Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Applying the Same Rules of Logic...

Here's a mock editorial piece that could have been written by a fictional American paper, if the American public still accepted such racist, jingoist drivel:

Crazed Korean Murders Fellow Students

Cho Seung Hee was the single-most tragic mass shooting incident in American history. It was perpetrated by a Korean, who came to Our Country to benefit from its good schools and openness in allowing those around the world a new life; and this is how Cho repays America?

Korea is the #1 sender nation of foreign students to study in the United States. In South Korea, every year, students kill themselves in droves because of academic, parental, and societal pressures; those pressures obviously do not stop at America's borders.

Cho was one such family; it is rumored that his mother called him "the dumb one," as is typical in most Korean families, which only value their children as study robots, not as real people. The family-based American culture, which looks at children as human beings, rarely sees children committing suicide because of academic pressures, although there are some problems in Our society, of course.

But this is a different kind of danger, one that has the potential to take more of our children from us. How many ticking time bombs sent from Korea are sitting in Our Nation's classrooms?

Jane Doe, an expert on primary educational development from world-esteemed Harvard University, says, "I hear about these children all the time. Their parents give them tutoring, send them to Korean schools, and refuse to acculturate themselves properly. When these Koreans come to our classrooms, they are like little robots. There is something essentially different about them. Who knows when they will crack?"

This is a real threat to Our Nation's children. Without extensive mental screening of all children of Korean descent entering our country, it is only a matter of time before another Cho Seung Hee destroys more American lives.

Why do we allow Korea to continue sending its time bombs to American soil? Is this not just another form of terrorism, not too different from Al Qaeda sending its own bombs to destroy the lives of good, hardworking Americans?

Do we Americans not know that Koreans are also responsible for the worst mass shootings in world history as well? Woo Bum-gon holds that record – another Korean. Even his name suggests "bomb" in English.

What is it about Koreans and mass shootings? Perhaps it is part of what they themselves call the "thin tin pot" culture, which says that the Korean temperament is "quick-to-boil, quick-to-cool." Is this the kind of person you want YOUR CHILD sitting next to in school? A child from a country of gun killers who they themselves say are "quick-to-boil?"

Our Nation should protect Our Children from such Koreans by requiring all Korean children to undergo intense psychological testing before being allowed to continue attending Our Nation's schools and universities.

Our Nation should also prohibit anyone of Korean descent from owning guns, since we have to stop this problem of mass shootings in Our Nation. Haven't we had enough mass shootings? Do we not want them to stop?

In order to stop another Korean time bomb from exploding in the faces of Our children, this unwatched, unchecked "Korean Wave" of students with psychological problems needs to be addressed.

Because who knows when the next Korean will start waving a gun around? And will it be your child who will be next to stop a bullet? Let Korean students kill themselves as they please in their own country. They should not bring such a culture to Our Nation.

If some newspaper published something like that, Koreans would have had a field day of protest. Yet, this is just what has happened in Korea. Because of a single freak – who didn't actually break any laws in KOREA, and wasn't even an E-2 visa holder, so the new regulations wouldn't have stopped him, anyway – and a few cases of standard yellow journalism that passes as news here in Korea, we get these racist, unrealistic visa requirements.

Same logic as applied in the mock piece above. I'm glad I come from a country and culture that wouldn't allow such clearly discriminatory drivel to stand, and proved so by NOT seeing the appearance of any pieces such as the one written above appearing in any major newspapers I have heard of.

If some crazed foreigner went on a wild killing rampage, killing say 20 or so university kids before sticking the gun in his own mouth – what do you think would happen in Korea? Discriminatory laws being passed is the LEAST I would hope for, people. That day, I wouldn't even leave my apartment.

The Need to Confirm the Identity of White Foreign Mothers

Oh, this is gonna be good.

I'll channel the two dumbest lines of argument that could come from this case.

Since it's another case of "white foreigners" harming the person and the pride of the Korean race, based on this case, all overseas adoptions should stop!

Or maybe we should just subject all potential adoptive parents to drug and HIV tests, make them submit a criminal background check and their original diploma to the local consulate.

But wait, you say? The requirements are already stringent?

At Bethany Christian Services in Indianapolis, part of a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based not-for-profit adoption service with offices in 30 states, branch director Linda Wrestler said confidentiality prevents her from discussing specific cases.

She said, however, that every client or couple seeking to adopt faces rigorous scrutiny.

The case studies include parents’ written autobiographies, criminal and social services checks, verification of employment and finances, birth certificates, health records and personal references.

Because such checks are going to prevent all bad things from happening in the world, right?

FOREIGNERS - DON'T COME TO KOREA! CHOOSE JAPAN OR CHINA!

I give up. You know what we should do, if we want to use the "politics of shame" to show just how stupid these requirements are? A slight affectation of a unified movement to discourage new teachers from coming to Korea might be an interesting proposition.

And in saving some newbies some trouble, and actually filling the Google rankings with advice to avoid Korea, that might result in some interesting reactions from the Korean side of things. Here's my message, which is somewhat affected, but still sincere:

Let me just say right now that the only reason I'm staying in Korea is because I have an F-4 and am not subject to these requirements. But I am ever required to give drug and HIV tests in order to work, or rip out my single original copy of my diploma sitting in a frame in my mother's home in Ohio, it will be time for me to leave this country.

I'm not going to pop a vein and allow my personal privacy to be violated, nor allow some administrative bureaucrat to slide my pristine copy of my diploma around some copy machine when a transcript with a raised seal will do.

If that transcript is good enough to get a job with the CIA, it's good enough for the fucking Korean Ministry of Education.

I've got shit I need to do here, and shit I enjoy doing here. I'm grandfathered in. I've put too much energy into this country, society, and language to quit now. That's why I'm staying. That's the only reason.

But my patience with this country has worn pretty thin, and I'm having trouble right now not going over to the "dark side" and starting to hate this place. I might have to start looking for ruby crystals for my lightsaber soon. I'm struggling with another "dark time", just as I did in early 2003, when I would hear the word "nigger" more times in a week than I had in all the time I had spent in Korea to that point (more than 3 years, actually).

Things are changing, people, and it's for the worst.

My advice for newbies interested in teaching English as a means of living in Asia, I am sad to suggest:

DON'T COME TO KOREA. GO TO JAPAN OR CHINA.

Korea and Koreans, no matter what is said, doesn't really want foreigners here. We are treated like criminals by the law, and in the law. The media represents us as nothing more than drug fiends, AIDS carriers, and child molesters.

If you don't want to be treated as such by the law, required to submit a criminal background check, submit to drug and HIV tests, and have to submit your original diploma just to teach in some unprofessionally-run institute or elementary school in which whatever skills and ability you have won't be respected anyway...

DO NOT COME TO SOUTH KOREA TO LIVE AND TEACH.

Japan is much more urbane and sophisticated, more global and developed, and much more able to be a place where you can enjoy your life as a foreigner.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but I've come to the conclusion that much of my ability to enjoy my life here is simply because I have an F-4, which essentially allows me to be treated somewhat like a human being here, and allows me to survive here.

If I had to have an E-2 visa, I would be giving up my rights to privacy, personal dignity, and self-respect. And I can't, in good conscience, continue to lie about a culture that I do care about, because it has become outrageously racist and xenophobic to the point that basic gestures of respect are ignored in regards to foreigners here.

I've lived here since before it was comfortable to live here (from 1994-1996) and from 2002 to the present. I've studied Korean and defended the culture and its weak points to no end, no matter how much I've offered criticism on this blog.

But I'm going to stop that now.

If you have to come to Korea on an E-2 or C-7 visa, given the ludicrous requirements and the extreme power any organization you work with will have over you, which speaks to the basic problem of a lack of professionalism and even the possibility of being exploited by your employer even BEFORE these regulations went into effect – I would warn you:

STAY AWAY FROM KOREA.

GO TO JAPAN, since you will enjoy yourself more, and not be subject to the increased level of unprofessionalism and exploitation that will be one of many side effects of this visa change.

Or, GO TO CHINA, which has a much richer cultural heritage and history that is obvious everywhere you go, and learning the language will benefit you more than Korean, anyway.

IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER IN THIS RACE, and all other things are equal, why would you choose Korea? In all honesty, right now, I can't give this country my endorsement for foreigners to come live here as teachers, unless you have "Korean blood", which Korea will recognize as your ticket to being treated like a human being.

If you have some other specific skill that will allow you to exist here on a non-teaching visa, perhaps you will also be able to enjoy life.

But if you are a nice kid who just wants to spend some time in Asia after college, or are the kind of person who is truly interested in learning about other cultures, save yourself the humiliation of jumping through these hoops only to be treated to broken contract terms, stigmatization of having to prove that you are NOT a needle-sharing, HIV+, child molester – spare yourself the indignity and frustration.

Korea isn't a country for "nice people" to just come and have an experience in anymore, but a place where only the thickest-skinned survive, those very, very desperate to teach here, or have a clear and specific reason to be here.

If you're just a nice kid from Saskatchewan or Iowa, go to Japan and China. You're much more likely to not end up bitter and cynical, like me.

Seriously.

Agree with those sentiments? Then in your own words, on your own blog, tell the would-be English teachers of the world to "CHOOSE JAPAN!"

What do you have to lose? You get to use the other side of that double-edged sword of Korean national pride to perhaps show just how stupid these regulations are, while doing something concrete to help raise your billable hours in the long run.

Wouldn't that be a hoot? The expat blogosphere trying to put a dent in the supply of English teachers? Korea doesn't seem to want us? Let's help out! Do your part and advocate "GO JAPAN!" today!

Get Ready for the Next iThingie

Or whatever it'll be called. iPad. iTablet. iNote. iScribbler. Whatever. The name's not important.

The upcoming new "sub-notebook" from Apple, rumored to be coming in January's Macworld Expo, will not, I predict, be a super-slim notebook.

It just doesn't make sense, and I've been thinking on this ever since the iPhone and the iPod touch came out; and a little common sense combined with wishful thinking, as well as a bit of like-minded thinkers in the Apple fanboy world, make me really think that we'll be looking at a revolutionary product come January. Here's why:

1) IT WON'T BE A NOTEBOOK.
I just don't see Apple introducing a super-slim, compact notebook. Who cares? I certainly don't. Apple's style is leading the industry with cutting-edge new devices that are increasingly integrating new media, making new platforms for old devices. The iPod wasn't just a souped-up MP3 player, as the iPhone wasn't just a phone with an Apple brand on it, just as Apple TV, for better or worse, isn't just a computer you hook up to your TV. They're all defining new ways of integrating media, of allowing you to get media into different forms. Sub-compact laptops already exist; Apple's not just going to make such a not-fashion-forward, not-platform-forward product.

2) IT WILL BE A 'NEXT-STEP' PRODUCT.
Related to that is the Touch interface. From iPhone to Ipod Touch, there seems to be a logical next step taken to allow Touch computing, meet the needs of the sub-compact buyer who wants an Apple computer that isn't a bulky laptop. And Microsoft already has its cool-ass Surface computer. The future is already here, and the writing's on the...screen.

3) THE TIME HAS COME FOR PRINT MEDIA TO DIE.
Or at least start to wither before eventually dying. And I'm not saying that The New York Times is going anywhere or anything, but just that we won't be killing trees anymore to read it. The new device will meet the needs of the emerging eBook/online publishing market that IS the next area of battle, as we move from primarily paper to primarily screen-based, portable, and vastly more flexible, screen-based reading. It's never been a matter of if, but of when the easy-on-the-eyes nature of reading from paper would be paralleled by a screen that can do the same. And look at Amazon's Kindle, or the ongoing online publishing revolution that is so obvious it might not be so apparent. Yes, I agree that within 5 years, most reading will not be done on paper. Amazon knows this. And so does Apple. And the first killer device that can be comfortable screen reader, as well as computer, as well as PDA, and nice size for watching videos, and can communicate seamlessly with your home computer/iPod/iPhone and detach you from being anchored to any one place in terms of content – that's gonna be killer. Download the NYT, or your local paper, or your blog, or what have you – the technologies are there, from RSS to podcasting to iTunes pay store to whatever else will pop up with a device that can put whatever you want into one place. And who already has the only tried-and-tested, fully-operational paid media delivery system? Apple. Just add more eBooks to the podcasts, movies, TV shows, and songs you can download. As Steve Jobs is surely saying: "Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money!"

4) THE PATENT APPLICATION DRAWING JUST MAKES SENSE.

[Source]

I may be wrong, and Apple has a way of surprising everybody, even if it's just a little bit. But I think that's this has got to be Apple's move, looking at the way online publishing and media are going, the move into new computing interfaces, and the fact that major players are lining up along the lines of a vast new market that hasn't been tamed yet.

To me, it just seems like Apple is going to try to do in the new territory of text-based media what the iPod did for music and then video content, what the iPhone is doing to the mobile phone industry, or what Apple TV hasn't quite done much of yet in the home video realm.

This new device will do it while integrating text with pre-existing text, photo, audio, and video mediums (which a glance at any web-based newspaper, "pro blog", or online magazine will show you has already happened), while also giving you the power of a portable computer, to boot.

If Apple makes a device like that, who ain't gonna buy it? Computer, iPod, PDA, calendar, big-ass screen for watching movies/podcasts/TV on the train, and a place to read a trashy romance novels writ LARGE across the screen, or your favorite blogs, all downloaded in the morning through RSS and sitting for you on the subway ride...

That's the killer move that will focus all of Apple's power as a computer and media company into the true killer device.

Sure, I'm just being hopeful, as anyone making guesses at this stage is, but damn – would that not make a whole lotta sense?

A TRUE notebook that can do - everything. Who isn't going to sell their left kidney for that kind of integration, ease, and load off one's back? I'm sure it'll sport a pop-up keyboard onscreen, but for the diehards, I can see a huge peripherals market for mini-mice and cute keyboards, the usefulness of this device in the education market, where this will become THE new way of taking notes (and surfing the web in class), and could open up whole new doors as a device in the medical field, as a means scratchpad for artists and other creative types, and as a "base unit" of some type for people who already have iPods and iPhones, which could be used to integrate with the new device and offer a new kind of function or increased usability.

Who knows? Possibilties are endless, with a wireless and Bluetooth-enabled super-device that can be anything software can make it be.

I'd buy that for a dollar. Or 2000. Hopes are that it will be priced at somewhere in between, priced to move.

And this way, no matter what you buy it for, Apple is building new users of OS X, more subscribers to and users of the iTunes Store, and many more ways to convince more people to buy Apple stuff.

And if it can run Windoze, too – who's gonna buy a sub-notebook or Tablet PC?

Damn, Apple. Am I going to have to start being scared o' you?

Podcast #32: Korean Wave Ebbing

Finally! A new podcast! Get it here! (Or in the left menu.) It's a long one (1hr 27mins), so you'll have a lot to chew on until the next one. Since it's a good conversation, I think it's worth the listen. Just can't do it all in one sitting. And hey – more time flying away on your commute!

Recorded almost 2 months ago, me, Regina of Where the Hell Am I, and my ethnocmusicologist friend Donna talk shop and even a little shit about the ebbing of the "Korean Wave."

I had to sit on this podcast because I still wasn't "out" as the man behind FeetManSeoul.com, as I wanted to wait until the visiting Associated Press reporter had finished her piece on me. She introduces herself at the beginning of the podcast.

Some sites and videos mentioned in the podcast:

Stephen Colbert's "Singing in Korean" video:

The two crazy cool Korean high school girls karaoke video:

Mongdori's post on racist cartoons and an example:

And links:

DramaBeans

Where the Hell Am I?

KoreanFilm.org

The Marmot's Hole

Running Time: 1hr 27mins
File Size: 60 MB
File Info: 96 kbps Stereo at 44.1 kHz, MPEG-2, layer 3 (MP3)

DOWNLOAD it here.

Who Owns Da Boots?

"These boots were made for walking..." Or were they? Leather? Buckles? Rope ties on the sides? And rhinestone bling on the heels, to boot? Ahem.

And just who owns these boots, anyway? Find out all this and more at you-know-where, where we just put up a new post.

Told You So, and a Rant

Beware – rant ahead.

As a reminder, here's an excerpt from this October 16 post, which some said was just me "jumping the gun":

Anyway, some predictions:

1) More calls for background checks on foreigners that won't ever happen, and won't affect anything, anyway.

2) More "stories" printed about the allegedly lower sexual mores of foreign men.

3) No actual stories of foreign teachers having been caught doing anything with a minor, unlike what you can hear about every day in the society section of any Korean newspaper.

You can read about what I think would improve the quality of teaching and life for foreign teachers and their students alike, but it's all fantasy, since it'll never happen in a Korea that treats foreigners, no matter what we do, like walking, talking dictionaries.

Well, the big one, #1, has already come to pass. Numbers 2 and 3 continue to be true, as the media sniffs for anything to blow into a scandal involving a foreign teacher, even as such cases hardly ever come up. To mbscuit:

OLD NEWS
My whole point is that articles and reports like this are nearly always built upon the most specious of evidence, and even fly in the face of facts. The 1995 media circus around the GI "harrassing" the woman on the subway. False. It was his wife and they were being attacked. Not only were there no retractions, the stories CONTINUED. [I have this in my files, and am searching for the interview, which came from the 조선월간. I am blanking on the site. Help?]

2002년 06월 >> "인물과 인터뷰"

[특별인터뷰] 孔魯明 (前 외무부 장관)의 통렬한 金大中 외교노선 비판

『일부 美軍 범죄가 국민감정에 좋지 않은 영향을 미칠 수 있겠지요. 그러나 3만7000명의 美軍이 주둔하고 있는데 범죄가 없을 수 없다는 것을 생각해야 합니다.

개중에는 과장되는 면도 있는 것 같아요. 제가 정부에 있을 때 지하철에서 美軍이 한국 여성을 性추행한 사건이 TV에 크게 보도된 적이 있습니다. 당시 美軍 측이 우리에게 알려 온 바로는 美軍이 性추행했다는 한국 여성이 바로 자기 부인이었다는 겁니다. 지하철 안에서 엉덩이를 만지고 한 것이 문제가 된 것인데 이것은 문화적인 차이 때문에 생긴 것입니다. 한국적인 문화에서는 자기 부인이라고 해서 남이 보는 데서는 그렇지 않잖아요. 그런 것을 모르고 TV에서 「美軍 性추행사건」이라고 대대적으로 보도한 것입니다. TV뿐 아니라 신문에 그러한 사실을 알려줘도 전혀 訂正 보도를 해 주지 않더군요』

I consider that a reliable source, since it was the transcript to an interview, and I trust even a major Korean news source enough not to fudge entire interviews. Also, the information there is corroborated by many sources I read at the time, specifically the letter written by the couple itself.

Any of the stories from 2002-2003. "No compensation offered" or "no apologies from military" or even "no apologies from Bush." THese are are patent mistruths, and were available on the US Embassy website in both English and Korean from day 1.

The foreigner who "gave his Korean girlfriend AIDS." Based on a Hotmail written in broken Konglish, contact by the jilted girlfriend herself. THis is a source?

Even the GI's in Hongdae who stabbed a Korean guy. Left out of the story was the fact that there was a KATUSA with the two GI's (but that fact would have made it inconvenient to market as a "two GI's go on a rampage against Koreans" story) and the three of them were in fact attacked by 5 Korean attackers, who were drunk and came out of nowhere. This is all information that is agreed upon in the case. The GI who stabbed the Korean man said he did so only after his KATUSA friend took off, and two men were holding his friend down and one was strangling him. He then reached into his bag, where he had a knife, and stabbed the man with his hands around his friend's throat. Whatever happened that day, it wasn't a case of "two GI's rampaging in Shinchon."

Or the YTN story about foreigners "rampaging in Hongdae" and then being miraculously "clean and safe" a week later.

Or yes, the silly fake degrees stories that are given out of context of the fact that the vast majority of foreigners here, no matter how stupid or rude or what have you, at least did graduate from where they said they did. And now that it's found that there are apparently huge numbers of Koreans with fake degrees, do we call Koreans the "fake degree society" or paint the entire group with the brush of a minority?

And for all the talk of "pedophile teachers", that single case of the guy teaching in Korea was 1) a single case, and 2) he STILL wasn't accused of doing anything IN KOREA. In fact, the irony is he was obviously making his money HERE to go THERE and do his dastardly deeds.

Tell me, are you one of those people who just believes everything he sees on TV? So because it was ON KBS, it's true? And according to what statistics are crimes rising? And is the raw number of crimes rising commensurate with the rising number of foreigners overall? Is the ratio changing? And the real question is whether that ratio is becoming large enough to warrant making laws to stop it.

Do you even ask questions when you watch TV? So based on a news media that has a clear record of extreme bias against this group, in order to sell newspapers, and a single case, you feel it's right to make a policy that will in fact increase the numbers of foreigners working underground, while encouraging the legal ones to leave?

Because of ONE guy and a handful of idiots?

I don't just attribute this to KBS, but to MBC, YTN, and all the other racist and journalistically irresponsible news media. It's because of low standards such as these that YTN actually reported Bill Gates as having been murdered because a single news source reported it, whereupon YTN reported it as fact. It's called DOUBLE-CONFIRMING reports, with at least two separate sources, a basic journalistic standard. But these, most Korean media outlets 대충 away. Who needs facts when it sells newspapers or keeps people on our channel?

One of the reasons I don't talk to Korean reporters is that in every single case of the several times I have been in the news, the reporter has conducted interviews without taking any notes, or making any recordings, and completely misreports basic facts and dates – and this is even without BIAS. This just comes from mere laziness. I have never had a reporter from a Korean domestic daily report even my basic biographical information correctly, let alone attribute quotes.

FOR EXAMPLE
In a 2003 interview with me, the Kyunghyang Shinmun did a report on me as a foreign photographer in which they mispelled my name, got all the dates wrong, had me doing jobs I never did, and attributed extensive quotes to me that I had never said (and I remember, since they used vocabulary words I hadn't learned yet, and had to look up in order to understand what *I* had apparently said), and couldn't have remembered since they didn't take notes nor record me. And this is not just here – this is standard procedure in Korean journalism.

As is harrassing subjects, re-posing pictures after the event, or even asking event organizers to write the story themselves, which the reporter will just write up later because s/he is too lazy to attend.

By contrast and as a good example, the AP reporter who interviewed me for the piece they did on me – she is a Korean national, by the way, and a good inoculation against the accusation that I am "racist against Koreans," since this isn't about biology but about standards in a journalistic community – was good. She accurately conveyed what it was I had said, gave it the proper context, and got all the pertinent facts dead on right, except for the fact that I was 6'2", which I'm not.

She even included a piece of information I gave her, but then later regretted, but I understood her decision to run it, since she's not my public relations officer, but a reporter. She's not going to alter the story for the sake of my convenience. I respect that, and I respect that she had to consult an alternative viewpoint to mine, even if that guy's response was idiotic.

Point is, were I a Korean citizen, with my knowledge of the Korean media's record of being formerly a propaganda tool for a government that worked hard to repress information, as well as the many problems evident in reporting to the present day, I'd trust a Korean newspaper's account of something, especially on a subject filled with such obvious and blatant bias, as far as I could throw it. So refuting my claims with mere quotations from the problematic news sources I am criticizing does nothing for me.

A Light After a "Long Political Darkness" – Obama 2008!

I'm happy to see all the bullshit going away and the shape of things starting to become clearer.

Four years ago, I voted for Kerry because he wasn't Bush, who even then I considered a criminal threat to American values, principles, and specifically, its Constitution. I didn't vote for Kerry so much because he was Kerry, but like many Americans, because he did not seem like a criminal. I take my vote seriously, and I cannot vote for a man who called the Constitution "just a piece of paper" even as he lied to the American people in creating the pretense for a war everyone with either a brain or a conscience knew was not going to be over in "a matter of weeks."

Bush was handed the election by the Supreme Court in 2000, and the attacks of 9/11 hadn't happened yet. That was back when the presidency was mere politics for me, a matter of choosing policies and hoping for some changes in the direction I felt were a better one. But I had never considered the matter of the presidency as a matter of life or death for America.

After 9/11, that changed, and we went to war against Al Queda and terrorists, primarily in Afghanistan (a move I supported) and then a costly, seemly endless quagmire in Iraq (which I think will go down in American history as an even bigger mistake than Vietnam, and did not support).

Knowing what could be known then, a vote for Bush meant further endorsement of his irrational foreign policy, unilateralism, and his sheer arrogance and seemingly growing disconnectedness from reality. That vote -- the second one, which was, for the most part, fair and square, unlike the one that got him elected -- was a crucial one for me. When Bush got reelected, it really did cast a gloom over me, and was a funk I haven't been able to shake for years. It was also a funk that has made it easy for me to be an expatriate, and to not feel much desire to go back.

I get angry even seeing Bush on television, but even angrier that the American people, or just over half of us, actually put him back in office a second time. I can't say which disappoints me more.

But to the extent that I despaired in 2004, I have hope again. I am voting for Barack Obama, barring a revelation that he is an alien infiltrator in human clothing, or was secretly a street pimp named Big O working the Tenderloin in the 1980's. Short of such levels of scandalous revelation, I've seen enough to make it clear that he is the most fit, as well as the most likely to become the next President of the United States.

I truly believe, for the first time in my life, that I'm able to vote for a candidate who will bring about true, fundamental change in American life, as well as its policies abroad. He's not a crunchy Nader, an emotionally inaccessible Kerry, or a formerly uninspiring Gore. And he doesn't look like the picture of "the politician", as Clinton the First pulled off with charm, confidence, and a certain degree of pimptitude, but are warm character traits that Clinton the Second sorely lacks.

And let's not forget that Hilary is no different from the other politicians who voted to send American troops to die for what is nothing more than an business opportunity for the connected, and a vainglorious distraction from the fact that Al Qaeda is still running around while Bin Laden continues to draw breath in the land of the living. And laughs at us. Why are we fighting these wars again? Wasn't it to round up the several hundred badguys in this criminal network and put Bin Laden into the ground? Why are we just creating a new breeding ground for terrorists and pissing away the power of our moral mandate to strike back? Well, we've pretty much pissed that away completely at this point.

Yes, Bush. "Mission accomplished," right?

Now, comes a man whom I would truly follow, whom I think of worthy of being followed, who has the morality, vision, and ability to lead. And now that the old arguments are starting to tatter -- "C'mon. A black man as president? If he could win, I'd vote for him, but" -- it's time to question just what the value of a vote means.

I didn't vote for Nader -- my history as an adult in the final races have been Clinton, Gore, Kerry, although I registered Green in the primaries to give them viability, yet voted in other directions. Yet, I still bristle when people needle him for "giving Bush the election" by dividing the electorate. That's short-sighted.

The real problem has been that the Dems have been pussies for far too long, and the electorate should have never BEEN that divided to begin with, to the extent that a blithering idiot such as Bush could even make it a close race. The fact that Nader made it a bit harder for Gore is besides the point, and people shouldn't use their votes as political tools, like pawns in a game of chess. People who vote for whom they think is best. If people simply do that, we don't have to play counting games and talk about "throwing away votes."

And the political inefficacy of the Democratic party was where votes were "thrown away" for long before Nader even showed up. If anything, his brief upsurge in popularity was a mere reflection of the growing disillusionment of the stuffed-suit politics of a party that had seemed to forgotten where it had left its balls, not to mention a clearly-stated vision for the country.

Now, I feel we've got a man with a vision, as well as a man who CAN win. I've always been saying that anyone who isn't going to vote for Obama because he's black, or because "his name rhymes with Osama, dude!" isn't a vote the Dems ever had, anyway. And now that Clinton is starting to feel the heat from her past political mistake of supporting the Iraq war, is playing the role of eminent politician, and continues to make clear her utter lack of a personality, Obama's star is really starting to shine.

I'm ready. I'm on board. Actually, I've been there since 2004. Don't you hate it when you go to see a movie, and the trailer for the movie you REALLY want to see comes on? Well, now, after nearly four years of waiting, it's almost here. Looks damn good so far.

Frankly, Obama "had me at hello."

P.S. And in a crisis, who still thinks a black man can't be president? We've already seen this applied. Still can't imagine it?

As they say, "Once you go Black, you never...vote Republican again!" Or something like that.

Obama/Freeman 2008!

"I See Brown People!"

Sort of reminds me of Sally Strothers' eyes, which would cry into the camera during the 80's. Except that her career was over and she seemed sincere. Unlike the recent habit of getting good PR by hanging out with the brown folks for a few minutes and posing for the camera. (HT to the Marmot, of course.)

[From the 한국경제.]

That shot with Kim Tae-heeis so posed, and this while interaction so contrived and self-interested. Look, brown man! Smile for the camera and for your food. At least Hyori actually WENT to Africa to see brown and black people. The caption on the news story page (linked above) reads "Kim Tae-hee serves food to a foreign laborer." Nice. Usually, when Koreans' faces are shown, especially juxtaposed with such a famous face in the picture, it would read something like, "Middle school student Kim Yu-mi gets a thrill by posing with her favorite star, Kim Tae-hee" or some such. I'll bet dollars for donuts the reporter didn't even take the guy's name. Which, as a photojournalist working for a paper, should be a given, as this is standard practice in the field of journalism. Except if you're brown.

Truly another chapter in what I like to call "the alms race" for PR points.

P.S. I once got my picture taken at an anti-war rally and published by psueudo-news outlet OhMyNews, in which my face was prominently featured adjusting my camera, and the caption read something like "Foreign journalist covers our rally" or something that made it seem like I was being sympathetic to their cause. I don't remember clearly, but I do remember being pretty irritated, since a journalist taking a picture of me as the main focus and attributing to me specific motives or actions should have taken my name and asked me what I was doing. I'd love it is someone could find that picture in the morass of OMN coverage around 2002-2003. My picture'd be pretty obvious.

Getting Anthropological with the Wonder Girls

Thanks to Gusts of Popular Feeling for the lengthy, well-thought write up. For another sendup on the Wonder Girls, I think it's a smart piece. And I do like the fact that we can have a conversation here, building on each other and adding, helping the thought processes move along. Two related posts:

"Reading too much into the Wonder Girls"

"Perceptions of teens in the mid-1990's"

I am especially glad that Matt went and did the latter write-up, since he explicitly found a lot of the stuff I had read and heard about back in the 1990's and from working in alternative and youth education in the 2000's. That's where a lot of my apparent anger and disgust with the Wonder Girls marketing and reception by older men is coming from, since there are some pretty significant reasons in Korean society for alarm bells to be going off here.

At least, from one perspective.

Great job, and as always, great blog.