene, but it is no zombie apocalypse.

The dead rising is some seriously mythic ideas. How many major world religions have some kind of reference to some kind of undead action going down? I can think of three. Robots are probable and zombies are impossible. It is the impossible that really scares us. It takes fact to defeat the improbable monster, it takes faith to defeat an impossible one.

The fact is that machines break down. Mankind would find a way to exploit this. One good world-wide E.M..P. and then enemy is defeated. Fry everything with a circuit board and we turn technology back into our tools instead of our masters.
The real scary part of zombies comes from the allegory between what life and un-life really mean. Zombies were once people. Consider the horror of having to fight off our own son as he tries to eat your face. It could be your boyfriend really does want to take things to the next level, the one where he eats your brains.

The things we the living do for survival might make us no better than the monsters we fear. After enough time has passed in a zombie apocalypse it might be hard to tell who the real walking dead are.

In the end both zombies and robots should be marked off on the things we should mess with column. There would be no easy fix for either problem. But it is a simple truth that dead flesh reeks more than motor oil. For the olfactory horror in itself I am going to have to say a zombie apocalypse is the more bleak and hopeless future. Just ask yourself which movie was scarier; I, Robot or Dawn of the Dead? What movie offered more hope; the Matrix or 28 Days Later?

In the five semesters that I have been an opinions editor I have practically begged to hear your voice in these pages and at most I got one or two letters to the editor a semester.

Oh, sure, people love to gripe and bitch when they are gathered in smoke circles and around the water cooler, but when given a chance to make their voices heard in way that might make a difference, suddenly mum is the word.

Well for me, the bird is the word and that is the bird I am flipping you all for your apathy and laziness. It is not like I haven’t shown that I will print nearly anything in the two pages I have reign over. I have rambled on an average of 2000 words a week and you have sat silent. I have professed a litany of things both profane and outrageous and you have played the mime.

Despite what people told me couldn’t be done, I did. I printed the word “Fuck” and the word “Cunt” and have made references to killing Albert Pugol and smashing infant heads with a hammer and sodomizing you with all sorts of common household implements. Yet still the silence carried on.

I was inspired in my first semester back to school as a non-traditional student by the words of Bob Bergland when he said that college newspaper writing would be the most free place I could find as a journalist due to the fact that we are not slaves to our advertisers. The first amendment being what it is, this meant I could write and print whatever I wanted. So I did.

It was you, the student body, who let me down. This could have been a great forum where intellect and dissent came together to find solutions to real world problems, but it didn’t.

I blame you. I know I certainly busted my balls bringing you the truth as it occurred to me, but instead of taking part you just sat silent.

That is why I hate you all.

Here is why you should skip summer school: so you can live life instead.

Most folks have no choice over what they do. They have to work full-time jobs. After a certain age summer becomes nothing more than the hottest working season. If you have kids then it is even more of a problem because then you have to figure out what to do with the little beasts while you are putting in your nine to five. Summer vacation becomes nothing more than a week in the Ozarks while you max out your credit card and nearly die from heat-stroke.

The truth is that if you are the average college student between the ages of 18 and 22, then these summers are the prime of your youth. This is your time to climb mountains and swim across oceans. This is your time to live and love and laugh as hard as you can. Why sit in a stuffy classroom throughout the wild summer heat just to speed up to your adult professional life?

With modern medicine, there is a good chance you might live to 100, so there is plenty of time later to make the money. It is going to be hard to climb Mt. Everest in Depends, though, so now is probably the best time to give it your shot. It is said that “youth is wasted on the young.” Don’t prove it to be true by going to summer school.
If instead of indulging in drunken depravity you really feel the need to feed your academic bug, then at least do something cool and cultural like the semester at sea. There are any number of college programs that will take you to exotic locales and give you credit for it. How about going south and studying Español? Or taking in the Mediterranean with a stop in Greece?

Why rush to grow up when you could take the last years of your youth and innocence to sow wild oats and swing from chandeliers? Why not live life?

I will tell you why this is significant.

When I was four years old I was molested by a seven year old girl. I never looked at it that way or even saw it as anything bad as I was growing up. It mostly just involved stripping off our clothes and lots of little kisses to the places that were different on the two of us. There was no use of force or coercion, we looked at it as a game. She called the game “Humping.” I was fairly enthusiastic about it and to this day a small part of me still loves her. Wherever you are Rachel, you changed my life.

Now with the knowledge of psychology and endless hours listening to Dr. Drew’s Loveline on the radio, I know that it was molestation. It had a lifelong effect of hyper-sexualizing me. Although I played the difference for my friends, after that I knew girls really didn’t have cooties, and although I had no name for what they did have, I knew I wanted to see one again. The thing that makes me the most sad is that she probably learned that behavior from some adult teaching it to her. Often I still cry for her.

As soon as I hit puberty I was off like a rocket, grinding my loins on anything that would grind back. Statistics show that the average man thinks of sex seven times a day, for me it is just once. One long perpetually sustaining thought that occasionally gets interrupted by reality.

For me, sex was my everything. Luckily in this perverted weird world we live in, I knew I was not alone.

People are crazy about sex. It is the biggest business there is out there. For every one normal web site there are five porn sites. Sex addiction is not just an addiction for Tiger Woods. We all have a bit of the bouncing bed beast inside of us. All my life I have embraced that beast.

Now I have it on a leash.

After nine months I can see things differently than I have before. I see how many people have an addiction to touch and a neediness for company. Most people cannot sit alone in their thoughts for longer than five minutes before grabbing their phones. We rush from lover to lover these days in such a whirl that the term “serial monogamist” has become a part of the zeitgeist. We work so hard to find that happiness that happens during the three to five minute afterglow that comes with the little death. Because the truth is when that bit is done right, it is amazing.

So why resist? Because it makes those moments of passion that much more precious if they pass less frequently. Because the perspective you gain about the way people move and interact and touch is mind blowing. Because learning to live with the world without wanting to mount it is very enlightening. Because celibacy helps you see the world without living at the sexual demands of anyone.

Oh and the national infection rate of herpes is 26 percent and condoms suck. Also you can get mouth cancer through performing oral sex on someone with HPV. Might as well just keep it in your pants.

None of the above is true. April Fool’s!

On April 1, 1990, the universe played the biggest joke on me that it had ever played in my 18 years of life. I moved to St. Joseph, Mo., on that day. After that I started to see a special significance to April Fool’s Day that I had not seen before. I also realized that life’s sense of humor was indeed a dark one.

Don’t get me wrong, before 1990 I had loved April Fool’s Day. I was the first to step and pull an outrageous prank like planting ketchup packets under the seats of every toilet in school, or filling my friends convertible with popcorn. To this day I still call into work every April 1 to tell them I quit just before I show up and say “April Fool’s” with a laugh and a smile. This could be my favorite holiday just behind Halloween. Let’s face it, pranks are fun.

Also, this is a special day that glorifies the fool. Unlike America, where glorify the fool every time we turn on the T.V. Much of the world leaves that for this one special day. I have always loved the fool as a concept and it is probably my favorite tarot card. I, myself, love being a fool because it means that I can always keep learning. Besides, fools really know how to laugh; loud laughs, not the nervous snicker that the rest of society pulls off. I think the fool truly does deserve his day.

So this year, step up the prank pulling. Remember this for a day that may have sprung for the tales of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and has spread across the world. It is the day to slap the April Fish on your buddies’ backs. On this day in history the Aleutian earthquake hit 7.8 and the Royal Air Force was created. It was the day when Day Light Savings time was introduced in the U.S.S.R and the day when the Netherlands legalized same-sex marriages. It is the birthday of rapper Method Man and Chief Justice Samuel Alito. It is the day that Marvin Gaye died. It is right at the beginning of spring and the world is giving you another chance at another year. It is great to walk the world like a fool with no cares and no worries.

So go be a fool.

Pull a prank.

Happy April Fool’s day

Up until the late sixties, women in comics, even the super powered ones like the Phantom Lady or Liberty Belle, were often only portrayed in positions of weakness. Thousands of panels and pages of ladies bound to train tracks or saw machines were created so the male superhero had someone to rescue. Every hero had a Lois Lane, a girl with great courage but not enough sensibilities to keep her out of danger. Even the heroines needed a ‘him’ to complete the picture, which is sad, considering that Wonder Woman found her way into the world’s imagination in 1941 and was in constant need of her non-powered paramour Steve Trevor to be there to save her.

With this being March and therefore, Women’s History month, it is a good time to stop and look at the great girls that have made it into icons in the medium of the superhero mythos. I have selected six super woman to present to you, the reader, as a way paying tribute to female furies of the funny books. They are superheroes and they are women. Hear them roar, see them soar.
[nggallery id=15]

The simple fact is that women are the mothers of man. That alone makes them more noble than any machismo laden act of daring performed by man. In the dawn of humanity we showed a much more spiritual reverence for the matron of our lives. We lived in caves and worshipped the earth mother who kept us warm and safe from the monsters outside. Back then, a woman’s wisdom meant something greater than we understand today. Back then, being blonde put you in the company of Aphrodite and Athena.

Now we live in the dying days of the patriarchy. For such a long time the world has been run by the thinking that although you saved the women and children first they were not as important as the man. Women have been disregarded and made to play the role of victim throughout literature and all of history. Though there have been the Joan of Arc and Jane Austen types, the last two thousand years have seen a bit of dark ages for the ladies of the world. It is sad really.

We still live in a world where half the folk think the other half are the weaker sex. We still live in a world of sex slavery and the cliteroctomy. Women, themselves, still believe everything they are told by a beauty industry that hates them. We should be living in a world where the woman is worshipped as the life giver that she is.

If I can get down to the crude science of it then I might suggest that the female of the species is the biologically superior creature when it comes to complex biological systems. It all comes down to number of holes. The simpler an organism, the less holes it has for things like respiration, digestion, excretion and reproduction. Simple life forms like the hydra have one hole which they do the whole shebang through. Earthworms have an entrance at one end and an exit at the other end. Males of the higher mammal order have a hole for eating and drinking, one hole for solid excretion and one hole that handles both liquid waste and reproductive materials. The female has all that and a separate tract for urination and reproduction. The female therefore is the more evolved and biologically complex organism.

Yes, I may be a man and many of my gender brethren may be calling me traitor right now, but it is time to cast off the foolish notion that boys are better than girls. It is time to say “word to you mother.” I know that if I were stranded on an island I would rather be surrounded by women than men. In fact I think that would be alright. So here is to the ladies. In the words of another great lover of the ladies “giggity, giggity goo!”

One thing this town loves is a new eatery. If there is some place different to grab a bite of a new kind of grub then that is the place to be in old Joe Town. It is refreshing to see that after a bombardment of soulless chain restaurants multiplying across the belt highway a local small
business can still put out the best taste in new dining opportunities. It is great to know that at the corner of Patee street and 10th you can find the culinary delight of the Salsa Dog.

Photo | Dan Donan

“I retired from the post office almost two years ago now and I have owned the building for 18 years,” Wilson said.

“I let it sit vacant and rented it out and never knew what I was going to do with it,” Wilson said. “I never knew why I held on to it. I guess this is why. Through the Food Channel and food shows I tried to cipher from my knowledge what St. Joe had and didn’t have and what it needed and this is what I came up with.”

This is the kind of place that could save the economy. With six part-time employees it could grow into a chain to feed the city. Wilson is man with ideas and a vision of growth.

“I am looking at several options,” Wilson said. “Maybe expanding this building. I am also looking at some other locations on the belt or other high traffic areas.”

I suggested they come to the college.

If you are a quality consumer of the tube steak like I am, then you should know this is the kind of place you can go to get a classic Chicago Dog. Or I might suggest their latest creation. “The latest one we have come up with is called the Alamo Dog and I think it is by far the best hot dog we have,” Wilson said.

Tabby King, manager, has a different favorite. “I like the St. Joe Dog.” Wilson said.

“It has the homemade chili and the homemade salsa on it.”

King has been delighted by the reactions of their customers.

“They love it. I haven’t had one bad remark ever,” King said.

While I was last there I even disturbed random customers to get their opinion of what they had eaten. Turns out that Salsa Dog is already drawing customers on a regional level.

John McNally, an out-of-towner, made the drive north to try these delicious dogs. “We are from Kansas City,” McNally said.

“This is the first time we have been in here. We have a friend in lives in St. Joe and she recommended four places I had to eat here, and this place was one of them. I highly recommend the Alamo Dog.”

I even force-fed a few fellow employees at Plaza 8 just to spread the gospel of the greatness that is Salsa Dog. Justin Peacock, senior at Western, had a large dog with nacho cheese. “It was good!” Peacock said. “The actual hot dog was good. I see myself eating there again.”

Kenzie Hampton, Western freshman, had a small dog with nacho cheese. “It actually is really good and I normally don’t eat hot dogs,” Hampton said.

Brandon Hankins, Central High senior, consumed a large dog and some chips and cheese. “It was amazing. I love it,” Hankins said.

Western sophomore and fellow staff writer, Nick Merrill, actually ate the Alamo Dog and a side of baked beans. All he could say afterward was “Salsa Dog got me.”

With a growing client base we can hope that Salsa Dog is here to stay because the day of the dog has come. Already, Wilson knows they have impressed some names on the local market. “Johnson Control, St. Joe Distributing, Boehringer, those have been some of our major customers,” Wilson said. “They all have quite an order when they call and they appreciate us being able to come out there and deliver.”
That’s right. They deliver .

So what are you waiting for? Get some.

Last year around this time I tried to delve into various forms of media submersion and psychedelics in an attempt to try and tell what 2009 had in store for us. Wasn’t that far off, but I wasn’t right either.

For 2010, the year of the tiger, I will not be so haughty as to try and predict the immediate future. However, I will say that we are clearly in a time of change and choice, and the choices we make now will affect changes that will be tremendously felt further down the road. So this year I will predict the outcome of two paths that end in the year 2050. These are the paths of the far left and far right.

On one hand we have a path before us that runs to too far right. But where does it end? I am not certain where it ends; most likely in nuclear devastation when you consider how much firepower is out there. But here is where I see it taking us by 2050.

The great wall of America stands 100 feet tall and stretches across all of the southern border and most of the north. The National Citizens Registry tracks all its accounts through peoples’ headphones. There is no privacy anymore. In fact, the word privacy doesn’t even exist. There are little taxes but the national government provides no services outside of national defense. The military machine is mighty. The free market reigns over all and the human soul is traded like stocks and bonds. Anything you want can be bought but if you don’t have the cash, no one cares.

The road on the far left still passes the 2050 milepost and here is what I think that looks like; the one world union has stripped people of the idea of competition nationalism and fat people have been eliminated through years of a regimented eugenics program. The government takes care of your needs for sustenance and everyone has a place in the great machine. Bad words have been eliminated and so has free thought. People no longer think of themselves as individuals and work for the great hive mind. Conformity is the essence of life.

In both of these futures, one thing stands common: the rich get richer and the poor stay poor.

I say screw both the left and the right and blaze on forward into the center of the future.

I think it is time for us to look at the choices we have before us and realize that this bi-partisan bullshit is not working well. We are too big of a country now for just two ways of working. And no matter if we are ready or not, change is coming and the question has to ask if we as a people want to have our future set for us by two dueling cocks in the capitol.

This book is a fast firing flash fiction about womanhood, sexuality, exploitation, emotional evolution and the world of stripping. It is the tale of Natalie, a thirty something mother who retraces the steps of teenaged beauty pageantry and stripping to search for the first woman she slept with. The trail takes the reader on a ride through time that reveals a life of emotional abuse, squalor and eroticism.

It makes the reader think about the lives of strippers and the esteem issues inflicted on women in a world that tells them that they have to be beautiful. It asks serious questions about the effects our sexuality has on our lives.

Without becoming porn, this book looks truthfully at the world of strippers and gets quite saucy. The shifting point of view keeps the reader feeling like they are flowing in and out of the consciences of the narrator. It forces you to wonder how you would feel if you were 17 and your high school principal just walked into the strip club you work at. It keeps a dark subject light in the right places by reviewing stripper tips, like stripper tip #6: underarm deodorant glows under black light or stripper tip #11: smoking pot in the bathroom only makes the night drag on forever.

Sure there are plenty of dirty words to keep your attention and at least two sex scenes that will make you look around to make sure you are alone while you read it, but better than that is the underlying understanding of the story. It is a story about the scars sexuality can leave on us, and how those scars shape us into the sexy little beasts we become. It is also about the connections that you make in life and how things change over time. It is a story about real life and I am glad I read it.

After a national search for the right person, many on the administrative staff feel that they could not have made a better selection. Judith Grimes, dean of student affairs, certainly agrees.

“We are absolutely delighted that she chose to come out here,” Grimes said. “It was a priority of the presidents that he had someone to work with him at the cabinet level to represent students. She has a significant background in student affairs in many different areas.”

Grimes believes that the job before the new VP is a large one, but one that is made for the right person.

“We have been having regular staff meetings. She is very personable. It was time to add this position and we are thrilled to have her, Grimes said.”

The position was at the special request of the University President, Dr. Robert Vartabedian.

“We are very pleased to have Dr. Perález join us,” Vartabedian said. “She has a wealth of experience in student affairs. She already has a lot on her plate here with fairly pressing issues associated with student housing, student organizations and student engagement.”

Of course, the students may ask many questions, like where did she come from?’ Dr Perález is very open with her own origin story.

“I wanted to be an elementary education teacher and did do that for a couple of years,” Perález said. “However, when I returned to Montana from Oregon, there were no teaching positions so I took an advising job at a local college.”

After teaching and advising began to settle into her lifestyle, she saw new potentials.

“I began to realize that to impact student success, I needed to advance in my career and to do so I needed a doctorate,” Perález said. “I completed it and accepted a position as a dean of students.”

So what exactly does it mean to be vice president of student affairs?

“My position is to ensure that all voices are heard and that everyone was acknowledged,” Perález said. “This requires that the VP educate the community about the role of student affairs and its contribution to student development.”

There is a great use for someone in her position here at Western. She even feels there are areas of concern that she can help address.

“I heard some of the concerns students have about Western relative to diversity,” Perález said. “As our world and Western becomes more diverse, we need to prepare our students for a different world. As a person of color, I have traversed two cultures my whole life and my experience working at a variety of institutions has given me the opportunity to do that.”

It stems largely from the rising costs of running a University and an agreement made by the presidents of Missouri Presidents of Higher Education and the state governor.

Jeanne Daffron, provost and vice president for academic and student affairs, paints a simple picture for students to understand.

“It is agreement between the governor and the university presidents where he said I won’t cut your budgets if you agree not to raise tuition,” Daffron said. “The difficulty with that is that the dollars are constant but there has been an increase in things that are mandatory to make the school run; health care costs and increases in utilities. There are increased costs with no new money coming in.”

Melvin Klinkner, vice president for financial planning and administration, is another person who has to deal with the puzzle of how to stretch the university’s budget. “What happened is that we are in year one of the governor’s agreement, which starts July 1 through June 30 this Fiscal year 2010. The agreement with the school presidents was I won’t cut you as long as you don’t raise tuition.” Klinkner said. “The agreement for this fiscal year is he will only cut 5.2 percent as long as we agree not to raise tuition.”

Klinkner suggests a reason that this deal was made.

“Last year the legislators bought into it because there was a federal stabilization fund to fill the short fall of revenues,” Klinkner said. “Soon, the stabilization funds will be gone, and we will have to make up for them with a 5.2 percent cut.”

Considering that it has been years since Missouri Western raised their tuition, it may have been hoped that budget cuts would not be made at all. “Western has a reputation for not raising their tuition,” Klinkner said. “For the last three years we didn’t and we thought maybe that would leave us in good standing, like they would say ‘gosh, look at Western, they are keeping a tight budget and setting a good example.’ But the fact now is we should have raised tuition while we could because now we can’t.”

So, the real problem comes when we consider the needs of a rapidly growing university.

“We are in a phase now when you have to ask, how do you grow a university, how do you hire staff, expand classrooms, all that kind of stuff, when you have tuition caps,” Klinkner said. “Suddenly you can’t add staffing or give raises.”

University President Robert Vartabedian considers it better than nothing at all but sees the potential for future problems.

“Given the various alternatives, it was our best option,” Vartabedian said. “Of course, without the added revenue of a tuition increase, Missouri western will need to do a lot of belt tightening.”won’t cut you as long as you don’t raise tuition.” Klinkner said.

“The agreement for this fiscal year is he will only cut 5.2 percent as long as we agree not to raise tuition.”

Klinkner suggests a reason that this deal was made.

“Last year the legislators bought into it because there was a federal stabilization fund to fill the short fall of revenues,” Klinkner said. “Soon, the stabilization funds will be gone, and we will have to make up for them with a 5.2 percent cut.”

Considering that it has been years since Missouri Western raised their tuition, it may have been hoped that budget cuts would not be made at all.

“Western has a reputation for not raising their tuition,” Klinkner said. “For the last three years we didn’t and we thought maybe that would leave us in good standing, like they would say ‘gosh, look at Western, they are keeping a tight budget and setting a good example.’ But the fact now is we should have raised tuition while we could because now we can’t.”

So, the real problem comes when we consider the needs of a rapidly growing university.

“We are in a phase now when you have to ask, how do you grow a university, how do you hire staff, expand classrooms, all that kind of stuff, when you have tuition caps,” Klinkner said. “Suddenly you can’t add staffing or give raises.”

University President Robert Vartabedian considers it better than nothing at all but sees the potential for future problems.

“Given the various alternatives, it was our best option,” Vartabedian said. “Of course, without the added revenue of a tuition increase, Missouri western will need to do a lot of belt tightening.”

After a year of this, I decided to go to Missouri Western State College. When this all began, it was 1992 and I was 20 years old with fire in my soul and ravenous beasts in my pants. I had no major, no direction and was saddled with a temporary advisor who I never saw past the day I signed up on late registration. By 1994, I had failed out of college. No one’s fault but my own, I know, but I was young and every night it seemed there was a party that lasted until sunrise and another skirt for me to chase down the path of irresponsibility. In time, I was suspended and left out in the cold with a student loan that needed repaying.

For a while, I dropped off the grid and wandered the world learning about the life they don’t teach you in college. In time, the IRS had seized enough of my income tax returns to pay off my defaulted loan. In time, life happened to me full force. I loved, I learned and I lived by my own terms.

When I decided to give up my nomadic ways in my late twenties, I settled in St. Joseph close to my family. I started a family of my own. I took up the trade of a bartender and quickly realized how counter productive it was to stable parenting. By the time my son was in the third grade, I decided to go back to school myself. That is when I discovered the Griffon News.

Since then, it has been a love/hate relationship of epic proportions for me. After two semesters of being just another staffer taking ENG 210 who realized that these suckers would let me write my most inane and audacious words, I ended up as the new opinions editor. From there, I rose to EIC and crashed back to staffer only to end up with another two semesters as opinions editor. I raised the standard to two weekly pages of opinions. Every week, no matter what, I poured my heart and soul into those two pages and I know that there are those out there who love me for it.

For those of you who I can call fans, I am sad to say that I may not be back next semester. I no longer am getting financial aid and being a single dad is hard enough without trying to dedicate yourself to working full-time and going to school part-time. The truth is I have failed a class or three along the way and also took too many classes that have nothing to do with my major. I know that sooner or later they are going to give me the boot just like when I was a dumb kid.

In my defense, these last three years have been the hardest years of my life. I lost two great family matriarchs, I spent over a year wracked with testicular pain that ended in a surgery that left me with scars that sometimes still hurt today. I survived a car crash and swine flu. I went through the break up of a 12-year relationship. I am ending this three year cycle with a lung fungus that robbed me of my voice. Like I said, it hasn’t been easy, but through all this, every week except for this one, I brought you two pages of quality opinions. I made you laugh, made you mad, sometimes even touched your heart and I always told the truth.

All my life, people have told me that college is all about showing that you can work within the system, that you can jump through the right hoops and follow the rules. When most people don’t even end up working in the field which they majored in, and people wonder “why do I need algebra when I am going to be historian?” It really does show that colleges have become nothing more than indoctrination centers for the new citizens of the machine.

Some people were not meant to succeed by jumping through hoops. I have too many credits that do not go toward my degree, too many philosophy and sociology courses that I thought would be fun to learn about. Despite that these classes added to my greater knowledge of the world, Missouri Western frowns upon them because they do not help me graduate quick enough to look good on paper.

Soon I may be a college drop out yet again, a sad loser destined to work in the bottom feeding world of consumer service for minimum wage while trying to pay off a loan that leaves me even poorer. Anyone who reads my words senses the potential I have, but because I have trouble with things conventional I may not be able to complete my degree. Sure, most people thrive as members of the herd, but some shine only when they can follow their own path, but the system has no place for individualists, and that is why the system doesn’t work.

The artists, musicians and actors of Potter Hall might be known for getting down quite passionately but do it in a small elevator, one of the smallest on campus. When you step into it, first thing you might notice is that it takes a long time for the door to close. Like the act of opening up to you, or shedding the clothes, deserves applause even before the performance. Which once that begins, you feel the movement immediately, it quickly responds, makes a rushing noise and then it is over. Seven seconds and it is over and it takes another six seconds for the door to open, once again, it makes you feel like it is waiting for applause. At least it is very clean.

If the elevators are any indicator, the athletes of the Looney Sports complex are quite eager. Doors open right up and close right away. That elevator is ready to get down. You feel the drop and the hustle with a little bump at the end. It is the quickest ride on campus.
Wilson building has a tiny little elevator that takes 10 seconds to open the doors after you press the button.

There is no sound or movement at all, just a slight hiss and a little shimmy at the end.

The scientists of the Agenstein building might be the elevator with the most personality. The doors jump right open, it rattles and its big. It promises 4 floors but only takes you to three. A slight bit of motion, a strong fan, a squeak and shake and one final bump and it is over. It takes a while for the door to open like a lover that does not want to let you go.

The Blum Student Union has a smooth opening door, clean and new on the inside. It varies in the riding style with a little bump and slight motion, a shuffling feeling to begin with, and a big bump and a small bump at the end.

Spratt is newer and fancier and has the largest capacities. Door closes with a creak. The ride is very smooth with slight inertia. It rumbles at the end. Popplewell is really slow. It is slow to open and slow to make its move. It is tiny and old. There is no lifting feeling but a slight roar with a big bump at the end.

Murphy is newer and clean , gives a hiss and a grind with little feeling of movement and the final bump is small with a creaky door to let you out. The Hearnes center makes grinding noise with no post bump, a little rattling and looks the rattiest. Eder hall is big and old. You feel the shuffle, and there is one final bump as it slows down, you can feel the deceleration.

Born of the fury of a gamma bomb, the Hulk is a creature of rage and strength whose emerald skin is capable of withstanding the onslaught of heavy artillery fire. His leg muscles are so powerful they can propel the Hulk and his girth of 1040 lbs. to a distance of near three miles in a single bound, which is significantly farther than the height of a tall building.

The key power of the Hulk is that the madder the Hulk gets, the stronger the Hulks gets. How does it make you feel when someone punches you in the face? It pisses you off. It does the same thing to Hulk which only makes him stronger. The only chance that Superman has of beating the Hulk is unleashing full power from the first blow, which he wouldn’t do because he is too big of a boy scout. In any normal brawl, the Hulk is going to keep getting stronger the more Superman beats on him. This will lead to the eventual beating of a Kryptonian ass.

Sure, Superman has all those extra powers that the Hulk doesn’t: heat vision, super hearing, super ventriloquism but none of that matters in a beat down. What matters in a beat down is just how much damage you do and how much you can destroy which comes from getting stronger as you get angrier.
Here is their battle in 200 words.

Superman is flying over the New Mexico desert when he sees the emerald monster ripping up chunks of Route 66 because he just got hit by a car. Faster than a speeding bullet the man of steel barrels into jade jaws with the force of a missile and sends the Hulk skipping across the desert like a stone over water. This makes the Hulk angry and as Superman closes in for a second attack he is struck with blow just short of Doomsday’s power.

Superman would then realize that this would be a battle that he had to give all he has and the slugfest that would be engaged would shake the desert. The impact of their fists would ring bells on both American coasts as both warriors tear into each other with power of Titans. Superman’s speed and intellect would give him the upper hand as he beat the beast into a broken and bloodied mess. At this point, his boy scout code would kick in and he would enter a crisis of remorse about how close he came to actually killing a living being. His mistake because while he is crying, the Hulk is still getting angry from the pain of ruptured organs and as he gets stronger and adrenaline surges through him, his body heals.

It is all over from there. Hulk is now far stronger than Superman and he attacks with such ferocity that it is apparent why he is called the Savage Hulk. His berserk rage is not sated until Superman is a primary color smear across the landscape.

This was a significant historical event that should be honored the world over. This is not just a day that Germans should be concerned with. This was a day when history was rewritten, and the map was redrawn.

Kids these days don’t remember the influence the cold war had on daily life. In the modern world of terrorist extremism, most people forget the power of the red spectre that haunted so many nightmares.

Most people my fathers age, those from the ‘Duck and Cover” generation, were raised with the menace of the Red Scare and appreciate the falling wall for what it is worth. They remember a time when people whispered, “Better dead than red.” Kids today have no sense of history.

It makes me want to gouge their eyes with dirty syringes. If we fail to learn from and appreciate history, we risk losing what little culture we have left. You would think in a time of such grand globalism that we might make a holiday of the fall of the Berlin Wall but no, we have national Speak like a Pirate day and National Coming Out Day.

When I was 11 years old, I had a chance to see the wall while it was still strong. It was massive and dark and made me feel worried that I could pass to the other side and never get a chance to see my family ever again.

I peeked through the gates and saw a world of grey and depression. I saw a world without hope. Today, that has all changed, and I think it is sad that we don’t celebrate it.
Cheers to the fall of the wall.

Walking Dead was meant to be an ongoing story of human survival. It is all that and more. It is a masterpiece of human tragedy and triumph. It has tears and fears and thrills and chills and zombie children and even a few laughs, like when two American men talk about the NFL 6 months after the fall of society. This book is so brutally honest about the spirit of mankind and the horrors that we can survive that I want my 10-year-old son to read it when I think he is ready.

The most remarkable thing about this story and the thing most relevant to Halloween is the ongoing theme of the line in which a man becomes a monster. On Halloween, people put on masks and run around often portraying their true natures. In daily life, we put on masks to hide the scary and unpleasant thoughts from the world around us. In a time when the dead walk and mankind has fallen, people quickly become the monster inside.

When the veneer of society and civilization fall away what will you behave like? A man? Or a monster? When it comes down to protecting you and yours, how far would you go? Would you bite off a person’s nose? I would. Would you rip out their throat with your teeth? Would you become a monster to protect what you love?

The Walking Dead might just be the best thing I have read since Y the Last Man on Earth. I think I want the world to read it so much that I am going to run around biting people until everyone has read it and asked themselves the questions it begs you to ask yourself like; am I really living now? Or would I go that far? Would I survive?

Halloween is among us once again. The Great Pumpkin is walking the night with Sam Haine and a chill is creeping through the air. The spooky things have come to play and we love it. It is time to celebrate. It is a great time to treat yourself to a good read. If you like zombies and human drama and sad endings and real people and lots and lots of horrific violence, I would suggest the Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman. Read it with horror and wonder.
Happy Halloween, folks and better yet, trick or treat!

Being able to log into Myspace, Facebook or Twitter, or any other social Web site out there, allows one to connect with people who they might not be able to talk to in their local geography. It is true that we are moving into the global one world village and internet socializing is what makes it all possible. Through the internet, I can share jokes with hucksters in Hawaii, exchange recipes with real people in Rwanda and swap naughty pictures with all those lovely Ukrainian women out there.

These are not things I could do if my social scene was limited to St. Joseph. Through the internet, I have been allowed to catch up with kids I graduated high school with twenty years gone now. I probably never would have reconnected with most of these people if it were not for internet socializing.

Back to the concept of globalism. This world we live in has truly become a smaller place. News travels far faster now than in the days of analog television dialogue. Internet socializing allows you to be a part of that exchange process.

Internet socialization is perfect for those who do not have the loudest voice in mixed company. Internet socialization is great for ugly people. And for someone like me, right now, afflicted with this damnable swine flu, eyes burning, guts clenching, shivering and sweating at the same time, I can still seek out the internet for the presence of a person so I can know I am not alone in the universe. And this way no one has to watch me cough up a lung.

How do you sleep with yourself at night? I am sure you do it on a very expensive, very comfortable bed, but all the same, how do you settle in knowing all the harm and evil the corporation you run creates? How do rest your head on a pillow when you might be responsible for a world that is getting fatter and fatter? It might be because your purse is so heavy that carrying it around just really tuckers you out.

At this point I am sure you are thinking, “what great evils am I in charge of? I have broken no laws.” It doesn’t take a broken law for evil to happen. The most insidious crimes are the kind that no law has ever even been written for. The worst crimes are the ones that no one realizes are a crime at all. This is the kind of evil I attribute to you.

I can remember as far back as three years old being given a soda to go with my dinner. Of course, I would fall in love with that sweet syrupy taste. Then, growing up and being bombarded with commercials telling me how great your product is, commercials designed to make me want to drink more, I couldn’t help but to want more and more. Now, I am a fat man in my late 30’s and I have trouble going a day without filling a 44 oz. styrofoam cup with the sickly sweet nastiness that is Pepsi.

I look around at a world of people getting fatter and fatter every year. I know I can’t blame it all on your product, but I also cannot excuse you from being part of the obesity equation. This is not just a matter of will any longer. This falls full well into the realm of addiction. The perfect product keeps people wanting more. How is it acceptable by any standards that getting kids addicted is all right with anyone?

When faced with a future of increasing diabetes rates and a market where it is cheaper to get a can of Pepsi than it is to get a bottle of water or juice, I can’t help but to want to curse your name just a small bit. Maybe it is time for the black waters of capitalism to be damned up before we all drown in higher health care costs. Knowing that no one will do that, all I can do is write you this letter and ask you; How do you sleep at night?

Dan Donan

Look at the kids today and you can see it happening. No one is interested in the classics anymore, much less reading in general. History has become a thing of the past. Most teenagers cannot sit alone in their own thoughts for longer than a few seconds before they are reaching for their phones to fill the empty silence of their heads. At schools today kids are taught how to use tools to put the information in their hands but not how to figure the information out on their own. What happens when all the tools break?

Doesn’t the notion of becoming a nation of mental midgets terrify anyone else but me? Because I am scared. I am hiding behind locked doors, armed with pig flu and ready to take offensive against a country that is going rapidly retarded.

With dropping scores in science, math and reading, America is quickly falling out of its position as top of the world. These days we produce more leisure management and physical therapy majors in college than we do nuclear physicists. We are quickly replacing the Polish for being the butt of stupid jokes. We have even developed a perverse pride in our own stupidity. We love shows like America’s Dumbest Criminals and Jackass.

The true shame should be in the fact that everyone here is so much more privileged in the amount of information they can receive than the rest of our global brothers. You practically have to work not to learn in America, but somehow we still have so many that seem to do just that. The trouble becomes when the rest of the world decides they want to follow in our footsteps as they inevitably always do. Soon a “global dumbing” occurs that leaves us with a planet full of nitwits. How can this end well?

Something needs to happen to celebrate real intelligence in this country. Out on the internet is a post that invites you to challenge yourself by taking an eighth grade exam from 1895. I would fail. Most college students I know would fail. This can’t be a good sign.

I get that all you have to do is Google or KGB the answer these days. But what happens when the lights go out or when power fails? One thing more people might understand if they were better educated is the concept of entropy. All things break down, even the mighty world wide web. When that happens, wouldn’t it be nice if the kids of our country were able to know what to do without asking someone else? Keep in mind that the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow and the ones who end up getting to pick out your nursing homes.

I have been very impressed with the work you have done to improve the university both in function and in form. I am particularly impressed with how many more international students have taken to calling Missouri Western State University their new home. This is something you stated as a goal and then went and made happen. Impressive. You are definitely a happening kind of guy.

Since you have a way of making things happening, I write you this letter about something I think needs to happen. I think there needs to be more help out there for non-traditional students to get back in school. For those kids in high school, it is easy. There are multiple hands helping one along because that is what you are supposed to do after high school: go to college. But for some people, life didn’t time itself that way. I have heard it said that if you do not go to college fresh out of school, then there is less of chance that you ever will go. Maybe that would not be true if there was more help to get into school for those who missed the boat the first time around.

With the tough economic times, more people are supposed to be turning to higher education. With all the stress of already living in the adult world, does getting back into school have to be another great challenge?

It just seems to me that there are probably lots of lost sheep out there looking for a shepherd to find them.

I think you could make a great shepherd.

Thank you for your time
Dan Donan

P.S. That donating your raise deal: pretty cool in my book.

See, this is how it starts; a big brained business man realizes that he wants to make every dollar he can and, therefore, not lose a single customer. Soon, the customer realizes that the business wants to go out of the way to win his wallet’s worth and then he becomes harder to please. He knows that he can he can get what he wants with bad behavior because some ass hat once came up with that silly slogan; the customer is always right. I wish I could find the originator of that piece of sycophantic rubbish and horrifically sodomize him with a high powered staple gun.

Customers now believe that they can get free stuff simply by making a big stink. I have seen some of the worst behavior rewarded with complimentary dinners. I have been berated for the lowliness of my station and watched the offending orifice end up with free service. Only the fear of the law and losing my job kept them from getting the reward they really deserved.

It comes to down to greed because businesses just don’t want to lose a single dollar. There comes a time when it must be said: “Your business is no longer needed. I have made enough money.” When I first started working in 1987, it was common to see a sign in a store that said, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” You just don’t see those signs anymore. It is a shame really.

Jobs that pay minimum wage are hard enough to want to keep without the rest of the world deciding that they will heap their disdain upon you just because you are on the bottom of the barrel. I hope and pray for a day when the mass mind of human consciousness sends a signal to the service industry that it is time to stand up and say, “Get off the cell phone while I am waiting on!” Long live the service industry revolution. Let the heads roll.

The simplest proof of this is in our front yards. A good neighbor is still determined by how neat and trim they keep their yards. In California alone, there is a massive use of water going to the sole purpose of watering the grass in yards that shouldn’t exist in such an arid environment anyway. Once this grass reaches a certain height, the owners of said property go out and mow it down. What was the point? If we really were interested in greening the world up, then we would just let the damn grass grow. But that would be unsightly.

When it comes down to it we are really too concerned with comfort and aesthetics to embrace a truly green lifestyle. Think about cars. We love cars, and while we may be finding ways to make cars more green, we avoid the idea of using animals to get us around again. Horseback takes a long time and it is hard on the rump. Zeppelins take too long to get from point A to point B and have a habit of bursting into flame. The fact is technology and progress just are not green things. No matter how we work to make them green, there is still some impact that is made on the environment around it.

It is all about how much compromise we can tolerate. Cars kill more people every year than swine flu, but we are not making people give up their keys. If a medicine had the same death rate as automobiles, then it would be yanked from the market. But no, we want our wheels. We are willing to turn our heads and accept a little sacrifice.

The truth is that to live green, we would still be running around playing “me Tarzan, you Jane,” while wearing loincloths and picking the flees from each others hair. The strong would survive and the weak would be wiped out. We wouldn’t have houses or game-stations or toilets or old people or cars or beds or phones. I am cool with that. Are you? I would miss the old people.

In the early 80’s, the punk band called the Dead Kennedy’s released a song called “MTV Get Off the Air.” The basic protest was that once you saw a music video, it burned another person’s vision of what that song looked like into your skull. Forever more when you heard a song, in your head you saw the video. The idea is that music videos would destroy what is left of human imagination. In many ways, porn has done the same thing to our sexuality.

In the early 1980’s, when I first started shoplifting to get my porn fix, there might have been a girl on girl pictorial every third issue. This gradually began to increase until it got to the 1990’s when there was some girl on girl fun at least once and issue. Now I can’t even go to a party without seeing some attention starved debutante that makes out with another girl just because it is 2 a.m. and no one was paying attention to her. Madonna and Brittney Spears locked lips in front of the world at the 2003 MTV VMA’s and the world yawned. The evolution of pornography has made the taboo commonplace.

Man-love would have once sent most men screaming into the closet, but after Brokeback Mountain man-love became in. It would have never gotten that way without porn. Years ago I never had to worry when working a fountain machine and in offering someone a Dr. Pepper, I might joke and say “so you like some DP do you?” Thanks to porn, too many people now catch the thinly veiled innuendo.

Mankind has shifted the way we make love to one another just by the guidance of dirty movies. Things like reverse cowgirl and doggie-style have become commonplace phrases and practices. BDSM and other sex fetishes that were once employed only by the freaky fringe are now the play style of many normal folks. Porn has made this possible.

Now I am the last person to suggest any restraints on the first amendment. Porn should not be restricted by any law. But I am beginning to wonder if maybe it is time for mankind to ask himself if we really need to watch Debbie do it again. Do we really need to give up control of our darkest most secret naughty spaces to profiteering and pornography?

What might be the best browser game out there ends up being free. Evony has picked 5 million users since April of this year. I have been tending to my bonsai tree of browser games faithfully since that time. I have already lost two cities and relocated twice, but I keep working to build up my horde of cavalry and ballista so that Lord Donan can lay waste to all of Server 3. It really is a bonsai. Step by step becoming a tiny work of art.

The game is easy to figure out with a series of quests meant to train the user on how to tend to their kingdom, collecting taxes and winning loyalty, all the while defending your peoples from any number of martial incursions. You can build up to ten cities; I prefer just tending the one.

With a quick chat band it is easy to get tips from others that playing the game as well. The modular form of the cities does allow for some variation in the design of your city. You could build a city with three barracks for extra army growth or a city designed for commerce and then you can rule at the always active market place. You can hire and fire heroes to lead your people and you can gamble on the wheel of fortune. I just won an iron rake with an amulet I saved up.

The beauty of this game is that if you are the kind of person that is online a lot during the day, all you have to do is favorite it, and all day long you can pop in and out of your little perfect kingdom. In the morning you can start your scholars training in the academy, at coffee break you can start recruiting heroes, at lunch you are building your walls up and at dinner you are appointing a new mayor. By bedtime you are conquering a new city.

This game really does rock for those that are into this sort of thing. I wish more of my friends were. I guess if anyone reads this article, you can come find me in land of Bohemia, ruling over Gotham City, right next to the flag 420.

I have heard it said before that money is the root of all evil. I don’t buy that, even at a discount. Money is just a tool for measuring wealth. It is a tool just like a hammer, drill or a cement mixer. Tools are neither inherently good or evil; they simply are. The good or evil is in the hands and hearts of the people who use them. I can build a house or bash a baby’s skull with a hammer.

The evil that is often associated with money is simple greed. People simply want too much money. There is never a point where there is enough money to keep someone happy, not if they know that there is some more out there. Famed Indian activist, Mahatma Gandhi, once said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” If you think about it, there is enough money out there that we can all have a fair share if the top ten percent shared a small fraction of what they have.

Oh, no. I just made a statement that sounds like another evil: “Socialism.” That is certain to get everyone scared. I actually don’t think the law should do anything about the few greedy pigs who hold all the cash. Ethics should never be legislated and neither should commerce. But people should realize what an act of greed and selfishness it is to not want to share. People like that are bad people. If you piss off enough people, you tend to get what’s coming to you.

There is an American Indian proverb that goes something like this: “A Native American grandfather talking to his young grandson tells the boy he has two wolves inside of him struggling with each other. The first is the wolf of peace, love and kindness. The other wolf is fear, greed and hatred. “Which wolf will win, grandfather?” asks the young boy. “Whichever one I feed,” is the reply.””

We have so much, and the system that supports tells us we want to have more. If want is all we are feeding the wolf, then one day the wolf will only know want. On that day, I hope he bites us. Maybe then we can come to our senses and appreciate how much we already have.

The fact is that the American lifestyle of excess and ultimate comfort is making us greedy, sloth-like and spoiled. If something is not done about it soon ,we may end up as the metaphorical ass of the world. It starts with you. Ask yourself how many shoes do you really need? How many cars? How many houses? Because somewhere in the Sudan is a little boy happy to just have a roof.

Lonnie Johnson, director of facilities, feels that the progress of the project is moving along satisfactorily.

The Dilley family enjoys an afternoon fishing at The Everyday Pond near the back entrance of Missouri Western. The pond’s fountain was added as part of the beautification process headed by President Robert Vartabedian and funded by private donations. Photo: Matt Fowler

While beauty does have its price, Western was able to set up these projects on a fair budget.

“All of this came in on our best bid,” Johnson said. “We got two three-horse power pumps and one five-horse power pump, all for under $15 grand. We spent three grand on wiring and conduits.”

To save on costs, staffing of such a project is very limited.

“We are doing it all with our own mechanical guys,” Johnson said. “We have one plumber, one electrician, and three HVAC guys and their supervisor. The installation went very smoothly. Our mechanical folks are pretty sharp. They get to the job and git’r dun!”

So it might be assumed that if the fountains came under such a good price they are just normal, every day, fountains. Johnson could dispel those thoughts.

“We are using interchangeable fountain heads so we can alternate the pattern, height and size of the fountains,” Johnson said. “Dr. Vartabedian has put great emphasis on the beautification of the campus.”

So why all the effort put forward to primping up the place? University President, Robert Vartabedian explains that it is a matter of spending donated money put in place for such projects.

“First of all, we are using primarily external money for these efforts,” Vartabedian said. “Specifically, we received two donations from an alum designated for the new entrance sign at Faraon and McCarthy. We really could not use this money for anything else.”

“Similarly, we received a substantial donation from a corporate benefactor for other beautification efforts–essentially for general signage but also for additional evergreens and pond fountains–as the money holds out. Finally, the new piece of outdoor art by professor James Estes that is about to be unveiled was graciously donated by Estes,” Vartabedian said. “So, you see that nearly all of the expenses associated with our beautification efforts have been covered by external, donated money that was given for that specific purpose.”

With Western facing different financial problems, a question raised is if focusing on such “skin deep” projects will really be effective in such finically important times as now?

“I believe there are various reasons to take pride in the look of our campus and to move forward accordingly,” Vartabedian said. “Of course, all of this should be done within reason–particularly in tough financial times. I think that the benefits of enhancing the look of our campus are numerous. Enrollment management experts tell us that the ‘look of the campus’ is one of the three leading factors influencing a student’s decision to go to a given university–along with financial circumstances, and general reputation.”

The idea is that the students and staff will also benefit from the new found beauty.

“Also, I believe that our students, faculty and staff deserve an attractive educational, working environment,” Vartabedian said. “ In the various groups that I have talked to….they seem to appreciate this as long as it does not get out of hand or sacrifice other important educational needs. As noted, I believe that our beautification efforts so far have not been done at the expense of other improvements.”

It is really a question of effective management of open space. No longer does Western have to be seen as the school out in the sticks.

“Finally, as a relatively new university (since 2005), I think that it is in our best interest (community image and otherwise) to look the part,” Vartabedian said. “Given the amount of space we have (740 acres)–the beautiful green spaces here, and the curvature of the landscape–we have the potential here to have an extremely attractive campus. If it is supported by the university community, I just want to take advantage of that potential. Few universities that I have seen have the kind of potential that we have here at Missouri Western.”

The true question is: are the students aware of the changes being made around them? Jennifer Kohler, former SGA vice-president, states the answer is a definitive yes.
“It’s kind of hard to see it now, but the campus is really coming along with its renovations,” Kohler said. “It’s hard to look past the piles of dirt and machinery, but once Remington Hall and the Chiefs training camp facilities are finished, we’re going to have a top-quality campus with really unique features. It’s something that young and perspective students should look forward to.”

Dante Lammoglia, senior, is inclined to agree.

“Well I’m really excited for the campus beautification,” Lammoglia said. “I’ll be honest, when I was little, being ‘stuck’ at Missouri Western was a joke. It was insulting. But now… I can’t describe how proud I am to be a Griffon!”

University President, Robert Vartabedian, made the suggestion to the board of governors at the last closed session.

“We were very happy to make this ‘official’ as of our board meeting on Thursday, August 27th,” Vartabedian said. “I was quite pleased that she was willing to accept our position as provost at this particularly important time in the university’s history.”

Vartabedian is quick to demonstrate why Daffron is the person for the job.

“Dr. Daffron has served Missouri Western extremely well for 32 years,” Vartabedian said. “She has held numerous, important administrative positions here. She has been heavily involved in our community including serving as the past chair of the St. Joseph Area Chamber of Commerce. Finally, she has been the recipient of an impressive list of teaching, administrative and community awards.”

Daffron has worked in a number of positions at Western, including faculty in the nursing program, department chair of nursing and dean of the College of Professional Studies. She has even served as interim provost before Joseph Bragin was selected and again after his recent departure. In some sense this job could be old hat to her.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it old hat,” Daffron said. “I do have some advantages from knowing who to call, or who knows about what. I know how this university works.”
So how does the new number two feel about the job?

“I guess I would just like to say that I am honored to be the provost at Western,” Daffron said. “I am so proud of Western and look forward to playing a role in the exciting future of our university. The support that has been expressed by many students, faculty and staff is truly appreciated. There are so many who give so much every day to make this a great place to learn and work.”

It is not just at Missouri Western that this phenomenon is occurring, look at the big daddy of respected universities, Harvard, and you will find that since 2001, 15 of the 24 top administrative positions have had at least one change of who the person in power is. It is almost as if our television induced, 20-minute attention spans have now infected our powerful people’s desire to stay in one place, working for one company or supporting one idea. Say what you want about the immoral practices of the Mafia, but at least they have a concept of loyalty.

One of the things that I respect about the new university president, Vartabedian, is that when I have spoken with him about his plans, I can tell he is thinking about the big picture for the school and he has long-range plans. You don’t make long-range plans if you are planning on skipping out in a few years. When I talk to handsome Bobby V., I get the feeling that he is here to stay and that makes me feel secure.

The best sense of security I had was learning that Jeanne Daffron has been named the new Provost of the university. Now here is a person that has shown she can be depended upon to stick around and see things through. In fact she would get mad at me if I actually said how many years she has been working for Western, but believe me when I say it precedes the year that the Berlin Wall crumbled to the ground. She has played many roles in her time here and learned more than a few ropes. She knows who to talk to about what, and has a way about her that makes you want to smile. She has been on campus so long now it would not surprise me in the least to learn that she even cares about the brick and mortar in the walls as much as she cares about the student and administrative body.

The human body can only survive a heart transplant so many times, no matter how good the new heart is. Missouri Western could use a heart that sticks around for a while and from what I have experienced of Daffron, she is all heart. May that heart beat long and strong for many years to come. If Daffron is the heart for the tin-man of Western, then Vartabedian is the brains for the scarecrow, and you, the student, are the curious girl and her little dog, too. Lucky for you, I have the courage of the loin when it comes to writing the truth and I am here to roar for you. It is starting to feel like Missouri Western is finally ready to follow the yellow brick road.

As I came into the Student Government Association (SGA) office last April as your 2009-2010 Student Body President my primary goal was to take that similar passion we all share as individuals and strengthen it by creating unity and transparency in our government, SGA.

In my first few weeks as SGA President I struggled to make our campaign slogan,–“Get Your Voice Back!”–a reality. I sat in my office considering new ways to get more people concerned about campus issues, but I couldn’t seem to think of any miraculous solutions. I was forgetting that students already have deep concerns about issues, and simply don’t know the means they can take to get their voice heard!

As your SGA President this year I want to create new mediums to connect with you, and make everything SGA does more transparent than ever before. We are all Griffons and care about the campus that brings us together. It is about time we are given the chance to share that passion with others. We might not know every answer to a concern you have, but there are always means of finding solutions. This semester our main objective is to find ways to help you. Every concern is important.

I want to close by letting everyone know a little about what my Executive Board and I have done over the summer to create a closer connection to the Student Body. First off, SGA now has an official Facebook group that will be utilized to communicate with students about events around campus and display concerns that students may have about University issues. Currently the group has over 750 students, but I’d like to see that continue to grow. The Facebook group name is: MWSU 2009-2010 Student Body (SGA Updates).

Another way we are working with students is by personally and immediately addressing concerns as they come up. My office is in Blum 217, and my door is always open to address issues. If I’m in class or attending other business you can always get me via e-mail at jtodd2@missouriwestern.edu or even my personal cell phone at 816-509-5692.
There have already been several issues we’ve dealt with, and I’ll go into more of that in my next address in the Griffon News. For now, however, I want to welcome everyone back to Missouri Western! Have a great year, and I look forward to hearing from you!

Josh Todd
SGA President

Joseph Bragin is now no longer a part of Missouri Western’s team. Once again the roster changes. For now Jeanne Daffron is serving as interim provost and vice president for academic and student affairs and interim dean of graduate studies. Daffron has held this position before, so in this time of change, the reigns are not in the hands of those who do not know the road ahead.

“It is busy time, but we are doing fine,” Daffron said. “It is very helpful that I have been here a long time. I know people. When you know who you can call and who you can count on for their support or their help to get what you’re trying to get done; that helps a lot.”

Bragin announced his retirement June 30, which was in effect July 1.

“He made the decision to retire,” Daffron said. “He didn’t want fanfare, didn’t want parties and he worked until his very last day.”

President Robert Vartabedian echoes Daffron’s statement.

“He chose to retire,” Vartabedian said. “We wanted to respect his wishes, he didn’t want a lot of fanfare. He wanted to basically let the university know the evening of the day he left. Which was June 30.”

President Vartabedian expressed regret that they could not give Bragin a better send off.

“I told him that certainly we would like to handle things differently and he said ‘No, no, I am not interested in that.’ and he worked very hard until his last day,” Vartabedian said. “Even on his last day he worked the long hours and then he said ‘after I am gone, you can go ahead and make an announcement, and we did.”

On July 1, the Saint Joseph News Press reported that “after 50 years in academia, he’s not calling it quits all together —He said he’s got “feelers out” for higher education administrative positions on the West and East coasts.”

So now that the position is open, where does Western go from here? It could be that we don’t have to look very far.

“Jeanne has been with us for over 30 years,” Vartabedian said. “She knows the administration inside and out. She understands the campus both internally and externally. She is a proven entity; people really like working with her.”

When considering the position, the president has met plenty of staff that have voiced their own opinions.

“I thought in terms of a national search but several people on the faculty said don’t waste the time when we have such a perfect candidate right here at home.” Vartabedian said. “Depending on what the board has to say it could go in that direction.

“I have gone around and talked to various groups about who to put in the position.” Vartabedian said. “In the interim and possibly in a permanent position. We have our next board of governors meeting soon and I am ready to talk to the board about that at that time.”

Vartabedian said Western might have a finalized recommendation at that point after he talks to the board Aug. 27.

Bragin came to Western in 2006 from Marshall University in West Virginia. During his time at Western, he helped develop the university’s first graduate programs. Daffron took over as interim provost July 1.

It all started due to a fight over me not mowing the lawn and ended with a closed door on twelve years of domestic partnership. I was devastated. I still am.

Three months after the break up and people are telling me to seek therapy, or hookers, and giving me such wonderful advice like “just get over it!” as if there is some programmed switch in my brain that diverts this train of emotions running its course through me, like a locomotive switching tracks. I am not a robot, though I wish I was.

Breaking up in the modern world is a whole new game. A decade ago there was not the proliferation of web-based social networks. Breaking up with your business all over your Facespace can set your soul to go all atwitter after reading about your ex’s latest drunken escapade, or getting to see pictures of the hotness you are now denied drunkenly dancing with double dudes. I ended up having to ask myself why I still wanted that connection. The truth is that I have not yet let go. And that is what breaking up is all about; letting go.

It is something that everyone goes through at some point or another: sheer crushing heartbreak. One moment and the life you have led is over. It is time to get a new life. A break up is one of the best lessons life can offer. The trick is focusing past the pain and seeing the hurt for what it is.

I am still trying to focus myself past the pain, but after living with someone for a dozen years I have good days and then other times the silence of loneliness kicks me in the groin just to let me know I am not loving myself enough.

Getting through a broken heart really is about re-learning to love yourself. It is hard to do but sometimes it helps to have support and someone to talk to about it. It might be worth running a feature column about. You, the reader, could send in your stories about your own break ups. That might be something worth reading in the paper, because right now I really need you the reader to submit your writings. Either to my opinions pages or anywhere in the paper. The students must become more involved with this paper. I need this right now, because outside of the space in these pages, I have a limited number of blessings going for me. My son, my family, the few friends I have acquired; I love these things, but I also love these pages I keep writing on. This is my new love affair.

I think with the help of you readers, I can get through my break up. Please write. Send your words and I will give you my heart.

She teaches several different courses in the biology department at Missouri Western. She has a friendly demeanor and a warm smile. She is like the girl next door who grew up to be a science teacher, and she is redhead. She will be teaching many of the upcoming scientists and possible nurses headed one day for our new Master of Science in Nursing program.

“The courses that I teach are all prerequisites for the degree in nursing,” Walton said. “So I am more involved on the front of that program.”

Growing up in Western Nebraska helped plant her roots in learning science.

“I am a country girl; I grew up on a ranch,” She said. “I always liked being outside and looking at things like nature and animals and stuff like that.”

Her love of science carried her all the way to college and beyond. She opted for getting further away from home for higher education, instead of going to the closer-to-home University of Nebraska Lincoln. She went for Springfield, Mo., at the former SMSU. She chuckles when she talks about how enduring college didn’t turn her off of biology. It is a warm laugh, warm and real.

So she must be a sports fan, right?

“I am from Nebraska, so go Huskers!” She said “College football is my favorite.”

She is quite the naturalist when it comes to her hobbies and pastimes.

“I am a hiker,” Walton said. I just got back from Yellowstone and Grand Teton national park. I am a really bad gardener but I like to do it.”

She has been married for six years and while not having kids, she does have cats.

“When you don’t have kids, I think your pets become them,” Walton said.

If she could write her name in history then she would dream of the Nobel prize for curing the world of Crohn’s disease. This is what the bulk of her research focuses on. She, like many biologists, keeps her mind on ideas like the environment.

“I think there are probably things we are doing well and other things not so well,” Walton said. “People are paying more attention to resource availability. We are paying more attention to the need to find something other than coal and oil to start getting our power from. A lot of drugs and treatment for diseases come from the chemicals that are isolated in plants of some of the forests that are being destroyed. I think there is more awareness of that now. I think we need to try to be good stewards of the environment, but at the same time, people need to be able to live and eat, so managing the population we have with the balancing the resources is important. I try to think positive but we could get ourselves into some trouble if we don’t slow down the consumption.”

Her advice for the young adults that make up the bulk of the college masses?

“Don’t get behind. Once you fall behind it is harder to go back and fix that GPA that can get you the better job.”

She looks forward to the next batch of biologists. “I always enjoy meeting my new classes. There are always interesting things that happen that you can’t predict.”

The rats began to get freaky.

Scientific American wrote about it in article called Crowding into the Behavioral Sink.

The idea is that when overpopulation is reached bad things happen to the behavior of people. With rats, the results can vary from failure to breed or nurture the young properly, increased mortality rates across the board, infant cannibalism and abnormal sexual patterns. With people when they reach the population peak of any given area things result like increased transmission of diseases, and proliferation of mental disorders. Hyper -aggression is a factor in both humans and rats. The only working defense against the effect pull of the behavioral sink is in reducing the intensity and frequency of social interaction.

That being said, it should be noted that Missouri Western State University had an eight percent increase in campus population. Perhaps the question should be asked of if there is a need for new student housing?

Sure it seems that there is more than enough right now. We even have super singles rooms. But how long will that last? And do we really want to wait until the last minute to fix this particular problem? It seems like it would be the wiser choice to be ahead of the ball on this one. Missouri Western needs need student housing before the behavioral sink overflows. Before Beshears Hall becomes home to rampant crime, drug use and sodomy, housing must be built.

Already, there has been rises in crime rates and transmission of STDs. How much farther must the students of Missouri Western live on top of each other until someone opens the pocket book to buy new student housing? Must we get to the point of mothers eating their babies before we stop spending money on Chief’s training camps, incubators and statues, and start fixing the living situation on campus.

The little griffons are in a cage and the cage is full. It is time to let them spread their wings. After all are we not teaching them to fly? One might get the idea that we are just teaching them to stand in line. We are making more cogs for the machine with the bug in the system.

I am not alone.

On the coasts of the left side of this country, they whisper omen of the great spreading fat virus to spread from the middle of the Bible Belt. Look around you and you spot at least one fat person within eyesight.

There are fat people everywhere.

Obesity has become a real problem in our country, and on our campus. It is kind of scary because when something becomes this big of a problem, the attempts to solve that problem often become extreme. It is hard to solve a problem when no one even really is sure of the causes for certain.

Surely it is our diet and lack of exercise that is the root of the problem, or is it? After all, what is the root of our diet and lack of exercise? Who is the bad guy here?

Certainly not the fat people themselves. I am one of them, and I know I am not a bad person. Is it my fault that someone has been handing me soda-pop since before they invented sippy cups? I was strung out on sugary syrup before I knew my left from my right. In my life time I have seen that diet soda drug dealer called the vending machine infiltrate our infrastructure to the point of being at least one on every square city block.

I have a radical French socialist friend who once told me that my country was drowning in the black waters of capitalism. He meant Pepsi-Cola. Maybe he is right.

It could be an economy driven on two job families has left no time to eat anything but the drive-thru drudgery that is certainly drugging us into complacency. The dinner time ritual has been sacrificed on the alter of big business and now we are all pumping up the pounds.

So who really is the bad guy? And how can we beat a problem when we cannot even pin the blame on the donkey. At this point, is the best we can hope for an understanding of this global growth of girth?

No one likes fat people too much, they breathe too heavily, they pant and sweat too much. They simply are just not that pleasing to look at. How long will it be before someone thinks of shipping us off in cattle cars on the way to fat camps?

Already there are talks of adjusting the prices that fat people pay for seats on planes. If it weren’t for smokers, fat people would probably be the number one cause of high health care costs. It is only getting worse.

It makes me think about the old Jewish stories I used to hear about the seven deadly enemies of mankind. It makes me wonder if Sloth and Gluttony have gotten married.
Obesity is a real problem.

Really, I had better stop myself before I end up offending someone and getting the mobs with pitch-forks and torches to start howling for the blood of the Griffon News.

It just wouldn’t be politically correct to go on.

I have no patience for politically correct speech. I think the whole concept is another step for mankind’s descent to hell.

Are we, in this country, really so foreign to real hardships that we have to make speech into something more powerful than it is?

When I was a child, my parents and the teachers at my schools would tell me this little rhyme to put things into perspective; sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Has everyone forgotten that little ditty? Say the wrong thing these days and it can hurt so much worse than rocks or rods.

It can hurt your job, your wallet, your reputation, and even your freedom.

I bet Don Imus would have rather been beaten with a stick than had to go through the media circus gauntlet he had to go through.

Encarta defines Politically Correct as “deliberately avoiding offense: relating to or supporting the use of language or conduct that deliberately avoids giving offense, e.g. on the basis of ethnic origin or sexual orientation.”

But that is not all that it means.

For Stalin’s Russia, it meant saying things that don’t go against the party line.

Take a page from Mao Tse-tung’s little red book and you can find the origins of PC.

Political Correctness is just another form of censorship.

I get the concept; some words are offensive, like “cunt,” it is a terribly offensive word. I am not sure why it gets credit as the nasty of the nastiest, maybe it is the hard C at the beginning and the hard T at the end.
Maybe there should be someone to protect us all form that horrible word.

Maybe sparing people from the horror of hearing bad words should be the government’s job; after all they know what is best, right?

But doesn’t the First Amendment say something about free speech, even if it is bigoted and hateful?

Okay, so we let Big Brother tell us what words can hurt people. Cool.

It starts in the media and throughout the way people speak, next thing you know, people are burning Mark Twain.
Right-wing icon, President Ronald Reagan had a few cool things to say; one of those things was this: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

I wonder what words my child will be allowed to say by the time he is my age?

I hope he is still allowed to cry for help.

I hope he is still allowed to speak the truth.

It didn’t save him from dying of cancer, but still that kind of limited form of omniscience would be mighty attractive to a college student at finals. It would also be useful for gazing into the possible future of the country. Thinking about what might be coming for the year 2009, it occurs to me that cosmic awareness could be very useful. Really, what is in store for us for this next year?

I spent the week deeply submerged in the internet, unnatural amounts of time searching for one thing, the future of 2009. I followed every window I could find with the words “Predictions for 2009” and watched the world with the eyes of a mad voyeur. I have read blogs, bits, and broadcasts. I watched over eight hours of YouTube in ten minute transmissions of “This is what’s coming for 2009.” My very vision was altered by the things I forced my eyes to watch or read. I am now a transceiver for cosmic truth and this is my beacon.

Here are some things I learned that various political pretenders, financial foreseers, and super psychics prophesize for the coming year.

2009, the Chinese year of the Ox is dubbed by the WebBot project as the “Year of Change.” President Obama said the same.

Not all of it is doom and gloom, not all of it.The Iraq War really ends, but the U.S. roll into Pakistan.

Prices of commodities such as gas, heat, power and lights, food and water steadily rise higher and higher.
One percent of the world will record massive profits breaking every gold record out there.

The housing bubble pops into a microburst of suffering that collapses the service umbrella that keeps us in the dryness of commercial convenience.

Earthquakes and wild fires rage from Arkansas to California.

There will be market closings and mass layoffs. There will be mudslides and murder. We might hear some of the last dying gasps of the newspapers of the world.

American Idol will be discovered to be a television sham and Paris Hilton will get herself arrested just to prove she is not old news.

NASA will have an insider start saying there is a bigger picture than the public knows, and the facts of global climate change will volley back and forth between left and right in a game called due to inclement weather.

There will be a wave of heat that sweeps across the country that ignites tempers and forest fires across the great and wild west. America will burn and most peolple will not understand the symbolism behind this.
Dr. Manhatten will hit the big screen in full blue and Rorshach will show the ttrue defination of what no comprimise means.

Crime rates will rise as many of the masses look for a new way to feed the families who look to them for food. All of this as the power of the dollar gets smaller and smaller.

There will be more mysterious suicides out of Washington with no one noticing them or caring. Strangers n a strange land vanishing in an equally strange manner.

Oh there is so much more. But the best part of it is the end, which we will have to decide. When things get tougher than they already were, what are we going to do? Cry? Whine? Be frightened and suck our thumbs? Sell out the other guy and steal what he has? Or will we live like Captain Marvel did? By taking responsibility for our flaws, seeking to right the wrongs of our lives, out on a mission to make the universe a better place.

Throughout all of this, we will be given a chance to rise to the challenges that life offers.

Hope and Change; that is what is happening in 2009.

Potter Hall will be the location of much passion and poetry with shows like Fool for Love and Marlowe

Missouri Western students will have a chance this spring to take in the more cultural side of the university by going to see student and professor directed shows on Potter’s main stage and the Black Box theater.

The main stage, which last fall was the setting for

Night of the Living Dead, will be switching speed later this spring with a Western original play, written by our very own assistant professor Don Lillie, entitled Marlowe

The upcoming Black Box presentation is

Fool for Love

Buntin has been the director of other Western plays including the

Blue Room and All in the Timing, and she has had acting experience in Crimes of the Heart

So what is it that drives a student to such sacrifices in their times as taking that particular double major? For Buntin, it is passion.

“Doing this is just something that I really love,” Buntin said. “I started out as a biology major. It was early in my junior year that I realized I wanted to be a theater major as well. Now I take acting classes and I do what I love and it keeps me at it. I never thought I wouldn’t want to be on stage, but I really love directing.”

So why

Fool for Love

“I read several scripts and it was hard to reach a decision, but I just loved this show a lot.” Buntin said. “It is a small intimate theater show. It is a small cast and it’s a Black Box show, it is very focused on acting. Not a big design show and I just love it.”

With the Film Festival coming up later in the spring, Western students can be certain there is still activity in the university’s Theater and Film schools. Shane George, Western freshman and former cast member for

Welsh Father Christmas-Wales
A jolly old soul who carts around a basket of goodies and his own mini-Christmas tree. He is ever ready to join in on the traditional Welsh esteddfods, or “carol sings” with his horn tucked into his green sash that he wears around his red robe. In Wales, singing on Christmas is quite the big deal,.After the song and dance there might be some taffy pulling that goes on, which is followed by the opening of gifts left by Father Christmas.

Jultomten-Sweden
Swedish children leave out a bowl of porridge for this gnomish take on Father Christmas. He is a household guardian who is on friendly terms with house cats, yet very afraid of candles. Jultomten brings good children presents but carries around a bundle of sticks for the naughty ones.

The First Footer-Scotland
During the Puritan rule of Scotland, Christmas was outlawed. What with all the drinking and carousing and bag piping that went on. The belief that elves would drop through the chimney and dance in the ashes of doused fires kept families up on Christmas eve was quite scary to the puritanical overlords. So no more Christmas. It never has quite recovered as a main festival day, instead the Scottish have Hogmanay on New Year’s Day. The First Footer is the guy who starts that party with a piece of coal, some bread, and bit of money or salt. These gifts symbolize his desire for families of Scotland to have warmth, wealth, and food.

Weihnachtsmann & Christkindl-Germany
Germany is a country that really likes their gift giving Christmas figures, they have two personas for spreading cheer at Christmas time. Originally they just had Christkindl, which means Christ child, she is an angelic messenger with a golden crown, wings, and white flowing robes. Over more recent history Germany has began to adopt a more traditional Santa figure named Weihnachtsmann. He is tall and thin instead of short and fat and carries around his own Christmas tree. The Christmas tree is probably the most prominent symbol of Christmas in Germany.

Pancho Navidad-Mexico
The Christmas festivities in Mexico begin nine days before Dec. 25 and Pancho Navidad has only recently begun spreading in Mexican Christmas lore. He gets more popular each year. He carries around a guiter and instead of parceling out toys, he leaves piñatas stuffed full of trinkets and candy.

Hoteiosho-Japan
Japan only has about one percent of the population that follows Christianity, but they still have a Santa Claus figure. Hoteiosho is a two faced Japanese god from the old days that visits homes and leaves dolls and fans and good things to eat. He actually has two faces, one forward and one backward. He uses the eyes he has on the front of his face and the back of his head to watch the children, seeing who has been nice or naughty.

Steel Wool Mill is a new band on the local music scene, a band that raises itself above the herd of  70’s and 80’s cover bands by playing original, organic music that doesn’t sound like what the other bands are playing. The music doesn’t sound like four drunk middle-agers blasting out another crappy version of “Free Bird” or “Enter Sandman”. Instead what you get is honest, real music with a message and  beating heart.
The band is made of up of four men: on guitar and lead vocals is Todd Ward; the banjo is mastered by Jason Crabb; Jason Baines plays the congas and runs back up vocals; and Scott Cobb, on ghost percussion, plays the egg, the tambourine, washboard, and rocks out on the beard. Their one CD is wrapped in simple, environmentally friendly card board paper and is called Black Tooth  Bandwagon. It is five songs of soulful, meaningful music like Stomp Box, which gives us truths like “Well, I can’t see straight, there’s too many choices and no direction.”

Todd Ward gives us a peek at the origins of the band. “The thing that started us out was the friendship between Crabb and I,” Ward said. “We got started playing mandolins and we just started jamming. Then I learned to play guitar and he started with the banjo. We have been jamming together so long now, that when I write a song it is pretty immediate that Crabb picks it up. We have just been jamming for six years now, it seems to work.”

Scott Cobb muses on the different venue of music the band creates and gives it a name of its own. “Freak Folk…want to try something new?” Cobb asked. “Freak Folk is what I call it. it takes me over. it makes me want to move. I know that’s some cliché shit to say…but, it all seems new to me. I’ve never heard anything like it. and I like the way it makes me feel, what it makes me think about, and I like finding something new before others, maybe even telling them about it. So you can imagine my delight to be in the middle of this little whirlwind.”

Jason Baines believes there is a more ethereal reason the music appeals to people. “There is a subtle effect our music has, it is the mix of the percussions, the strings and the soul,”  Baines said.  “It sort of sneaks up on you and you don’t notice it until it has got you.”

Jason  Crabb feels that because their music is different, that is what makes it so necessary.  It is along the same reasons that he picked up the banjo. “I just love blue grass,” Crabb said. “Also, the fact that nobody seems to play a banjo here in town. If nothing else, it is different. I have played guitar and bass before, I wanted to try something different.”

Kyla Ward, junior at Missouri Western and wife of the lead singer, gives her own insight into the nature of what makes Steel Wool Mill a unique experience. “For them, playing music is a chance to get to hang with good friends, drink a few cold ones, and have a good time,” Ward said. “They aren’t too concerned with ‘trying to make it big’; they’re more concerned with developing a fan base of good people who like to have a good time. They don’t want to sound like a band from New York–they don’t want to sound like a band from Los Angeles: they want to create a sound that is timeless, placeless, and organic. I love all of the guys because they and their love for music is real and not based on some pipe dream of becoming the next big thing.”

If you guessed the passengers who pay up to and in excess of $50 a ticket, then you would be wrong. Instead it is the corporation that drops large bills on the safe and reliable transportation of their product. God knows we wouldn’t want to slow down this juggernaut of capitalism and industry even for a second. People should just learn to be patient.

That is America.

In Japan, the trains run on time.

Like clockwork, every day, every hour, the trains run on time.

It does not take much research to see that in many ways, the Japanese are doing a better job in many areas than the Americans. In Japan people are generally skinnier, smarter and more technologically adept when it comes to living in the 21st century than their American counterparts. At the same time there can be seen a greater emphasis in pride and respect for their native culture and elder traditions in Japan than we can find here in the homeland.

Sometimes I think the Japanese culture figured the best revenge on us for nuking two of their cities, was to live longer and better in the future. To do more with their limited land area and resources, than we do with our breadbaskets.

We might as well take a few lessons from those who shine in any given fields and get to know better the neighbors of ours in this cosmic monopoly game. If we learn their stories, we might be able to reinvent our own flawed national thought process. Besides, why be so resistant to globalization? It brought such great things in the beginning, like syphilis. The fact is that globalization is happening and it is a whole new ball game. I am not sure the Americans really remember how to play anymore. It seems like we have rewritten the rules one too many times.

I’d say there is still just enough time for us to figure out what they are doing right that we aren’t, and then change our ways before we realize that the hamster cage is too full and the wheel is broken. Besides, wouldn’t it be nice if the trains were on time?

The UPD gave a digital video recording of the incident to the office of Student Development for review.
After turning over copies of the incident report to the Griffon News, Jonathan Kelley, Director of Campus Safety, refused to make further comment on the incident or why there was a week delay between the incident and the initial UPD incident report.

Dr. Judy Grimes, Dean of Student Services, commented on the sensitivity of the situation. “The safety and well-being of students on campus is my highest priority,” Grimes said.

 “We take any incident reports very seriously and follow our code of conduct policies carefully. We always work in consultation with the Housing Staff, associate dean of Student Development, who is our judicial officer, University Police and others who may be involved. We are unable under FERPA to comment on any judicial cases.”

According to a statement made by the alleged victim, on Wednesday, April 2, two male students, pushed their way into a her room and made several lewd comments to her. When told to leave, the two men tore several pictures off of the door of the female student and returned to their room. The woman then went to the men’s room to retrieve her belongings. In the hallway the two male students alleg­edly grabbed her and one of them pinned her arms behind her head. The victim said they “touched her on her vaginal area.”

After getting away from the two assailants, the victim was followed back to her room, where she told them that she had to change her clothes. The men, according to her statement, came into her room and shut out the lights and told her to “go ahead.”

Another female student then got involved and helped clear the male students out of the room. The woman who claimed she was fondled then reported the incident to R.A. Housing staff spoke with the victim and a No Contact order was put into effect against the male students. The victim did not want to press charges.
An April 14 UPD report indicated a copy of the video footage was requested by Student Development for judicial action.

The university has the ability to enact a punishment for the students involved ranging from a warning to expulsion for violations of the universities rules and regulation. Two violations of those rules involve; assaulting or threatening to assault any person, to engage in any unwelcome physical contact with any person, to make unwelcome advances, or to engage in conduct, which threatens or endangers the health or safety of any person. Also to engage in lewd, indecent or obscene conduct or expression or to repeat, propose or request such conduct or expression, after being asked to stop.

The dean of Student Development may old an informal disposition. After that, if needed, a formal disciplinary hearing may be held.

It’s a crazy world. Chinese fortune cookies say:  “may you live in interesting times”, and brother, they are interesting. Some would say that we are at the height of civilization, and others the end. It is a crazy world and getting crazier.

We lol on youtubes and check our facespaces via the world enveloping web spewed by porn, while wars rage around us. It’s not uncommon to see four grown men walk into a restaurant, sit facing each other at a table, and then they all pull phones and start talking to someone else. TV has become reality and reality has become TV. Every facet of life has become more complex and it keeps complicating at an exponential rate.

School shootings grow more and more common, and has anyone checked lately how many kids are on psychiatric drugs? In the St. Petersburg Times July issue of 2007 it was reported that in Florida alone, there were 18,000 kids on Medicaid given antipsychotic drugs. That isn’t even counting all the rich society kids being treated for whatever anxiety disorder is popular that day. The World Health Organization estimates by 2020, depression will be the second major cause of disability, right behind heart disease. People have yet to look the problem in the face and realize the epidemic of insanity that surrounds us.

The world we live in is getting crazy, and the people in it are getting crazier.
Actually, the politically proper thing to say is mentally ill, not crazy. People are no longer insane, or crazy, or maddened, or possessed, no, now they are mentally ill. As a member of the mentally ill, I must protest this view of We, the crazy people. It hurts when someone thinks of you as ill. Sometimes being what you are is all you can do on this earth, and just because it is different, or misunderstood, or crazy, does not make it wrong. Sometimes a little crazy can be the best thing possible. There have been a number of significant things that crazy people have done throughout history that have positively influenced the community around them. Vikings used to revere their berserkers in battle.  In some ancient cultures, it was the madmen who were given positions as seers or prophets. The Native American tribal peoples often felt that these special people were gifted with visions by the spirits that would lead the tribe through natures challenges.

If our society took a different approach to the way we view mental illness, there might be any number of ways we could find to put these unique and creative people to use for the betterment of society. Our world is getting crazier and maybe if we can learn to understand the insanity around us we still might be able to reach that pinnacle of human development we have tried for so long to attain. Friedrich Nietzsche , the German philosopher, saw the problems of today apparent in the pages of history. “Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” Nietzsche said.

If we, as a race of mixed psychosis, want to survive the tests of time and history, it may be necessary for us to find a place for the legions of lunacy that dwell among us.  We might find that simply medicating the mad and locking them away because they don’t want to play the game of sane, is an exercise in futility.  It could be that crazy people are crazy because it is the insanity that guides them to the best purpose the universe may have for them. We are not mentally ill, more like mentally unique and allowing us to be ourselves may be the best thing for us to feel whole.

Here is an idea; how about after high school, people take a decade or so to actually live life while they can. There is plenty of time for more school and professional playtime later. As it is today, one is supposed to wait until the adult diaper years to spend a year in Tibet, or hike the Appalachian trail. In our senior years of life our minds end up as a loose leaf memory storage devices with little stimu­lation. Why not spend those times academically? The better we get at medicine the higher the average age of death rises. In America we can expect to live an average of 80 plus years, yet retirement happens for most between the ages of 60 and 70. So you get a decade at the end of things to stockcar race while using a colostomy bag. What Joy.

Instead, imagine what fun life would be if we used the decade of our twenties to drink, carouse, debauch, dance, indulge and experience as much as possible while we still have stamina and vitality on our sides.

This madness of expecting 19 year-old boys to be able to concentrate on anything besides dropping trou’ and mass consumption of intoxicants is an exercise in futility. Full grown adults make much better students once they have worn the distractions out of their system.

The trouble lies in the fact that so many that take a break never return to school. The fact is, the system isn’t designed for that. In high school there all kinds of helping hands pushing kids into college, after that the signs pointing out the right place to go and the right papers to file are less common. The problem lies in the system which was designed for a world that has advanced past the world it was created in.

Here they are, folks, read‘em and weep; Drug abuse, Polluting the environment, or environmental responsibility, contributing to widening divide between rich and poor, excessive wealth, creating poverty,

“Bioethical” violations such as birth control and Morning After pills, “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research and cloning.

I should add that this list is not an order of a hierarchy of sins. Throwing trash out your car window is no less sinful than popping too many muscle relaxers.

I have no problem with this because more sins means more temptation and temptation is so much fun.

After all it has been 1,500 years since the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins into the modern world of cell phones and SUV’s. According to the L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, apparently the Pope is feeling the weight of his big pointy hat because of the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “secularized world”.

While these new sins may only be venial, which is less serious the original mortal sins that were set down in writing by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century, they still seem to me as a means to further complicate an already complicated world.

If you examine the essence of these new sins it becomes apparent that all they are is sub-categories of their bigger brothers of badness. Drug abuse is really just an extension of gluttony, all that jazz about “morally dubious” sciences falls into the realms of pride and so does the whole environmental irresponsibility when you think about it. And clearly all the new money sins fall in the realm of greed. Do we really need the new language to tell us what sinful creatures we are?
It is especially interesting to notice the carefully constructed attacks on various political parties these new sins represent.
In essence the Catholic Church has just declared war on capitalism by damning excessive wealth, all the while their own bishops and arch-dioceses live in a better standard than ever before. I also find it interesting that during a time when a hot political topic for many states is putting child molesters to death, nowhere in these new sins is there any mention of pedophilia. Surely with the record of boy loving priests in the media, couldn’t the Vatican could have mentioned that?
An even bigger conundrum is that while they disapprove of birth control and other preventive measures of ensuring the world is not packed with rug rats underfoot, they call pollution a sin, which is funny when you consider an over populated society produces a lot of trash. Overall, while I respect the need to feel contemporary, I say if it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it.

There are commercials on the radio that imply that if you have a high credit rating you will be more attractive to the opposite sex. People parade around with tee shirts printed with the saying; “He who dies with the most toys , wins” acknowledging the fact that we all know that the game is afoot but shouldn’t seriously give it any thought. Just keep track of the score, it doesn’t matter what the rules of the game are. Get a really high score and you might beat your neighbor at the game, so pay attention to the score. Don’t pay any attention to the man moving the pieces across the board of life.
I am telling you that game is fixed and no one wins. No one get out of here alive and everybody dies alone, even in a crowd. The Chess masters themselves must face that fact. No one wins this game. But it sure is a fun game to play. Just imagine how much of a better game it would be if we would all stop competing with each other and started co-operating towards the goals we have in life. We split ourselves into as many teams as we can with nationalism, divine right, manifest destiny, racial segregation, class and cultural divisions, bi partisan political parties and sexual orientation. The list could go on and on. Whenever we mass together as humanity we find some way to internally divide ourselves. It is hard-wired into our heads. Watch a group of eight year old boys play and as soon as there are more than three boys playing together, their talks turn to what teams can be made or how they ditch the odd man out.

The age of competition carried us far in the game of human advancement but it is clear to see that now it is only hindering the process. At this point, there are just too many people on this planet to carry on competing against each other. The game has grown past the gaming table and it is time we all put our heads together to make the idea of how do we clean up this mess? Just imagine what could happen if all near seven billion of us thought the same thought for just a moment. Just imagine what could be conceptualized.

The basic drive of the American dream is to get more. More than you had yesterday. More than you had last year. More than your parents had at your age. More than your neighbor has now. We want more.

Our government is worried that we may be headed toward challenging economic times so they spread out some cash that we’re all supposed to rush out and create the greatest shopping day ever witnessed by the bean counters. We get free government money because we have over extended our own credit based life style to the point of not having any real cash left to spend.

We learn how to spend as a people from watching our government which has taught us such wonderful lessons; the value of a $300 hammer and $500 toilet seat and the spending power of creating a trillion dollar national debt.  Just keep on spending, we can print more.

Let’s just go crazy.

In a sense we already are and have been going crazy since sometime after we first struggled our way out of the mystery that is the origin of man. It only is so much more noticeable now because they are so many darned people out there to diagnose the demons that drive us down this fatalistic crash called life in the 21st century. Rates of depression and suicide soar to new charts and the school shooting  has become something that  we can expect at least once a year . If we don’t stop the madness soon, then people will start calling it going academic instead of going postal.

The mass insanity of the world is building like a pressure cooker packed with W.M.D.’s and no one wants to look the problem in the face. We fight about whether it is guns that kill people or people with guns. We fight about whether the world is trying to kill us because we polluted it or whether it is just trying to kill us for no reason at all. All the while we continue with the same sociopolitical industrial practices that empower the madness in the first place.

When does it stop? When will we say “enough is enough”?  When will there be enough cars on the road?

When will enough children have died? When will we ever have enough money? When will the world look it’s own problems in the face and ask “How do we fix this”?
Enough is enough. – Dan Donan

This day, like all holidays, really gives me that special fuzzy feeling. It brings a tear to my eye. It is sad that such a powerful ritual has become so besotted with commercials and unreasonable standards of expectation. I know guys that redeem a years worth of bad bedside behavior  with an act of capital sacrifice totaling his monthly worth. Happy Valentine’s Day, baby, here is an IPOD, now I am going to go on and spend the rest of the year acting like the same butt face that I did yesterday. I know girls that have come to hold this day as a test. If he doesn’t get me that diamond bracelet then maybe he doesn’t really love me enough.  It makes me cry.

It started out as such a pure thing. Valentine was quite a rebel. During the third century in Rome, Emperor Claudius II had felt that young men had made better soldiers if they didn’t have wives and children to consider back home. So naturally he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine fought this injustice by secretly marrying young lovers until he was discovered by the emperor and put to death. An act of dissent brought on by the power of love. A man acting for justice even in the face of death.  What could be more beautiful than that?

This doesn’t have to be another over commercialized, preserved and canned, soulless, corporate holiday. It doesn’t have to be a day where the only thing you can do is about the Benjamin’s behind the buy, but instead about the heart that goes into the gift. Instead of getting her a giant IPOD that holds two years worth of music, get her a smaller MP3 player but preprogram it with songs that make her think of you, or songs that make you think of her and let her know that those songs are the songs you wish you could sing to her if you had the talent. MP3 players become the mix tape on steroids. Instead of a generic card, get a blank one and put your favorite poem on it and decorate it yourself. Instead of buying her the latest of the line out at Gordon’s, why not go for an antique necklace that speaks of class that can’t be touched by getting her jewelry that anyone with enough cash could have purchased. All it takes is a little thought and a lot of heart to make the difference between a gift and a symbol of love.

Make it beautiful.

After his Uncle Ben was killed by a desperate criminal that Peter Parker could have previously stopped by using his newfound spider powers, he came up with a mantra to guide his life. With great power comes great responsibility. That lesson blazed its words into the American comic book scene in 1962. Since then they have led Spiderman through more comic book series that you can shoot a web at and three hugely grossing movies. With power comes great responsibility. This has proven itself a universal truth.

Flip the sentence around and the truth still stands. Perhaps more truly considering this weeks coming elections.

With great responsibility comes great power.

Every thinking and learning student  here at Missouri Western State University, or anywhere else for that matter, should consider it their responsibility to be active on the nations political process. As a student you are shaping yourselves for the future ahead and in doing so you are shaping the future ahead itself. In responsibility to that very future you should be voting. Voting will give you the power to help sculpt the world of tomorrow with the deft hands of an artist. By the act of attending a university you are offering a presentation to the world that says “I am a part of the future” but simply saying it does nothing, you have to act on your convictions. You have to vote.

It’s not like there is not a glutton of information you can refer to about the candidates. It is not like there is not a wide choice of people to fill the role. It is not like there are not any major issues that are on the line, only health care insurance, energy addiction, and any other number of affairs. Not to mention that we are still a country at war. No, there are certainly a number of reasons that one should vote and a lack of acting on those reasons can only be construed to be acts of laziness or stupidity.

Since you are all college students, it can be assumed that you are neither lazy nor stupid. Thus it is your responsibility to vote.

If you are a Democrat then you can vote in the primary on Super Tuesday and you can ensure that American has a shot at seeing either an African American or a woman in the White House. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to tell your grandchildren that you voted for the first woman president? Or the first Black president?

If you can make a difference with your vote then the responsibility falls even more squarely on your shoulders. The culture of our nation could be forever forged in a new direction because of your vote. You are a student and you are the future. It is your responsibility to vote

Remember though, with great responsibility comes great power. Use that power wisely.

Robert A. Vartabedian, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Eastern New Mexico University, was chosen by the Board of Governors. There are 14 challenges and 19 qualifications that  were being searched for by the screening committee and Vartabedian met them all. He will be the fourth president for Missouri Western State University. President James Scanlon will be acting president until June 30.

 Vartabedian is a native Californian who obtained his B.A. in speech communication  at California State University  and his M.A. was from Wichita State University.

Vartabedian received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.

 Vartabedian has had 22 years experience in administration. He has a PhD in communication and was the final choice of a selection process that almost a year. Steve Estes, Dean of Professional Studies and member of the selection committee, was very pleased with the hunting process.

 “There were 22 people we were looking at in the search” Estes said. “It was a lot of fun. It was the best time I have ever had doing this type of search.”

 Beth Wheeler, vice chair of the screening committee, found the selection process to be more rewarding than simply selecting the best candidate.

 “It is heartening to do something like this. There were a lot of seven o’clock meetings and dinner meetings  and airport meetings and on-site inspections. I was impressed with his energy,” Wheeler said.

 “There is  parallel between his personal values and the values of this university. He has personally exemplified what we were looking for in his personal life.”

 Vartabedian has a vision for what he hopes to accomplish with his time at Western. He places emphasis in five key areas of development. He wishes to insure that Missouri Western provides a quality educational experience for students, to improve faculty, staff and student morale, to expand the classroom through imaginative teaching, to come up with creative and persistent revenue generation and to create a mutually beneficial relationship between the university and the community.

 Vartabedian has found the local area to be within his tastes.

 “So far it has been very enjoyable with very pleasant people and surroundings,” Vartabedian said.

 “It felt very Midwest. I particularly liked the terrain and architecture. The size of St. Joe would also seem to suit our needs well. The proximity to KCI is nice as well. Additionally I have a number of relatives and friends in the area.”

Western has no immediate plans to replace him and his duties are being passed on to a triumvirate of office managers.
“I have worked in education for roughly 36 years,” Schlesinger said. “I believe it is time for someone to come in and move the I.M.C. further into the new technology. Purists like me sometimes have difficulty dealing with all this new technology.”
Schlesinger is confident in the manager’s ability to run the day-to-day operations of the I.M.C. but feels there is another question involved with his departure.

“There are 11 people in the I.M.C. plus myself,” Schlesinger said. “After I am gone they will have more responsibility to make sure they maintain the I.M.C.”

Ricky L. Brown, Applications Programmer, echoes this concern.

“Probably the number one question on everyone’s minds is getting funds,” Brown said. “Max is an expert at getting funds.”
Despite uncertainties about future funding, Cori Criger, Classroom Services Manager, still maintains a positive outlook on the future of the I.M.C.

“Max has always been a visionary pulling us into the latest and greatest,” Criger said. “He has always been able to keep our office focused on why we are here; we are here for education and we are here for the students and that is how we live our days.”

The training of the three Managers has been thorough.

Danielle Hunt, Manager of Educational Television Services, has worked with Schlesinger for over a decade and still wonders if she has learned from all that he could teach.

“He is one of those people who works a lot behind the scenes and you don’t notice what he has done until he is done,” Hunt said. “He has been working with the three of us and helping us get under raps so we can function when he is gone. We are not planning on anything major – as far as change, we are just striving to maintain the level of service that we have come to be able to provide for the campus.”

Brown, who is not affected as much by added responsibilities as the three managers points out the real challenge of filling Schlesinger’s shoes.

“I don’t see anything in my situation changing too much except that Max is a master of getting you what you need to do your job,” Brown said. “So when he is gone the question is; will our little supervisor trio be able to do that job.”
Schlesinger still feels the I.M.C. is up to the challenge of dealing with his absence.

“The I.M.C. is not me. It is the people who come in and say “I need this.” The I. M. C. is the people,” Schlesinger said.

“I highly recommend Maria Falzone for college audiences,” Lockwood said. “Students are able to hear the serious content because she earns their respect and trust, while inviting them to open their minds to material that may have heretofore shared only with their closest friends. Students rave about her performance afterwards, and tell me they learned information they were timid to admit they knew little about. This is preventative education at its best.”

Falzone worked in the top comedy clubs through out the US and Europe over 15 years ago and was invited to perform at the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival. It was there that she became inspired to pursue a new more meaningful venue, educating the youth about an important but not often discussed subject. Sex.

“I am on a vulva pride mission,” Falzone said. “ Most women don’t know that  the organ they use for sex is called their vulva not their vagina. A lot of people still hold a lot of misconceptions about sexuality even in today’s world. As long as we keep sex in the shadows, we keep people ignorant. If we keep children ignorant we give sexual predators a leg up.”

Clearly, on campus it can be seen that sex is still a subject that is rarely discussed in a public forum. When questioned about sexuality, Kelsey Wood, a sophomore, began to giggle and blush.

“I can’t answer that question,” Wood said. “You should have some morals.”

Morals are just another form of rules and sex needs rules, good sex needs intelligent informed decision making.

“We live in a society where we get conflicting messages about sex,” Falzone said. “Our parents and society tell us to wait. In the world of advertising sex sells. So we end up thinking that we should just know how to have sex.”

Falzone feels that people need to better communicate about sexuality and in a place where the act is not performed.

“Most people talk about their sex lives in bed as they bask in the afterglow,” Falzone said. “If you are having sex in every room in the house the go to a coffee shop and talk about it.”

 Jordan Ries-Wandrey, Western sophomore, saw the posters advertising the sexy event ad it aroused his attention. “My sex life could be enhanced,”  Ries-Wandrey said. “It sounds like something that would be interesting. As far as condoms, it is not on a regular basis. I have had a girlfriend for the past year and a half.”

 The lecture is not for single players only.

“Who do the rules apply to? All of us!” Falzone said. “ If you want to wait till your married GREAT! You still need to learn how to have sex. If your gay, bisexual or trans gender the rules are the same.”

Falzone states she is not pushing people into premature sexuality, she is encouraging people to know their minds and bodies and be ready. “When do I think you are ready?” Falzone asks. “If you can have sex with the lights on and the sheets off. If you can tell your partner what you want, when you want it, why you want and how you want it…then you are ready to have sex!”

So if you want to be part of an event that has been called the most sexually  satisfying experience of your life, then remember Sex Rules. “I keep it simple, afterward most students say thank you,” Falzone said. “My motto with consenting adults is do what you want, if it doesn’t involve an animal or a child, go for it.”

 How we view each other as co-existing creatures crawling across this doomed landscape cannot be helped by threats and violence, or outrage and disrespect.

 What builds the richness of our collective global soul is the very differences we have that separate us into unique beings.

 Whether we be green, yellow, brown, pink, left, right, day or night we all breathe the same atmosphere, we occupy the same physical plane, we share the same einsteinium nightmare of linear time. We are all in this grand game together, and let me tell you, brother, the game is fixed.
 Xenophobia is the fear of strangers and it is hard wired into the biology of our psychology as human beings. Sometimes it serves a purpose, for example, it might have been justifiable for the Native Americans to worry about these new drunken syphilis infected neighbors who were rolling onto the shores of the local beach. Mankind has always feared the unknown. All of us do it at one point or another.

 Accepting that weakness may help us accept others differences and thus grow closer as one big global village.

 My father was a career Air Force man. I had the blessing of being raised around the world, being exposed to many cultures (and loving them) by a society of racially integrated service men and woman.  

 When you are in the service racial differences mean less, because to the U.S. government you are just another name, rank, and social security number.

 Just another cog in the war machine. Growing up global has left me with a ravenous hunger for foreign culture. My xenophobia has transformed into xenophilia.

  Hatred is a nasty thing, we can’t deny its existence. Hatred towards a common foe can be a uniting passion for certain. But let’s not let the evil world dominators that are running us all into oblivion exploit our hate and use it to divide us into savage creatures that would kill someone simply because they look and act different.
 Let us use that hatred towards the real enemies. — The bastards that are running us towards global ruin, class and racial warfare and cultural homogenization. Because we don’t have that much time left before we blow our collective cork that keeps all the insanity in the world reigned in, and if we are still crammed into our own posteriors focusing on how we call hate each other when the cork blows then we don’t have much of a chance for any of us to win this human race.

“Harold Callaway III, a sophomore management and economics major from Faucett, Mo., was sworn in as student governor at the Board of Governors meeting Feb. 23.”

 But what exactly does that mean to the average Joe student? It means this is one of the guys who makes some of the final decisions on where your money goes.

 Callaway describes his duties quite simply.

 “You only have one primary responsibility and that is making the board meetings,” Callaway said.
 Missouri Western State University defines the duties of the Student Governor in four parts:

 
 Role of the Student Governor
 -Talk with students and work to support them.
 -Serve as a liaison between the Board of Governors and the student body of Western.
 -Develop an understanding of the roles of other  Board members.
 -Develop an understanding of the communication   between the Board and Administration In the past, Callaway has been viewed as having a more business like approach to student government. One could say that business is his business.

 “My ideal job would be working with mergers and acquisitions, auditing for a major corporation,” Callaway said.

 “That would be my ultimate job as long as I could still keep some kind of community emphasis,” Calloway said.

 The position that Callaway holds has had a long standing past of strong candidates filling the role.

“I am the 25th student governor, the first full term student governor since we made the switch from a college to a university,” Callaway said.
 “Bob Hughes, the person who preceded me, came up and started talking to me while we were standing there on the steps for orientation in the summer of ‘05, and he asked me if I would want to do the job and get more involved at school. It meant a lot to me to move into a position that had more substance and meaning to it,” Calloway said.

 With student attendance down across the board for student events, Callaway seems perplexed by how to move the student body ahead.
“I would like to see more student involvement at any event across campus,” Callaway said.

“I understand that students are busy, but all these events we hold, the students spend close to $500,000 a year for this money to be utilized and that is something that we really need to look at,” Calloway said.

 So how does the student governor feel that the SGA and Student Senate are progressing this year?

“We have run into a deadlock with our current advisor and the SGA, and the Student Senate believe that  the adviser is not pursuing the issues of the senate and the SGA,” Callaway said. “I think we have always tried to find just one person to blame the problem on and that tends to be the adviser. It has grown ever more grotesque with the current advisor. The relationship we had with Dr. Shang is that he would argue over an issue with us but he wouldn’t carry those feelings over into a veto. That is different now with Dr. Heider, it is a completely different mind set.”
 Callaway is quick to point out that the source of a problem may not always come from the first place that people would assume.

 “I don’t understand how one person can cause so many problems with the entire senate,” Callaway said. “It just doesn’t make any sense. So I think the finger, instead of pointing at her needs to be pointed back at us. We need to get our stuff together before we can make any off the wall accusations.”

 As he wraps his fiscally minded perceptions around the problems that face the SGA, Callaway moves closer and closer to the academic finish line. What is next for our peer politician?

 “After I graduate from here it is either graduate school or a competitive internship,” Callaway said.

 The upperclassman even offered advice for freshman facing the beginning of their academic challenge.

You should seek out a faculty member, a teacher and start a relationship,” Callaway said.

 “Just start there and you find yourself getting more involved with the entire university.”

It is a state of not being able to use one’s literacy in any functional aspect.
 
No reading fine print, just the headlines, and they really may be too much mental effort.
 
It can be seen everyday at convenience stores across the country when some irate bladder-bloated person demands from the plebian clerk that they reveal the location of the elusive restroom — even though the interrogator is standing in front of big black bold letters that say “Rest Room” in two languages.

After that, the customer might try and use a clearly marked “out of order” drinking fountain.

Its not really that funny when you consider that according to UNESCO there are One Billion non literate adults on the planet.

There are only six and a half billion of us, so that means that when you are standing in a pack of six people waxing all things “Potter” and Tolkien, one of you is a cheater who can only join the conversation through the second-hand super cinema machine.   

Thank the Stars and Stripes that over half of those people are in India or China.

We started our war on illiteracy a long time ago.

On Feb 8, 1914, the New York Times ran a head line “For War on Illiteracy.” The article detailed how the House committee of education was going to define and tackle this problem.

In the Seventies, we really kicked it into high gear and illiteracy became one of the first targets of our government fascination of declaring war on concepts.

In the Eighties, big mama Bush, Barbara really ramped up the fight for the cause of her son who was suffering from dyslexia.

Recently, our own commander and chief must have made mama proud when he announced a new “war on illiteracy for the young” at a Florida elementary school on Sept. 10, 2001.

Despite that enduring battle, many Americans are simply too lazy to use the literacy that they are privileged to have.

You can see it everyday in the classroom when a teacher assigns a reading assignment.

College students should be able to read, they just don’t want to expend what little mental energy and attention span you have to focus the fine point of literacy.

That is right, I said you.   

I mean you, reading this.

Prove to me you are not functionally illiterate.

I say a multitude of things that make me sound like an ass in these spaces the Griffon News is so generous to let me fill with my ranting, but no one calls me out for it.

I will have you know I would consider being assaulted in public for something I wrote the greatest praise because then I would know that you read my words.

That’s all I want from the world is to rub shoulders with free thinking literate people.
Even in America, where we have been kicking illiteracy’s posterior, people still are asking gas station clerks why the pump won’t turn on, when there is a sign at eye level that says “pre-pay only.”
 
The functional illiterate is ignorant because he or she  simply wouldn’t take the time to use skills they might not have if they were from somewhere else.

Jerk.

I am going to enlist in the army that fights the functionally illiterate and start staging guerilla style strikes.

It is what a patriot would do after all.

Angel Benner, membership chairman of the North End Community Association, sits close to the front gate and greets people as they arrive.

“This is our fourth year for Kreepy Krug,” Benner said. “The northend businesses and people from the northend get together to raise money for the north end schools. It gets bigger and better every year. We have fun for all ages from four-year-olds playing games to adults walking through the forest.”

The fun includes a moon bounce filled with tykes trampolining, an inflatable slide that kids can launch themselves into the air from, a car that you can smash with a sledge hammer, games like plinko and a bean bag toss, and darts to be hurled at balloons and a face painting booth. There is a fire pit where you can get your weenie or marshmallow roasted on an open flame or the concession stand offers nachos and candy apples with hot chocolate and cider.

Kreepy Krug is open again on Oct. 26 through the 28 from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. and the Haunted forest is open from 7:00 p.m. until 11:30 p.m. The price of admission to the haunted forest is eight dollars, and if a student ID is shown then a dollar is knocked off that price.

The Haunted Forest itself is filled with ghosts and goblins and other fiendish monsters frolicking about to give one the scare of a lifetime while walking through the dark and winding paths desperately seeking a way out of the horror filled woods. Zombies and vampires pace at the sides of the trail and strobe lights flicker and flash creating a sense of disorientation that is unsettling in the natural setting of trees and shrubs.

Rhys Donan, eight year old at Parkway school, felt the forest should be renamed.

“I don’t think they should have named it the Haunted Forest.” Donan said “It would have been more appropriate if they called it “A Night of Sheer Terror.”

So if you are looking for some more Halloween fun and you have a few hours to kill, then head to Krug Park for Kreepy Krug, whether you are three or 30, you might be surprised to find something to scare you or amuse you, you might win some prizes, or you might enjoy a snack, but you will certainly find fun at Kreepy Krug.

Jay Kerner, owner and operator of the Horseshoe Lake Drive In and publisher of the Regular Joe, is very excited about the theme that was designed for the drive in this Halloween.

“What we are doing this year is working with the Filmmakers Alliance of  the Midland Empire, FAME.”  Kerner said. “What we did is we got the Zombie Trail going on out in the woods and for the movie, we got a copy of the original Night of the Living Dead and that is up for public domain, which means anybody who wants to can cut it up and play with it and do whatever they want. So we got a copy of that and then the filmmakers went out and filmed local people and some St. Joe celebrities in zombie make up. We got the mayor of St. Joe in zombie make up, we got Greg and BJ from KKJO in zombie make up; we got Cecil Meyers, the dealer with the heart, in zombie make up, we got Rob Callaway, the boxer, in zombie make up and interspersed it than with the Night of the Living Dead.”

The experience is designed to give the viewer a sense of being involved with the fun on a personal level. Played as a outbreak spreading across the country and finally ending at the drive in itself.

Bob Schultz, of KQTV’s Front Row with Bob Schultz, felt that everyone involved really seemed to enjoy the experience.
“It is affecting all kinds of people, celebrities and non celebrities.” Schultz said. “The mayor took the zombie virus and danced his little heart out. It’s amazing to watch.”

Tony Redmond, slayer of the undead, and Michael Nolan, young zombie slayer, are a father and son monster hunting squad on hand to help out in keeping the undead hordes at bay.

“I normally hunt vampires but they hired me to take care of their trail. Zombies are like cockroaches and I’m here to exterminate,” Redmond said.

“I was trained by my dad,” Nolan said. “Since the outbreak I have had to destroy hundreds of zombies. My advice for people is find a blunt object and be careful.”

When the sunsets on the weekend St. Joe slips into the shadow of the supernatural at the Horseshoe Lake Drive In and you can get involved.

“It will be every weekend of October and then the last weekend it will run Friday though to Halloween night.” Kerner said. “We are having some fun and we changed the trail up. It is almost twice as long this year as it was last year. We got more people out there this year. It’s interactive, at the end of the movie zombies come out and walk between the cars. We really want people to be involved with the whole experience. The whole thing is an hour and four minutes long and we are showing it twice a night at eight and ten o’clock and then after you have watched the movie then you can go back and walk the Zombie Trail.”
Walking The Zombie Trail is an experience in itself. Gabe Johnson, 6-year-old at Cathedral, clung to his father as he braved his fears about zombies and giant spiders.

“Zombies don’t exist!” Gabe reassures all of us walking the trail which he follows with a pause and then says “Right?”
After winding past a cemetery littered with crawling corpses Gabe can be heard whimpering “Why …why didn’t I choose Burger King?”

After facing the horrors of the walking dead, radioactive hillbillies and chainsaw welding skin face wearing psycho killers Gabe got his relief as the trail came to an end.

“It was the scariest trail I have ever been on,” Gabe said.

Catherine Johnson, 11-year-old at Cathedral, who squealed and giggled through the whole trial certainly enjoyed herself.
“It was very amusing.” Catherine said.

So if you are hungering for Halloween fun and a chance to run screaming as zombies chase you through the dark forests outside of St. Joe then head on down to the Horseshoe Lake Drive In, watch the Movie and then take a hell-bound hike down Zombie Trail.

By A.D. 2025 there should be close to eight billion breathing people sucking up all this good air that we insist on filling with tail­pipe toxins and prehistoric animals.

With the geniuses of the marketing world operating by the proverb “Sex Sells,” and masses of viewers and consumers about to pullut­ate their apocalyptic agen­da of the bottom line, we might be able to surprise the analysts and chorus line and kick those baby-mak­ing numbers up to give us a standing room only perfor­mance of another billion by mid-March.

Unless, of course, we realize how insane our go forth and be plentiful breeder policy really is.

We could just slow down the swing for a few decades for homeo­stasis.

Here is how:switch the responsibility of birth control to the men. We start giving all boys reaching sexual maturity a reversible vasectomy. When the time comes that the young and strap­ping lad wants the respon­sibility of child rearing, he takes a test. If he passes, he has the operation reversed and can get back to kicking up her heels for more than fornications sake.

The doctors could even give him a virility shot as he goes out the door to ensure some good loving in the name of the great baby making imperative that guides us.

Think about it. In America, you have to take a test to drive. Believe me, a baby in the hands of the wrong parents can do a lot more damage than an idiot behind a wheel. Which is a pretty bold statement when you consider how many people die on our highways every year. So you have to take a test to drive, get a license to fish or hunt or take advantage of the sec­ond amendment. Now, any stain in the gene pool can spew their seed all about the fertile landscape. I hope all your daughters decide to couple with club-footed hunchbacks.

Besides if we flip the birth control issue to men, we eliminate biological clocks running the show with some overwhelming hor­mones and a drive to win daddy’s love. 

We could complete­ly restructure a broken national childcare system by making the father more directly responsible for fly­ing sperm.

Maybe, if the guy could not legally abandon his kids so easily, men might realize how much they need their women around and would start treating them better.

Abortion would become a thing of the past, only hauled out when it was needed for true medi­cal emergencies.

But the way we do things now is good too.

We all should have lots and lots of little savages running about.

That way when the war on whatever noun we are pursuing has gone on for another generation, our politicians will be sup­plied with another body of fodder to fling at foreign concepts that frighten us.

That way seems much better than mine.

I found my medicine bag and eight other students found their need for medicine.

Despite everything we were exposed to: more Lewis and Clark interpretive centers than one man can contain within the confines of his own headspace, the holy ways and rituals of the Lakota sweat lodge, power stroking the winding course of the mighty river Missouri — one thing we  did not learn hurts the most — we are all in this together.

As I felt that I burned through and suffered what I needed to feel to get this bag around my neck which carries my medicinem, I began to understand the true meaning of spiritual medicine that lies within us all.

I live by my motto.  

Everything is connected. But it seems my brothers and sisters who accompanied me on this trek did not realize that.

We were so fractured as a people that it hurt me. It troubled my soul deeply which is why I broke away from the main group to ride back with the blessed company of a lesbian, a weird girl and a crazy, hot milf.

Despite our differences, we all learned a lot.

This is applied learning in its fullest form. If Missouri Western ever held its true aim in that field, it would be realized in this outdoor program.

This is the kind of teaching of a new age, of a generation that is going to have to deal with a world already past saving.

This new world is born upon the ashes of others, just like every  civilization that has come before us.

Once we have raped and pillaged and consumed what we can, we are left to the medicine men, and that is where we’re at now.

People have got to understand it is not about who is right or wrong or who is the better team.

It is not about competition, it is about cooperation. We are not going to do this if we don’t do it together.

We are all rock stars baby! That’s what it is, once we realize that we can maybe pull our heads out of our collective orifices and begin to unfold the grand drama that is human destiny.

I almost said evolution. Same thing: we are all speaking the same language and its syntax is based in love if we let ourselves tap into that.

I won’t be going on the southern trek down to Chaco Canyon, the second part of the outdoor semester. My family would hang me if I did. But as a medicine man, I am sending the rest of my brothers and sisters off on their vision quest.  

Alot of kids in the next year will grow into good men and women.  

What they least expect, they might find in the challenges that lie before them and hopefully one of them will be filling this space with their words instead of me.

Remember that we are all connected. Don’t be afraid to share in each others’ differences; we all have pain to share. Keep your minds and hearts open to the lessons of the wilds  and Godspeed, my friends. Godspeed.

It was a good trip. I couldn’t have asked for more.

 In any number of academic reports one can read, there is evidence that American college students are falling in areas of high culture. But if the leadership, both student and faculty, are an example of those they lead, then Missouri Western is in very promising hands. They are a people who are equally talented, classically trained, and set with an eye out towards an ever changing and developing future.

Gregory is directing “The Vanities” which will run from Feb 26 – March 2. It will be preceded by All in the Timing by David Ives on Nov 8 – 10. Coming right up on Oct 3 – 7 is “Angel on My Shoulder” directed by Candice Schrader, senior at Western, and assistant directed by Jennifer George, also a senior. All shows start at 8 p.m. except for the shows on Sunday that go on at 2 p.m.

“I liked “Vanities” from when I have seen it before” Gregory said. “We have not done it here for…gosh, 25 or 30 years. It is a good story and even though it is from the late sixties, early seventies, I think people can still relate to how the girls change and how you don’t always end up how you thought you would.”

Jennifer George, senior at Western and assistant director of the upcoming “Angel on My Shoulder,” has already begun rehearsals on her play as she rides in on the wave of child birth. “I had my baby just 15 days ago,” George said. “I have been bringing her to rehearsals with me. It has worked out so far. She seems to be a fan of the theatre”.

With the play already in rehearsal, the cast is bonding—getting to be closer than they might have suspected.

“Just recently we had to do the blocking for the scene where the Angel and the girl meet for the first time,” George said. “And he kisses her ankle and he kisses her leg and the actors were just a little uncomfortable. Since it was the first time doing this, we kind of went easy on them. But obviously they will have to get more comfortable with it.” 

Jeremy Warner will be directing “All in the Timing” by David Ives. It is a part of the class Theater 338, Directing the Actor. The play is a series of 15 one acts covering a multitude of topics directed by 15 different students. It will be a showcase of rising new talent. What could be more fun than fresh ideas?

Warner also is excited about a new class to Western next semester for those interested in film. The Missouri Western film festival will be April 21-25 which will be in connection to a class of its same name.

“We have an upcoming class called Film Festival.” Warner said. “Students will be learning all about how film festivals work, how to plan them—every single aspect as well as picking out the films to be shown. One night will be dedicated solely to works done by Missouri Western students. So it should be pretty exciting. We are hoping to get a lot of really exciting cool people involved.”

So think about it, do you really want to be low on high culture? If not, are you cool? Are you exciting? Then this is a good year to start getting involved with Missouri Westerns theatre and film program.

“Right now, politically and socially there is a lot of questioning who and what we are,” Warner said. “Now it is time for us to realize we have our own voices, and it could be film or theatre or art or video games or whatever. We have our own voices and now is the time to use them. If you don’t like what’s out there, then make your own voice.”

Angie Reynolds, Drug Free Community organizer, worked with the Saint Joseph Youth Alliance and Missouri Western to bring this opportunity to our community.

“Through our state incentive grant that we funded to do alcohol prevention, we are charged with the duty to address underage and binge drinking from ages 12 to 25,” Reynolds said. “So basically the purpose of the town hall meeting is to invite community members, parents and teenagers to come listen to the presentation and talk about social issues and norms, and what we can do to stay involved.”

Binge drinking is consuming five or more alcohol drink in one sitting. In Saint Joseph the average kid is starting to drink at the age of 12.

Cpl. Bob Benning, Missouri Western Campus security, sees the problem less frequently these days and considers that it may be a problem for younger kids.

“I think perception of college students drinking is a little misunderstood.” Benning said. “I think the general public perceives that all college students are binge drinkers and the true fact is that 88 percent are not. Just like in greater society, a small percentage does something and the perception is that everyone of that group does that thing. In the city of Saint Joseph it is 12.7 years of age that kids drink on average. What the youth alliance is trying to achieve is to raise the age that kids start drinking. What we would like to do is get kids to start drinker closer to the legal age”.

“I started drinking around 14 and 15,” Toren Volkmann said. “By the time I finished college I wanted something different. I went into the Peace Corp. in South Africa and that is where the problem really kicked in. Alcohol was running my social life. We tend to look the other way, but alcoholism is a bigger problem than most people suspect. It’s hard on families, health systems and the economy.”

“Toren is really good at talking to students,” Chris Volkmann said. “I just want to get out there and talk to the communities and let people know that it is necessary that we get involved in each others’ lives, we can’t just keep going on pretending these problems don’t exist.”

Strangely enough, I was proud of my son,  even though I don’t keep guns. I believe that if I am going to murder someone, it is best to do with my bare hands so I can really get a feel for what I am doing.

Some John Wayne part of my gut tightened and I was proud that the boy would grow to be a man who knew how to handle a gun. My son is a smart and thoughtful kid. Smart and thoughtful is something I feel like we need more of than more idiots with guns.

There are people who can still remember a time when gun safety was taught in schools. In certain times of America’s past there may have even been a time when you wouldn’t think of going to school without one. The wolves might get you otherwise.

I, myself, can’t even own a gun but I think there should be a certain reverence held for powerful fire sticks which have brought us as mankind much bounty.

I believe that if we were not a society of idiots and morons then people having guns would not be a problem. It was not always the way it is today. Kids get kicked out of school for just drawing guns.

When I was in the ninth grade I brought a Lugar to school in my coat pocket. I wanted to impress a girl who was into guns with a little exotica.

I didn’t make a big deal about it and I did not kill anybody because I knew that would have just been stupid and wrong. I targeted a pigeon on a goalpost in the football field after school, but the bird sensed me aiming and took flight a second before I squeezed the trigger and fired a shot off into the sky. Nothing bad happened.

Sure, that was a long time ago. There are a crapload more people these days and a bunch of them are on mind altering drugs. Maybe the cause of those factors is the real problem here, not the existence of guns.

Guns gave us as Americans a chance to throw those enormously overtaxing monarchist tea suckers out of our lives so we could be run by our own bunch of manipulative graft ridden bastards that we chose.

And when those bastards finally step too far out of the line of the tolerated level of subjectivity, guns will give us the fighting chance to run them up the wall.

I like guns.
 
I just don’t like stupid people with guns.
 
Maybe we should have control of stupid people.

They spend 40 plus hours every week  playing Halo 2.

These 40 hours are part of the process of staging and editing the popular web based cartoon called “Red vs. Blue.”

Sorola plays the character of Pvt. Dick Simmons and Burns plays Pvt. Leonard L. Church as well as Lopez The Heavy, Vic, The Warthog, and the  Red Zealot.

These gentlemen must have a really good time clocking in for their average day of employment as they kick back in state of the art high tech video game playing chairs and churn out another weekly episode of  quirky military humor.

With the success of the cartoon sweeping in on the tails of the success of the Halo franchise, you can bet that both Burns and Sorola earn a bit more than minimum wage.
To get a job like that, it might help to sharpen your skills.
 
At 8 p.m. on Sept. 23 at Hastings you can get just that kind of practice at their Halo 3 Midnight release party and Halo 2 tournament.

Brad Ogden, Western Alumni and Hastings employee, is the mastermind of the event that will include up to eight screens, snacks and soda.

“We are having the Halo 3 midnight release party and having the Halo 2 tournament also,” Ogden said. “We are planning on having a singles tournament and a 2v2 doubles tournament.”

The singles tournament is a 1v1.

It’s basically an elimination round.

The person with most kills at the end of a round wins that round and then they move on to the next round.

The winner of the singles tournament wins a free copy of Halo 3.”

Missouri Western students could find an evening’s entertainment at the event and would find a warm welcome from the Hastings staff that is conducting the party, but word of the fun to come has not quite yet reached campus.

Kory Stone, Western sophomore, an avid fan of Halo online, was surprised to learn of the upcoming tournament.
 
“I did not know Hastings was having this event.” Stone said. “I used to get involved with that kind of stuff. I just work too much anymore. Halo is pretty fun. Definitely the online game.” Stan Libby, Western freshmen and game lover of all sorts, was also caught unawares as to the upcoming fun.

“I did not know about the Hastings tournament but if my work schedule would let me, I’d go” Libby said. “Halo is awesome. The first one had crappy graphics, the second one was better.

They are both fun games. They take 24 hours to complete altogether. The real drawback to Halo 3 is if you don’t have the right system, you can’t play it. I really don’t feel like spending $400 on a new game system just to play Halo 3.”

Ogden is seeing some of the lack of word about this event on his end at Hastings.

“We have had a lot of interest but we have not had enough people sign up for the tournament yet” Ogden said. “You can sign up for the tournament until Sept 20. We will allow late tournament entries on the day of the party that will go in another bracket that might end up competing against the regulation bracket.”

So if entertainment is what your looking for and you have a penchant for racking up the kill score and a burning desire to drive the warthog then head on out to Hastings and sign up. Missouri Western Students are welcome.

“We will try and get Little Caesars out here so they can sell their five dollar pizzas,” Ogden said. “We will have soda so it will be a lot of fun. Pizza, soda, video games. That’s lots of fun.”

Musicians from all around the globe will be coming here to compete and perform. The festival offers lectures, master sessions, jam sessions, concerts and over $8,000 in prize money, ranking it in the top four classical guitar competitions in the U.S. And it only costs $5 for a student ticket – less than a twelve-pack of Bud Light.

“We have world-class performers in a setting where you can see and watch them play that you would pay five to ten times as much in an urban area,” said Mark Mikkelson, professor of philosophy and board member for the festival.

Anthony Glise, festival founder and director, has been called the true soul of the festival by many of his contemporaries.

“The festival is my baby,” Glise said. “Dr. Gilmore turned me loose to design my idea of a ‘perfect festival’ and frankly, it has become exactly that.”

Mikkelson has been going to the concerts for the last two years and feels that many people do not know the significance of this event.

“It is sort of strange, but St. Joseph doesn’t quite realize how large this festival has become,” Mikkelson said. “We have people that fly in from Tokyo, Amsterdam, Paris – you name it – just to be in St. Joe for the festival. In the past it has been a display of virtuosity beyond imagination, and it is all here in Saint Joseph.”

Mikkelson is eager to see the performances at this year’s festival.

“We were looking for unique signature-like events that could be used to enhance the community, and the level of talent that Tony is able to bring to this community because of his connections internationally in the guitar circuit is phenomenal,” he said. “What we get is a set of the best guitar players in the world.”

Matt Gilmore, director of Western’s music department, helps coordinate the festival for the department, and said that repeat performers like the community of St. Joseph.

“It’s wonderful that it brings people from all around the world to St. Joseph, and after spending time here, they don’t mind coming back,” Gilmore said. “They have always been very impressed with their reception in this community.”

Gilmore has a few suggestions on the shows that students won’t want to miss.

“Don’t miss the Friday show of the Flamenco or the Saturday show of the Hungry Monks,” he said. “These will be really good. They were partly selected to bring in a wide-based audience.”

Sophomore Edy Offner sees the festival as an enormous opportunity and credits Glise with it.

“I think that we are so lucky to have the kind of fantastic international guitarists that come to this festival,” Offner said. “It’s the fourth largest festival of this kind in the U.S. this year, and the fact that it’s in St. Joseph, MO, really says something. I don’t think anyone realizes how lucky we are to have Anthony Glise on our campus, because without him, none of this could have happened.”

A free opening party and jam session will start the five-day event at 7 p.m. on May 16 at Café Acoustic, 2605 Frederick Ave.

For more information on the guitar festival visit www.missouriwestern.edu/guitarfestival/ or call the music department at 816-271-4420.

—

Concerts to be held:

• Aleksandre Tsiboulski, solo classical guitar, at 7:30 p.m. May 17 in Leah Spratt Hall, Kemper Recital Hall
• Val and Lucia, Flamenco and Iberian-Celtic music with guest dancers, at 7:30 p.m. May 18 in Thompson E. Potter Hall Theater
• Hungry Monks, historical and Celtic folk music, at 7:30 p.m. May 19 in Potter Hall Theater
• Final competition rounds and awards ceremony at 3 p.m. May 20 at The Dome, 12th St. and Felix

After each concert, the performers, competitors, masterclass participants, local guitarists and audience members are invited to attend the four free post-concert jam sessions to relax and share different styles of music. Jam sessions are as follows:

• 9 p.m. May 17 at “La Dolce Vita” at 36th Street, 501 N. Belt
• 9 p.m. May 18 at HiHo, 1817 Frederick
• 9 p.m. May 19 at Magoon’s Saloon, 632 S. 8th St.
• 6 p.m. May 20 at Terrible’s St. Joseph Casino, 777 Winners Circle

All masterclasses are held in Leah Spratt Hall, Kemper Recital Hall.

His loneliness and his fear and rage cooked up a combustible cocktail of murder and mayhem that was just released with deadly precision upon the campus, staff and students.

It rocked the headlines for days.

Everyone knew the name Cho Seung-Hui. It is a story that has been heard before, but never to this immensity.

A scared and awkward kid gets pushed too far and he lashes out.

Days later the story has already moved out of the headlines and all the dirty laundry has been exposed for everyone to look at in perverse detail. NBC aired chilling footage of the video that the shooter sent to their office.

The presentation clearly took a significant amount of time to create. The police said it looked like it had taken him up to six days to produce.

All this time in a college dorm hall, and no one knew him well enough to catch on to what he was doing.

That is the part that makes me sad. The guy didn’t have anybody.

Everybody needs somebody.

So, I am writing this as a plea to those out there who are hurting and hiding in your dorm room because the modern world and Western madness has driven you to the edge.

If it hurts so bad in the pit of your soul that it makes you want to lash out and kill someone because you are so lonely that you have no one for you to see how disappointed that would make them, call me. Write me a letter. Accost me in the hallway.

I will be your friend.

Ten years of bartending and a history of dealing with the psychiatric industry has blessed me with a really good ear for troubles.

Being a big, burly, fat guy makes me a sturdy support for when you need someone to lean on and the better part of human nature gives me the compassion to want you to come to me before you make a decision that is irreversible.

Please, this is me reaching out.

I don’t judge anyone, and I understand what it is like to be insane. I know what it feels like to be alone in your own head.

I am an outsider as well, so please, just take a chance and reach out, too. I just might be able to help you. It is worth the chance, isn’t it?

As for all the bullies out there that find joy in the humiliation of those less socially competent than yourself: cut that crap out.

Nobody thinks it’s cool anymore, and look where it leads.

This scene could be set to take place at Missouri Western State University on Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in room 214. The show is called the Happening, and it promises to be a night of improv, poetry and music in the style of the beats.

The organizer of the event is Edy Offner, a western sophomore, who feels that this style of creative outlet is long overdue on our campus.

“I really love writing and I really love music,” Offner said. “I will say something in my writing that I would never find myself saying: where I write is where I truly am.”

With such an off-the-wall event taking place, some Western students remained uninformed of the creative event. Western junior Justin Peacock is blissfully unaware of the event or even what its function is.

“What’s a poetry slam?” Peacock said while remaining open to the idea. “I would guess that I would like to hear some poetry.”

Offner sets her vision to a wide-ranging scale when it comes to defining what the event should be.

“Rules?” Offner exclaimed. “Be as forthcoming, offensive and real as life permits you. Let’s start something. We are intelligent human beings, for one night; let’s act like it.”

Many Western students feel that creating the foundation for something bigger is needed on the literary scene. Western junior Mary Stone provides one reason for the significance of the Happening.

“There are a lot of really talented creative writers, and there is not much to do for them,” Stone said. “They need to create their own community. This will give them a chance for that.”

Western sophomore Ryan Richardson sees an opportunity in the Happening that is not oft presented.

“I am excited for a free-form exchange of ideas,” Richardson said. “On this campus, sometimes it does not always present itself easily.”

With word circulating the campus after the appearance of the bizarre flyers announcing the Happening, there are hopes in creating a student draw to the free event.

“I went around and talked to a lot of people,” Offner said. “I made a point of talking to the English majors I know, many of the English teachers. I put something in the mailbox of all the
music professors. I talked to video, art and theater kids. I went to the Acoustic Café and talked to a bunch of the adults. I am trying to get a hold of a wide variety of people. I even got a hold of my old high school English teacher from Lafayette.”

It is hard to say what kind of pieces will be read at something like this. Ultimately, the students will choose what voice they want to express.

“I am a big fan of the evolution of language,” Stone said. “ I think that is what leads me to enjoy poetry so much. I have a couple of poems; I might read.”

In hopes of creating a new beat scene, Offner encourages students to bring their unabashed creativity in all its naked fury.

“I was reading an article in the “Village Voice” about the Beat generation,” Offner said. “And it described the scene as destabilizing the expected standards of life and art, and that is what I want to bring to this open mic night.”

That is not so different than the aims of the original beat kings of the ‘50s. As Alan Ginsburg said:

“Once when Kerouac was high on psychedelics with Timothy Leary, he looked out the window and said, ‘Walking on water wasn’t built in a day.’ Our goal was to save the planet and alter human consciousness. That will take a long time, if it happens at all.”

It will be Happening on April 25 at 7 p.m. in Spratt 214. Come at 6:15 p.m. if you want. There will be a party at the Café Acoustic afterwards to all those of appropriate age.

Missouri Western has made some real progress, and that should be applauded.

We have had an enormous erection spring up in the center of campus with all these littler erections popping up all over the place now.

I used to make my run for freedom on the last day of finals in hopes of giving the rent-a-pigs something fun to do that day.

Security, back then, was not the real cops we have on campus today.

Murphy Hall now stands where I drove my 1976 Dodge van tearing across the then open expanse between the English and Science Buildings. That kind of ruins an exit plan.

In the last three years, we have had all these new administrative faces come in and troubleshoot the kinks in system.

We now have definitive plans for things like graduate programs and new departments on the rise like Professional Studies.

We have an Applied Learning Program that is raising the charts and letting us shine as a beacon of success to all the schools in the state.

Missouri Western has done a really good job.

However, we should not break out the bubbly just yet; we still have a ways to go.

It seems weird to me that there are foreign language choices available to the area’s high school students than there are to us Griffons.

Am I so odd for wanting to study Latin? With all trends showing the shape of the coming world economy, isn’t it an injustice that I can’t study Arabic or Chinese here at Western?

Many high schools across the nation have a student-run radio station, broadcasting across the airwaves. Now, there is some applied learning for the bigwigs to consider.

All we have to offer is dead air. It’s dead air.

The true question is how long can we seriously be considered a university without a stronger graduate school?

Back in my day of high school, admittedly this was 17 years ago, teachers told us that if we went to college, we could write our own ticket in the professional world.

Turns out that it was a ticket for coach, not first class.

Today, to have any real success that might let you lift your oppressed head above the middle-class red line you need a master’s degree. Can I get one here?

Not yet.

The good news is that the future holds a whole realm of possibilities, and maybe with our rising tuition we will see even greater improvements.

We are off to a good start as a university, but let’s be the turtle not the hare, because we know what happens when we start napping.

Imagine a football game played by guys from Minnesota, that have been chemically stoked into a Methamphetamine induced berserker fury worthy of real Vikings facing off against men from New York, who have been weaned on cocktails of HGH and steroids since puberty making themselves virtual giants. The drugs have been called performance enhancing like that is a bad thing. People upgrade their computers, cars, and entertainment systems at premium prices seeking enhanced performance. Why do people think sports are any different? Because it gives an unfair advantage?

Concerning the question of fairness, it is plain to see that if drug use were mandatory then it would level the playing field fairly well. Despite our high ideals of equality amongst man, people are not all equal. Some guys can jump like Jordan.

Some guys are tall, really tall, circus tall, like Yao. Some guys are just too pretty like Ali. Mankind was not created equally when it comes to performance. So lets dope up the guys that don’t have the advantage and call it equal.

If the guys are willing to play the enhancement game then let it be their choice and the rest of us can kick back in our lazy boys and watch a baseball season with 120 home runs. The anti-doping czar and bearer of a most unfortunate name, Dick Pound can whine all he wants about fairness. Life isn’t fair, anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something.

However with simple strict regiment of performance enhancing drugs personalized to each athlete, the inequalities could be evened out just a tad all the while raising the quality of the games we love to watch.

So give us give us the good stuff. Give us boxing matches with the fighters fueled by PCP and Andro so they beat each other mercilessly pushing past the point break of human endurance. Give us basketball with men who can sky walk from the center and play all four quarters. Give us a marathon from the top of Canada to the bottom of the world. Give us enhanced performance and maybe it will be worth the enhanced prices that spectators pay at the gate.

Two examples of applied learning practices that worked out better than anyone could anticipate are the foster parent marketing and recruitment plan, which started in the business department, and the pancake project spawned by the biology department.

Senior Brad Ogden was a member of the pancake project team which was created out of Western’s applied learning principle.

“Summer Research Institute could be considered a branch of what the applied learning experience is all about,” Ogden said. “Through SRI, students have the opportunity to work with faculty over the summer on projects they may have started or in our case, a research project we, the students, mostly orchestrated ourselves with the aid of Dr. Todd Eckdahl and Dr. Jeff Poet.”

SRI has gained Western an extra shine of credibility with its applied learning success.

“Last November, we brought our research to the International Genetically Engineered Machines competition in Boston at MIT and came home with several awards for Missouri Western: first place for best presentation, just to mention one,” Ogden said. “We brought home top awards against bigger schools and ivy leagues, which is somewhat of a feat, considering the amount of resources we have compared to them.”

All the students that were involved with the foster parent marketing and recruitment plan have graduated, which left only Todd Mick, business professor at Western, to fill in the blanks of what went on in the practicum last year.

“The coolest thing about it is, well, the social services were having trouble recruiting foster parents in the north part of St. Joseph, and they came to us with a very specific need and a very specific area,” Mick said. “We thought, ‘We can do this.’ It is a well-defined region and a well-defined population. Those four students said we can do this, and I said you can do it. The big thing was to create an awareness campaign through churches, mall displays, room displays, anything to create awareness for the need for foster parents in the north end.”

Once the Western students got busy, the quality of their work became apparent.

“When it came time for their presentation, social services used not just their boardroom but the entire classroom,” Mick said. “It was packed. People came all the way from Jeff City. When I walked in, I was a little bit in awe. This was either going to be a complete and total train wreck or they were going to hit it out of the ball park.”

Despite any apprehensions Mick may have had, his students continued to shine.

“The students got up front in their matching gold Western shirts and they looked sharp,” Mick said. “They presented their marketing plan in a very professional and child-caring manner, and everyone was left saying ‘wow, they get it.’ This is a result of the applied learning initiative at Missouri Western.”

“In order to measure our success in applied learning, we had to define it,” said Jeanne Daffron, dean of professional studies and vice-president of student and academic affairs. “What it means at Western is we actually have four forms: clinical practicum and internships that is one form, another is study away programs, there is the service learning programs and the fourth thing is the professor- student research projects. That is how we operationally defined it.”

Applied learning at Western has become a focus in the formula of driving students to success. Paul Shang, dean of student development, feels the focus of applied learning is a very exciting prospect for Western.

“This is a hallmark aspect of Missouri Western,” Shang said. “The approach which has been taken here which accounts for the success and makes it a signature effort is that it is integrated into the curriculum. It makes it an integral part of the students learning.”

Martin Johnson, dean of liberal arts and sciences, emphasizes the reason for the excitement is the rising success of the program.

“Missouri Western has been involved in applied learning for many years,” Johnson said. “The level of activity and the number of people involved has steadily increased. Now it is in excess of 80 percent of graduates who have completed their internship or faculty-student research. This is one of the areas where we have hitched our star, and it is shining pretty well.”

Western has exceeded its benchmark goal of 75  percent involvement for graduating students in the applied learning concept.

“That was one of the goals of the strategic plan that we are finishing this year,” Daffron said. “It was to increase student participation in applied learning. Dr. Scanlon originally wanted to have a goal of 100 percent, and I think that was a little frightening for some people, so I think in our strategic plan we actually set the goal at 75 percent. And last year we were at 81 percent of all graduates had some form of significant applied learning experience.”

A goal of 100 percent is not an unattainable goal.

“I think it is just a matter of time before we are at a 100 percent involvement,” Shang said. “I think one of the reasons now, largely, is we have not yet identified all the appropriate internships, and we have not gotten as many people involved in our study away activities.”

With student involvement on the rise, Western is beginning to take a role of prominence for its success in applied learning.

“When the legislature granted us university status, it also gave us a state-wide mission in applied learning, so that really is asking us to provide some leadership in the applied learning area,” Daffron said. “This was very exciting for us to be considered as such.”

Outside of the benefit this success gives the university, there is also an advantage for the students.

“The benefits of it are multitudinous; some students get jobs straight out of their internships,” Johnson said. “It puts something on their resume that sets them apart from anybody else. These are things that are beneficial to students, not only in their education, but also in their professional endeavors.”

The reputation of the performance of Western graduates is on the rise as well.

“We certainly have heard from employers that that they feel Missouri Western students are more practically oriented and more focused,” Shang said. “Our next steps are going to be to add on to the applied learning concept and see if we can’t also present it outside of the classrooms.”

Krow Keesaman climbed up to the top turnbuckle with a quickness as his much larger opponent, the Fat Cowboy closed in on his position. Before Krow could spring into a flip kick, one of the Fat Cowboy’s crew grabbed a hold of Krow’s ankle throwing off his spin and causing him to crash right into the larger mans arms. After hoisting Krow up over his head, the Fat Cowboy then came crashing down on top of Krow like a hydraulic pile driver. Pinned by the Cowboys immense girth, Krow could hear the ref starting to slap the mat as he yells out “One…”

Kraig Keesaman enjoys a passion that most of his peers can only watch alongside an arena or on TV. Kraig is a professional wrestler. He travels around the country and has matches in the smaller venue that what most people watch on TV but he wrestles all the same. He has even had the privilege of having a distinguished coach. “I have trained under Sonny Meyers and he has been wrestling in this area since like the 1900’s,” Kraig jests while still admiring the timelessness of his mentor “No I don’t mean that, since his thirties or forties, shoot, he has been 82 since I have known him and that has been seven years ago.”

Kraig Keesaman may truly be one of the most unique men in all of Saint Joseph and he soon will be an international pro wrestler. “I have something set up with the New Holland Wrestling federation.” Kraig said “I am going there with the study abroad program and I made some calls myself, I will be wrestling for Belgian Wrestling Federation on May 19 in Boom, Antwerp. I will probably be on a few other shows as well; New Holland Wrestling is also going to contact me once they book their show. So while I am up there I will at least have one match, maybe more.”

Given the immense task of wrestling in such a foreign environment, against the Viking descendant giant opponents that invoke images of Drogo from “Rocky IV”, Kraig shows no signs of fear or apprehension. “I’m excited about the experience, not only will I get to enjoy visiting another country, but I get to do the thing I love doing most while I am there.” Kraig said. “Everyone I have talked to over there are really nice, they are equally excited about having an American wrestler on their card. As a bonus it is Belgium Wrestling Federation’s 3rd anniversary show on the 19th, so I’m a bit honored that they would have me on the show.”

The ref slaps the mat a second time as Krow can feel that last bit of strength and willpower ball up in his abdomen, it is now the time for all or nothing as the ref cries out “…Two!…”

Besides wrestling Kraig is also an avid fisherman, home brewer and hunter. But clearly the number one passion for this 24 year old Missouri Western senior is being in the ring. “My favorite kind of match to wrestle is usually with a bigger guy.” Kraig said. “It sets up a great underdog story that really gets the crowd into the match. I like flashy finishes and such, but my favorites are quick roll-ups that make both men look strong in the ring, even though one just lost.”

He has been in locally made movies, like the Louis and Clark Trail of Blood, and wrestled in this region for eight years “I used to be one of the smallest wrestlers in the area.” Kraig said. “I started out at a buck sixty five and now I am up to 205 so I am not so small anymore.

Before the Ref could slap the mat a third time Krow frees enough of his arm to give him the power to wriggle free and roll the fat man up into a ball reversing the positions of who was pinning who as he presses down hard into his opponent as the crowd goes wild and the ref slaps the mat three times and it is over baby, it is over.

His name was Steve Rogers and he was what every man could only hope to be, and he was not even real. He was the inspiration for the silver age of modern mythology.

Marvel Comics cornerstone character Captain America was killed by a terrorist’s assassination plot involving snipers and brainwashed special agents. Tough guys all across America shed a big manly tear when Super Man died, but the death of the star-spangled super solider sent a shiver of stark terror down the spines of fan boys everywhere. This time death was going to mean something; this time was not some mad mastermind’s marketing ploy. The death of Captain America meant something. If one looks through the colored kaleidoscope of comic book history, it becomes apparent that there has been some level of humanity’s mass apprehensions and anxieties woven into the story fabric of the four-color fantasy that is the comic book mythos.

Examine four of the major icons of comic book creation: Superman, Spider-Man, the Hulk and Ghost Rider. Each one of these concepts had America’s fears tied into its origin.

Superman made his way into action in the year 1938, when the whole of America was fairly concerned with the little green men on mars that had dug all of those intricate canals. Not even two generations past the day when a radio show caused mass panic across the country because citizens were convinced that the Martians were invading. Super Man was rocketed away from the doomed planet Krypton.

Super Man was an alien in a time of extreme xenophobia. Spider-Man appeared in the ‘60s when well-off Americans were building bomb shelters in the backyard. Spider-Man was a victim of a radioactive spider bite. Interestingly enough when Spider-Man was recreated in film after the turn of the century, genetic engineering had been woven into the amazing origin. This, during a time when genetic engineering is a political issue as much as a scientific one.

The Hulk is much the same.

Born in the early ‘60s at the heart of a gamma bomb, a victim of dirty Red sabotage. In his rebirth to the world in film, the bomb was still in the story, but genetic engineering and nano-technology had replaced the commie spies.

Ghost Rider rode into the highways of the human imagination on his hellspawned hog at a time when Anton LeVey’s Church of Satan is inspiring people to take bold new career paths into the fine arts of deprogramming. Johnny Blaze got cursed to become the rider after he had made a deal with the devil, and he had just been seen down in Georgia. Now America is in a war on nouns – like drugs and poverty and terror – and the good Captain has breathed his last, so the questions must be asked: Why are we so afraid? Is all this fear really working out for us? Is it worth it?

RIP Captain America

At times it seems as if some fog of ineptitude has settled along the Missouri river like some lurking force of evil creeping out of a ‘70s horror movie. St. Joseph stands out as a civic statement that says “if there is a corner to be cut, let’s round it out.” As evidenced by the intersection at Northwest Parkway and Lovers Lane and Gene Field road.

American college standings are dropping across the board.

Young students are less literate or scientific minded than ever.

Less than 100 people will probably read these words. All of these things are connected.

That connection is you.

Any campus event held, there is always some kind of reason that more people didn’t come. Money gets wasted on things like low student attendance. The student government is begging for more members. They are responsible for doling out how student money gets spent, and the student body doesn’t seem to care. The Students for Multicultural Studies Program puts on a crapload of events, and so many people remain unaware.

Western has had to instate a stricter mandatory attendance policy for freshmen. All of this has happened, and no one seems to care.

This is the Age of Aquarius, people. If we don’t wake up and start getting off our collective posteriors and be the best we can be and take advantage of all the academic bounty that there is to be offered, we too, will see the fall of an empire of pop culture and power lunches.

From the roots in the earth, the ethics and values that shape this county grow.

We vote for the corrupt political leaders that ignore the common man’s interest in favor of privileged lobbyists. We give our money and power to greedy merchant empires that snicker and seek to enslave us with addiction to the newest product and the race to keep up with the Joneses.

The seven deadly sins — lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, envy, wrath and pride — seem infused into the fabric of everyday life.

It all goes back to modern man’s preoccupation with the pursuit of personal comfort. Who knows if there is some great doom fomenting in our atmosphere? But you can make a sure bet that if there were, we the people, would not vote to sacrifice the gifts and goods we fought through an industrial revolution to achieve.

It all goes back to being half assed. We have to stop doing things that are easy and throw a little effort into the process of strengthening the American student character through hardships and hardball.

Otherwise, how are we preparing the youth for the real world that awaits us all on this hell-bent suicide course that we are steering this nuclear-powered space ship Earth toward?

A crowd of 70 people sat staring at the thin young man standing on stage as Western junior Paul McEnaney began to talk. He spoke of things like church and politics and all the things you are not supposed to talk about in a mixed crowd, and as he did this, the roar of laughter spread across the house.

When it was over and the 32 contestants were waiting to hear the results of the comedy competition, no one was more surprised and enthused than McEnaney, who took second place.

“What I had expected is that it was contest for people who had never been on stage before or maybe had been once or twice,” McEnaney said. “What I found was it was me and three other guys who had this as a first time. The other 28 had all been doing this over a year or so. They had stage experience. The guy who won first made me a little bitter because he ripped off Dmitri Martin; he didn’t steal his jokes, but he stole his act.”

He is going to do it again this Tuesday night. If you go take heed, though, McEnaney should come with a sign that says, “WARNING…Entering Politically Incorrect Zone.”

McEnaney’s comedy style runs all the basis of basic controversy, as he mixes personal experience with sociological dysfunction.

“I am a recovering conservative, which is to say that I am partly to blame for Bush’s re-election. While I didn’t vote for him, I didn’t kill him either,” McEnaney said. “I consider it a lost opportunity. Just kidding government types, who are more than likely reading this infringing on my freedom of speech by telling me it’s a federal offense to say that I’d like to see George Bush found face down dead in a back alley in Washington DC, strung out on coke with his hands down Donald Rumsfeld’s pants.”

It becomes very clear that McEnaney is not one to pull his punches when it comes to reaching the punch line, which he delivers like Mike Tyson warming up his date for the night.

McEnaney has great ambition as he dreams up a tagline that he would like to have associated with his act, as he becomes a better-known comedian: Paul McEnaney, The worst thing to happen to the church since science.

Organized religion is a central theme to his jokes, and with unabashed daring, he invokes his jokes making the audiences feel like going to confession.

Paul is a very private person, who isn’t a very big fan of confession himself. Paul is a communications major, with an emphasis in public relations.

“I went with public relations,” McEnaney said. “The idea was so that I could spin my own media coverage.”

A simple man who lives with is dog, Paul is engaged to his special girl and merely wants to live his life in his own way.

“I feel like I don’t want to have the American Dream after I have stepped outside the box,” McEnaney said. “I got a dog, I got a girl and I got a kid, as far as I am concerned, I meet 2007 standards for the new nuclear family.”

He does not long for all the flash and dazzle of show business.

“I would rather just stick to the local scene. I don’t really want to be famous. I want to be rich, but I don’t want to be famous because I am not the type of person who can deal with having a camera in my face 24 hours a day,” McEnaney said.

Paul has hobbies outside of comedy just like any 20-something American male.

“I like baseball, stand-up comedy, music that doesn’t suck, movies….I love movies, sluts, Las Vegas, lasagna, trashy sluts, guitar,” McEnaney said.

He also gives the casual observer a bit of wit and warning.

“Anything I say, take with a grain of salt, and a gram of speed.” McEnaney said.

Good advice for dealing with his high-strung manic nature. Paul has the energy, timing and innate ability to entertain the masses.

With another chance to climb into the spotlight and stand toe-to-toe with other comedians, Paul is alive with new inspiration for his show.

So if you don’t have anything to do tonight, there will be another open mic competition at Stanford and Sons Comedy Club on Floyd Street in Overland Park, Kan. Tickets are $3, and you must be 18 years old.

Last Tuesday I used my car because it was 10 degrees above nothing, and so much snow had fallen the previous night that the St. Joseph Public School system had cancelled class for all the niños.

But one week later, I see guys running around campus with shorts on.

I love Global warming.

Or should I say, I love warm February days in Missouri.

I so much prefer sporting the shorts.

It was nice to have such a warm February day after the nut freezer we had previously.

Jedi wisdom tells us that your focus determines your reality.

Perhaps the secret to dealing with the entire hubbub centered about the atmosphere is in how you look at it. It is a topic that is still widely debated as to severity and the scientific truth of the matter, depending on what side of the political twister game you find yourself sitting on.

Right hand Red: There is no global climate change, and if there is, consumer-driven industry has nothing to do with it. Keep spending money.

Left hand Blue: Global climate change is real, and it may already be too late to change anything. Keep spending money.

Both hands pink: let homosexuals marry.

Both feet green: what about Bambi?

Sounds like a bunch of nonsense right?

Perhaps that is because mankind cannot seem to come to terms with what exactly is happening.

Our leaders are at a loss when it comes to developing a plan to deal with something that may or may not be real.

In his 2001 article, “Storm Clouds over Climate Talks,” BBCs online correspondent Alex Kirby reported on the chaos of world leaders trying to create a plan in Hague.

“Called to finalize the rules for measuring and cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases, which many scientists now believe are causing the atmosphere to warm, the talks in The Hague fell apart acrimoniously,” Kirby said.

My own faculty advisor and I could not come to an agreement on the topic of this opinions article and if it should be about the world getting hotter or colder.

The Union for Concerned Scientists, citizens and scientists for environmental solutions, wanted to know why their peers were not coming up with answers.

This was their conclusion: “Based on a survey of hundreds of federal climate scientists, the new report Atmosphere of Pressure by UCS and the Government Accountability Project finds wide-ranging political interference in research related to global warming.”

A key word that should be mentioned here is the difference between Global Warming, a term that is now being accepted by most respectable scientific minds as just a step in the big crazy weather game we have going on, and the more accurate term Global Climate Change.

Global Climate Change is a term which started as political obfuscation to distract from the specter of Global Warming.

In the 34 years I have been walking around this planet I have seen numerous weather phenomena.

I waited to hear the news that school would be cancelled as I watched a typhoon gather in the sky over Okinawa.

I watched ten-foot snow drifts form outside the window of my home in Germany.

I stood dumbfounded in Texas as a tornado twisted its way across the horizon outside of my tent.

I laughed as a thirty-foot dust devil smashed into me in the Arizona desert.

I can tell you that there is something going on here at Biosphere 1.

It is called the weather.

Repeat after me everyone: Weather changes.

In the words of Mark Twain “If you don’t like the weather in Missouri just wait 5 minutes.”

DREAM is an acronym for Downtown Revitalization and Economic Assistance for Missouri.

The initiative breaks down into three basic goals: transforming downtown into an entertainment district, moving the Missouri Western State University arts program downtown and expanding the Civic Arena to create a conference center.

The city of St. Joseph has been chosen to take part in the DREAM initiative, along with 10 other Missouri cities. The state will help the cities involved with navigating their way through the bureaucratic process of state tax credits and grants.

Jeanne Daffron, assistant vice-president for academic and student affairs and interim graduate dean, is a member of the administrative review board going over proposals, along with Provost Joe Bragin, Ron Olinger, Financial Planning and Administration and Dan Nicoson with University Advancement.

“What this does is provide access to some state resources, not necessarily money, but there is some money attached to it,” Daffron said. “It is really resources at the state level and individual offices that can help, for example, offices that can help write grant proposals.”

But for grant proposals to equal any means of generating resources, there must be a preliminary plan to present. Denny Staggs, associate professor of theater and video is among the voices that are clarifying a plan.

“I have put proposals forward to the administration about moving programs downtown,” Staggs said. “I really don’t know what is going to happen; I can’t really talk about it.”

The reason for the lack of public proposals lies in Western not wanting to create a platform for disappointment.

“There is a meeting the chamber is coming up with to make up some sort of plan and that is where Western comes in,” Daffron said. “It doesn’t make sense for us to say this is what  we are going to do, and it does not end up fitting with what their plans are. Once we know what this plan is and it makes sense for us, so it is good for Western, good for the students and good for the city, then we may know something.”

Many Western arts students are mostly unaware of the possible changes because the plan is in the early stages. Junior Zack Ryan had not heard of the idea but was quick to offer an opinion.

“If they had nice practice rooms and a nice piano, I think it would be a good move,” Zack said. “The commute would suck though, and they would have to have some special parking.”

All proposals are due to the review committee by March 1. By April 15 there will be a review of the proposals, and on May 1 the committee will submit recommendations to President Scanlon.

“There are people throwing around lots of ideas, but we are really in a very preliminary stage,” Daffron said. “Really what is happening at this point is the city is looking at what is the appropriate approach as a city? How do we revitalize downtown? How do we make it what we want it to be?”

With the city, university and other consulting groups mulling over proposals, the initiative becomes a matter of time and waiting until a clearer picture of the ultimate fate of the arts program is revealed.

Junior Paul Green was also unaware of the possible move and has mixed feelings about any change.

“It would be really good for ensembles and artists to get their names out there, but at the same time it would be a pain in the butt,” Green said. “A lot of us are also education majors as well, and we have a lot of stuff to do out here and we would have come all the way from downtown.”

Students could order culinary delights from the menu such as fried catfish, southern-style spare ribs, collared greens, black-eyed peas and corn bread.

“I wanted more awareness with the students – students of all colors,” said Ivory Duncan , the Western senior who was responsible for bringing the dinner together .

“The dinner – I know it seems cliché with the menu, but it was the only way I could connect the dinner with the heritage of back in the days when we put together these foods to eat, to celebrate our culture.”

At the entrance of the cafeteria there was a power point slide show that displayed scenes from the heritage of the African American people.

Black-and-white images flashed across the screen of signs in windows of shops with platitudes labeled “no coloreds allowed,” along with profiles of various heroes of the civil rights movement, as students rounded the corner of Eder hall and strolled through the doors toward dinner.

Even students who did not have access to a meal plan were welcome to stop by and have a traditional African American meal.

“The Students for Multicultural Education are paying for the students who don’t have a meal plan, and ARAMARK is paying for the students with meal plans,” Duncan said.

Junior Michelle Allen partook of the traditional down-home cooking. She also offered a reason why the dinner was a good idea.

“Being that the school is predominately white, I think it shows a little bit about what African American heritage is.” Allen said. “This is how we eat; this is our culture.”

And junior Chris Koone, who was eating the southern-style spare ribs, spoke to his table about the idea of many more multicultural events.

“I thought this was cool,” Koone said. “It would be cooler if we also had other heritage months instead of just black heritage.”

Several students were oblivious to the theme of the evening. Senior John Miller was appreciative of the event, although surprised by it.

“I didn’t know it was a special dinner,” Miller said. “It’s cool, though.”

I had been assigned the story of the African American Heritage and History Dinner and immediately my synapses flared with activity and flashbacks to my gypsy days of sitting around a fire, sharing an organized pot luck dinner with people of so many different shapes, sizes and shades as we had in depth discourse on the nature of humanities many cultural rights and responsibilities.

I remembered staring at the graffiti design on the side of a traveling van that belonged to Zoë, a gypsy mom who worked selling garlands, which said ‘there is only one race, the human race.” My hopes for breaking bread with others culture different than myself soared.

I was looking forward to a night of enlightenment and understanding. My heart dropped to my gut the moment I walked through the cafeteria doors in Eder Hall.

I immediately set my station for observation at one of the four round tables that you can find as you enter.

I may have disrupted some kind of social dominance circle by just taking a chair and that thought alone amused me as I passively observed the students shuffling to and fro.

People were standing in line and getting their food and all the other things you would expect students to do at dinner time, but nobody was engaged in any conversations about the plight of the black man in America, or the heritage that was brought over from Africa during the early colonial slave trade.

No one was telling tales of many of the great icons of cultural heritage, like the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks, or Oprah Winfrey. No one was raging about the white man keeping them down. No one seemed to notice at all that this night was a tribute to African American heritage.

In fact the majority of the white students sat on the north side of the building as the black students sat to the south, with a handful of stragglers moving in-between these invisible lines. After enough quiet observation I decided it was time to thrust myself into the lives and dinners of my peers as I asked intrusive questions about what the ultimate solutions for racial and cultural harmony would be.

Chris Koone, Western junior, seemed almost eager to indulge his table in deeper sociological repartee.

“The solution would be to get all cultures together and sit down and talk about our problems.” Koone said. “Come to some sort of consensus, instead of talking to each other face to face and then back stabbing each other.” Perhaps one big hippy get together and sing along would do it, but most likely the abandonment of centuries of xenophobia would have to be adopted.

Michelle Allen, Western junior, believes it comes down to people on the individual level. “People should be open to different cultures and ethnic groups.” Allen said. “Although we are all different and come from different places we can still have a lot in common.”

I asked Ivory Duncan, the organizer of the event, if she could reach the world with one message to help us make progress towards a better understanding of peoples.

She had no answers. “I couldn’t even answer that.” Duncan said. “I think the problem is so big it would be impossible to fix.”

In my mind no one individual could solve all the problems in the world. It is something I just can’t think about. It is impossible.

I vote we add Apathy as the new eighth deadly sin.

Steven Estes has been named the Dean of Professional Studies and will join Western on July 1, 2007.

Estes, who is currently the coordinator of the sport management program in the department of exercise and sport science at East Carolina University, has a vast academic record and specific ideas on the nature of a university’s responsibilities.

“The first mission is to help kids – young adults – become citizens,” Estes said. “We use the ‘body of knowledge’– through reading, discussion, thinking, professional experiences
and so on. If a university does its job well, then students have the opportunity to grow, and that growth is a lot of fun to be around, and I like to help those processes. A dean develops
and distributes resources to make the above missions come alive.”

Jeanne Daffron, assistant vice president for academic and student affairs and interim graduate dean, detailed the nature of the position that Estes would be assuming.

“The dean handles the administrative responsibilities for all the programs in that college,” Daffron said. “There are seven departments in that college. The Dean has oversight responsibilities for the programs and personal and operating budgets of that college.”

Professional studies include seven departments: business; education; nursing; military science; health, physical education and recreation; engineering and technology; and criminal justice and legal studies.

Estes plans to put his skills as the coordinator of a sport management program to work in his new position.

“I like working in groups – I always have,” Estes said. “So, I tend to bring people together, and we get our work done together. I try to build teams, and my experiences as an athlete and coach seem to have really helped me here.”

Julia Schneider, director of the library and search committee chair, said that one of the considerations in hiring the new dean was the development of graduate programs at Western.

“[Estes] had a lot of experience with graduate programs – which we liked – which will certainly help us as we move toward our own graduate program, which was very exciting.” Schneider said.

While not at work, Estes is involved in sports. He took 7th place in the 1982 World Rowing championship.

“I was a rower in college and clubs, and I still row a bit,” Estes said. “I’ll head down to Kansas City occasionally and row there in the club. Rowing is a sport where you sit down, go backwards, can’t see where you’re going, and can’t remember where you’ve been.”

Estes, his wife Betty and one of their teenage daughters, Erin, will be moving to St. Joseph on May 1.

“We will visit St. Joe in the next few weeks for house hunting purposes,” Estes said. “Erin will be trying out for teams at Central High School, so she will come with us and get to see St. Joe in the next few weeks.”

In the short time that Estes had to see the community, he said he was left with a positive impression.

“I loved it,” Estes said. “One can see the horizon in St. Joe. That seems a small thing, but here one can see only to the top of the nearest pine tree! So the horizon is pretty close, and St. Joe enjoys that expansive Midwestern landscape. Most importantly, the people are very, very nice and welcoming. Betty noticed the same thing – we are people people, and the friendly atmosphere is welcoming.”

Related Story: Dean search is over

Two women who took part in the hunt were Library Director Julia Schneider, who was the search committee chair and Jeanne Daffron, assistant vice president for academic and student affairs.

“Timing was not real great in the academic calendar of things,” Schneider said. “The timing drew out and more of the qualified applicants had already taken positions by the time of the year that we ended up finishing a search. One of the searches ended because the candidate had said he was coming, we thought he was coming and then he didn’t show up for his first day of work. That was weird. That was very unbelievable and very unprofessional. The last search the candidate that was chosen did not accept the position, and Dr. Bragin did not feel like we had other qualified applicants to work with.”

Daffron echoes that timing is important when searching for qualified applicants.

“There is a time in academics when people are just going to naturally make a move, and if we are behind that timing, which would typically be in the fall, if you get out of that schedule, it makes it  more difficult to have a pool that you are satisfied with.” Daffron said. “We want the best.”

The last attempt that ended in fruition had 41 applicants, many of whom did not possess the necessary credentials.

“From that 41 people we narrowed the pool,” Schneider said. “We telephone interviewed four of those applicants, and three of those four were brought here for an interview.”

Daffron’s excitement of a fresh perspective on campus is evident.

“I think he is going to bring a lot to Western.” Daffron said. “He is very positive and upbeat, and he is very much a doer. He has had a lot of good experience in management being an administrator so he has been managing people and budgets. I don’t see him having any problems. I think he is a very good fit for us.”

It seems at Missouri Western there would be ample need for the Specials.

Because nobody else seems to be there to give focus to the downtrodden dorkdom that walks our halls.

There is no “Nerds Anonymous” or friendly freak support group for those who might be possessed of such quirks as social ineptitude or an innate lack of attention for such trivial things as fashion. For them, the lost, there is no one.

Everyone loves a sports star; our schools across America are built on some periphery level around the athletic program.

Our Athletes have come a long way on the pay scale since the early days of olympic challenge, when two naked men ran, jumped, rolled, spun and threw enormous balls together.

Everyone loves a superstar. Every one loves a rock star, everyone loves a movie star. Look how much we pay for our entertainment. Of course we love them, which is what they are marketed for.

So we love them and even the fruits find a place on the family tree of social strata.

Our politicians, we love them too, we don’t say we do, but we do, otherwise they would have all been strung up by now instead of being handed the power of social progress. We love them, we vote for them.

Every educational institution in America will cater in some way to each one of those shooting stars in the sky we call life. But for the socially challenged minority, there is nothing. I  guess they are the falling stars.

At Missouri Western we have at least five sports teams, one student government, two or three plays a year, a couple of sorority and fraternities, but is there even one Role Playing league? One Gamers club?

How many people in this school even know what a d20 is anyway? It is a twenty sided die used in role playing games for a greater variability than a six-sider, by the way. There is no one at Western for the geeks. Well, now there is. I am here and I am here to help.

I cry the clarion call of camaraderie.

I declare myself King Dork and command my legions to rise and stand for your rights.

Cast off your doubts of social judgment, raise your self confidence and reach your true potentials.

Look at your fore runners, geeks who have shaped the world of today. Albert Einstein, who was known for being unable to match his socks, George Lucas, who spent his adolescence submerged in comic books. Steve Martin, Sigmund Freud, David Letterman, Dave Barry, all dorks and geeks and freaks. Want more?

How about Marilyn Manson, Jackie Chan, Harry Houdini, Fred Astair. More? Kevin Smith, Ryan Seacrest, Jimmy Kimmel, and don’t forget Bill Gates, the biggest billionaire of them all.

This party of five had three people that were in any measure of the word, overweight. Their combined mass being almost 1,000 pounds and one of them was only 7 years old. The hostess sat the party at a 2 1/2-by-4 feet table squeezed into a tiny nook alongside the bar. There was another party of five ladies of the Red Hat Society squeezed into the adjoining nook. Throughout the building there were only twelve tables meant for a party of five plus. Two minutes later, the server showed up to take the order. Four minutes later, an order of two appetizers, the Idaho nachos and the chips and queso, a marinated chicken breast with mixed vegetables, a vegetable plate with baked potato soup, an order of battered shrimp, a chicken fried steak dinner with white gravy over mashed potatoes, and a steak and chicken tenders plate with a side of broccoli casserole and sweet carrots was sent off to the kitchen.

Six minutes later all of the assorted clutter, dessert and drink menus and promotional wooden stands had to be removed from the plank that passed for a table so the two appetizers could be set out. Two minutes after that the soup was delivered? After a total ticket time of twenty-four minutes, dinner had at last arrived. At least the extended wait allowed the party of five to finish their appetizers; otherwise, there would have been no room on the table for dinner.

The food was not bad, although the juggling experience of managing so small a setting was a bit of a dampener on the party’s mood. The service was sub par, but they did open only on Oct. 30. And should a franchise of a national chain really be expected to handle a busy Thursday night at dinner time with smooth operations?

For Chris Enright, owner and manager, who employs the 70 front of the house and 30 back of the house employees, this was his 18th opening.

“It was smoother than most,” Enright said. “This opening in St. Joe far exceeded my expectations.”

For the party of five that were squeezed into an uncomfortable environment and banging each other’s elbows against each other, things were most certainly not smooth. While the food was not bad, it was not so good as to make up for the poor dinning experience. One thing that was smooth was Manager Paul Hodges, who noticed the party of five’s discomfort and ventured to make up for as much of the bad experience as he could. Hodges was more than helpful and concerned with the happiness of his patronage. Integrity in leadership can go a long way, but it still did not remove the bad taste from the mouths of this party of five. For their appetites and money, 54th Street is still the best game in town.

A 73-foot tall clock tower was raised and named in the memory of Glenn Marion, a former member of the Missouri Western faculty, who passed away in 1996. The monolith expended $270,000 to erect what most students have now already worked into their mindscape to mark the identity of Missouri Western State University.

Many students rush to class hearing the chiming songs being played by the tower without ever giving much thought to the sounds they are hearing, but the process to bring sound and song along with timeliness is actually quite complex.

Richard Leahy was quite familiar of the internal workings of the clock.

“The sound system includes four 60 watt speakers above the clock face, one 400 watt amplifier in the tower and one control console in Agenstein Hall,” Leahy said. The control console contains five internal albums and one external chip slot. The five internal albums are Songs for Sunny Days, Songs for Cloudy or Windy Days, Songs for Rainy Days, Songs for Christmas, and Patriotic Songs. Each album has 12 songs that play in order.

Besides reminding students to scurry off to class, the tower has become a symbol of the steadfastness of Missouri Western. There have been few complications around the tower since its decade of erection. Lonnie Johnson, director of the physical plant, noted the few problems the tower has experienced have mostly been in real of routine.

“There have been normal maintenance issues and an occasional problems due to lightning,” Johnson said. “Some of the concrete around the base of the tower had to be replaced due to cracking.”

The most complex part of the tower’s history was in its construction.

“Designing the footings and foundations was a challenge due to the wet nature of the location,” Johnson said.

With the problems of upkeep and the costs of construction many students might wonder if the expense was worth it. Dan Nicoson, vice president of University Advancement, certainly thinks so.

“Absolutely, the Marion Clock Tower was a wonderful addition to western’s campus,” Nicoson said. “It is a well- recognized landmark and provides a colligate atmosphere.”

Most well know universities have one to four landmarks that well recognized by alumni and other constituents of the university.

The clock tower is Western’s first. I hope that the University Plaza, which is now under construction, will be a second as time goes on.

But is a landmark that important to the psyche of the average student? Drew Newhart, Western sophomore, would not think so.

“Not really,” Newhart said. “I think our campus could be known for its clock tower, I mean you look around and see pictures of it , there are commercial with the clock tower, I guess people might know the campus for the clock tower.” So maybe the tower has made its mark after all.

“I have been at Western less than three years and I recall that when I came to interview in 2004, the clock tower caught my attention from I-29 and again as we drove on to the campus for the first time,” Nicoson said. “It represented a positive collegiate image that was impressive. It gives a sense of class, quality and stability.”

Despite the buzz amongst the masses there may be a new ray of hope dawning for the universities and colleges of Missouri. The state funding for Western, along with all of Missouri higher education potentially could return to times of stronger financial comfort.

Governor Matt Blunt and the Missouri state legislature face a decision as whether to approve a unified proposed budget by the Coordinating Board for Higher Education. While financial woes may be fact of life and prices for commodities, like gasoline, electricity and water may be steadily rising, the states support of its higher education has been increasingly declining, which often forces institutions to raise tuition. Just this year, Missouri Western State University had to raise its tuition after three years of operating on a shoe-string budget.

Beth Wheeler, director of external affairs at Western, is a cornucopia of helpful information when it comes to unraveling the Gordian knot of Missouri Higher Education Equity Funding.

“There are about five schools in Missouri that are below average in state funding,” Wheeler said. “Missouri Western is one of them.”

The ray of hope comes in the proposed budget before the state legislature. Jim Scanlon, President of the Western Institute, feels a positive change may be in waiting.

“We have a request to the government for essentially a $3.5 million increase,” Scanlon said. “That is a 16 percent increase for us, that would be very positive.”

Ron Olinger, vice president of the Western Institute, sees the potential for good fortune as well.

“This year we are looking at trying to recover that level of funding we had back in 2002,” Olinger said.

The funding for higher education took a turn in 1984, changing from a credit hour basis to a core plus cost to continue basis.

“The state said, ‘Ok freeze, this is how we are going to do it now,’ ” Wheeler said. “ ‘You got this much money last year, next year you will get this much plus a small percentage more.’ ”

“We were a very young institution at that time when the funds were set,” Wheeler said. “The flat base amount has not kept up with the growth in credit hours.”

Without the strong state support, there is also the lack of a fiscal plan for higher education.

“Correctional facilities, Medicare and higher education all fall under the same kind of funding, general appropriations,” Olinger said. “K-12 has a formula for funding, when budget time comes around, K-12 gets their funding, and higher education gets thrown into the mix. There is no direct formula at this point for funding higher education.”

Across America this is a trend that is sweeping the universities and other institutions for learning.

At Missouri Western there are a lot of teachers who are part-time, or adjuncts, but is it the same as the retail sector? Is our fine hall of Academia also practicing penny pinching policies? The question must be asked. “Who profits?”

The reason for the practice is fairly simple, money. Or perhaps it is more simply the lack of money that is to blame. Martin Johnson, dean of liberal arts and sciences, is all too aware of the lack of money.

“In an ideal world we would have only tenured professors, unfortunately this is not an ideal world,” Johnson said. “In these days of tight budgets, we don’t have the money to hire full-time faculty. We have the choice of meeting the needs of the students by hiring part time instructors, or not having the courses.”

So how bad is the ratio of parttime to full-time instructors? In the Missouri Western English department there are 36 part-time teachers and 22 full-time ones, which is not that bad if the number of tenured and tenure track professors are not considered.

There are only two tenured professors in the English department and one that is on the tenure track. Perhaps for a better understanding of the situation, the definition and distinction between tenured and adjunct should be explored.

Dr. Joseph Bragin academics and student affairs, admits that the definition of adjunct is an evolving term in today’s market.

“We are still working on a definition for adjunct,” Bragin said. “Faculty who are not on a tenure track, which means there was no long term commitment, nor was there, in the contract, an understanding that we would be considering them for permanent employment. That’s the crucial distinction”.

That crucial distinction was, in terms of institutionalization, quite recent.

“In the terms of part time use, the last two years the part time use has been very similar, a very slight increase,” Johnson said. “Over the last three years the number of full-time employees has remained relatively constant. Three years ago we did have a larger number of full-times, but in order to deal with budget cuts we had to reduce the number of faculty.”

Certainly the administration wants to hire tenured professors.

“Here is the situation from the management point of view, we prefer to have tenure track, even probationary tenure track staff because we require them to do things extra than in the classroom, like advisement,” Bragin said. “The adjunct does not have that responsibility.”

Once again, the numbers for the Western English department, 36 part-time to 22 full-time and only two tenured. That is a lot of people without responsibility to be an advisor.

“The issue is that I don’t think there has been much difference in part time use for most disciplines,” Johnson said. “The ones where they are most used are in three different departments, computer science and mathematics and physics, English, and music.”

How do the adjuncts feel about their situation? Shane Hurd, part time drama instructor at Western, embraces the opportunity.

“I see it as extra experience,” Hurd said. “It is nice to teach in a setting where I am not worried about discipline problems. I get to see what students will do after high school and to see how traditional and non-traditional students work together.”

Saundra Dibella, adjunct Spanish instructor at Western, brings the issue of transportation between campuses to light.

“I feel like I run from one place to another.” Dibella said. “It is not unmanageable. I just have to stop and catch my breath, and then I am good.”

If the adjuncts are eager to work at Western and not toiling away in some miserable job, it would seem that hiring them is of no harm to anyone.

“There are a number of people who are qualified in freshmen comp, and we can hire them for much less for part time employment,” Johnson said. “It helps us to keep the cost of the programs manageable”.

Ultimately it comes down to the students to understand the effects of a majority part time staff. Ryan Atkinson, Western junior, is not satisfied with all of the part time instructors.

“Sometimes you feel as if you don’t get that much attention from them, because they don’t have office hours,” Atkinson said. “I know one time I had a teacher who didn’t give me the requirements and I went to find her and found out she didn’t even have an office or hours.”

People line up in the wee hours of the morning outside of malls and stores eagerly awaiting the lifting of aluminum gates, the opening of glass doors and the cutting of ribbons, so they can rush through like a swarm of locusts, pouring into the stores and stripping the shelves bare of product.

I bet the credit companies really like Black Friday.

Every holiday season it seems that Americans’ collective psyche becomes just a touch more insane.

Each year, malls begin playing the dreaded holiday music a day earlier than last year; this year East Hills started in with Christmas carols a week before Thanksgiving.

Each year the television companies unleash the holiday commercials just a bit sooner than before. Each year the money machine that manipulates our country masterminds its profit
plan just a tad sooner than it did before.

Each year the Jones set the bar just a touch higher with their outlandish and gaudy lawn adornments and light displays.

Each year, we the consumer sit and beg for it and drool like the Pavlovian dogs we have been programmed to be. It is sheer madness. In 1996 people began the “brawling for Elmo” phenomenon that has endured to this day.

Every holiday season that has passed has had at least one news story of shoppers who abandoned all civilized veneer and began to violently make their grab for the cherished toy at the top of their kids’ wish list.

It will be a sign of troubled times when soccer moms take to rumbling in the aisles like the Jets and the Sharks in some choreographed combat to the Christmas spirit.

It isn’t that far off.

Spend the holidays working in the mall and the heights of human giving can be seen alongside the lowest point people will stoop.

Old women will push toddlers aside to make their way through the throng of humanity.

Teenagers will roam the halls of consumerism like the gangs of olde New York.

The poor and destitute will up their credit limit one more time and the payday advance business will wag their tongues in a gluttonous anticipation for the lives to be destroyed.

Each holiday season traffic accident rates soar, depression and suicide hit an annual high, people eat more and drink and spend more than the rest of the previous year like Americans begin subconsciously sucking our collective thumb like a preschool child trying to sleep through the domestic abuse that is going on just outside in the hallway.

Just how far is this madness going to go?

When does it stop?

The ancient and mysterious Central American civilization, the Mayans, have this elaborate wheel calendar that is measured with settings relating to the heavens, it is amazingly precise for such an ancient culture. The Mayan Long Count calendar was supposed to measure from the beginning of time to the end, which they figured to be Dec. 21, 2012, at just sometime after eight in the morning.

The average American adult would probably be well into their work morning, still jittery from their coffee buzz.

The Mayans believed that as the world came closer to the end of the fifth age, events would begin to accelerate.

It would seem as if every year time was just slipping away.

Maybe that is where the all of this holiday madness is leading. At the heights of our mass insanity, a cosmic convergence will occur that ends the world as we know it. If that is the case then I, being a big fan of it being time for the gods to press the big reset button in the sky, say lets go shopping.

I hope your semesters ended as enlightening as mine. Happy Holidays suckers, see you next semester.

The Student Senate was a sparse gathering at the last meeting as the senators discussed the lack of attendance at the SGA leadership retreat.

The retreat that was to be held at Bass Woods in Platte City, Mo was designed to stimulate camaraderie over a weekend of leadership training.

There were openings for 50 students.

Half that amount signed up, but only seven decided to attend.

Paul Shang, dean of student development, was to speak at the event.

“I was very disappointed,” Shang said. “We had a great group of presenters lined up and a very ambitious agenda and I just think it was very disappointing.”

The retreat was an open invitation to anyone involved in campus activities or interested in learning about leadership.

While all of the student senators that sent in an R.S.V.P. managed to show, 17 other potential leaders did not.

Luke Herrington, vice president of the SGA, was equally disappointed.

“My little lecture on people not showing up for the meetings was pretty important,” Herrington said. ”Because we need to make sure we have our senate full, and if not full, we need to make sure we have our senators here to make sure we are doing our best to represent the students.”

There are levels of accountability for the members of the SGA.

Student senators are only allowed to miss three meetings a term and missing an office hour counts as missing half a meeting.

“There has been a low turn out for quite some time,” Herrington said. “We can do better than this.”

The sound of steel clattering and clanging together awakens the ears and the smell of grill tables sizzling fills the nostrils with euphoria that beckons like a siren song and the kimono clad server stands ready to escort a party around one of the ten tables with large grills set in the center. After drink orders are taken from an extensive list of teas, soft drinks, sakes, wines, and imported beers with Japanese names, a menu can be perused with dishes such as samurai steak, a prime seasoned steak expertly cut into small cubes before right your eyes, or vegetable tempura, a choice sampling of cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and mushrooms lightly fried in a tempura batter.

When the chef comes to the tables with his cart of cooking genius he steps in-between two of the tables facing the diners. He explains each step with enthusiasm and zeal as he puts part entertainment and part culinary artistry together in into a show that ends in a great meal. As he oils the table he puts on a show of skill, spinning his knives, blades against the table and steel spatula, with resounding sounds as he deftly maneuvers the cooking utensils through his hands. When he cooks the fried rice he spins the eggs three at time before chopping them all in half and scooping up the broken shells and whisking them off the table. He makes a pyramid with concentric rings of onion and fills it with cooking oil transforming it into flaming volcano. He pops bits of steak and chicken and shrimp off the grill with his spatula and serves them, flying across the table in an arc to diners testing their skill at mouth catching. The wonder of Japanese culture overwhelms you.

If hibachi grill is not your thing, there are many other options available. There is a full service sushi bar with multiple varieties of traditional sushi prepared fresh to order. There is a sake bar with authentic wooden square cups and stone bottles. The kitchen can prepare boxed meals with foods sub compartmentalized into aesthetically neat arrangements. There is even a separate room to just sit and enjoy the arts of conversation.

Rony Puan, co–owner of the fine dining establishment, conceptualized the idea after spending time in St. Joe. “I researched the area for about eight weeks” Puan said. “I saw there was nothing like this for at least 45 minutes drive. I learned of this concept in Manhattan, and I brought it here.”

Much of the citizenry is pleased the concept has arrived. Meagan Peacock, Western nursing student and senior, was quite excited to be eating there. “I think it is great, I really like it.” Peacock said. “The little lanterns and everything, it just makes it seem like it will be fun.”

Fun is defiantly what it is. Steve Mofacko, western alumni, could hardly contain his excitement. “The steakhouse and sake bar was amazing” Mofacko said. “It’s probably the coolest restaurant in St. Joseph. Of course, what competition does it have?”

So if you find yourself in the mood for great atmosphere and mouth watering culinary delights and a healthy amount of fun, then your destination should be the Fuji.

Does that offend you?

It would seem so, since many of you duck into bushes like the media is engaging guerilla warfare, just to avoid answering a few questions.

I have just begun my journalistic training and proudly stand ready to scourge the dark underbelly of the campus for the truth.

Perhaps you have read my articles in the past, I wouldn’t know since there is so little feedback out there, I am only inclined to assume that no one is reading what I say besides my editors.

So maybe if I arrogantly declare my intent, you will all become riled up enough to send me your hate mail.

I want to know that you are listening. Everyone loves to hate the media these days but still we consume every tidbit of information we can wrap our brains around, and at a premium rate even. But why hate us so much?

Perhaps it is because much of the time there are questionable ethics that are used in the pursuit of the truth.

Maybe it is because the media is constantly focusing on what is bad in the world.

Perhaps it is due to the sensational tactics employed all in the name of ratings.

Maybe it is time the media investigated itself.

However, we might find these things may not be what they seem.

This is a proclamation of investigation and a challenge to all those out there who want to know the truth, a challenge to open up your senses to the world around you and demand to know what is going on, and know that to help you do just that, there are journalists all around you.

We are sitting in the classrooms with you always listening for the story.

We are walking past you in the hallways, eyes ever vigilant for something that will say “this is News.”

We are dining with you at the table, ears ever alert to what people want to know. We are smoking cigarettes with you in the designated areas feeling and reaching for the vibe in the street.

We are amongst you and we want to help you.

Journalists should be given badges and the authority that comes with them.

It falls to the media to shape the world as people perceive past their own limited senses.

With an office of authority would not also a greater accountability for the media ensue?

We would be held to higher standards. If media could move about the world freely with authority then there would be no need for questions of objectivity with things like corporate bribery like free Super Bowl tickets or trips to Disney World. Badge or no badge, journalists are a force to be reckoned with and should be respected.

Throughout history they have built empires and changed the face of the earth.

Are we perfect? No.

There is yet to be a perfect human agency. But we are here to help.

We should stop and consider the faults of the media and see they might be our own faults as well.

The Media, just like politics, is after all, an extension of the will of the people.

We give you sensationalism because you buy more of it than the tamer stories.

We tell so many stories of bad news because people keep doing bad things.

Everyone hates whiners, but remember without whiners, there might be no one to point out where it hurts in the world.

Where it hurts is what I want to find so we can fix it.

That brings me back to my declaration.

I am going to be around here for at least another three years.

I am just starting now. Who knows what can be found in that time.

I will seek out the highest profile and the lowest tier of student society.

It would be nice if you helped.

Send me your feedback, tell me what news you want to see, tell me what information you need.

Throw your hate and praise my way so I can know that there really is a literate society out there.

After all it is all in the name of truth. So in the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Ozymandias, I proclaim “Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

So Jim went to school anyway and decided to get a job as well. It would make up for the gap of tuition not covered and give him a little scratch to peck off for his lifestyle. But Jim still found that he was on the short side of the financial world, and life happened, which costs lots of money. To support his sick mother, Jim was forced to take a second job and did not have the time or money to afford his tutelage at the university. Jim dropped out of school. Eventually, his ailing mother passed on, and Jim wasted away in a dead-end job until he became addicted to painkillers and laid down for a really long nap on his 40th birthday.

Jim is not a real person. If he was, that sad story would not necessarily have happened because Jim could have taken an option rarely explored by many students. Jim could have contracted himself to the Army Reserve Officers Training Corp. program.

The Army ROTC program affiliates itself with schools like Missouri Western, Benedictine College, UMKC and Northwest in Maryville, along with several other satellite schools.

Missouri Western has about 20 students in the ROTC program that has had a number of achievements over the last year.

“Cadet Guy Stark, a two year, he just completed Air Assault School,” said Master Sgt. Ken Jiles, a military science instructor at Western. “He was learning to go into combat out of helicopters.”

Any student can take a leadership training class, but to be contracted by the program, there are a few minimum standards. Students must be less than 35 years old, pass a physical examination and complete an ACT with a score of no lower than 21.

“When they come in as freshmen and they know they want to do this, the first thing they do is take the basic leadership courses,” Jiles said. “By junior year, they go off to LVAC and learn the more physical aspects like field training, patrolling and repelling and combat water survival.”

Master Sgt. Grant, instructor at Western, dispelled some of the fears that students may have about joining ROTC.

“I think the biggest misconception is that we are like basic training,” Grant said. “Students come in thinking that we will yell in their faces and make them drop and do push ups. We don’t do that.”

One of the many opportunities the program creates for students is a chance to travel. Even on campus they rarely stay sedentary.

“They don’t just sit in the classroom,” Grant said. “We rarely stay in the classroom at all.”

Last year several students had a chance to travel on a much broader range. Fifteen cadets went to Little Bighorn, Mont. And one cadet went to Korea. Cadet Ferguson, a Western senior, has had his fair share of travels.

“I like to travel,” Ferguson said. “I’ve been to Italy, Iraq, Czechoslovakia and through Germany.”

Despite the challenge and what would appear to be a work intensive class load, odds are good that a student could end up as an army officer.

“With ROTC, you’re given a more than fair shot at becoming an officer,” Ferguson said. “As long as you work at what you are doing and stay motivated.”

ROTC has benefits that are even deeper than just a career with the military.

“Someone that graduates from college, that’s great,” Grant said. “Someone graduates from college as an officer they just upgraded their marketability by tenfold.”

But is the real world after college a surprise to a graduate of the ROTC program?

“I think the ROTC program is the epitome of applied learning,” Grant said. “These people are actually seeing what they are getting themselves into. When we talk of applied learning at Missouri Western, we kind of lift our chests a little. We know we are sending people out doing exactly what their jobs will be. They will be getting a taste of it.”

So, if you are in a bind and thinking of dropping out of school due to finances, remember the story does not have to end up like Jim’s. Jim could have ended up contracted and trained with skills in leadership to succeed in an ever-changing world. “We have scholarship money just sitting out there,”’ Jiles said. “We end up having to give it back because people don’t take advantage of the opportunities that they have.”

Try tuning into Comedy Central at 8 p.m. central time on a Monday through Thursday, and you might find an enlightening perspective to dry alternative. You might end up watching The Daily Show.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have had runaway success over the last presidential term. College students find that Colbert/Stewart give political information with some laughter Perhaps this is because this administration provides the pseudo-news cast with so much ripe material, or perhaps it is more likely that Comedy Central has struck comedic gold by formatting mock daily news casts with true entertainers like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Together these men have blazed a trail of cutting-edge comedy that has invaded the world of politics like a Napoleonic army blasting off the nose of the sphinx. By broadcasting a form of counter propaganda to masses through the beloved television, Colbert and Stewart have tweaked the nose of public political policy.

Joe Mulvaney, Republican and freshman at Western, offers an explanation as to the success behind the reason more people in the demographic of 18 to 30 turn to The Daily Show for their news.

“I think Stephen Colbert, and to a lesser degree, Jon Stewart are both amazing communicators,” Mulvaney said.

With the movie Man of the Year in theaters, it brings the hypothetical question to mind: Could Stewart or Colbert run in the political arena? Would Americans vote for them?

“Given the opportunity, I think Jon (or more likely Stephen) could thrive if given a position in office,” Mulvany said. “Their natural charisma and charm would, quite possibly, sweep the American people off of their feet.”

Erica Ricker, Western freshman and Democrat, offers a different vote.

“No. They’re comedians, not politicians,” Ricker said. “I think they’re funny guys.”

But as Sean Hannity, conservative talk show host has noted, never is there a time when America is so divided. On the vote for a Stewart-Colbert ticket, houses can be split. Take for example, Ricker’s roommate, Justin Peacock, Western freshman and Democrat, who has a different vote.

“Definitely,” Peacock said. “But our current government would never let that happen. They don’t own enough oil companies.”

Sarcasm is clearly a trait of the audience that tunes into The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. Biting sarcasm is a trait defiantly delivered with rapier like wit by those very shows. The audience gets what they crave.

“I feel abandoned by the very people charged with representing me,” Mulvaney said. “I don’t know. I feel like a politician’s party almost doesn’t matter because none of them are really going to do anything with their power except trying to keep it.”

So, if there is a chance that you need a smile and to get the political flash works in your brain to popping, then warm up with Stewart and Colbert. Kick back, put your feet up, tune in Comedy Central and enjoy an hour of humorous news. You may be watching America’s future leaders.

That is merely 14 points above the topside of mild mental retardation.

Despite this, I am not a stupid person.

I may have questioned some of the wisdom I let dictate my life upon retrospection but that has lead to me to forming the “Decade Hypothesis.” The hypothesis is based on the idea that if you look back ten years and reflect upon your wisdom, you will ultimately find it lacking, and this is a constant.

Try it now. Ask yourself a few questions.

In 1994 did you dance to the “Macarena”?

Would you dance to that same song when 2004 came around?

In 1996, did you think the Backstreet Boys were a really good band?

Did the movie previews lead you to believe that “Independence Day” was going to the best movie ever? Maybe this is just me. Needless to say, every ten years you can look back and realize that you were a moron and an idiot.

Ten years from now I will look back and laugh at what a moron and idiot I used to be.

So what does intelligence prove anyway?

How does one define what it is to be smart?

Surely it is not just the ability to read and memorize.

Ask any high school English teacher and they will tell you there is a difference in reading with comprehension and scanning a page, downloading that data in your brain frame and then erasing it after you have gotten your uses of that tidbit of knowledge.

I bet everyone can remember that girl back in high school who achieved straight As and was in all the honors classes but still she daily fell for the trick where you get her to look for the footprints on the ceiling. Ah, you remember her now.

Soren Kierkegaard, recognized as the first existential philosopher, once said “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

So many people in the world today have these brilliant machines of logic resting just behind their eyes, but they don’t ever set the mental wheels to spinning. Intelligence in its inert potential state means nothing. When I was younger I worked the graveyard shift at a convenience store.

I was amazed at how many times I saw literate people trying to operate a fountain machine that was clearly marked “Out of Order,” or how many times people asked me where the bathroom was when they were standing in front of a large sign designating that very fact with a big red arrow.

Clearly literate doesn’t mean someone takes the mental effort to read.

So are we getting less intelligent as a society?

Rumors abound the information super highway about secret societies planning the “dumbing down” of America, and we are falling behind in international university ratings in math and sciences, but there is evidence that on average, the human intelligence quotient is actually rising.

We are capable of producing more spectacular works of art than ever before, but some of the most watched television shows are “The Bachelor” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

The answer falls on your furrowed brows.

Ask yourself if you can name the primary colors of the print on the books you lug to and fro campus everyday. I couldn’t.

Each day we have to get those synapses snapping and let the brainstorms have their global climate changes, because baby, it is time! In the words of 19th century English economist and author, Harriet Martinea, “Readers are plentiful, thinkers are rare.”

There is a class offered at Missouri Western that few people know about and less people talk about. It is a class that has subject matter of importance and interest to any responsible and sexually active adult. The PED 222 class is human sexuality, taught by Freda Allen.

“I had no idea what kind of students I was going to have when they told me I was going to run this class,” Allen said. “I am learning about the students and through them, I am learning about myself. This is my first time teaching human sexuality at the college level. I had taught a high school health class and women’s health before, but I had no idea of what to expect. I like it though.”

The purpose of the class, as described in the syllabus, is to examine the place and importance of sexuality in human lives. The science of various sexual topics will be addressed including social, psychological, physiological and cultural perspectives. The goal of this course is to educate individuals about issues concerning sexuality, resulting in sexually happy, healthy and responsible individuals.

Western senior Tanisha Washington is one of the students learning to be happy, healthy and responsible.

“I have learned a lot more than what I thought I would,” Washington said. “I came into this class not really knowing what I’d gotten into. But I am very glad I took it. I think it is equivalent to PED 101. I think everyone should have to take it.”

Another student, junior Christy Bangerter, is enrolled in the class to understand more about pregnancy.

“My friend just found out she was pregnant,” Bangerter said. “So, this will really help me learn to help her.”

In a traditional Midwestern community, many people might still be leery about a sex-education class. Adult topics are discussed openly during class. On the first day, Allen set up four basic ground rules: respect your classmates, don’t divulge anything you don’t want to, be open-minded and use appropriate language. Within those boundaries, the discussions can still become quite heated and interactive, just like good sex.

Sophomore Andrew Criepen feels the hesitation a community may have for this type of class is apparent.

“We live in Northwest Missouri,” Criepen said. “We live in a predominantly religious community. We tend to be more conservative on thought. Because of that we fear what we don’t know. As people, we fear the unknown.”

He tightened his grip around the hilt of his xiphos, a short iron sword designed for stabbing and slashing, at least he could count on the certainty of a good blade, he thought to himself as he stepped out into the view of the crowd. Jeers and insults overcame the motley gathering who just wanted to escape the mediocrity of their lives by gorging themselves on a little old fashioned blood sport. The jeers turned quickly to cheers as the portcullis on the other side of the arena raised to the open position and a full sized, enraged lion burst forth into full view of the crowd. Titus raised his sword and prepared himself to charge.

I hate modern sports. It seems absurd to me that we have created national icons out of sports heroes who make a seasonal salary greater than the combined annual incomes of the entirety of Chicago’s Cabrini Green. Sports have evolved into a billion dollar industry, a monstrosity that is as inaccessible to the common man as taking a seat in the senate. Sure the advances in information technology allows the masses to be mesmerized by the action they can watch on their tiny screens far removed from the actual event, but do we as a people really want to settle for Liaises Fair games? Hell No! We want to play.

But how do you get involved with an industry with some of the highest grade of competition. There is no other field in which so many people try to get involved and so few actually make it than the world of professional sports. For a kid from the ghetto the false promise of professional sports has a stronger siren song than winning the lottery, which probably offers better odds. There is a greater probability of becoming a rap star than there is of being a professional athlete.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, former columnist for ESPN, felt this inaccessibility was a real concern.

“Most stadiums are sold out every Sunday” Thompson said. “But only rich people can afford to attend the games in person. It’s not much different than getting involved in national politics”.

My solution is to bring back the neighborhood arena. Every twenty blocks ought to have a small fighting pit for local heroes to raise themselves to the status of celebrity. People would spread word around the neighborhood “hey did you see Pauly chop that dudes head off today?” It was frikin sweet! I am going to go buy that guy a beer.”

If you borrowed another page from the Romans, we could incorporate our civil trial system into the arenas. We could eliminate the over inflated litigation process that makes us the butt of many jokes by the rest of the civilized world. Frankly gutting some bozo in public might actually feel more gratifying than suing his pants off, it certainly would feel less dirty. Even better, lawyers should have to defend the accused in the arena as well. I like this idea better already.

We could solve international conflicts with arena matches, driving our star spangled champion against someone chosen to fight in their own countries defense. We could knock the body count of war down from 2 million to two. It would still have death and blood which is essential for warfare.

War would still have the chance for a country to show off its excessive military technology by seeing what advanced armors and weaponry the champions would be fighting with. But creating a few dozen pieces of killing technology certainly takes less of a budget than designing millions of weapons.

People watch sports for two basic desires: glory and bloodletting. That is what it is all about. I want to see Tiger Woods driving a club into the jaws of a tiger. I want to see Larry Johnson and Donovan McNabb, armed with war hammer and axes, beating each other snotless and lopping of each others limbs. Shaquille O’Neil chained wrist to wrist with a steroid maddened gorilla. I want the chance to drive thrust my trident into Albert Pujols’ abdomen as the crowd goes wild. I love sports.

The first movie shown was George Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead in all of its black-and-white gory glory. For those with the intestinal fortitude to brave the terrors ahead, stayed and watched the horrifically campy Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.

Bob Schultz, of KQTV’s Front Row with Bob Schultz, was there to enjoy the double feature.

“They are wonderfully bad,” Schultz said. “I was just hanging out with George Romero last week for the Kansas City National film festival, but we did not tell him about showing his part because of…um…he doesn’t like the public domain stuff.”

Schultz is a part of the film alliance, the Fame Group. Several members of the Fame Group, along with the Roubidoux Resident Theatre, were involved with the special effects that went into the Haunted Forest, part of the Haunted Drive-In.

The Haunted Drive-In was the mutual brainchild of Western’s theatre and video professor Deny Staggs and Horseshoe Lake Drive-In owner Jay Kerner.

With no real haunted experience for the citizens of St. Joseph due to this year’s closing of both Mad Mary’s and The Bone Factory, a void was left that needed to be filled. Thus, the Haunted Drive-In was born.

“Jay Kerner approached us (Roubidoux Resident Theatre) and said ‘Have you guys ever thought about doing a haunted experience?’” Staggs said. “‘I have got these great woods beside my drive-in, and we could show horror movies from the 50s and 60s.’ If you’re a movie buff of this kind of genre, this is an amazing experience.”

Kerner looks forward to a growing turnout over the time that The Haunted Drive-In will be in operation.

“We’ve got different movies every week,” Kerner said. “We figure some people will want to come on multiple weekends.”

The movie line up is Little Shop of Horrors with Jack Nicholson and The Terror on Oct. 12 through Oct. 14; Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell and Lady Frankenstein on Oct. 19 through Oct. 21; Driller Killer and The Massacre on Oct. 26 through Oct. 31.

“If you were coming out to the Haunted Drive- in, I would be aware at all times, looking over your shoulder,” Kerner warned. “I wouldn’t get too comfortable; you never know what could happen. I would wear good shoes and dress appropriately.”

—

A large hooded man in a black holocaust cloak gathered the group of seven together and warned them with a gravelly whisper, “Stay together.” The seven – a Midwestern soccer mom, her 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son, along with Western student Amanda McCrary and two other young adults – began the long walk through the Haunted Forest.

A path marked the way between the twisted terrain of trees and shrubbery. A dozen torches on both sides of the path revealed the disappearing entrance behind the group. With one low throaty warning, “Now is the time to turn back,” the grim guide lumbered out of the light and walked past a corpse swaying from a rope as the group stuck closely to the ominous ghoul leading them. A beaten and broke down camper’s van appeared on the path with splattered blood about a wrecked campsite.

Suddenly a scream shattered the silence as a gore-covered and terrified camper ran out to the group begging them for help. The 12-year-old girl screamed in response, but the group wandered on. One of the living urban legends of redneck, backwoods’ killers exploded out of the bush with a bestial growl as he berated the group for trespassing on his land, but the group ventured on past an old rundown cemetery with an eerie ghost bride who subtly began to move, and then follow the group into the dark.

A shack with a deranged banjo-picking old man and his creepy, yet somewhat alluring daughter appeared on the path, and the groupwalked past his chorus of “stank bodies’ baby.” His devilish daughter shrieked in the groups’ faces until Leather Face leaped out of the dark with his chainsaw roaring to life. The group hurried down a sloped-exit path away from the mayhem.

The quiet of the forest returned with the total darkness, as the group moved through a heavily wooded area. Footsteps and screams could be heard all around. When least expected, someone popped out and yelled about the group wandering the wrong way. The giant lumbering guide rerouted the group several times through different paths until he gave up and bellowed “LOST! AARGGHHHH!”

Rejects from the House of 1000 Corpses jumped out and assailed the group as they wandered through the fog-filled forest. Through branchless, eerie trees and web-covered passageways, past undead gypsies boding bad fortunes and skeletal parts strewn through the foliage, the group marched until at last the exit could be seen and sweet release from the torment was achieved. The group survived and finally the long walk was over.

Although the children of the group were terrified into a silent stupor, McCrary was unimpressed.

“It was all right. I didn’t like the chainsaw,” McCrary said. “I went to the Bone Factory, and it was more unexpected, but this is worth the money with the movies and all.”

They will set out from there, going through the streets and calling on many more to join them – making a powerful statement: “No! This Regime does not repesent us! And we will drive it out” is the statement that is first seen when the Web page for www.worldcantwait.net is loaded.

But there are no protests being planned in the city of St. Joseph, nor is there that much happening in the state of Missouri. Sure, the big cities like Kansas City and  St. Louis will have a smattering of a few hundred people taking to the streets. Surprisingly enough events are being organized for smaller cities as well, such as Carrolton and Springfield, but no one has organized anything for St. Joe. It begs the questions, is there no liberal voice in Joe town?

One only needs to listen to the music popular with the subculture scenes of Goth and Punk alike to hear the undertones of dissent. Goth and Punk music still sell very well, according to the managers of local music stores Hastings Books, Music, and Video and FYE. One manager of FYE even said he felt that a voice of dissent was still being heard by the citizenry of St. Joe.

Nancy Stohlman, author and editor of the book Live from Palestine and former President of the Denver Chapter of the Liberation of Palestine, feels that the problem is generational.

“The baby boomers were shocked by what they had seen as they grew up…,” she said. “The kids of today have grown up with it ever since and have come to expect it.”

Apathy has often been cited as a cause for the lack of a real rebellion in these times. Limited attention span is another reason, which is pretty funny when you consider how many people are prescribed some form of mood elevator. Mike Miller, sophomore at Western, has two issues that would make him rebel.

“If they reinstate the draft or raise gas to $4.” Miller said.

Willie Gilbert, senior at Western, once supported the current administration, but his views changed due to the Presidents environmental policies. “Environmental ethics are my primary concern, and I think they have already crossed the line,” Gilbert said.

More reasons why people don’t take it to the streets could be that we have become over informed.

“I think large media is to blame,” Gilbert said. “There is so much being said that you don’t know who to trust or believe.”

Some students do not agree with the worldcantwait sentiments.

“I think their garbage about why not to support democrats makes them the most stupid of all groups, and akin to nihilists,” Freshman Justin Peacock said. “Anger without solution is…uh…anger without solution. People should be doing everything in their power to get democrats in power right now. That’s an actual solution. Railing against everyone and everything merely marginalizes the good you’re doing.”

Most students may feel that smoking is a non-issue on campus, but if the campus is a microcosm of the greater society then clearly there is an issue. With cities as close as Lawrence and Kansas City adopting citywide bans of smoking in restaurants and bars, the question must be asked, “How far behind is St. Joseph?”

It was last spring that St. Joe adopted its own smoke-free policy in restaurants without a fully enclosed separate room. No longer are nonsmokers bothered by brackish smoke curling through the air over a flimsy partition between booths. In Boulder, Colo., there is no smoking at all unless you are sequestered within your own home. Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – no smoking unless in a free standing building.

America clearly sees the act of smoking as an issue, so by default, the students of Missouri
Western do as well. Which raises the question about how smoking on campus should be handled.

“I have noticed a trend in America pushing towards non-smoking, and it doesn’t bother me because I don’t smoke in my house or around my children,” accounting major and smoker Kelly Hanway said. “But if they made campus non-smoking, that would bother me. This is my place to smoke.”

Western student Erin Ward, who is a smoker, agrees that the presence of children should be a guiding factor.

“I think society wants everyone to quit smoking,” Ward said. “I don’t think it is fair. It is supposed to be our decision. I think it is fair in public places to say no smoking, like at amusement parks or other places where there are children, but we are not [there]. We are in college.”

Non-smoker Western student Chris John thinks the problem is more of aesthetic issue.

“It bothers me that there are ashtrays everywhere, and people still throw their butts on the ground,” John said. “It just looks bad.”

Missouri Western V.I.P. Octavia Beard, who is a non-smoker, said she wished the campus had more clearly designated areas for smoking. The bottom line is that smokers are not going away anytime soon, and they and their non-smoker counterparts on campus will have to find a way to respect each other’s feelings on the issue for now.

“It is one of those subjects you have to weigh out,” non-traditional student and non-smoker Jerry McClain said. “You balance an individual’s right to make a choice for them self with health. I think a person has a right to harm their own body, but people should know that smoking is harmful. As long as it is outside a building, I don’t mind.”

“What does Snoop Dog need an umbrella for?” he asked, giving the house a moment to digest the question. “Fo’drizzle,” he answered, and the silence was shattered with laughter and applause. It was a Thursday night, and the wooden double doors at the side of the building at 103 Francis St. opened at 7 p.m. as they have every Thursday night for over a year and a half. It was Stand Up Thursdays at the Cobblestone Comedy Club. Stevie Caminiti had played this house once before to a standing room only crowd. This night it was a different story. With the premier night of ESPN’s NFL season opener being broadcast on the airwaves, tickets sales were far below the 98-person capacity. Many older St. Joe residents will remember Cobblestone as the Ice House Dinner Theater over a decade ago. Dinner is still served in the same location, and the theater has become even more versatile by introducing standup comedy. The building was built in the late 1800s and was owned by the National Biscuit Company, which later became known as Nabisco. Much of the appearance of an old factory has been authentically preserved to create the ambiance of old town Chicago. With classic Greek décor and caricatures of comedians adorning the walls, there is an atmosphere of class that invokes a feeling of big city society. The opening act Thursday night was Bill Blank of Spike TV’s “Invasion Iowa.” He commented on the less-than-packed house.

“Playing a small crowd is far more intimidating than playing for hundreds of people because with a big crowd, you have a better chance of someone laughing at some of the jokes you are unsure your audience will get,” he said.

Blank still turned the small crowd to his favor with jokes about his ex-wife and purses:

“My ex-wife wanted a Louis Vuitton bag for Christmas, so I went to the mall and looked at the price, and it was $350 at 50 percent off. So, I walked over to the middle of the mall and got her one at a little kiosk and gave it to her.

“She said, ‘This isn’t a Louis Vuitton bag; it says Louis Farrakhan.’ I said I know that’s what it is. It is a Louis Farrakhan bag.

“It was a Louis Farrakhan lunch box. It had a big thermos for your juice and no room for crackers.”

With student discounts on ticket prices and drink specials on beer and mixed drinks, a menu of delicious appetizers and two nationally touring stand-up comedians performing every Thursday night, Cobblestone holds great promise for a college student seeking entertainment. Tyson Minnick, acting manager, has created a platform of entertainment that satisfies the most sophisticated of amusement hungry masses.

“It’s a good environment for college kids,” Wayne Cox said, weekly purveyor of the show and local resident. “[The acts] all have different routines, good routines. They have had hypnotists, ventriloquists, all kinds of stuff. It is something to do on a night out in St. Joseph.”

The crowd can make a big difference to the success of a show, too. Blank said he was pleased with the way the night went.
“They got my Louis Farrakhan joke, and I thought I was going to throw that one too high,” Blank said.

After cracking up the audience with a short set of honest and realistic humor about life, sports and all that lies in between, it was time for Stevie Caminiti.

With the next show, Silly Stuff and Sad Stories by Jim Wiggins coming on the weekends of Sept. 29-30 and Oct. 5-6, Minnick hopes to draw a new crowd of young people to experience the laughs. So, next Thursday night if you are seeking fun and a unique atmosphere, seek Stand up Thursdays at the Cobblestone Comedy Club. You just might hear Steve Caminiti make a joke like, “What does Snoop Dog use to whiten his clothes? …Ble-ach!”