Want to keep the "real" Korea experience with you always? Prints of any documentary/art photo I have taken on this site are 175,000 KRW ($175 USD), signed, numbered, and framed. For the print only, you need only pay 125,000 KRW ($125 USD) for the same without the frame. Please contact me directly via email for orders.
Umm...I respect her getting up there and doing her thing, but she doesn't do the faux-ignorant schtick like Sarah Silverman can -- she gets away with it in a way that somehow doesn't come off as her just telling a bunch of bad ethnic jokes. This girl just makes me wince and wish she wasn't up there. The audience kind of seems to share my sentiment. [HT to Korea Beat]
Ouch. Work on the act, girl. It just comes off as self-hating. If you want to see pushing-the-edge of humor and the faux-ignoramus persona done well, here you go.
Holy sheet, dude! But I don't have an exact handle on WHY Silverman is funny, but Koo isn't. They both drop bad Mexican jokes, but Koo's falls flat, while Silverman makes me nearly upchuck on my screen. I've seen her on Letterman even do black jokes, which I also found funny, but can't find on YouTube. Anyone care to expound?
I remember writing in December in detail about "A Realistic Proposal" and talked about a theoretical "A-OK Visa" in which foreigners who have lived for a certain number of years get two important things: the ability to separate one's work from one's place of employment, as well as work in multiple places. This would be offered only to certain foreigners having lived here for several years, and maintain some stricter qualifications than for the other visas. This would raise the quality of English teachers by rewarding those who do good work without incident while also creating some needed competition and give the power of choice to the employee, rather than continue to keep English teachers in essentially the same state as indentured servants from the 17th century.
This article was carried on the 3rd page of The Korea Herald, issued on 20th March, 2008
Ministry promises more openness for foreigners
By Song Sang-ho
The government will implement plans to encourage foreign professionals to live and work here, the Justice Ministry said yesterday.
The ministry plans to introduce various visa incentives for qualified foreign professionals and investors, and to allow foreign workers to switch jobs within the same profession. It also plans to launch programs to help foreigners, particular those with Korean spouses, adapt to life here.
From September this year, the ministry will issue permanent-residence visas to qualified foreign professionals and investors.
Foreign nationals with special job skills in various areas, including science, education, culture and athletics, can apply for the visa from Korean embassies in their countries. Business professionals with plans to invest over $500,000 - a drop from the current $2 million - are also eligible for the visa.
Currently, only foreign nationals who meet various requirements, including several years of residing in Korea, are eligible for the visa. To ease worker shortage in provincial industrial complexes, the ministry is planning to reduce the required length of stay for workers from the current 10 years to five, beginning December 2008.
From July, the ministry also plans to issue visas for job-seekers with work experience in world-renowned multinationals or degrees from globally recognized universities.
The companies and schools must be among the world`s top 300 and 200, respectively, as listed by professional rating organizations such as Fortune, the Times of London and Newsweek.
The visa will be valid for six months, but can be extended upon request if legitimate reasons are given. Currently, anyone wishing to come to Korea for education or work is required to have an official invitation from the school or employer.
Foreign professionals will be allowed to switch jobs within the same industry from December this year. Currently, anyone who wants to move jobs is required to get permission from the government, a measure favored by local employers who fear high turnover rates. The ministry said it will further discuss the measure with local companies to stave off expected problems such as an increase in wage costs.
The ministry is also planning to devise a five-year plan by June this year to help foreigners settle in Korea. The plan includes various support programs to protect the fundamental rights of foreign immigrants married to Koreans and prevent discrimination against them.
As part of the efforts, the ministry plans to run Korean language and culture courses from January 2009. Foreign nationals seeking Korean citizenship who have completed the courses will be exempted from taking a naturalization exam.
As someone always up for making creative points, would anyone with artistic skills like to assist in making a satirical cartoon illustrating the folly of making racism-tinged generalizations? Here's one that comes from a Korean blogger (HT to the Marmot):
I wrote a comment on his blog asking how Koreans would feel if American newspapers and bloggers started making cartoons based on sweeping generalizations of certain minority groups appearing in the news, as in the Koreans such as Cho Seung-hui or more recently, Choi Kang-hyuk.
A cartoon of say, a sweat-drenched, crazed Korean man clutching a knife dripping with blood in one hand, and a Tech-9mm in the other one outta do it. It would go in a mock post, and the point will be made that this is a shoe-on-the-other-foot kind of thought experiment, and not our actual opinion.
Of course, certain netizens would try to lie and say that we really believed in this, but those idiots would just spread the word, while hopefully the Korean press would get ahold of it. Who knows? The worst that'll happen is that it'll go unnoticed. The best is that it would be.
I'd do the illustration myself, but I can't draw to save my life. Anyone care to collaborate and make a point with me? Rather than phone calls that go unreturned, or online petitions/protests that go unnoticed, let's get creative.
And turnabout is always fair play, especially when the other guy is even more sensitive than you are to low blows. Playing to the Korean sense of national pride and "image" just might be an effective strategy in this case, methinks.
I remember some top movie fights from a copy of Maxim several years ago, which named They Live as having the longest film fight ever. I remember this gem from the 80's, and TOTALLY dug this fight, which is hilarious as much as it is brutal as much as it is completely implausible that anyone executing so many bone-crushing moves in a fight could have walked away without serious internal injuries...or walked away at all.
I'm glad to see this film still taking the number one spot in a recent top ten fights in movie history list I came across. Rowdy Roddy Piper even did wrestling moves in it! And They Live was like The Matrix of the 80's, except it was better because it had aliens. Unfortunately, you can't get it on DVD in Korea -- so no showing it to kiddies in class. Not that you need subtitles for the fight, anyway...
Who says we aren't getting a real black POTUS (something that some people are apparently still afraid of, but then again, we're talking Indiana, and I KNOW THIS about Indiana)? Obama is a very savvy man. He plays down race to the point that he never, ever accesses it in terms of the politics of victimology, even when it's obvious that racist barbs have been used. He knows he can't appear "too black," in terms of the fact that yes, even in this day and age, the POTUS simply can't be too "ethnic."
Yet, in less large-scale company, he knows when to drop dollops of black America's greatest cultural asset, drawn from the endless capital of cool that defines most of American popular culture, American slang, and has provided the soundtrack and set the rhythm of American life for generations.
(Check out the move at around 2:27 -- genius!)
I saw this a while ago (still, HT to Matthew Yglesias), but watching it be remixed lately has caused me no end of amusement and given me additional respect for the only POTUS I know about who could actually look COOL to young, "urban" voters (read: the new black voters who will be absolutely crucial to helping Obama win the general election).
Gawd, you KNOW he KNOWS this is going to be remixed like mad by the YouTube-and-iMovie-enabled youth. The shoulder brush, the basketball layups, the "That's ai'ght" being peppered throughout his more formal speech -- it's good stuff. Yet, when he has to deliver in a debate, he's proven that he can talk specifics and dance with that devil on several occasions, and then turn around and deliver one of the greatest rhetorical disquisitions in American political history.
And who just doesn't "get it" and is ever-the-more talking like a crazy person?
(At the 3:30 and 4:14 marks -- what the hell is she talking about?)
Ferraro -- you're soooo out of touch. You and your husband were offended by the shoulder gesture because you are OUT OF TOUCH. It's not sexist. It's a cultural reference, referring to handling personal attacks against one's reputation.
Ferraro, give it up. Your arguments that Obama is "sexist" is flimsy at best (why not at least reference the "sweetie" comment, which was arguably sexist, but at least it wasn't part of his CAMPAIGN STRATEGY), even as the Clintons have totally played the race card, and Hillary even recently apologized for it, you don't see Obama whining about it. In fact, Obama downplays the race issue, since he knows that in the end, he's going to be stuck with the bill, as usually happens in the public sphere when a minority points out obvious facts of still-extant racism. In American racial politics, "the one who smelt it dealt it" and pointing out racism often leads to that person of being racist him or herself, since we shouldn't be thinking about that anymore, right?
What Hillary doesn't realize is that she should just give it up and stop grasping at straws. The American voter (the ones who'd vote for either Hillary or Obama, anyway, and not the misanthropes who see a black man in a suit-and-tie and still clutch their loved ones closer to their breasts) is savvy enough to see sour grapes for what they are. She was racist as a mofo when she was campaigning in the very non-black-friendly states of the recent races, where doors are slammed in Obama campaigners' faces, a campaign center was defaced with racial epithets, and cold callers are hung up on while the receiver hisses the "N-word" across the line.
Yet, Obama is smart enough to literally just brush his shoulders off, not be left with the check-as-wages-of-guilt or loathing, while allowing his rich, white, politically connected, increasingly shrill, and hypocritical opponent to dig herself even deeper into the hole.
Sure, there's some sexism in the mix. There has been ever since the Republicans stonewalled her when she tried health care reforms back in the day. But it's not the deciding factor, Hillary, and you know it -- even as you throw the same kind of under-the-belt stones.
Hillary -- stop playin' yourself and give it up. Or at least fight to the end gracefully, and not go out like a punk. Think about what you HAVE accomplished and should be proud of, and try to save it for 2012 if you think you badass enough to come with it again. As they used to say in the old days when people used to worry about and wear such things, "your slip is showing."
And Obama, "go ahead and brush your shoulders off."
We need another person or two for a photography class that I've been forming from a few requests for one made over the last few months. Now, we're about ready to go. Anyone with a DSLR (or needs help buying one to use) for the class should contact me ASAP. Bring that along and clear your Sunday afternoons (thinking about doing this as a series of 4). For more info, contact me at the email address to the top right of this page, as well as an older description of the class (it's all photography now, no blogging) in the bottom left menu.
That's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," for those of you living under a rock. Hehe.
It's that time. Indy has arrived, and he's swinging from rafters and taking names. On Thursday, May 22, there's an 8:20 IMAX show, which is the latest one that night, since they've decided to be silly and continue sharing the screen with Speed Racer. Grrr.
If you are down for a ticket or two, confirm either by a reply to this post, or alternatively to the Facebook event listing, if that is more convenient. Either way, make sure I have a clear number of people attending and a working phone number for you, which you can give to me via email or Facebook message.
We will be having dinner at a kalbi/samgyeopsal restaurant across the street from the Yongsan CGV complex, which you can get to by simply crossing the street at the 3-way crosswalk (it's literally right across the street from the complex, where the taxis are) and turn left. This should simply place you across the street, and there are a couple small restaurants and a hostess bar with black windows. Right next to that is a very large meat restaurant, which is the only one on that street. I don't even know the name, but it's obvious.
The directions to the restaurant are much more complicated than reality. It's just across the street from the Yongsan station, on the left block. You'll see what I mean, and I'll have your info anyway. Just tell me 1) how many tickets, 2) whether for dinner or just the movie, and 3) your cellphone number.
In sum: Dinner at 6:30, movie at 8:20. If you do not arrive or contact me by 8 PM, I WILL RETURN ALL UNCLAIMED TICKETS.
Omigod. Brings back memories from my own lifeguard training. Yes, really. For reals. A loooong time ago. And one thing that is a big change, as highlighted in the skit, is that mouth-to-mouth is no longer the official CPR guideline. Just push firmly and as fast as you can (actually 100-per-minute is the suggested rate) in the center of the chest and forego the CPR.
OK -- this was a pretty random post. Anyway, good Monday morning.
I can't stand when so-called "conservatives" try to get all historical, yet know less history than the average grade schooler. Especially when it's the crux of one's point. Look it up on Wikipedia at least, fer chrissakes., before going on national television and making an idiot of oneself. Or, alternatively, shut the f**k up.
This tool got owned on national television. I'm sure he'll go back to his radio show and whine about how he got railroaded or something -- but in the end, he's just stoopid dumm.
According to ZDNet.de, Intel Germany CEO Hannes Schwaderer confirmed that Apple would be using the Intel Atom processor in a future version of the iPhone. The new model will reportedly be a larger model with a larger display, correlating with circulating rumors about a mini-tablet (720x480) device rumored to be coming from Apple.
720x480? Doesn't that look just about the size of the patent application diagram? Hmmmmmm...
Before you say this site is "anti-Korean" or bashing Korea – read this: "Why Be Critical?" Chances are, if you're simply angry because I am a social critic in Korea but not actually Korean, see if your argument isn't just a kneejerk response that follows these patterns.
Session 1: Just the Basics
Dealing with the basic operations and functions of your DSLR, explaining each function, button, and doo-hickey. The bulk of the session is likely going to stick around the relationship between aperture and shutter, as well as depth-of-field. Basically everything on your camera has something to do with this relationship.
Session 2: Composition and Shooting (Shooting Session 1)
We'll take those examples and look at them on the big screen, while also answering the concrete questions that will pop up about the stuff we learned before. Then we'll talk about composition and other framing issues, including lens lengths and why some lenses are worth $100 bucks and some are worth $10,000.
Session 3: Flashes and Advanced Exposure (Shooting Session 2)
Dealing with flash, in terms of compensating above and below exposure levels (bracketing), as well as other bracketing techniques in general.
Session 4: Final Session/Critiques
Keeping it open, determined by the class.
Four 3-hour sessions, as well as shooting sessions, photo discussions, and critiques. An individual photo essay will also be done as part of the ongoing class assignments. Inquire at the email address at the top right of this page.
As for my photo book (now in limbo due to editorial differences with the publisher), you can see the representative chapters from the "Seoul Essays" posts below. Note that Chapter 3 remains undone and in limbo on my computer:
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